of the English philologer. Secondly, as to modern English, we see reasons to think that it has been partly shaped by Danish influences, which have been slowly working their way forward, while they have been long eclipsed or suppressed by the more prominent and advantageous position of French and classic models. The positions held by the Icelandic and French languages respectively in their relations to the English language are not without an aspect of similarity which provokes a suggestive comparison. As the French language is in the forefront of the whole Romanesque movement, so was the Denish in its day the most advanced member of the Gothic family and as it is through the French that we have been most indelibly tinged with the southern, so it is by the Denish that we have been led to embrace the extremest idioms of the northern type. And if there be something in English which qualifies it for that leading place to which it seems destined among the languages of the world, we would trace this qualification not solely to the original excellence of our fine old Teutonic mother-tongue, but we would likewise bring into view the profitable intercourse it has enjoyed with the most vigorous and maturest specimens of the two chief speech-families of western Europe, whereby it has distilled from both what was best for its own constitution, and has brought from north and south into assimilation with its own natural talents other gifts richly contrasted ;—the homely and the dignified, the quaint and the felicitous, the sweet and the racy, of the Romanesque and Scandinavian languages. ART. VI.-Registrum de Panmure, records of the families of Maule, De Valoniis, Brechin, and Brechin-Barclay, united in the Line of the Barons and Earls of Panmure. Compiled by the Hon. Harry Maule of Kelly, A.D. 1733. Edited by John Stuart, LL.D. Edinburgh, 1874. (Privately printed.) THER 6 HE Registrum de Panmure' is one of the most interesting of the volumes which the literary tastes and feudal sentiments of the Scottish nobility and gentry (in this respect more zealous than their English compeers) have produced as • mémoires pour servir,' materials for the history of their country. Since The Honours of the Morton Family' were edited for the Bannatyne Club, we have had in 1858, The Stirlings of Keir,' which received scant mercy at the hands of the great peerage lawyer, John Riddell, in his Comments in Refutation of their claims; in 1859, The Montgomeries of Eglinton;' in 1863, The Maxwells of Polloc;' in 1867, 'The 6 6 Carnegies Carnegies of Southesk;' in 1868, The Red Book, of Grandtully; in 1869, 'The Chiefs of the Colquhouns;' in 1870, ‘The Book of Caerlaverock;' and in 1874, The Book of Lennox.' The responsibility of arranging these has rested on Mr. William Fraser, a man of great learning in the science of family history, who has lately acquired fresh laurels by the successful issue of the great Peerage case, in which he has successfully vindicated the claim of the Earl of Kellie to the historic title of Mar. Of the value of such publications (if one may use this expression of costly volumes printed for private circulation) one cannot speak too highly. Beyond the mere genealogical and family interest, they bear very directly upon history. From the high politics of the kingdom down to the smallest details of domestic economy, there is nothing too great or too small for their notice. The religion, hagiology, manners, morals, and tone of thought of the different degrees of society in their several generations, economic development and industrial advance, prices, contracts, the condition of the law, the state of farming and horticulture, the measures of intellectual progress, the social relations, the influence of the sexes, everything that affects society 'Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, for the are to be found here. Nor is the stock exhausted Reports of the Commission on Historical Manuscripts, the Scottish portion of which has been contributed by Mr. Fraser, by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, and notably by Dr. Stuart, the learned and painstaking editor of the volumes, which we are now reviewing, exhibit how much is still in store for future publication. First of all we have the important papers of the ducal family of Hamilton, which from its relationship to the Royal Family of Scotland took such a prominent part in the politics of the kingdom. These have now been inspected carefully and kalendared. They had been little studied since the days of Bishop Burnet. The regency of Arran, the Commissionership of his grandson at the General Assembly of Perth, when The Five Articles' were adopted, and of his great-grandson at Glasgow, when Episcopacy was abolished; the services of the second duke, who fell at Worcester, and of the third, who was concerned in the affair of the Darien Expedition, are illustrated copiously in the muniment room at Hamilton, and twelve precious volumes which probably belonged to the English Privy Council, throw light upon the times of James V. and his daughter Mary. The The mighty family of the Gordons, whose lands extended from sea to sea, and who were more like Sovereigns than vassals in their northern territory, where they kept up a miniature Court, are not so well represented. Probably being Roman Catholics, and waging a constant war with the neighbouring presbyteries, it was not deemed safe to preserve any compromising correspondence. At Newbattle the Lothian family possess letters of rare interest from the political personages both in Scotland and England who took part in the great rebellion. The Balcarres papers in nine folio volumes, now in the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, extend from the marriage of James V. to Mary of Guise, and give a most important correspondence of the leading characters of the time in France. The State papers collected by Sir James Balfour supply materials for the different negociations of James VI. with foreign powers, especially the Spanish marriage. The collections also of Sir Robert Sibbald and of the Rev. Robert Wodrow are most important. As might be expected, the charter-chest at Buchanan is rich in documents connected with the great Marquis of Montrose, and his correspondence with King Charles I., Queen Henrietta Maria, the Queen of Bohemia, but many of them have been already printed. Still there remain many unpublished papers, especially touching on the rebellion in 1715, and the treatment of the MacGregors, and generally the collections are not surpassed in historical importance and interest by those of any other ancient family. At Dunrobin the long missing document, the Dispensation by Archbishop Hamilton in favour of Bothwell and Lady Jean Gordon, afterwards