[2] Marked by Fountainhall H.

[3] Marked by Fountainhall K.

It was Lord Fountainhalls practice, during his whole life, to record in
notebooks public events, and his observations upon them, legal decisions,
and private memoranda. He kept several series of notebooks concurrently
with great diligence and method. In all of those which have been preserved
there is more or less matter of value to the student of history. But at his
death his library was sold by public auction. The MSS. were dispersed,
though their existence and value was known to some of his
contemporaries.[4] Some are lost, in particular the series of _Historical
Observes_, 1660-1680, which, judging from the sequel, which has been
preserved and printed by the Bannatyne Club, would have been of great
value. According to tradition the greater part of what has been recovered
was found in a snuff-shop by Mr. Crosby the lawyer, the supposed original
of Scott's Pleydell, and purchased at the sale of his books after his death
by the Faculty of Advocates.[5]

[4] Preface to Forbes's _Journal of the Session_, Edinburgh, 1714.

[5] MS. Genealogical Roll of the Family of Lauder by the late Sir
Thomas Dick Lauder, in possession of Sir T.N. Dick Lauder.

Eight volumes came into the possession of the Faculty of Advocates, and
under their auspices two folio volumes of legal decisions from 1678 to 1712
were published in 1759 and 1761.[6] In 1837 the Bannatyne Club printed _The
Historical Observes_, 1680-1686, a complete MS. in the Advocates' Library,
and in 1848 they printed two volumes of _Historical Notices_, 1661-1688.