12 s. m. APRIL 14, i9i7.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
287
was in Elizabethan times a very interest-
ing example. It seems almost certain that
the present inscription dates from 1771,
when, no doubt, the front was re-faced.
It can hardly have been put up in 1836 ;
otherwise Dickens would have known of
both inscriptions, and probably referred to
the change. This matter of the rewriting
of the inscription is the only one that
requires elucidation. W. A. HIRST.
on
An Introduction to the History of Dumfries. By
Robert Edgar. Edited with an Introduction
and Annotations by R. C. Reid. (Dumfries,
J. Maxwell.)
THE Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society are beginning a series of publications of Records of the Western Marches. This first volume has for its 'nucleus the work of a citizen of Dumfries, whose long life extended from the third quarter of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century. The MS. has been long known, and has been utilized by other writers, but it is now published for the first time.
Robert Edgar was well qualified for the task he set himself. The son of a well-to-do burgess of Dumfries, he was bred to the law, and while yet a young man was appointed clerk to the In- corporated Trades. He held this office for 45 years, acting also as clerk, for about the same length of " time, to the Weavers, Glovers and Dyers, and Fleshers, and for 21 and 14 years respectively to the Wrights and Tailors. In 1746 he had resigned all these appointments, and he died in 1759. His ' Introduction ' belongs to the year 1746. We have not his original MS., but a copy which was made for Robert Riddell in 1791, and which is now among the Glenriddell MSS.
If his position, his knowledge, and his access to requisite material as well as an evident taste for history and antiquities promised well for his enterprise, there were clearly other factors which were unfavourable ; for the enterprise as a whole was thwarted, and the fragment carried out has notable defects. - As his editor says, Edgar has obviously never corrected what he wrote : it is 1 *" the work of an old man, garrulous and full of repetitions, and feebly hasty ; and its testiness seems to point also to loss of health. Edgar's opinion of municipal authorities is a low one. He views every action of theirs with sus- picion, and he cannot believe that the town's documents are ever safe in the custody of the Town Clerk. Mr. Reid defends the magistrates and the Town Clerk from these aspersions, and it seems clear that Edgar's temperament counts for something in the matter. Still, we may also surmise that his forty-five years' service had shown him the seamy side of "the administration of the burgh.
After a few paragraphs addressed to the reader, Edgar gives in chapter L, under the title 4 Of the Name or Xames given Dumfries,' a general description of the town, with an account of its owners, and the rights and customs of its
inhabitants. He adds notes on the church and
Castle, on the industries of the burgh and other
matters, setting things down somewhat at hap-
hazard, and ranging from the earliest days to
the '45, with many disparaging reflections upon the
authorities interspersed. The next chapter is con-
cerned principally with the public buildings of
Dumfries, and the officials connected with them :
a rather vigorous and amusing piece of work,
containing much good detail. Chapter iii. deals
with the Courts of Judicature, the Town Council,
and the administration generally, and treats of
the town's revenue and expenditure. The frag-
ment of chapter iv. relates divers calamities by
fire and flood, and ends with a paragraph girding
at the authorities for permitting large grave-
stones to be erected in the kirkyard " to stop
the way to other graves."
Edgar's text is followed by a solid array of careful and copious notes by Mr. Reid. These include what are virtually genealogical mono- graphs of several families (Johnstone of Elsie - shields ; Gledstanes, and McBrair among others), together with biographies of the members of Parliament for Dumfries from 1357 to 1706, and a good essay setting out all that has been dis- covered about the Auld Brig of Dumfries, as well as many other matters. Ten pedigree charts elucidate the genealogical information, and there are three appendices, of which the first is the most important- giving the charters and writs relating to Dumfries, of which the earliest are taken from a confirmation of them by Edward I. in 1307. There is an Index, but, curiously, the volume is not provided 'with a Table of Contents.
THE new Fortnightly begins with two papers on ' Our Educational Future,' Lord Bryce defending and Mr. Wells attacking the Classics as to their value for the modern world. Mr. Wells's paper is a pretty good demolition of some of the argu- ments advanced in favour of Greek, but remains, as to its iram purport, unconvincing. Lord Bryce's defence is conducted from a more com- prehensive point of view. The editor of The Fortnightly concludes his comparative study of ' JEschylus and Mr. Thomas Hardy ' by an acutely critical analysis of the philosophy of ' The Dynasts.' A less courteous dissector of that creation would probably have stated baldly albeit somewhat unfairly that there was no philosophy in it a_t all. Mr. J. A. R. Marriott, continuing his series ' English History in Shake- speare,' deals with ' Richard II.' a very interesting paper, the more so as the play has been almost over- criticized by the man of letters pure and simple. Mrs-. Aria-, whose papers about fashion we have read with astonishment, now imparts her views ' About Conversation ' or, we should rather say, an intricate, fantastic medley of words bearing that title at their head and appearing to have some relation thereto.
Two papers in The Nineteenth Century of this month belong to the proper province of ' N. & Q.' The one is the reprint of two discourses by M. Constantin Heger, given by him to Charlotte Bronte. She mentions them in the second of the letters to M. Heger published in 1913 in The Times, and it is likely that they represent all the work of the Professor which now exists. Both were pronounced before the Athe^nee royal at an
