Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/230

178 his first work in quarto, entitled, "Fragments of Scottish History," containing, among other valuable matter, the "Diary of Robert Birrell, burgess of Edinburgh, from 1532 to 1608." Little more than two years afterwards (in 1801), he published, in two volumes octavo, a "Collection of Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century." Of the labour he underwent in the task, and the diligence with which he discharged it, an estimate may be formed from the fact, that in preparing this collection he had examined about seven hundred volumes of manuscripts. None, however, but those who are conversant with this kind of literature, can be fully aware of its difficulties, owing to the loose manner in which the Scottish poems of this period were transcribed, and the variety of readings, as well as amount of interpolated nonsense, with which they are disfigured. For these two works he found a fitting publisher in Mr. Archibald Constable, at that time an antiquarian, and the friend of antiquarians, whose old-book shop at the Cross was the favourite haunt of those distinguished men, by whose publications he afterwards became a prince in the realms of literature.

The next work of Mr. Graham Dalyell, was a "Tract chiefly relative to Monastic Antiquities, with some account of a recent search for the Remains of the Scottish Kings interred in the Abbey of Dunfermline." This work, which appeared in 1809, was the first of a series of four or five thin octavos, illustrative of our Scottish ecclesiastical records, which he issued at various intervals; and the chartularies which he severally illustrated were those of the bishoprics of Aberdeen and Murray, the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, the Chapel Royal of Stirling, and the Preceptory of St. Anthony at Leith—the series having been carried on till 1828. But this was not his only occupation, as during the long interval he published an edition of the "Journal of Richard Bannatyne," the secretary and amanuensis of John Knox; and another, of the "Scottish Chronicle of Lindsay of Pitscottie." By way of literary divertisement amidst these labours in our national antiquities, Mr Dalyell also published, in 1811, "Some Account of an Ancient Manuscript of Martial's Epigrams," which was illustrated by an engraving, and anecdotes explanatory of the manners and customs of the Romans. Of these only thirty copies were printed, six of them being on vellum.

A more important work than any of the preceding, and requiring a larger amount of original thought as well as wider research, was published by Mr. Dalyell in 1834, under the title of "An Essay on the Darker Superstitions of Scotland." Such a title sufficiently intimates not only the extent of reading it required among books the most trying to the patience of a diligent investigator, but also those depths of time into which he was compelled to grope, in the midst of darkness and doubt, while he traced our national superstitions to their primitive homes in the forests of Germany, upon the shores of Norway, or even the more dismal and unknown wilds of Scythia. The last work which he published was the "Musical Memoirs of Scotland." This appeared in 1850, when he was now in his seventy-third year; but the vivacity of style in which it is written, and the sprightly character of the anecdotes with which the subject is illustrated, give no indications either of the feebleness or the apathy of old age. The work possesses also the additional recommendation of a splendid quarto form and many excellent engravings, for he was not only an ardent lover of music, but a thorough judge of it as a science, and through life he had always affectionately turned to it as a relief from his more severe occupations.

Besides those literary productions we have mentioned, comprising an