xxxviii. JOURNAL OF JOHN LAUDER

etc., to send over colonies ther so that the purity of the
Gospell decaying heir will in all probability passe over to
America.' The foreign schools of law where he had studied
naturally afiected his treatment of legal questions. Until
the publication of the great work of Stair, the common civil
law of Scotland was in a comparatively fluid state, though
there were some legal treatises of authority, such as Craig's
Feicdal Law. 'I%Iackenziés Criminalls was published in
1676, and is often referred to by Lauder. Many of his
contemporaries at the bar had studied like himself in the
foreign schools of the Itoman Civil Law, and in his reports
of cases the original sources are quoted with enviable
fauliliarity and appositeness.

TO, RTUltJ:: A',î'rlt0l,(XY, A.D ~1'IT('.H('It:lbT

In questions of social ethics, sl1ch as torture, and of
popular belief, such as astrology and yvitchcraft, Lauder
was not much in advance of his age. He frequently mentions
the infliction of torture without auy comment, When
Spence and Carstairs were tortured with the thummikins,
he describes them as ane iugine but lately used with us,'
and possibly he had some misgiving. The subjects of
astrology and witchcraft had an attraction for his inquir-
ing and speculative mind,1 He bclievcd in the iiifluetice of
the hea%-enl3- bodies,' and more firiiily in witchcraft, for which
many unhappy women were cvcry)'car cruelly put to death,
These trials at times evidently gave him some uneasil1css, But
usually, with regard to both topics, his doubts do not go
heyond a cautious hint of scehticisnl tinged with humour.
lie was fuldamentally a rcligious man, and whe~'e he touches
on the great issues of life, and the relation of cllnn to his
.\Iak,er, it is in a tone of dcep solemnity. But lie loves to

1 :\lr, Andrew Lang has pointed out to me that Lauder's remarks on the
ÍdentÍty of the popular legends in France and Scotland (JOtu'lral, p. 83) are 1
very early instance of this observation, now rccogniscd to be gencral1}' applicable.