Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/22

xiv PEEFACE. already been published ; but the field is by no means exhausted. There still remain a considerable number in MSS., which have never yet been published, while the text of those contained in the foregoing works is, to a eonsideral)le extent, either not strictly accu- rate, or not printed from the best MSS. "When the series of the Scottish Record Pubhcations was projected, it was suggested by the late Dr. Joseph Robertson, under whose superintendence the publication was placed, that the series should com- mence with a volume in which the whole of these scattered pieces should be collected together, and printed after careful collation with the original MSS., and that as many more documents should be added to them as stdl existed in MS., so as to form a com- plete collection of the early Chronicles and Memo- rials of Scotland, prior to the works of Fordun and Wyntoun. As it was proposed to include in this col- lection such materials as could be found in Irish and Welsh MSS., for which some knowledge of the Celtic dialects was indispensable, the present Editor was requested to undertake the task. Though feeling that, in some respects, he was not fully qualified to do justice to the work, and that his other avocations would prevent him from giving as much time as was desirable to an undertaking necessarily requir- ing frequent and lengthened -visits to the various libraries in which these MSS. are deposited for the purpose of collation, he was induced to do what he could towards editing the work.