Showing Browse Resources: 1 - 25 of 67
Album of Adam White, the naturalist (1817-1879), entitled on the cover 'Weeds and wild flowers'.
Item
Identifier: MS.10306
Scope and Contents
A draft title-page (folio 24) suggests that in 1850 Adam White was proposing to publish a work on 'Weeds and wild-flowers loved by Wordsworth', and the first part of the album contains a collection of materials towards this purpose: drawings and engravings of wild flowers with some specimens of pressed flowers, newspaper-cuttings, and copies of letters and poems of Wordsworth.The collection of information is then extended to include other poets: Coleridge, Cowper, Southey,...
Dates:
Mid 19th century-?late 19th century.
Album of ‘Jacobite relics’, containing printed and manuscript material and portraits, formerly owned, perhaps started, by James Maidment, and containing additions made by a later owner.
File
Identifier: MS.2960
Scope and Contents
The printed matter is recorded in the Catalogue of Printed Books. In addition to some forgeries, the manuscript material is as follows:(i) Letter, undated, of John Stevenson, James Maidment's publisher, probably to Maidment (folio 2);(ii) A version, in a hand of about Maidment's time, of part of the poem on Lord justice Clerk Whitelaw, 'Old Nick was in want of a lawyer in hell,' printed by Maidment in ‘A book of Scotish pasquils’ (Edinburgh, 1827), page 73 (folio 2...
Dates:
1696-1891, undated.
‘Breviary of the Decisions of the Lords of Session ... and of the Acts of Sederunt, from June, 1661, to July, 1681, observed by Sir James Dalrymple of Stair.’
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.81.1.1
Scope and Contents
The Acts of Sederunt, 1661-1681, as in the printed ‘Decisions of the Lords of council and session’, are followed by a summary of Decisions arranged alphabetically according to subject. The text is apparently copied from an incomplete manuscript.At the end, inverted, is a copy of ‘Instructions and rules ... to the Commissaries, clerks, procurators fiscalls, and other members of the court of the whole ecclesiasticall jurisdiction,’ forwarded under cover of a Royal letter dated...
Dates:
1661-1681.
`Chronicle of Perth`, 1210-1668, also known as Mercer`s Chronicle and Fleming`s Chronicle, with other documents relating to the burgh of Perth.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.35.4.4
Scope and Contents
The `Chronicle` was compiled probably between 1600 and 1668 by more than one person. Though attributed to John Mercer, town clerk of Perth, only the latter part appears to be his work. From 1660 it is almost entirely a register of burials.
Other items in the volume are a fragment of a legal memorial, circa 1597, concerning the foundation of the King James VI Hospital in Perth (folio 1), and a group of letters concerning Royal Burgh affairs (1614-1628), all copies (folio 20).
Dates:
?1600-1688.
`Collection of Papers Experiments And Observations Relating to Husbandry, Grass, And other Branches Of Country Affairs,’ by William Baird of Auchmeddan.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.31.4.12
Scope and Contents
The collection was compiled over the years 1736 to 1756, and was written in the latter year (pages iii, 234). It is made up of extracts from books, copies of letters, and notes of the experiences of the writer.
Dates:
1736-1756.
Collection of state papers of the reigns of James VI and Charles I made by Sir James Balfour of Denmilne, Lord Lyon King of Arms.
Collection
Identifier: Adv.MSS.33.1.1-33.1.15
Scope and Contents
The collection is known both as the `Denmilne State Papers` and the `Denmilne Collection`. Less formally it is often referred to as the `Denmilne Manuscripts`.
Dates:
1548-1641.
‘Collections’ made by Robert Beatson, Doctor of Laws, containing a number of genealogical papers and copies of military documents which he probably used when engaged on compiling ‘Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain from 1727 to 1783’.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.34.3.21
Scope and Contents
The contents of the volume include:(i) Genealogical accounts in a variety of hands of a number of British peers, collected while Beatson was gathering material for his work on the English Peerage. (See also Adv.MSS.33.5.9-33.5.10). For another copy of the account of the family of Calder (folio 29), see MS.9982.(ii) An account, in Beatson`s hand, of the Parish of Dysart, his birthplace, undated (folio 57).(iii) Description of a Tour of Scotland made by...
Dates:
1785-1803, and undated.
Commonplace book of the Earl of Buchan.
