These are after 1678 selections from the same MSS. from which the folio of
1759 was compiled, and the additions to the text of the folio are not
numerous, though the historical matter, which was buried among the legal
decisions, is presented in a more convenient form. But from 1661 to 1678
(about half of vol. i.) and especially from 1670 (for the previous entries
occupy only a few pages) the notices are all new and many of them of
considerable interest. In printing these volumes, which I believe are
acknowledged to contain some of the best material for the history of
Scotland at the time, the Bannatyne Club carried out a design which had
been long cherished by the late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder,[7] though he did
not live to see its complete fulfilment, and he was helped in his efforts
by Sir Walter Scott. The story[8] is worth telling more fully than has yet
been done. In the winter of 1813-14 Sir Thomas, then a young man, met Sir
Walter at a dinner-party. Sir Walter expressed his regret 'that something
had not been done towards publishing the curious matter in Lord
Fountainhall's MSS.,'[9] and urged Sir Thomas to undertake the task. In
1815 Sir Thomas wrote to Scott asking about a box in the Advocates' Library
believed to contain MSS. of Fountainhalls. Sir Walter replied as follows:--

[6] See Mr. David Laing's Preface to the _Historical Notices_,
p. xx, Bannatyne Club.

[7] Author of _The Moray Floods, The Wolf of Badenoch_, and other
well-known books.

[8] The original correspondence was bound up by Sir Thomas in a volume
along with Mylne's book (see _infra_), and is in the
possession of Sir T.N. Dick Lauder.

[9] Letter, Sir T.D. Lauder to Sir W. Scott, 22nd May 1822,