butterflies:-and so on through the other heads. The remedy lay in digesting the information furnished, instead of pouring it out all crude. An editor's labour would no doubt be much increased by such a view of his duty, and he might find himself obliged really to call for some of the scientific assistance which his programme had blazoned. But the reader would reap the benefit. We should have, instead of the piecemeal patchwork of the accounts of all parishes as they stand, a digested view of the physical and political history of each of the great natural districts or ancient political provinces (often identical); reserving for the minor and arbitrary subdivisions of parishes, only that which is peculiar to each of them. We should have, in short, some approach to the works of Surtees and Raine, some imitation of the great and admirable county histories of England.

But the real civil history' of a parish is its local and territorial history, the history of its soil, from the first settling of the Saxon town' or 'hame' the Danish burgh' or 'by-the Norman vil;' the clearing of its forests; the tenures of its lands from the earliest gift of the manor to the lords who afterwards took their name from it, and the first donation of toft and croft in pure alms to the chaplain celebrating at its rustic altar. These are subjects peculiarly within the sphere of the parish historian, and to most readers, the most interesting part of his work. It is in these that we find the Statistical Accounts most miserably defective, and it is in these that no editorship could have supplied the place of patient and intelligent local research. Both the Old and the New neglect the most patent sources of information. Some of those within the power of the elder writers we have already hinted at. But since the publication of their work the study of antiquities had made progress in Scotland; the industrious George Chalmers, with all defects of style, and often of reasoning, had collected an immense mass of facts of the greatest value in the three volumes of his Caledonia,' all that he lived to complete. Still later, numerous Historical Societies had arisensome of them devoting their attention to the illustration of particular districts-all labouring to preserve and render accessible the collections and even the scattered fragments of record and chronicle, the very materials of local history. By these Societies, founded on the model of the Roxburghe Club, but far outgoing their parent in scope and usefulness, most of the ancient registers of the Church -of bishopric and monastery-have been printed; as well as large collections of local and family histories and that class of minor chronicles often more characteristic and instructive than more stately history. The Spalding Club,' in particular, an association expressly for the illustration of the north-eastern shires, has distinguished

distinguished itself in this career. Its generous president, the Earl of Aberdeen, set the example, and the Club has now printed two large volumes of charters and ancient documents illustrative of the early history of Aberdeen and Banff shires. These are the proper materials for the parish historian, and, so far as it extends, that collection, made with great research, and exhibiting the most extensive charter learning, really saves the whole labour of working out the authorities from which he must compile his account, In some instances this and similar recent aids have been used. But these are the exceptions. In general the ministers have despised such helps,-have preferred some silly tradition or impossible romance to the authentic and proved history of their parishes; and where this is the case in both works, the authors and editor of the New Statistical are most to blame, for they erred against better light.

We must not be surprised to find Scotch ministers glorying in their ignorance of the planters of our common faith, St. Ninian, the apostle of Galloway, whose White Church, shining over the waters of the Solway, was an object of veneration as early as the days of the Venerable Bede, is ignored by the Rev. Mr. Archibald M'Arthur, minister of Kilninian. He says his parish 'seems to have got its name from some reputed saint called Ninian, of whom there is now no tradition' (Old Statistical, vol. xiv. p. 139) But the incumbent of St. Ninian's own see of Whithern, while he dutifully acknowledges the saint, and tells us of the church he founded in the fourth century (the fifth, he means), startles us as much when he asserts that four Gothic arches of that church make part of the present place of public worship! Not content with this piece of monstrous antiquity, the Rev. Isaac Davidson, D.D., throws aside the palpable etymology of the name of Whithern-a plain Saxon translation of Candida Casa-and proposes this exquisite derivation: As there are the remains of a Roman camp within one mile's distance of the town, may not Whithern be a corruption of via tertiæ, i. e. legionis vel cohortis? Via tertiæ might easily pass into Vitern, and Vitern again into Whithern. In Britain the V is often changed into W, and the Winto V. Thus in London many say "Weal, vine, and winegar are wery good wittles, I wow." (Ibid. vol. xvi. p. 276.) To the great detriment of his reader, the writer on this parish in the New Statistical has discarded this morsel of etymology, but he retains and re-asserts the antiquity of his church, and gravely assures us that 'a few arches remain to tell of the original grandeur' of the white church of St. Ninian. (New Statistical, Wigton, p. 54.) He should have told us, like his predecessor, in what style St. Ninian built his church of the fifth century! The minister of Dull has discovered that St. 2 B 2

Ninian

Ninian was the companion of St. Columba' (ibid., Perth, p. 766), though it has been generally thought they lived at least a century asunder.

