Only a meagre number of magazine articles are attributed to Lord
Hailes in the most complete printed list of his published
works,[1] despite the fact that there
are several important contemporary references which draw attention
to his activity in this field.[2] His
extant manuscripts[3]
also point to the fact that he wrote a considerable number more
magazine articles than have previously been assigned to him. This
article attempts to list those contributions which the present
writer believes can be definitely attributed to Hailes.
Few writers in the 18th Century were so mindful of their
literary reputations as to keep lists of those articles which they
sent anonymously to the magazines. Some of those who did keep
lists, and Hailes's friend, the Earl of Buchan,[4] is a good example, did so from a
strong
desire for posthumous literary fame. If we may judge from the
number of his larger published works which Hailes sent out into the
world without his name on the title-page, such vanity was largely
absent from his character. It is certain that he regarded his
magazine articles as being ephemeral productions, unworthy of
collection. This characteristic modesty, combined with the fact
that the opportunity of utilising contemporary information on the
subject was neglected by the would-be biographers of Hailes,[5] working immediately after his
death,
adds to the difficulty of a present-day investigation.
Hailes was not, unfortunately, one of these anonymous
contributors who used a settled nom-de-plume, and in his
case, the study of signatures proves more of a hindrance than a
help. Hans Hecht suggested that both Hailes and David Herd, the
song collector, contributed to magazines above
the initials D. H.
[6] He does not
list any articles by Hailes signed in this way as proof of this
assertion. I have found no article, with these initials below,
which could be definitely ascribed to Hailes. On the other hand,
Richar
d Goug
h, the English antiquary, wrote
a large
number of articles for the
Gentleman's Magazine signed D.
H.
and this further complication is not noted by Hecht. One might
expect Sir Davi
d Dalrympl
e, Lord Hailes, to
use the
initials D. E., but I have only found articles by David Erskine,
Earl of Buchan using this signature.
[7] One article, definitely by Hailes,
in
the
Edinburgh Magazine or Literary Miscellany is signed 'G',
but I have traced no others by him signed in this way. The
nom-de-plume 'Antiquarius' appears often under articles in
the
Scots Magazine and the
Gentleman's
Magazine,
and
Hailes did use this signature for one of his
anonymous essays in Henry Mackenzie's
Mirror.
[8] But the articles signed
'Antiquarius'
in the
Scots Magazine are manifestly from a variety of pens,
while in the
Gentleman's Magazine 'Antiquarius' is very
often the signature of John Loveday, the English antiquary.
[9]
In view of this confusion, and of the dangers of ascribing
articles to any one writer on purely internal evidence, I have
excluded from my list those many articles which I thought
might be by Hailes on the unsupported evidence of general
style and content, and have included only those in which such
internal evidence is corroborated in some way from Hailes's
manuscripts or books.[10]
Only two MS drafts of previously unknown articles have come to
my notice, both being preserved by that assiduous collector, David
Laing.[11] The greatest number of new
articles are to be found in Sibbald's Edinburgh Magazine or
Literary Miscellany, which was perhaps to be expected, as
Hailes's friendship with Sibbald[12]
was a close one. Sibbald is thought to be
the author of the obituary notice of Hailes which appeared in that
magazine in March 1793. It makes the point: "the pages of our
miscellany have also been enriched by his learned communications."
This fact has been noted by nearly all Hailes's biographers, but no
previous attempt has been made to establish which 'learned
communications' were, in fact, his.
What motives and circumstances were at work when Hailes sent
anything to the publishers of the periodical magazines, and what
type of material he considered suitable for this mode of
publication, can be deduced from the following list. His magazine
articles reflect many facets of his more substantial work, and
throw considerable light on his character.
