sanctioned of the publication of the records of our Parliament, and in part the adoption of a scheme now for many years in operation in England, under the able superintendence of the Master of Rolls. Had the publication of the English records been conducted with the funds of some special department, and the demand made by the Lord Clerk Register been for money from the public purse, we could have understood, though we could not have approved of, the spirit which dictated the conduct of the Treasury; but in point of fact the case is precisely the reverse of that which we have put. The English publications are issued at the expense of the public purse; all that is asked for Scotland is leave to expend part of the surplus revenues of the department to which important State documents belong, in making these documents accessible to the public.

The contemptible proposal of the Treasury was answered by Sir W. Craig with a force and a spirit worthy of the high office he holds

"Considering the number of calendars, chronicles, and memorials in the Register House which ought to be published, and that the Scottish series of these historical records will be of the highest interest and importance, this would be actually trifling with what ought to be a national work. Besides, if these records are worth publishing at all, they cannot be published too soon, that the present generation of literary men may have the advantage of them; and it is a most unwise and false economy to restrict the grant, so that no one living can hope to see anything but a fragment of the series. This would give such intense dissatisfaction in Scotland, and would be so discreditable to the Government and the Register House, that if the grant is not to be increased it had better be withdrawn. I must again also remind you that I am only requesting that a portion of the surplus revenue of the Register House should be applied to the publication of the historical records it contains. Although the estimate for the Record Office is £22,000, while the fees received are only £700, the Master of the Rolls has for years had grants for calendars, &c., of £5450 (which in the estimates just printed are increased to £6260, with which he has published thirty-three volumes of calendars and sixty volumes of chronicles and memorials, among which there is only one Scottish work, of no value. While, therefore, there has not only been already such an extensive publication of the English records, but the Master of the Rolls is still receiving so large a grant for continuing it, it is certainly not unreasonable that the Register House should have returned to it a grant of only £2000 out of its own surplus revenue of upwards of £5000 for the publication of the records of Scotland for which nothing has as yet been done."

The following account of the publications, for effecting which arrangements are in progress, is selected from various papers submitted to the Treasury :—

"When the fifth and sixth volumes of the Scottish Statutes were published, the Registers of the Parliaments from 1639 to 1650 were not known to be preserved, and their ordinances and proceedings could only be given from the scanty and unauthenticated sources which are described in the editor's prefaces. The original registers-authenticated by the signature of Sir Alexander Gibson of Durie, the Lord Clerk Register for the timehave since been discovered in her Majesty's State Paper Office in London, whither they had been carried about the year 1654, and are now in her Majesty's General Register House at Edinburgh. Their importance was so manifest that Mr. Thomson lost no time in having them transcribed, in order that they might be printed, and substituted for the two volumes which had been issued before their discovery.

"This intention has not yet been carried out, but its fulfilment is obviously necessary to complete the series of the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland. Not only do the original registers contain much important matter which is not to be found in the printed volumes, but these volumes, compiled as they necessarily were from very imperfect materials, are certainly not an authentic record of the statutes of the time. When it is remembered that the registers which have been recovered contain the Parliamentary record of the great struggle between the Crown and the Legislature in the reign of King Charles the First, nothing need be said of their interest or importance to the constitutional history of the country. But it may be added, that they contain many private or personal Acts which materially affect still existing interests. One of these (appearing only by its title in the printed volumes, but recorded at length in the original manuscript register) served lately to terminate a litigation between two counties."

In regard to the formation of a General Index of the Scottish Acts of Parliament a work which is now proceeding under the direction of Professor Innes-that antiquary says, in a memorandum addressed to the Lord Clerk Register :

"The lawyer has long felt and complained of the want of such an index, and the historical student would have made louder complaints if he were not in a manner kept in ignorance of the contents of these volumes by its

want.

"Of the 11 volumes, as they stand at present, only one has an index of matters. The other 10 large volumes, recording the proceedings of the Scotch Parliaments from the return of James the First from England in 1424, to the Union of the Kingdoms in 1707, thus containing the legislation of three centuries, and the chief and best materials of the national history, have no such help for consultation. They are of course in chronological order; but the student searching for a law of unknown date, or tracing the progress of legislation on any subject, or investigating facts, manners, opinions, must wade through whole volumes, with no better assistance than the short imperfect titles of the several Acts. Even these are wanting for large classes of Parliamentary Proceedings, as distinguished from actual statutes; and I need not explain how greatly a complete Index Materiarum would facilitate the labours of the lawyer, give more accuracy and precision to the researches of the historian and legal antiquary, and lay open to the student a vast collection which is at present almost unused from the want of it.

"Such an index, though so long delayed, formed an essential part of Mr Thomas Thomson's plan, as he himself states in his report to the Lord Clerk Register for 1814, that the work should be concluded by a complete and digested index.' But no such index can be complete or satisfactory without including the Acts of Parliament 1639-50, the authentic record of which was not discovered till after the date of that report, and has not yet been printed.

"Independent of the wish to see perfected the published record of the legislation of Scotland during the whole of its separate existence, I know no period of more historical importance than the precise portion embraced by these lately recovered volumes, so long lost to the world. They furnish the record of Parliament during a time of great conflict of opinion, when all principles of Government and Church were called in question; and at no time is it of more consequence to have the proceedings of the Legislature given in the most authentic and authoritative shape."

