THE SCOTS IN SWEDEN.*
THIS work, like the late author's The Scots in Germany, is a notable piece of research executed with characteristi- cally Teutonic thoroughness and minuteness. The labour of reconstructing. the life-histories of individual Scots and Scottish families from the fragmentary, and often indistinct, records embedded in the hard and complicated strata of the State and municipal archives of Sweden was enough to tax the powers of persistence and the enthusiasm for detail of the most consummate type of German student. We gather from Dr. Kirkpatrick's appreciative introduction that in addition to the ordinary difficulties of arduous, and often tedious, investigation, Mr. Fischer had to face handicaps that needed more than a dash of heroism to overcome. "At the age of sixty," we are told, "he studied Swedish for the express purpose of making the needful historical researches for the present volume and lived and travelled in Sweden for several months on the meagre pittance of about B60." The result of his painstaking investigations is a volume of remarkable interest to antiquarians of all countries, and especially to those of Scotland. The names of Spens, Douglas, Murray, Forbes, and a hundred others are writ large on the blood-stained pages of mediaeval Swedish history,—a suc- cession of adventurous, enduring fighters, who, if they did not meet with a violent death, usually lived to a remarkable old age. "Neither do we believe," says Mr. Fischer, "that the many hundreds of Scottish officers that we meet in the ranks of the Swedish Army during the Thirty Years' War were induced by mercenary purposes only, or attracted only by the thirst for adventure. No doubt with many booty took the place of honour, and little it mattered which side they fought on, so long as they fought for him that paid best; but there were more who had a high sense of duty, who were bound to the king by honest attachment." The volume contains much interesting evidence in support of this con- tention, but the geptral impression which it leaves is that the Scots in Sweden were more remarkable for their virility and perseverance than for the possession of any large measure of altruism.
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