Item
Identifier: MS.963
Scope and Contents
The comonplace book contains drafts of letters to the ‘Bee’, an inventory of the Earl of Buchan’s property, lists of Scottish portraits, an ode, ‘To the Shepherd of the Cot’, and notes and drafts of papers on the Scottish Peerage and other subjects. Included is a manuscript copy of ‘The New Order of Gooding and Manuring all sorts of Field Land with Common Salts’, by Archibald, afterwards 1st Lord Napier (said to have been printed by Robert Waldegrave), referring to the right to issue...
Dates:
1778-1791.
Composite manuscript consisting of two volumes (folios 1, 75) of copies, circa 1585, 1607, of papers, 1537-1606, in Italian and Latin concerning attempts to restore Roman Catholicism in England in the 16th and early 17th centuries.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.31.4.15
Scope and Contents
Each volume has a contents list (folios 1, 77) and the second volume has its own foliation added in an apparently later hand.The first volume (folios 1-74) consists of copies (in the same hand), made apparently in or about 1585, of the following:(i) ‘Discorso del Priore d`Inghilterra a Papa Pio V circa la Riduttione di quel Regno’ (folio 2), being an account by Sir Richard Shelley, Grand Prior of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, written apparently early in 1570,...
Dates:
1537-1606.
Contemporary copies and translations of letters, mainly from Italy, reporting on European and Turkish affairs.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.19.1.20
Scope and Contents
Most of the documents are dated 1596. The subjects include Spanish policy in June and July of that year, leading up to the capture of Cadiz by the English (cf. ‘Calendar of State Papers, Domestic series ... 1595-1597’); a rising of janissaries in Constantinople; and events in Italy and eastern Europe. These are followed (folio 33) by miscellaneous papers, mostly concerning the siege of Montauban in 1621.
Dates:
1595-1761.
Contemporary copies of letters apparently written by a high-ranking member of the Army party, taking the form of a weekly newsletter from 12 December 1648 to 29 June 1649.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.33.7.15
Scope and Contents
There is no letter for 22 May, and that for 29 June is in a different hand. The author, who was strongly in favour of the execution of Charles I and of crushing the Royalist party, appears to have held a position of considerable authority. He was responsible for pardoning Laugharne and Powell, and accompanied Cromwell to suppress the mutiny in Whalley`s regiment in April 1649. It is possible that the letters were written by more than one person. They are apparently addressed to a...
Dates:
1648-1649.
Copies, 19th century, and original papers collected by Sir William Fraser, 16th century-1793.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.23.3.25
Scope and Contents
The contents of the manuscript are as follows:(i) Latin legal abbreviations, 16th century. (Folio 1.)(ii) Speech in Latin addressed to `domine doctissime coeterique commilitones mei suavissimi`, in praise of modesty. Late 16th or early 17th century. (Folio 2.)(iii) Transcript, 19th century, of the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 3 February, 1590, concerning the slaughter of David Taillor by William Spottiswood of that Ilk and others. Cf. ‘The...
Dates:
16th century-1793.
Copies by Sir James Balfour of royal letters and other documents in the Denmilne Papers.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.33.7.11
Scope and Contents
A list giving the references of the original manuscripts has been inserted.
Dates:
1586-1626.
Copies by Sir James Balfour of some of his own letters and two addressed to him.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.33.7.26
Scope and Contents
The letters are not in chronological sequence. Most of them express his friendship for his correspondent, but in one he comments on the reception of the new Service Book at St Giles in 1637 (folio 9 verso), and in another to Lord Elcho he advises on reading matter (folio 12 verso).
Dates:
1628-1643, and undated.
Copies, early 18th century, of autobiographies and other works of covenanters.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.34.5.19
Scope and Contents
The manuscript is apparently in the hand of John Elphinston: see Adv.MS.32.3.9, folio 78 verso. Several items in Adv.MS.32.3.9 are also in this hand.The contents of the manuscript are as follows:(i) Autobiography of John Livingstone, minister of Ancrum. It has been published from the version in Wod.Qu.XVIII in ‘Select Biographies’, i, pages 129-197. This manuscript has a few variants from the published version. (Folio 1.)(ii) `An Account of what past when...
Dates:
2nd half of 17th century-early 18th century.
Copies, early 18th century, of letters and memoirs of covenanters.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.32.4.4
Scope and Contents
The contents of the manuscript are as follows:(i) Letters, 1675-1677, of the preacher John Welwood. They are mostly addressed to Elizabeth Collace and her sister Katharine Ross, but there are also a few to the covenanter Richard Cameron. The letters, which are not in strict chronological order, are chiefly religious in nature, but there are occasional mentions of the persecutions in Fife, the Merse and Teviotdale. (Folio 1.)(ii) Memoirs of Katharine Ross. The...
