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Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time

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kiv PREFA CE. some of those curious associations with which the picturesque haunts of Old Edinburgh abound. My own researches have satisfied me that the clues to many such still lie buried among the dusty parchments of old charter chests; but their recovery must, after all, depend as much on a lucky chance 18 on any very diligent inquiry. It has often.chanced that, after wading through whole bundles of such dull MSS.-those of the sixteentli century frequently measuring singly several yards in length-in vain search for a fact, or date, or other corroborative evidence, I have stumbled on it quite unexpectedly while engaged in an altogether different inquiry. Should, however, the archsological spirit which is exercising so strong an influence in France, Germany, and England, as well as in other pmts of Europe, revive in Scotland also, where so large a field for its enlightened operations remains nearly unoccupied, much that is valuable may yet be secured which is now overlooked or thrown aside a8 useless. Antiquarian research has been brought into discredit, far less by the unimaginative spirit of the age than by the indiscriminating pursuits of its own cultivators, whose sole object has too frequently been to amass ( ( a fouth 0' auld nick-nackets." Viewed, however, in its just light, as the handmaid of history, and the synthetic, more frequently than the analytic, investigator of the remains of earlier ages, it becomes B science, bearing the same relation to the labours of the historian, as chemistry or mineralogy do to the investigations of the geologist and the spe~ulations of the cosmogonist. In this spirit, and not for the mere gratification of an aimless curiosity, I have attempted, however ineffectually, to embody these MEMORIALOSF EDINBURGIHN THE OLDEN TIME. D. W. EDINBURGCHhh,r istnzas 1847. NOTE .BY THE PUBLISHER. This edition of the MWORIALSO F EDINBURGiHs an exact reprint of the original work, with the exception thak, where buildings have been removed, or other alterations made, the fact is stated either in a foot-note or otherwise.
Volume 10 Page xvi
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