Hailes printed several collections of historical documents for
the benefit of the historical scholar,[13] and was a Scottish pioneer in this
field. It was his practice, if one can judge from some of the items
below, to send a few very short documents of this nature to the
magazines. Such articles are very difficult to ascribe to any one
source, for they provide no stylistic guide. Two are given to
Hailes on the basis of external evidence. Hailes also sent in a few
notes requesting historical information, or offering specimens of
his own works, in the hope of eliciting further information from
other scholars.[14] This was merely an
extension of his habit of sending specimens of his works privately
to his friends for their advice and criticism. The personal method
was on one occasion used when a more general appeal through the
magazines had failed.[15] Occasionally
Hailes was inspired to write a
reply to an article in a previous number which had given erroneous
information, or had upset his prejudices, though he cannot be
accused of indulging in anonymous scurrility, for the tone of such
replies was always dignified, and such letters occasionally carried
his full signature.[16] Knowledge of
Hailes's historical ideals, and of his distinctive argumentative
style, combined with other information, helped to identify articles
of this nature.
As distinct from articles of the kind described above, Hailes
does not seem to have regarded the magazines as a suitable
repository for original literary work. He shared with his
correspondent, Horace Walpole, a dislike of seeing his original
literary compositions included in their pages. Walpole makes this
clear when he says in a letter to Hailes: "I thank you, Sir, for
the curiosity you sent me, and more for the elegy printed upon it.
You need not fear my letting it pass into the magazines; nobody has
more aversion to those dirt-carts and their drivers: my poor
Hentzner fell into their hands before I had even time to give it to
my friends. It almost frightens me from saving any curiosities for
the public, when one is sensible that the public attends to nothing
but what is laid at their doors by those
scavengers."
[17] Many of the Latin
elegies and English poems preserved among Hailes's papers might
have found their way into the poetry sections of the magazines if
Hailes had not preferred to keep them for the perusal of his
friends. The standard of Latin verse achieved in these
manuscripts
[18] was of a higher level
than that usually printed in the magazines; the English verse was
at least as bad as the worst to be found in the
Gentleman's
Magazine.
The literary value of the letters and notes sent by Hailes to
the magazines is negligible compared with their historical and
antiquarian interest. They do illustrate, however, thoughts, and
habits of style, which appear again in his more important work.
Knotty and controverted points of Scottish history and of early
Christian antiquities were debated in his century with more vigour
and personal thrust than would be the case to-day. I have already
suggested that Hailes was uniformly polite in such debates, but he
was wont to use a quiet, distinctive, and effective irony, which
combined well with his unusual style. This style was singular but
dignified; he avoided long complex sentences, and combined a
disjointed mode of sentence structure with an almost Tacitean
abruptness. He used balance and antithesis a great deal, but
largely avoided parenthetical constructions. Very short paragraphs
are another feature of his style. He accompanied these stylistic
devices with a most deceiving
appearance of simplicity and lack of guile. Hailes has the
disarming habit of quoting his opponent as if he was taking what he
says at its face value, and then blandly demonstrating the
weaknesses in the reasoning. This type of writing, which is not
particularly suited for long works, was very effective in
controversies conducted by letters in magazines.
The following points should be noticed with reference to the
list.
- a) Extracts from Hailes's published works are only included
when they appear as separate articles, and not when quoted as part
of a review of the work in question.
- b) Republication by the magazine of his legal speeches, from
published collections of such speeches, are included, but not
direct reports made in Court. The latter are very rarely
verbatim, and can hardly be considered Hailes's own
work.
- c) I have included republished extracts from Hailes's
published works, even in those cases where there is no evidence
that the republication had his consent.
THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE OR LITERARY
MISCELLANY.
1785-1803.
- 1. Volume II (Dec.), 1785, pp. 347-351. "Specimen of the Life
of the Marquis of Montrose, 1644."
(This fairly long article can definitely be ascribed to Hailes. It
corresponds to the Specimen 'Life of Montrose' mentioned by
Kay's Edinburgh Portraits [1870 ed. p. 370] and is a
narrative of Montrose's military campaigns in 1644. In 1780, Hailes
had sent a specimen of his 'history' dealing with these campaigns
to Bp. Hurd, and a recent researcher at Newhailes has described
such a pamphlet he saw there as a specimen of Annals of Scotland
from the Union of the Crowns to the Restoration.[19] Hailes never completed the larger
work,
and probably sent the sheets to Sibbald when he realised that this
would be the case. The article certainly reads rather as history
than biography.)
