ADVERTISEMENT.
THE following SYSTEM of HERALDRY was undertaken by the Author, about the beginning of the last century, under the patronage of the Parliament of Scotland, and in dependence on a public pecuniary aid of L. 200, granted in the year 1704, for enabling him to execute an undertaking which bore a close alliance to the honour of the nation.
The liberality of the Parliament having been rendered ineffectual, in consequence of prior assignments on the fund out of which the grant was payable, the plan of the Author was circumscribed, and the publication of the Work delayed till the year 1722, when the First Volume was printed at Edinburgh, for Mr J. Mackeuen, bookseller, to whom the Author had assigned the property.
As this Volume was in many respects defective, an Appendix, or Supplementary Volume, was intended by the Author to follow the First Volume; but the death of that learned and industrious heraldic antiquary, at no great distance of time, the imperfect state of his collections, and the property passing through dif- ferent hands, delayed the publication of the Second Volume till the year 1 742, when it was printed at Edinburgh by Mr Robert Fleming, who was assisted in preparing it for publication by Mr Roderick Chalmers and other anti- quaries.
The great utility of this Work, which is universally acknowledged to be of the highest value and authority, joined to the consideration of its excessive rarity and enormous price, induced the design of reprinting it.
In committing the Work, a second time, to the press, an opportunity has been found of retouching the original plates, correcting many typographical errors, and a very considerable number of mistakes, chiefly in the orthography of persons and places, and adding a few notes, distinguished by the letter E : but the Publishers do not wish to be understood as having made any alteration in the substance, style, or language of the Work.
It is in contemplation with the Publishers to print a Supplementary Volume, containing corrections of the preceding volumes, -additional examples of Ar- morial Bearings in Scotland, and a continuation and enlargement of the memo- rials of our most ancient and considerable families to the present time. As it is evident that the materials for such a volume mtist be derived from sources of information inaccessible to the Publishers, they earnestly solicit the communica- tion of authentic memorials from the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland concerning their respective families.
EDINBURGH,] Oct. 24. 1804. I
