INTRODUCTION

xi

was compiled, and the additions to the text of the folio are
not numerous, though the historical matter, which was buried
among the legal decisions, is presented in a more convenient
form. But from 1661 to 1678 (about half of vol. i.) and
especially from 1670 (for the previous entries occupy only a
few pages) the notices are all new and many of them of con-
siderable interest. In printing these volumes, which I believe
are acknowledged to contain some of the best material for the
history of Scotland at the time, the Bannatynt: Club carried
out a design which had been long cherished by the late Sir
Thomas Dick Lauder,l though he did not liv e to see its com-
plete fulfilment, and he was helped in his efforts by Sir
Walter Scott. The story is worth telling more fully than
has yet been done. In the winter of 1818-14 Sir Thomas,
then a young man, met Sir IValter at a dinner-party. Sir
Walter expressed his regret that something had not been done
towards publishing the curious matter in Lord Fountainhalrs
~IS5, and urged Sir Thomas to undertake the task. In
1815 Sir Thomas wrote to Scott asking about a box in the
Advocates' Library believed to contain 3155. of Fountainhalrs.
Sir Walter replied as follows

Il DEAN Sm,-I am honoured with your letter, and should have
been particularly happy in an opportunity of being useful in assist-
ing a compleat edition of Lord Fountainhall's interesting manu-
scripts. But I do not know of any in the Advocates' Library but
those which you mention. 1 think it likely 1 may have mentioned
that a large chest belonging to the family of another great Scottish
lawyer, Sir James Skene of Curriehill was in our Library and had
never been examined. But 1 could only have been led to speak
of this from the similarity of the subject, not from supposing that
any of Lord Fountainhall's papers could possibly be deposited

1 Author of The ~ltoray Floods, The Wolf of Badcrroch, and other well-known
books.

:1 The original correspondence was bound up by Sir Thomas in a volume along
with Mylne's book (see infra), and is in the possession of Sir T. N. Dick Lauder.
:1 Letter, Sir T. D. Lauder to Sir W. Scott, 22nd May 1822, infra.