- *2. Volume II (Dec.), 1785, pp. 376-382. "Extracts from
Miscellaneous Remarks on the 'Inquiry into the Evidence against
Mary, Queen of Scots'."[20]
(The proofs of Hailes's authorship of the anonymous tract from
which these extracts are taken are as follows. A.F. Tytler first
attributed the work, published in 1784, to Hailes in a manuscript
pamphlet [Laing Collection. E.U.L.]. His arguments, based largely
on stylistic comparisons with Hailes's signed work, were sound, but
the matter was placed beyond all doubt by a note appended by Laing
to Tytler's MS: "Mr. Th. Thomson to whom I sent this paper
acknowledged his conviction that the evidence against his friend
Lord Hailes was all but demonstration; and sometime afterwards he
met with that demonstration having found a few scraps of the MS of
the Misc. Remarks in Lord Hailes handwriting among his lordship's
loose papers. These he showed me in Jan 1833." These scraps do not
seem to have survived. Hailes nowhere in his published work, or his
correspondence, refers directly to the book. But there may be a
veiled reference to it in a letter from A. Kippis, March 17, 1787
(Newhailes MSS
702), where Kippis promises to keep the authorship of an unnamed
tract by Hailes secret. Many other articles relating to the "Marian
controversy"[21] are to be found in
the pages of this magazine, and quite a few of these, on stylistic
evidence, may have come from Hailes's pen, but have been excluded
for want of corroborative evidence.)
- *3. Volume III (Jan.), 1786, pp. 17-19. (This article signed
'E', is a reply to another on the "Pillars at Aberlemno", December,
1785, pp. 346-394. There is a strong similarity to the views held
and stated by Hailes elsewhere, in the central paragraph of the
article: "But we have been too long the slaves of tradition in
antiquarian researches. Perhaps in this age of freedom we may be
allowed to doubt the existence of the battle of Luncarty, and we
certainly know that Hay (de la Haie) was a Norman family; that the
court armorial of that family, more eminent for its merits than its
antiquity was three red shields, not three bloody ploughshares."
etc. This paragraph is very similar in idea and expression to a
letter of Hailes to James Beattie. 30th Oct. 1778 [Beattie MSS
Aberdeen]: "no poetical merit can ever, in my eyes, justify a Poem
that alludes to the Hays of Luncarty — it is the fable of fables.
ye name is not Hay, but de Haye or de
la
Haye
: a Norman
family: the three red shields have no connection with any implement
of husbandry." This should again be compared with a letter from
Hailes to Buchan, 16th March 1782 [Perth Literary Society MSS.
Perth Art Gallery]: "The seal of ye family of Errol will I hope be
the last and deadly blow at the fable of Luncarty which has too
long
disgraced our Annals, if my historical labours could have convinced
my countrymen and obliged them to acknowledge that fable to be a
fable, I should have esteemed my labours not lost, for it is a main
beam in an old system which I wish to pull to pieces, and to erect
a system from record in its room." The insistence of the three
items on the same idea is significant.)
- *4. Volume III (Feb.), 1786, pp.104-105. "Two letters by
Sarah, Duchess Dowager of Marlborough."
(The presence of these two letters of the Duchess in a Scottish
magazine almost certainly means that Hailes sent them. Hailes had
the Duchess's letters to the Earl of Stair, and published from them
his Opinions volume in 1788. He had this material as early
as 1779, for he quotes from it in his Mirror, Paper No. 21.
One other possible source of such letters was Hailes's friend, the
Earl of Seafield, in whose archives are letters from the Duchess
[Hist. MSS. Comm. Report, 1894, p.227.]. But I have no evidence
that Seafield ever sent anything to the magazines.)