Countess of Sutherland, -the non-appearance of which enabled her to divorce her husband, and so enable him to marry his unfortunate sovereign -concerning which there was so much mystery, and on which so much of the question of Queen Mary's character hinges, was discovered by Dr. Stuart. Its history, as detailed by that calm and judicial antiquary, casts a most painful light on the conduct of all concerned: Mary, the Archbishop, Bothwell, the estates of the realm, and the lady herself, who died in the odour of respectability at a great age, come in their different measures very ill out of the transaction, although it is due to truth to say that grave considerations affecting the formality and therefore the legal validity of the document, thus affording a reason for its suppression, have been urged as explanations of what certainly is difficult to be accounted for. Among Lord Crawford's papers is a remarkable Royal Commission issued by James VI., in 1605, for the settlement of the borders, which affords numerous illustrations of the singular conditions of Vol. 139.-No. 278. 2 I society society then prevalent in the Debateable land. One hundred and twelve out of one hundred and fifty Grahams are deported to the garrisons and cautionary towns of Brill and Flushing. Most of them have nicknames; John Graeme's alias is Jock of the Pear-tree, and we have Jock's Richie, and Little Andrew, and All-over-Kaines. A curious list of the names of those 'that standes in feade (feud) with otheris' exhibits a pleasant condition of society. The Youngis are at feud with the Widdringtons, with the Hallis and the Ogles; the Burnes with the Collingwoods and Dycks; the Rodderfordes with the Potts and the Fenwicks; the Ellotis with the Carletons, the Dodds and the Weltons; the Armstrongs with the Ridleys, and so on. The learned reader will compare with this the amusing account of a border night spent by Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pius II., as detailed by himself in the history of his visit to Scotland. The Cawdor papers are chiefly curious as throwing light on the early Thanes and Thanages, and illustrating the condition of the population of Argyle in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It places it in an unfavourable light. A full list of the parishioners of Muckearne is given, exhibiting the trades of that simple state of society on the occasion of a parish clerk being appointed, who takes symbolical possession by receiving the holy-water vessel and aspersory. The papers of the ancient family of Forbes, which has the honour of being mentioned by Ariosto in the tenth canto of the 'Orlando Furioso,' along with Huntly, Errol, and Crawford, all families of the north-east of Scotland, are chiefly remarkable for the illustrations they supply of the fortunes of the wandering Scot. Letters exist from the Forbes of the day from London, where he goes up to seek his fortune in the reign of King James VI., when the envy of the English crue has so borne him down,' that he betakes himself to Florence; from another at Stralsund, where allusion is made to some circumstances which nearly led to the last judicial combat in England; from the tenth lord who rose to be lieutenant-general in the service of Gustavus Adolphus, who received a testimonial still extant from Oxenstierna, and who afterwards was employed in suppressing the Irish rebellion in 1642. Lastly, there is an account of two brothers of the family who go to Flanders, turn Capuchins, and one of them dying victima charitatis' in attending plague-stricken sufferers there, is inscribed in the Album of the Blessed.' 6 The Sandiland's papers show how the lands of the Orders of the Templars and of the Hospitallers became alienated. In 1546 James Sandilands has licence from the crown to pass to Malta, Malta, where he obtains provision' of the preceptory on the resignation of the Preceptor Lindsay. Next year he obtains the 'ancianitas,' a right of expectation confirmed by Paul III. In 1547 he becomes Preceptor on Lindsay's death, and in 1551 is invested in the spirituality and temporality, by receiving chalice, missal, and keys of Church for spirituality, and earth and stone for the temporalities in the court of the place of Torphichen. In 1563 he resigns all the lands into Queen Mary's hands, and receives a re-grant of them as Baron of Torphichen, and so the preceptory was secularized. The collection at Glamis Castle is chiefly interesting from a remarkable document, in which Earl Patrick, the most noteworthy of the family, records how he redeemed his estate from mortgage, and after a definite plan restored his castle, which is the most splendid of the chateaux of Scotland. At the end is a remarkable entry showing how little, in 1694, the author anticipated the permanence of the Presbyterian Establishment. Six months before his death Patrick, Earl of Strathmore, executed a deed, in which he leaves orders to cause, erect, and build four lodges upon the corners of the open, for the highway through the church-town of Glamis, at Westhill, leading to Perth, For the use of four aged men of our own surname, if they can be found, and failing them, to such depauperated tenants as, through infirmities, are reduced to want, and not through debauchery or negligence, to each of which I mortify yearly 4 bolls of oatmeal and 25 merks Scotch money with a new white-coloured wide cloth coat lined with blue serge once every three years; and that they shall render such services to us and our successors as their age and capacity will suffer, they being in health, and that they constantly keep the Parish Church and attend Divine Service and wait always at the Churchdoor when we go there and at their own doors whenever we shall have occasion to pass by, if they be not employed abroad, and that they be holden (if sickness and infirmity do not hinder) to repair every day once, at the 12th hour of the day, to our Burial Place (whereof a key shall be given to each incomer), and a form of prayer to be read by them by turns by such of them as can read, and if they cannot read that they learn the same by heart, and that they keep that room over the burial place always neat and clean, and our loft in the Church, and this to be recorded in the Session Books of the Church of Glamis. At Glamis, the 2nd of December, 1694, in the 51st year, sixth month, and 4th day of our age, in presence of Mr. John Lyon, Sheriff Clerk of Forfar; James Nairne, Jaen Greenhill, our servants. Pray God that when He has served Himself by us in this our time, we may arrive at last by a happy end to His eternal bliss, through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.' At Cortachy, the seat of the very ancient Celtic family of the 2 I 2 Ogilvy's, |