improved out of existence. These are, no doubt, drawbacks of a kind, but the real spectacle happens to be the people themselves-the lads and lasses— and here they have been in abundance, exuberant yet orderly, gay as holiday attire can make them, but richer still in stores of health and strength won in the harvest field. They gather to see each other, and care for little else. Mere town sights are of little moment. Not an extra score of people find their way to any of them. Burns, as he at one time wrote to Grose was likely, might as well be lying in the quiet solitude of Alloway. The Observatory, made of easier access from the Dumfries side, by the new and elegant suspension bridge across the Nith at the Dock, may attract a few specially curious, but they are mostly townsfolk or visiting friends of townsfolk. The hostelries adjacent to High Street supply the bulk of the entertainment wanted, and their resources are taxed to the utmost. Royal Oaks and Crowns, Globes and Georges (the hack "Supple Sam," in "Guy Mannering," belonged to the George) have all been too little for the demands made on them by our lively south-country Jocks and Jennies.

RENFREWSHIRE RECORDS.

IN issuing a new series of selections from the Judicial Records of Renfrewshire, Mr. Hector added a useful and entertaining volume to the historian's library, and presented a series of details regarding the administration of law in the county, as well as of the manners and condition of the people, interesting far beyond the bounds to which the different papers specially refer. In drawing from those Renfrewshire records, of which as Sheriff-Clerk he was official custodier, Mr. Hector was in reality illustrating the history of Scotland in general, and that on points

whose preceding writers of far higher pretensions were neither very full nor very accurate. A list of rents, prices, and valuations may present a dry, forbidding appearance to readers caring only for amusement or passing the time; but they form the material out of which history must be constructed, if we really desire to know how our ancestors lived at home or were controlled by civil authority. In Mr. Hector's hands the various documents submitted become something more than mere material for history. It is history itself, the Muse unrolling the historic scroll in her own way. In addition to the "libel" as presented to the Court for discussion and settlement, Mr. Hector has always a few introductory remarks to offer in the way of explanation, sometimes by way of contrast or comparison with things judicial in our own time. These remarks as a rule are not only made with brevity and intelligence, but are full of suggestive matter likely to occur only to a mind familiar with the details of legal practice and trained in the strict application of general legal principles. Nor are such details by any means as a rule of a dry statistical character; in like manner to the first volume there is in the second something for the merely curious to beguile a half-hour, and something also for those who have earnestly laboured in modern times to bring about some improvement in the local judicial business of the country. In this respect the attractive qualities of Mr. Hector's book gives ground for hope that similar collections may soon be issued illustrating the history of other counties in Scotland. Renfrewshire is not richer than others in ancient judicial records; nor does Mr. Hector say so. Rather otherwise. In all Scottish counties such records have been accumulating rapidly since 1748, when the earlier records of hereditary officials and Bailies of Barony were abolished by the Heritable Jurisdiction Act, and their records transferred to the new Sheriffs. From the absence of sufficient accommodation, as Mr. Hector justly observes, or through want of due appreciation of their value, the earlier as well as the more recent records were improperly buried and injured in obscure corners where such portions as can be preserved still await the attention of Government for publication, so far at least as the documents might be judged historically important. So late as 1873, the

judicial records of Renfrewshire were for the most part huddled on the damp
stone floor of the record room at Paisley-no inventories, covered with dust,
many missing, and all going to decay. So serious did matters look in this
department, that when Mr. Hector was appointed Sheriff-Clerk in that year he
found it necessary to decline taking possession of the records, or to be held
responsible in any way regarding them, so long as they were permitted to remain
in their then condition. Through the active exertions of Sheriff Fraser and
others funds were at length procured for putting the record room in order, and
steps taken to arrange and inventory such documents as remained. In carrying
out this congenial duty the Sheriff-Clerk naturally came across many papers
relating to the old hereditary courts and illustrative of the social condition of
the people. Believing that some of them might still interest the public, he
selected, annotated, and published portions in the press weekly during the last
three years.
The result was the first volume of records issued from the tasteful
press of the Messrs. Cook, Paisley, early in 1876. The second, with which we
are now dealing, has just been submitted to subscribers by the same careful
publishers. This series would appear, for the present at least, to close the
publication. Mr. Hector explains that his chief object has been to prompt other
custodiers of county records to follow his example, believing it to be a duty which
they should not shrink from; and to press at the same time the duty laid upon
those in authority to provide sufficient accommodation for the safe and careful
preservation of official documents. The new volume is divided into eight
convenient sections:-1, County Representation, Freeholders, &c.; 2, Old County
Families and Estates; 3, County Courts; 4, Social Condition and Manners;
5, Prisons and Prisoners; 6, the Burgh of Paisley (with a Plan, of date about
1545, and View of the Old Abbey "Yett House"); 7, Miscellaneous; 8, Rents,
Prices, &c., 1730-50. In addition to the illustrations just mentioned, a number
of well-executed facsimilies are presented of certain of the more important
documents described and inserted in the text. The volume formally bears
to be dedicated by permission to Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Bart." Eminent