- 5. Volume III (April), 1786, p.218. "On Argyle's Levee -
whether written by Lord Binning."
(This article is definitely by Hailes. It is an expansion of a note
to be found in an MS commonplace-book [Newhailes MSS, No. 457].
Hailes was of course the son of Christian Hamilton, the sister of
Lord Binning. Sir Wm. Fraser in his Haddington Book [I,
266]
ascribes the article, which is signed 'G', to Hailes, presumably on
the basis of evidence at Tyninghame.)
- *6. Volume IV (Sept.), 1786, p. 208. "A Latin epigram on
Samuel Johnson and James Boswell."
(A MS copy of the poem can be found amongst Hailes's papers
[Newhailes MSS, No. 470]. As the epigram is very short I include it
here.
"Auspice Bosvello magnus Johsonus Edinae
Per trivias, dubia luce, tenebat iter;
Cum subito a patulis, patrio de more, fenestris
Irruit effusa foetidus imber aqua.
At ridens immane Sophus, Nunc, Scotia, praesens
Es mihi; nam certe me tuus afflat odor."
- 7. Volume IV (Oct.), 1786, pp. 279-280. "Extracts from the
poems of George Wither."
(A letter from Bishop Hurd, dated 23rd Oct. 1786 [Newhailes MSS,
No. 251], reveals that this article was by Hailes. Interest in
Wither was not high in this century, but Hailes was here sharing a
family interest; for his younger brother Alexander, the famous
hydrographer, printed in 1785, Extracts from Wither's
Juvenilia, and there is a collection of A. Dalrymple's MS notes
on Wither's poems in the British Museum.)
- *8. Volume V (Jan.), 1787, p. 31. "Letter on Scottish
Portraits."
(The reference in this article to Walpole's opinion on the
authenticity of the Burlington portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots,
clinches this identification. The question is discussed in
Walpole's letters to Hailes [cf. Yale XV: to Hailes, 8th
Nov. 1767, and n. 26. p. 113]. The letter in which Walpole
indicated a change of mind does not seem to have survived.)
- *9. Volume VII (March), 1788, pp. 153-155. "Strictures on Sir
John Dalrymple's Memoirs."
(This article defends, as does a later article in the same
magazine, Hailes's ancestor, Stair, against criticisms made of his
conduct. Sir John Dalrymple was a full cousin of Hailes, and we
perhaps are given the reason for the anonymity of this article when
Hailes says in a letter to Buchan, 20th May 1782 [Laing MSS, II,
588]: "I should not be unwilling to undertake a life of ye Viscount
Stair were I assisted by his other descendants: there is one thing,
however which is embarrasing: were I to undertake that work, I
should be under the necessity of contradicting point blank almost
every word that Sir John Dalrymple has said concerning his great
Ancestor." The fact that Hailes wrote this article is placed beyond
doubt by a letter from Sir John Pringle to Hailes 22nd March 1778
[Newhailes MSS, No. 327], in which Sir John says that he had taken
up certain points with regard to a passage in Sir John Dalrymple
with Lady Dundas, and these are some of the points discussed in
this article.
There is a further article on Sir J. Dalrymple's 'Memoirs'
in the magazine
for February, 1788, p. 122, and it is possible that this is also by
Hailes.)
- *10. Volume VIII (Sept.), 1788, pp. 172-173. "Letter from
King James to the Laird of Balmuto."
(The actual draft sent by Hailes to the publisher is extant [Laing
MSS, III, 352.]. The text is not in Hailes's autograph, but in that
of a scribe. On the back however, in Hailes's own hand, we find the
words "For Mr. Sibbald's magazine." This is an excellent example of
the sort of document that Hailes would send to the magazines, which
cannot be identified unless the draft is recovered.)
- *11. Volume VIII (Oct.), 1788, pp. 243-244. "Article on
MOTTOES."
