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Lord Hailes's Contributions to Contemporary Magazines by Robert Hay Carnie
  
  
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Lord Hailes's Contributions to Contemporary Magazines
by
Robert Hay Carnie

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]


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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


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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, Richard Gough, 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 David Dalrymple, 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


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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


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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.

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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].)

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  • *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

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    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.)

Notes

[1]

That by David Laing which accompanies his article on Lord Hailes in the Encyclopœdia Britannica (7th Edition, 1883). This article was also published as a separate octavo pamphlet, and a copy of this in the National Library of Scotland has a few MS corrections in Laing's hand. An important unprinted check-list of Hailes's publications is that given as an Appendix to Correspondence of Horace Walpole and Lord Hailes, ed. A. G. Hoover (Yale University Thesis, 1939). Neither of these lists is complete either for separate publications or magazine articles. Magazine articles not listed by either of the above have been starred * in the following list. There are twenty-seven starred items.

[2]

Edinburgh Magazine or Literary Miscellany, New Series, I. March), 1793, 167-169. 'Obituary notice of Lord Hailes.' cf. also Alexander Dalrymple to George Chalmers, 16th Aug., 1794, British Museum Add. MSS. 22900. f. 243.

[3]

A very considerable bulk of letters to Lord Hailes, a few letters by him, and a number of commonplace books and drafts of his published works have been preserved at Newhailes, near Musselburgh. Sir Mark Dalrymple, Bart., of Newhailes has made microfilms of these MSS available for study in the National Library of Scotland. Where I have used this material my reference, e.g. Newhailes 227, is to the microfilm number in the N. L. S.

[4]

David Steuart Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan (1742-1829). This extraordinary man, best known as the founder of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, collected some of his magazine articles in Anonymous and Fugitive Essays collected from Various Works, Vol. I, Edinburgh, 1812. He planned a second volume, and his manuscript collection for this has been recently acquired by Edinburgh University Library. (Information from C. Finlayson, Keeper of MSS. E.U.L.)

[5]

Chief of these was Thomas Thomson (1768-1852). Thomson was one of Scotland's great record scholars and was a friend of Sir walter Scott. Thomson had the support of the family in his plan to write a memoir and produce an edition, but he never completed the work. Cf. C. Innes, Life of Thomas Thomson (Edinburgh, 1854): Bannatyne Club Publications, 99, p. 40 et seq. George Chalmers, the Edinburgh antiquary, also intended a life and took some steps to collect materials from William Cooke, Dean of Ely and Hailes's master at Eton, and from Alexander Dalrymple. Cf. Letter Cooke to Dr. Foster. 1795 (N.L.S. MSS, vol. no. 2956.) D. Laing's 'Miscellaneous Notes on Authors' (E.U.L. Laing Collection) tells us that one Thomas Edward Ritchie intended to include Hailes in a series of biographies and applied to Lady Hailes for permission. The work was not produced, though Ritchie wrote an account of a more famous Scot in his An Account of the Life and Writings of David Hume (London, 1807). I think it not impossible that Laing confused T. E. Ritchie with William Ritchie, (1781-1831) who planned, at the age of 21, a Biographia Scotica which he never completed, just as Hailes himself failed to complete his own projected work in the same field. Cf. D.N.B. (1885-1900 ed.), vol. 48, p. 325.

[6]

Songs from David Herd's Manuscripts, ed. Hans Hecht (1904), Intro. p. 71.

[7]

Buchan's usual pseudonym was 'Albanicus', but he also used a variety of others. Cushing, Initials and Pseudonyms (1886), p. 44 lists Richard Gough as using D. H. in the Gentleman's Magazine.

[8]

I have not included Hailes's well-known Mirror and World essays in my list. The World essays (1755) are nos. 140, 147, and 204. No. 140 was reprinted in the Scots Magazine, cf. Item 20. In Henry Mackenzie's Mirror (1779-1780) Hailes forwarded papers for the nos. 21, 46, 56, 62, 86, 97, 98. All the contributions were anonymous and Hailes informed Mackenzie, when the latter was preparing a collected edition, that he preferred them to remain so. (Letter 20th May, 1780. N.L.S. MSS, Vol. No. 124.) In N.L.S. MSS, Vol. No. 588, a draft of Essays 97 and 98 has survived, with considerable alteration either by the author or the editors. In the same volume can be found a single sheet which contains a paragraph which belongs to Essay 86, but which was presumably rejected before publication.

[9]

John Loveday (1742-1809). This was the younger Loveday, a scholar and antiquarian. Cf. D.N.B., vol 34, p. 162.

[10]

Cf. Items Nos. 5 & 6 etc.

[11]

Cf. Items Nos. 10 & 11.

[12]

James Sibbald (1745-1803). For an account of this man cf. D.N.B. vol. 52, p. 179. and Scots Magazine (1803), p. 362. Apart from the two drafts mentioned in Items Nos. 10 & 11, no correspondence has, unfortunately, survived.

[13]

E. g., Memorials and Letters relating to the History of Britain in the Reign of James the First (Glasgow, 1762) & The Secret Correspondence of Sir Robert Cecil with James VI, King of Scotland (London, 1766).

[14]

Cf. Item No. 21 & No. 24.

[15]

Cf. Item No. 21.

[16]

Cf. Item No. 19.

[17]

Cf. Correspondence of Horace Walpole. ed. W.S.Lewis and others, Yale edition, XV, (1952), 58.

[18]

Cf. Newhailes MSS. 449-456. An example of Hailes's Latin verse is given in Item No. 6.

[19]

Prof. A. G. Hoover visited Newhailes in 1939, and saw this specimen there. No such document has been filmed for the microfilm collection.

[20]

In those cases where the magazine article has no title, or a non-descriptive one, I have supplied one.

[21]

Hailes uses the phrase 'Marian controversy' in his letters as early as 1761. I know of no earlier example of its use to describe the huge literature based on the reputation of Mary, Queen of Scots.

[22]

One by C. Finlayson, Keeper of the MSS, E.U.L., who very kindly informed me of his find which led to further search.

[23]

Hailes tried to stimulate other writers to produce lives of eminent Scotsmen in the same format as he had produced his speciments, but with little success. The Earl of Buchan was one of his few supporters.

[24]

Several of these are preserved in the National Library of Scotland. The verso of each sheet was left blank to allow of manuscript annotation.

[25]

This letter is quoted by permission of the Yale Boswell Committee and the McGraw-Hill Book Company.