To be ignorant about St. Ninian may be praiseworthy; but churches of old were occasionally dedicated to higher protectors. Among others, it was common in Scotland to place them under the peculiar care of Michael the Archangel; and it is of one of these (Kirkmichael) that a writer in the New Statistical says 'The name of this parish, which is common to no fewer than five parishes in Scotland, is obviously derived from St. Michael, a saint of great note in the Romish Breviary, who flourished in the tenth century' (!) (Ibid., Ayr, p. 492.) The minister of Crossmichael also tells us that St. Michael seems to have been regarded as an individual of more than ordinary sanctity' (!) &c. (ibid., Kirkcudbright, p. 190), not suspecting that he is speaking of 'the great archangel'-of him who in heaven made war upon the great Dragon. The Rev. Mr. Robert Arthur, a Ross-shire minister, goes a little further, and finds a burial-place for the archangel, as well as for St. Martin of Tours. Keill-Mhichel and Keill-Mhartin,' says he, 'the Gaelic names of Kirkmichael and St. Martin's, signify the burying-places of Michael and Martin, who were probably the two Popish saints to whom the churches were dedicated.' (Old Stat. vol. xiv. p. 88.) The church of Kilmorack-a Gaelic word meaning literally the church of Mary'-was dedicated, like so many others, to the Blessed Virgin. The minister was at a loss who this Mary' might be: But from what family this lady sprang cannot with certainty be ascertained, though it seems most likely she was a descendant of one of the lairds of Chisholm.' (Ibid., vol. xx. p. 401.) Oh fie! Mr. John Fraser! The suggestion appeared so valuable, and probably so gratifying to the clan, that it has been repeated by the more recent topographer. (New Stat. Inverness, p. 361.)

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The ministers' contempt for church learning is not confined to that which is connected with the great ancient European hierarchy, nor to that which they love to describe as the time of 'Popery'-the demogorgon of their dreams-but extends to the Reformed Episcopal Church, or Prelacy,' a scarecrow made up of bishops and curates, surplice and lawn-sleeves-to all sects and denominations, in short, but the followers of Calvin and Knox. One divine, describing the monuments of his churchyard, saysThe most remarkable is that of Reverendus et pius Geo. Meldrum de Crombie et quondam de Glass præco. He was episcopal minister or bishop of Glass. There is a half-length figure of the bishop,' &c. (Ibid., Banff, p. 383.) The commonest books might have satisfied this historian of his parish that there

was

was never such a bishop as Mr. George Meldrum—no such diocese as Glass; but what did it matter whether he was bishop or episcopal minister-whether Glass was a bishop's see or rural cure? The præco de Glass' was confessedly a miserable Prelatist; and a Presbyterian might dispose of him with as little study or thought as he assigns to Druids or Culdees, his favourite personages for the solution of all the difficulties of ecclesiastical antiquity.

This ultra-Calvinistic bigotry shuts out all acquaintance with general church history and Christian antiquities-ecclesiastical architecture and nomenclature-modes of writing and dating of the Middle Ages-a slight knowledge of which in other countries goes to the education of a gentleman. A Scotch clergyman writing for Scotchmen is obliged to describe the choir of a church (it is an ancient cathedral) as that part in which some special rites of the Church of Rome were performed.' (Ibid., Forfarshire, p. 133.) The incumbent of Corstorphin speaks of a font as a large circular basin of freestone, used as the depository of the holy water in times of Popery' (ibid., Edinburgh, p. 217); and renders an inscription in memory of the founder delightful to his friends of the Presbytery dinner-table by giving as its concluding words -Orate pro Papa et eo. Some vehement Protestant, to be sure, has industriously scratched out the words of ancient Christian charity-but enough remains to indicate the common abbreviated form of Orate pro anima ejus.' (Ibid., Edinburgh, p. 233.)* The same gentleman who conjectures the Virgin Mary to have been a daughter of the laird of Chisholm may be excused for quoting the foundation charter of the priory of Beaulieu A.D. 1230, as 'confirmed by Pope Gregory III., Rom. Julii, pontificatus sui anno quarto.' (Ibid. Inverness, p. 365.) The latter words being unintelligible are prudently left in Latin: and the worthy minister never troubled himself to inquire how a charter of 1230 could be confirmed by a Pope of the eighth century. The writer on a remote parish in Caithness has thought that a proper place for a