(A draft of this is also to be found amongst the Laing MSS [III,
352], and is completely in the handwriting of Lord Hailes. Neither
this draft nor the one above is included as by Hailes in the
printed catalogue of the Laing MSS; both were found by
accident.[22])
- *12. Volume IX (Feb.), 1789, pp. 124-130. "Extracts from the
Opinions of Sarah, Duchess Dowager of Marlborough."
(Alexander Dalrymple, Hailes's brother, was not of the opinion that
Hailes edited this work. He says so in a letter to George Chalmers
(B.M. ADD MSS. 22900. f. 253). But Alexander Dalrymple was, on his
own admission, not in close touch with Hailes in the latter part of
his life. That Hailes had material concerning the Duchess in his
hands is evidenced by his Mirror essay No. 21. The editor
of
Private Correspondence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough of the
Court and Times of Queen Anne, 1837, 2 vols, prints the
Opinions, and states that they are extracts from the letters
of the Duchess to Lord Stair, Hailes's ancestor.)
- *13. Volume IX (April), 1789, p. 219. "Letter to the
publisher on the Letters of the Dowager Duchess of Orleans.
p. 171." (This article is given to Hailes on strong evidence of
style, and similarity of theme to known work of Hailes. The
key paragraph is the following: "In the last century, Varillas,
Raguenet, Courtiltz, and others disgraced the name of
Historian in France, by their fabulous publications, and I
am afraid that their race is not extinct. As the passion for
anecdotes increases, readers will become more careless in thus
investigating their truth; and needy and unprincipled men will be
always ready to profit by the credulity of the public. It will
afford much employment for the next age to detect what Voltaire
himself, a master workman, terms Les mensonges imprimis
of
this age." The views outlined in this paragraph are typical of
Hailes, and what is more the French historians here chosen for
censure were always his favourite examples
of 'Fabulous historians'. Many parallel passages could be given
from his attested work, of which the best are as follows (cf.
Introduction to his Memorials and Letters relating to the
History of Britain in the reign of James I, 1766 ed.): "When
indeed writers, like Varillas, Raguenet, and Leti, deliberately
impose upon the world by the recital of what never happened; when
they display their eloquence by celebrating actions which their
heroes did not perform; and their political knowledge, by tracing
out the causes of imaginary events; such writers will have little
occasion for the services of the humble compiler; and if ever they
should think fit to appeal to original papers, they can, as
Varillas did, forge authorities, as well as facts." Also a letter
to Walpole 5th July 1758 [Walpole Letters, Yale ed., XV,
31]: "The subject pleased me, and I set about it myself. From the
French authors I collected some very pretty battles which were
never fought, and drew a
character or two of heroes who never existed." Prof. Hoover states
in a footnote that he has seen the MS of this unfinished jeu
d'esprit, and the authorities cited in the margin are Leti, and
Raguenet. A letter to James Boswell, 2nd Dec. 1763 [MS Yale], says
of Voltaire: "C'est le conteur le plus intrepide qui s'est trouve
en Europe depuis le siecle des Varilas, des Leti et des Raguenets."
These quotations definitely prove that Hailes was the author of
this article.)
- *14. Volume IX (June), 1789, pp. 389-396. "Extracts from Lord
Hailes's Memorials
and Letters relating to the History of Britain in the Reign of
James I", second edition 1766.
(I know of no reason why Sibbald should have decided to reprint the
letters of the Duke of Buckingham at this time. They are certainly
amongst the most interesting in the volume, and the ones most
likely to arouse political feeling amongst the readers.)
- *15. Volume XI (April), 1790, pp. 219-220. "Letter to the
Publisher on a 'Life of Charles Edward Stuart.'"
(This letter can be definitely ascribed to Hailes for precisely the
same reason as No. 13 was. It is anti-Jacobite, as one would expect
from Hailes, and the quiet tone of irony is extremely typical. The
key passage for recognition, however, again contains the magic
names of the fabulous French and Italian historians: "One would
have thought that the principal events in the life of that
unfortunate man were tolerably well known, and that it would have
been no difficult matter to have related them accurately; yet he
has found a historian who treads in the steps of Raguenet, Leti and
Voltaire." This should be compared with the parallel passages
quoted under 13. Numbers 13 and 15 are so close in style that they
were obviously written by the same man.)
