The first volume of The Miscellany of the Scottish History
Society —which, like all the other productions of the Society, is printed at the University Press of Edinburgh by Messrs. T. and A. Constable —is made up of odds and ends, and cannot therefore be said to command such keen or general interest as preceding volumes, such as that which told the delightful story of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik. But it contains a whole host of material, all carefully edited by accomplished antiquarians, which will be invaluable to the future historians of Scotland, and for that matter, of England, at different eventful periods of their history. Among these are documents illustrating Catholic policy in the reign of James VI. ; Civil War papers (1643-50), which throw some light on, among other things, Montrose's flight from Carbisdale ; twenty-four letters written to Archbishop Sharp by the Duke and Duchess of Lauderdale and Charles Maitland, Lord Hatton ; and some papers bearing on the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745. The most matter - of - fact, if not also the most interesting, of the contents of this volume, however, is the diary of John Turnbull, who was minister of the parishes of Alloa and Tyninghame, between the years 1657 and 1704. It throws a little dry (very dry) light upon the events and the men—especially the ministers—of Turnbull's time, but it is of still greater value as indicating in the clearest possible manner how ministers worked. To the extent of at least a half, it consists of such entries as "Lett. on numo 6; preached on coll. 3, 9," and "about this time God was pleased graciously to send pleasant showers and warm weather." Occasionally Mr. Turnbull is stirred by some event of national importance. It is thus that he alludes to the loss of Darien : " About this time we got the sad news of the defeat of an American colony by the Spaniards in the month of February last, a very sad loss to the nation."
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