Presbyterian writers, lay as well as clerical, are given to such blunders. Bailie Cleland, the author of 'Annals of Glasgow,' and statistical works of great pretension, speaks of the Holy Lamb and Quintigerne or a Pronobis!' (Statistics of Glasgow, 1832, p. 241.) He wished to say that certain Will Dowsings' of the North had efaced from the walls of the cathedral church of St. Kentigern at Glasgow the sculptured figure of an Agnus Dei and an inscription Quintigerne ora pro nobis. But a few years ago the University of Glasgow made this literary Bailie a Doctor of Laws! Maitland, the historian of Edinburgh, tells of priests being prohibited to have fire-makers (focarias)! and, speaking of choristers required to be skilled in cantu et discantu-the plain song and descant of the choir-translates it quietly able to count and discount!' And this translation goes the round of the guide-books and picture-books to this day!

general

6

general disquisition on the rise and progress of Christianity in Scotland. He tells us, Saint Columba was Abbot or President of the Presbyterian College of Iona-that Presbyterian ministers or Culdees from Iona were speedily settled over all the west and north of Scotland'-that Presbyterianism, derived from the Scriptures and apostolic days, continued for ages the form of ecclesiastical government in the Scottish church, unmixed with prelacy till 909, when Constantine the Third appointed Kellach bishop of St. Andrews.' (Ibid., Caithness, pp. 159-160.) This learned historian, who speaks of the state of things in A.D. 909 as if he had the Minutes of the General Assembly of the Kirk for that year before him, when he comes lower down laments that the distresses caused in the seventeenth century by the episcopalian intruders and persecutors threw the country back into the Popish darkness and disorder out of which it had been rapidly emerging. Most of the parishes were vacant. In one or two there were episcopalian incumbents-a sample of the men who had been intruded in the times of Episcopacy, scandalous in their lives, and opposed, or at least indifferent, to the promotion of either the religion or education of the people.' (Ibid., p. 167.) If it be asked what the writer knows of the scandalous life and irreligion of these abhorred Prelatists, he might answer that he is as well acquainted with them as with the Presbyterian Culdees of Iona.

its

In the chapter of etymologies, Swift, with his Andromache and Alexander the Great formed out of Andrew Mackie' and ' All eggs under the grate,' has hardly gone beyond these reverend topographers. Dalmelington, a parish of Ayrshire, is said by the Rev. Mr. Duncan M'Myne to be a misreading: true orthography is Dame Helen's Town, so called after a lady of rank and fortune.' (Old Stat., vol. vi. p. 71.) Culter, a parish of Lanarkshire, has its name from Culter, a Latin word signifying a coulter or ploughshare, though it is uncertain upon what account this parish was so named.' (Ibid., p. 75.) By the next writer who has to find a derivation for his parish of the same name, cultura is preferred to cultrum (ibid., p. 80). Restenot, the name of a priory in Angus, was 'expressive of the purpose for which it was built a safe repository for the charters, &c., of the monastery of Jedburgh. (Ibid., p. 510.) The writer evidently read the name Rest in it! As to the derivation of the word Livingstone,' says another, we will not even offer a conjecture.' (Ibid., vol. xx, p. 12.) The frequent occurrence in early records of a personage of consequence called Levin, and the old charter name of this parish-villa Levini (Levinstun)—really do not leave much room for conjecture. Of the name of Abercorn (venerable in the

antiquities