- 16. Volume XIII (Jan.), 1791, pp. 53-56. "Extract from the
Life of John Hamilton, Secular priest."
(This is a reprint of part of the Life of Hamilton which
Hailes wrote in 1784. This quarto Life was one of his
specimens of his proposed Biographia Scotica.[23])
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE AND REVIEW 1773-1776.
- *17. Volume I (Jan.), 1774, p. 181. "Some circumstances
concerning the Insurrection of the Commons in the Reign of Richard
II. which have been either overlooked or misunderstood by our later
historians."
(In Hailes's Specimen of Notes on the Statute Law of
Scotland, 1768, the story of Wat Tyler and Jack Straw being one
and the same person, as outlined in this article, is also to be
found. Reference is also made to the story in a letter from Walpole
to Hailes, October 26, 1768, where the Statute Notes are
under discussion [Walpole Letters, Yale ed., XV (1952),
123]. Lewis and Hoover's note to this passage is a little
confusing. They say that the Tyler-Straw story is not to be found
in any copy of the Statute Notes which the editors have
seen. They are certainly not mentioned in the printed Specimen sent
to the Scots Magazine in May, 1768, but the copies of the
Specimen which Hailes distributed amongst his friends are longer
than the Scots Magzine specimen, and contain the 'Jack Straw
— Wat Tyler note.)
- 18. Volume I (Feb.), 1774, pp. 235-238. "Of the Latin Poems
of Dr. Pitcairne." (Nearly all the previous authorities attribute
this article to Hailes. Hailes's own notes and letters reveal a
strong interest in, and knowledge of, Dr. Pitcairne [e.g. Letters
to Buchan, E.U.L. and Newhailes MSS 445]. There is a short memoir
of Pitcairne in the Edinburgh Magazine [May, 1774, p. 364]
which ends with this note: "In the fifth number of the Edinburgh
Magazine, the curious reader may see a continual commentary on
many of the Doctor's poems, for which the editors are indebted to
a most accomplished scholar and acute critic." Such a paragraph
shows that Stuart and Smellie valued Hailes's contributions highly,
but does not suggest that he was a regular correspondent.)
- *19. Volume IV (Aug.), 1775, pp. 474-475. "A Letter from Sir
David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, containing Remarks on a Passage in
Mr. MacPherson's History."
(Hailes originally seems to have intended this protest for a
different audience than the readers of the Edinburgh
Magazine, for he sent a letter to J. Boswell 15th April 1775
[Yale MSS]: "I therefore have drawn up a short letter to be
inserted in ye London Chronicle or if you please in any
daily Paper: My aim was to be as polite
and calm as possible, so that what I have said must be printed
without ye smallest variation." On June 29th, 1775 he sent a
further letter to J. Boswell [Yale MSS] asking for a letter to be
inserted in the "English Magazine of which you are a proprietor"
i.e. the London Magazine.)
SCOTS MAGAZINE. 1739 to present day.
- *20. Volume XVII (Sept.), 1755, pp. 424-425. The
World. 140. 'Meditation among Books.'
(The Scots Magazine reprinted many of the best periodical
essays of the day, and gave them a wider circulation. This is the
only one of Hailes's essays to be so honoured. Cf. fn. 8.)
- 21. Volume XXX (May), 1768, pp. 225-228. "Letter and
Specimen
of Notes on the Statute Law."
