Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/20

xii PREFACE. tioned. From Fergus, the son of Erth, he gives a succession of kings down to Kenneth Macalpin, who led the Scots out of Ergadia, conquered and destroyed the Picts, and became monarch of the whole of Scotland ; and he then gives the reigns of the kings of Scotland from Kenneth Macalpin to David the First. Extent to which In the year 1729, Thomas Innes, a priest of the nicies have been Scotch College at Paris, pubHshed his critical essay printed. q^ ^]jg ancicut inhabitants of Scotland. This ad- mirable essay was the first attempt to siibject the early history of Scotland prior to the reign of Kenneth Macalpin, as given by Fordun, to a critical examination, and to bring such fragments as re- mained of the more ancient Chronicles of Scotland to bear upon it ; and, in the appendix to the first volume, he printed six ancient pieces, which were then for the first time made public. Four of these were taken from the MS. in the Imperial Library at Paris, called the Colbertine ms., viz., the " Pict- " ish Chronicle," which he divided into two pieces (No. I.) ; the " Description of Scotland " (No. xvii.) ; and the " Chronicle of the Scots " (No. xvi.) ; the fifth was the " Chronicle of the Picts and Scots," in the register of the priory of St. Andrews (No. XXIX.) ; and the sixth was the " Chroni- con Rhythmicum" (No. XLVi.) John Pinkerton, in his Inquiry into the History of Scotland, first published in 1789, printed a collation of the first four pieces which had been published by Innes, and