The Calendar of Scottisii Crime. composed by clerics, strongly biased and often irredeemably contradictory. Materials for a true picture must be gleaned, here a little and there a little, from official records and correspondence, family muniments and private letters. Perhaps Scott never per formed a more lasting service to the cause of Scottish history than he did in prevailing on Mr. Robert Pitcairn, Writer to the Signet, to undertake the systematic examination and editing of the earliest recorded criminal pro ceedings in Scotland. It was a prodigiously arduous enterprise, — one from which Scott himself, though he contemplated it at one time, had been obliged to turn aside. In the fifteenth century the beautiful and precise caügraphy of an earlier age had given place to a more rapid, and infinitely less legible, current penmanship. Should any one desire to emulate it, he may arrive at a very fair imitation thereof by writing with a stylograph pen while he is driven rapidly in a wagonette over a bad road. Experto en-dite. It is full, moreover, of the most distracting con tractions; and when it is considered that much of the huge mass of material which Pitcairn undertook to render into print con sisted of notes rapidly jotted during the pro ceedings of a court (sometimes the evidence screeched forth by witnesses under dreadful tortures), some idea may be had of the na ture of the task to which he applied himself. These labors were given gratuitously; for although the Maitland and Bannatyne Clubs, and a number of private individuals, sub scribed towards the expenses of printing and publication, he is obliged to confess in his preface that he is confronted by "the ex treme probability of suffering considerable pecuniary loss," besides the sacrifice of his professional duties during upwards of four years. Such is too often the meed of those who bring the most useful contributions to the storehouse of knowledge. Posthumous grat itude is a cheap commodity, yet it is all that we have in our power to offer in return
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for these four volumes in quarto, wherein are reflected the very acts and words of our forefathers, without the interference and glosses of some officious partisan. They are enriched, however, by the insertion of nu merous original documents, collected from a great diversity of sources, supplementing the narrative where the Justiciary records are broken or defective. Besides these, the dili gent compiler supplies a running commentary, which is far from being the least readable part of the volumes; and one is often amused by the half-apologetic tone of the sober Edin burgh lawyer, who seems appalled at the effect upon "every well-regulated mind" (a favorite phrase of his) of the horrors through which he conducts his readers. Thus these selections from the criminal records are far more than a mere calendar of crime — than which nothing can be more dreary. They are revelations of family life in town and country — peeping-holes into the secret councils of statesmen and prelates — a diary of the difficult advance of a com munity from darkness to light. The earliest volumes of the Criminal Re cords of Scotland having been lost, it is im possible to trace to their commencement those abuses which, it is too obvious, had become common in the judiciary system be fore the reign of James IV., to which the earliest surviving volume pertains. That monarch, in spite of a somewhat shaky pri vate morality, showed a laudable activity in his desire for the right administration of jus tice, and was diligent to fulfil to the letter an Act passed by his first Parliament, "anent the furthputting of justice, throw all the Realme, that our Soverane Lord sal ride in proper persoune about to all his aieris [assizes]." It is well known to what inter esting entries in the Treasurer's accounts these journeys, as well as the king's numer ous pilgrimages, gave occasion. What price might not be brought at auction now for the "sang bwke " (song book) which " Wilyeam Sangster of Lithgow " sold to James for ten