(Laing assigns this to Hailes, and the evidence of the later
enlarged specimens of the same work,[24] which Hailes distributed amongst
lawyer
friends, puts the matter beyond any doubt. I append here the
introductory letter as an example of his most formal type of letter
writing: "For some time past I have been engaged in drawing up
Notes on the Statute Law of Scotland, from the first Parliament
of James I to the Accession of James VI. My purpose is to
explain uncommon and obsolete words, to offer conjectures as to the
import of obscure expressions, to illustrate law by history, and,
as far as may be practicable, to delineate the state of Scotland,
and the manners of the Scottish nation, during the 15th and 16th
centuries. It must occur to those who are acquainted with Sir
George MacKenzie's Observations on the Acts of Parliament,
that notes drawn up on this plan, will seldom interfere with his
work. The specimen of Notes subjoined will
explain the nature and tendency of my undertaking. It is impossible
for me to execute it without the aid of the learned and of the
lovers of antiquity. By the channel of your magazine, I flatter
myself that I may obtain information and assistance." Hailes
informs us in the preface to his enlarged specimen that he received
but one reply to this request.)
- *22. Volume XXXII (March), 1770, p. 150. "Letter to the
author of the Scots magazine."
(The legal paper in which Hailes was attacked was called the
Supplemental Case for Sir Robert Gordon. This was the paper
opposed to Hailes's own famous Additional Case for the Countess
of Sutherland, 1770.)
- *23. Volume XXXIII (May), 1771, p. 226 et seq. "Extracts from
'Additional Case' 'The Claims for the Honours of
Sutherland.'"
(This case did not arouse as much attention as the Douglas Cause,
but was one of the most famous of the Scottish 18th-century civil
causes. It made Hailes's reputation as a peerage lawyer.)
- *24. Volume XXXV (March), 1773, p. 120. "A Card concerning
the meaning of 'Castrum Puellarum'."
(This is a short signed query note upon a point of Scottish
antiquity. The answers which Hailes received, p. 222 and p. 240,
are signed R. H. and T. W. respectively. They do not seem to be
entirely satisfactory. The query probably arose from Hailes's
historical work Remarks on the History of Scotland, 1773,
Chapter II, p. 76, where Hailes discusses 'Castrum Puellarum' and
does not commit himself as to whether it means 'Edinburgh.')
- *25. Volume XXXVI (Jan.), 1774, p. 9. "Extracts from the case
concerning Literary Property."
(These extracts are from the published speeches of the judges in
this case. The extracts from Hailes's opinion start on p. 9. The
judgements, given on July 27th, 1773, were a great step in freeing
Scottish printers from the Monopoly of the London
booksellers.)
- *26. Volume LIII, Supplement, 1791, p. 361. "Hailes's Letter
to the Royal College of Physicians."
(This letter was not printed by Hailes, but was printed, with his
permission, by the College [see letter from J. Gregory to Lord
Hailes, 1st Nov. 1791—Newhailes MSS, No. 663].)
- *27. Volume LVI (Nov.), 1794, p. 678. "Extracts from
'Memorials' Second Edition 1766." (N. B. these extracts
were
printed after Hailes's death.)
- *28. Volume LXII (Feb.), 1800, p. 87. "Letter from Lord
Hailes to Lord Buchan." (This letter deals with anecdotes
concerning the Life of Fletcher of Saltoun. A copy of the
letter here printed, in Buchan's hand, has survived in the Laing
Collection [Laing II, 588]. Buchan used the material given in the
letter in his printed 'Life', 1792. He uses Hailes's words
almost verbatim.)
THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE (1731-1833, First
Series).
- *29. Volume LIX (Dec.), 1789, p. 1076. "Letter on the
preservation of the relics at Boscobel House." Signed
'Philarchaeus'. (The writer of this article, who is disappointed in
the state of preservation of the relics of Charles I such as the
Royal Oak, makes suggestions for improvement. He states that he had
personally visited Boscobel. In a letter from Bishop Hurd to Lord
Hailes, 4th October 1786 [Laing, II, 588], Hurd inquires after
Hailes's recent visit to England, and particularly concerning his
visit to Boscobel, of which Hailes had said nothing in his last
letter. Hurd doubts that Hailes "made no discoveries there and
received but little entertainment".)
