Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/142

The Statistical Accounts of Scotland. 1 hundred years ago there was issuing from the press in Edinburgh a work relating to Scotland regarding which, when completed, George Dempster, Advocate, Provost of St. Andrews', said: " That no publication of equal information and curiosity had appeared in Great Britain since Doomsday Book, and that from the ample and authentic facts which it records it must be resorted to by every future statesman, philosopher and divine as the best basis that has ever yet appeared for political speculation." Another writer characterised it as " A work which the wealth of kings, the decrees of senates, and even the authority of despots had hitherto failed to effect." Of the work, Sir John Sinclair, the author and compiler, himself said: "Per- haps a more interesting exhibition of diversified talent was never made than in the original manuscript reports from the multitude of authors, whom public spirit, personal friendship, private influence, gratitude, or importunity had called almost simul- taneously into the field of authorship. Many of the reports showed great natural ability as well as literary acquirement ; and the whole collection did the highest honour to the Church of Scotland." And of this work, I myself may say that had libraries, public libraries, formed as important a factor in the educational and social advancement of the country then as they are doing to day, that it was only with such a work as this in their hands that librarians, especially Scottish Librarians, could by any possibility have satisfied the many and varied enquiries regarding their country which would be then, as they are now, constantly asked of them. To me the work is a wonderful and genuine picture, or rather a great gallery of pictures, 938 in number, of Scotland, delineated by able and enthusiastic artists, showing the country in all its interesting and varied details, and executed in a manner to this day unsurpassed. Do I require to make an apology for bringing a work, regarding which the foregoing can be said under the notice of an assembly of librarians ? I think not, so I proceed to give first a short account of the man to whom we are 1 Communicated to the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Library Associa- tion, Aberdeen, September, 1893.