Dates:
1675-early 18th century.
Copies, late 17th century, of letters, 1637-1638, of Robert Baillie, principal of Glasgow University, and of papers, 1638, concerning the Glasgow Assembly.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.32.3.12
Dates:
1637-1638.
Copies of documents relating to roads in the Highlands.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.33.4.19
Scope and Contents
Copy of a memorial to the Treasury, 1799, by Robert Anstruther, Inspector of Military Roads, asking that the majority of the roads constructed in the Highlands continue to be maintained at public expense (folio 1), and two copies (folios 5, 8) of a letter, 1796, of Captain (afterwards Lieutenant-General) Henry Rudyerd to the Secretary of the British Society for extending of the Fisheries and improving the Seacoasts of the Kingdom, reporting on the road recently constructed from Contin to...
Dates:
1796, 1799.
Copies of letters and instructions of Thomas, Baron Wharton, deputy warden of the marches.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.33.3.8
Scope and Contents
Most of the material concerns the order of the watches in the three marches, giving the areas covered and, in some cases, the names of those concerned.
The volume may have been intended for John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland; his arms are painted on page 2, and the bear and ragged staff of Warwick drawn on page 3. There are large decorated initials in pen and ink on pages 3, 7, 13, 37, 121 and 153, some of which bear the letters IN, TP, CC or TW.
Dates:
1552-1553.
Copies of miscellaneous documents.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.19.3.28
Scope and Contents
(i) Papers concerning the presentation of a Jacobite Medal to the Faculty of Advocates by the Duchess of Gordon in 1711, namely:`The Faculty of Advocats Loyalty in a letter to the Queen`s Most Excellent Majesty. By one of the Dean of Faculty`s Council. Printed in the Year MDCCXI. ` No such printed work seems to be recorded. (Folio 2.)`The Double of Criminal Letters against Mr. James Dundas, Advocat, 1711.` (Folio 12.)(ii) `A Letter from Jack Straw in the...
Dates:
Early 18th century.
Copy, 17th century, of ‘Humii vindiciæ Buchanani contra Camdenum’ or ‘Camdenea; id est examen nonnullorum a G. Camdeno in Britannia sua positorum, præcipuē quæ ad irrisionem Scoticæ Gentis et eorum et Pictorum falsam originem’.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.31.6.9
Scope and Contents
At the end is a copy of a Latin letter, 7 Cal. May 1604, of Andrew Melville to David Hume.
The description of the manuscript in the folio catalogue (F.R.186) includes the reference: A.5.16.
Dates:
16th century, 1604.
Copy, 17th century, of `The Life, Araignment, and Death of the famous and learned Sir Thomas More Knight, sometimes Lord Chauncellor of England. Together with his Vision`.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.33.7.16
Scope and Contents
The text is closely related to the life by William Roper, but there are interpolations and the dialogues are in the third person. Roper`s preface is replaced by a dedicatory letter to Captain Marmaduke Rawdon from John Hawkins, stating that Hawkins had originally intended to publish the text (Roper`s biography was first published in 1626). The life is followed by a poem `Sir Thomas More his Vision` (folio 80) which has been published by Constance Smith in ‘Moreana’, number 37 (1973), pages...
Dates:
Early 17th century.
Copy, made apparently in or about 1704 by Thomas Ruddiman, Keeper of the Advocates` Library, of (i) a letter written by James V in 1528 to the authorities of the town of Ratisbon (now Regensburg) in favour of the Scots monks there (folio i); and (ii) the preface, entitled `Praefatio, sive Velitatio in Irlandos`, of the `Germania Christiana` of Robert (in religion, Boniface) Strachan, Benedictine monk at Ratisbon (folio 1, where his name is wrongly recorded as Bonaventure).
Item
Identifier: Adv.MS.34.2.6
Dates:
1528, 17th century.
Copy, made in 1702, of letters and memoirs of Major-General Hugh Mackay of Scoury (?1640-1692), concerning the campaigns in Scotland in 1689-1690, and in Ireland in 1691.
File
Identifier: Adv.MS.31.7.1
Dates:
1689, and after.
Copy of an apparently unpublished work entitled 'Practical Tracts of Artillery', written by Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonald, Fellow of the Royal Society.
File
Identifier: MS.8185
Scope and Contents
The work was written by John Macdonald when he was Captain Commanding the Artillery at Fort Marlborough, [Sumatra]. The text is preceded by a letter to the Governor and Council of the Military Department there, an introduction to the work, and a letter to the Governor-General and the Supreme Council at Fort William.
Dates:
1787.