Mr Skene has undertaken to edit a work entitled "Chronicles of the Picts, Chronicles of the Scots, and other Early Memorials of Scottish History," of which he says

"It will contain all the chronicles, annals, and other memorials of Scottish history antecedent to our first formal historians, and comprising, to a great extent, the materials from which these historians compiled their works. It is essential to the historian that he should have the remains of our earliest historic literature presented to him in the oldest and purest form in which they now exist, unaffected by the influence of writers who used them in support of their own historical theories. They consist, to a great extent, of documents which are still in manuscript, and have never been printed; and, to some extent, of documents printed in the appendices to various historical treatises, and thus existing only in a very scattered shape, while they are in general very inaccurately printed, and, where there are several manuscripts, not always from the best manuscript."

In January last Mr Joseph Robertson wrote to the Lord Clerk Register, offering to edit

"The accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland during the reign of King James the Fourth (A.D. 1488—A.D. 1513), as part of the Scottish series of chronicles and memorials in preparation under your Lordship's direction.

"These accounts (he says) are among the public records of Scotland in the Register House. They have been so carefully preserved, that only the transactions of a few years have perished; and this loss I propose so far to supply from the accounts of other great officers of the Crown, also preserved in the Register House, for which likewise, where necessary, I would draw other elucidations of the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer."

Professor Innes also edits "A Volume of the Antiquities of Scotch Trade." He writes:

I propose that the text of the book should consist of two parts. (1.) The book of accounts of Andrew Hallyburton, Conservator of the Privileges of the Scotch Nation in the Netherlands, and himself a merchant carrying on trade there, chiefly with correspondents in Scotland, at the end

of the 15th century. This ledger, which is preserved in the Register House, fills a large folio volume, in the original binding, and in excellent condition. The dates of the entries extend from 1493 to 1503, and it is by far the oldest of merchants' books extant in Scotland. It shows what were the manufactures, the articles of export and import, the money used, the banking, the exchange, of Scotch trade with the Continent, three and a half centuries ago.

"(2.) A tariff of the customs authorised to be levied on articles exported and imported into Scotland in the year 1612. This, which is also preserved in the Register House, is an authentic warrant, bearing the subscriptions of the King (James VI.) and the Lords Auditors of his Exchequer. It is the earliest perfect code of custom regulations of Scotland extant; and as it is very full and minute, it enumerates all the commodities of our trade, and throws much light on life and manners two and a half centuries ago."

Of the importance of these publications, it would seem unnecessary to have laid before the Treasury any testimonials beyond the mere explanation of their character, but the result shows that even the weightiest have been insufficient to convince such economists as Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Peel of the importance of an effort towards making our national records available, and the starving process is continued.

The correspondence between the Lord Clerk Register and the Treasury has been laid before Parliament, and we cannot help thinking that if the new Treasury officials maintain the attitude of their predecessors, it will be the bounden duty of the Scotch members, as a body, to see to the immediate reduction of the fees for the registration of deeds. The purpose of the exaction of these fees is not the increase of the revenue, but the remuneration of the officials. There may be some apology for keeping up the fees beyond the point necessary for this primary purpose, provided the surplus be expended in making the contents of the Register-House more available for the public; but if this legitimate object be denied, then the country should make one united and common effort to secure the utmost possible reduction of the fees.

We cannot better take leave of the subject than by the following extract from the last letter by the Lord Clerk Register to the Treasury, with which the correspondence closes :

"You will perceive that after providing for the formation of the Index to the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland (the most important work we have to perform), I can only defray the expense of editing three chronicles or memorials in two years, while I cannot undertake the preparation of a single volume of Calendars of State Papers, the allowance for which by the Record Office is about £500 per volume.

"I enclose a memorandum, which shows the vast store of manuscript

documents the Register House contains, which are almost unknown, and many of which, if calendared, would be of the greatest value for the elucidation of the history of Scotland. I should certainly only propose to publish the most important of them, and I can assure you that the selection would be made with the greatest care, and on the best advice; but I beg you to keep in view that the labour of compiling a calendar from old manuscripts is so great that it frequently takes some years to prepare a volume. There ought, therefore, to be several in progress at the same time (as there are in the Record Office), but if the grant were increased to £2000, I could easily arrange that the payments to be made in any year for calendars, or chronicles and memorials, should always be within the limit of the grant.

"The best evidence of the general satisfaction which the prospect of the publication of a series of Scottish records has given, and of the interest taken in it, is the fact that many of the most distinguished literary men in Scotland are willing to give their assistance as editors. Besides the volumes which the Treasury has sanctioned, and which are being prepared by Mr. Skene, Professor Cosmo Innes, and Dr. Joseph Robertson, I have great pleasure in informing you that the Duke of Argyll, Lord Lindsay, Mr. Stirling, of Keir, M.P., Mr. David Laing, Professor Sir James Simpson, Mr. Hill Burton, &c., have agreed to edit, with historical prefaces, works of the series which have been proposed to them, but which can only be undertaken as the grant at my disposal will permit. If it is not increased, and the publication of these historical records is consequently delayed, the disappointment will be extreme, while the contributions of many of these editors, all of them men of very remarkable acquirements, will probably not be obtained.

"In fact, the whole question is, whether the present or future generations are to have the benefit of these publications."

"SPARKS FROM THE JURIDICAL ANVIL."

IT is a great mistake to suppose that the reports of our Law Courts are of interest only to the legal profession, and are repulsive to the general public. There are few decided cases but what throw some light on a nation's history and traditions, and form an epitome of the men and manner of the time. There are especial seasons when the bench is adorned by men of high renown in the paths of philosophy and literature-men who illustrate and illuminate the arid region of abstract legal doctrines by the features of the Belles lettres. Some such periods form a sort of Augustine age in our Law Courts, and for a time our law reports may justly be classed with the polite literature of the day.

With this fact in our view we have curiously devoted a spare hour to one volume of our reports, from which we select a few of