as a legislator and author, and representative of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in Renfrewshire;" but during its passage through the press Sir William died at Venice. In accepting the dedication the accomplished Baronet wrote that he had read the "records with great pleasure, and tendered his thanks to Mr. Hector for the instruction and amusement they had afforded him." The volume is to be had in two sizes-a handy octavo for use, and large paper for book-fanciers inclining to luxury or display.

Curious rather than important, the gleanings of the late Mr. Hector from the record room of his county have been strung together in a narrative of such historic interest as entitles him to the thanks of readers far removed from the circle of mere local antiquaries, and fully justifies the desire expressed that he would gather into a neat, convenient book-form what was at first intended to serve a more ephemeral purpose in the columns of a local newspaper. From the SheriffClerk's familiarity with Renfrewshire and his local knowledge of most record repositories in the county, it is to be wished he could have seen his way to have enlarged his scheme so far as to include not only records of older date than he has referred to, but documents other than those which naturally fell under his own official custody. It would have been well, for instance, to have had set forth with some local colouring that remarkable dispute described in the Abbey Cartulary as occurring between the abbot and convent on the one hand and a contumacious layınan, known as Gilbert the son of Samuel of Renfrew, on the other, concerning certain church lands on the north side of the Clyde, one property being minutely described as the great house made of wattles-"domus magna fabricata de virgis” -intended for the entertainment of pilgrims journeying to the Shrine of St. Patrick. It presents what is probably the earliest specimen furnished by ecclesiastical law of trial by jury, and is, besides, interesting as settled by evidence taken on oath of witnesses familiar with the localities and persons described in the process. The abbot and convent of Paisley appealed to Pope Gregory the Ninth to vindicate the rights of their house, and His Holiness so far espoused their cause as to issue at Spoletum, 8th June, 1232, a commission to the Deans of Carrick

and Cunningham and the master of the schools of Ayr within the diocese of Glasgow, to redress, without appeal, the grievances complained of. The commission is afterwards described as sitting at Ayr on the Sabbath immediately following the Lord's-Day on which is sung "Quasi modi genite," 30th April, 1234. Then a search, say in the town-clerk's office under a trained eye like Mr. Hector's, might be made to reveal something concerning that preposterous riot on the part of Renfrew, referred to in a letter addressed by James IV., 23rd December, 1490, to John, Earl of Lennox, and Matthew Stewart, his son, commanding them, at the instance of the abbot, to make inquisition for the discovery and punishment of divers persons of the burgh of Renfrew, who, animated apparently by ill-will and jealousy against the town of Paisley, shortly before erected by the Sovereign into a free burgh of barony, had during the night-time riotously destroyed the stones and hewn-work of the market cross of that town. Some more reference also to the old families of Renfrewshire and their residences would have been a pleasant feature in a collection of records relating to a county so famous for its antiquarian interests in these respects. Documents, judicial or municipal, public or private, are always welcome when they can be connected with the traditions of such houses as the Montgomeries and Cunninghams, Maxwells and Stewarts, or even with those of lesser estate, though equally distinguished, like the Dennistouns, Napiers, and Mures. Crawford, too, of Jordanhill, a daring soldier of the reign of James VI., connects himself intimately with Paisley, by appearing early in 1570 before the Abbey to take over the fabric on behalf of the King, along with the body of Robert, Lord Sempill, under an assurance that all persons in the Abbey and Place would be set at liberty, excepting only those under suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Henry, Lord Darnley, his Majesty's father. An unlucky ordination dinner at Inchinnan, where "the meat was not nyce," and the ale only "twopenny," as set forth with graphic vigour by Mr. Hector, hardly requires the pleasant fancy of the author of "The Pen Folk," or even the antiquarian enthusiasm of the historian of "Saint Mirin," to connect itself with a record known as "The Inventure of the graithe in Inchinane, with the auld rotten