- 30. Volume LX, Pt. 2 (Aug.), 1790, pp. 679-680. "Remarks on
the Tatler"
(The Introductory letter to the extracts by J. Nichols names Sir
David Dalrymple as the author. Further remarks on the
"Tatler" continuing those on pp. 679-680, are to be found in
the same volume on the following pages, pp. 783-784, p. 901, pp.
992-993, p. 1073, pp. 1163-64. These are in the September, October,
November, December, and Supplementary Magazines.)
- *31. Volume LXI, Pt. 1 (Jan.), 1791, p. 8.
"Letter on Dryden, Pope and Fairy Rings" Signed Dav.
Dalrymple.
- 32. Volume LXI, Pt. 1 (May), 1791, pp. 399-400. "Letter on
Milton miniature."
(This letter to Mr. Urban is unsigned, but the fact that Hailes was
the author was first stated in his obituary notice in the
Gentleman's Magazine, LXXII, 1154. The letter is replied to
by one signed R.J.— Sir Joshua Reynolds — LXI, Pt. 2, pp.
603-605, and there is a further letter by Hailes in the magazine
for October, pp. 885-887.)
THE WEEKLY MAGAZINE OR EDINBURGH AMUSEMENT,
1768-1784.
- *33. 1774, July 28th, p. 129. "Letter to the Publisher of the
Weekly Magazine, signed 'Arctophylax.'"
(Hailes sent this query note at the request of his correspondent,
Daines Barrington, with whom he shared a knowledgeable love of
antiquities. In a letter to Hailes, Aug. 26th, 1774 [Newhailes MSS
586], Barrington thanks Hailes for circulating his query in the
proper places, and for having it printed in the Weekly
Magazine "with an exhortation to your countrymen to communicate
any information they may have on the subject.")
LONDON MAGAZINE.
- 34. Volume XLIV (July), 1775, p. 330. "Letter to the Editor
on Mr. Macpherson's History."
(The story of this contribution is told in the letters between
James Boswell and Hailes [Yale MSS]. Boswell's connection with the
magazine is well known. On 29th June 1775, Hailes writes: "A thing
of this kind would be buried in a news Paper, and I want that a
Book, which will last as long as Mr. McPherson's, may give evidence
that what he says of Sr David Dalrymple was not taken for granted
by all his readers. I have endeavoured to be as smooth as possible,
because I do not like altercations."[25] The letter as given in the
London
Magazine is a conciser version than the others. It was
accompanied by an editorial note: "The proprietors of the London
Magazine think themselves greatly honoured by the correspondence of
Lord Hailes. They beg leave to solicit a continuance of it, when
his Lordship, either
from duty or inclination, chuses to employ a pen to which the
public is much indebted. All attention will be paid to whatever he
is pleased to communicate.")
LONDON CHRONICLE, 1775, April.
- *35. "Letter to the Publisher on MacPherson's
History."
(This should be compared with the numbers 19 and 34. It is probably
the original version of this letter. It is given as Appendix III to
the Correspondence of James Boswell and Lord Hailes, ed.
C.
Weis [Yale University Thesis, 1952]. I have not had access to a
copy of this newspaper and my information is taken from Dr.
Weis.)
NEWCASTLE GENERAL MAGAZINE.
- *36. Volume III (Nov.), 1750, p. 586. "The speech of Paul the
Apostle to the Athenians. Acts Ch. xvii. verse 22 paraphrased."
(A MS seen at Newhailes in 1939 by Professor A. G. Hoover, Oberlin
College, Ohio, called 'Notes of my Endeavours to serve the Public'
reveals the fact that Hailes edited the volume called Sacred
Poems: or Collections of Translations and Paraphrases from
the Holy Scriptures, Edinburgh, 1751, and that he wrote the
Preface and three paraphrases. These were the Paraphrases of the
50th and 112th Psalms, and this item reprinted from the
Newcastle Magazine.)
