By the kindness of the Earl of Dalhousie I was permitted to see this epitaph, and, if I chose, to print it in this edition.

I am, however, unwilling to stain my pages with such an ungenerous and, indeed, I may say, so scurrilous a representation of the character of one who, in the just opinion of our Lyon King-at-Arms, himself a Burnett of the Kemnay branch, has characterised the Bishop of Salisbury as "true and honest, and far beyond the standard of his times as a Clergyman and as a Bishop." But the epitaph found in these Panmure papers shows clearly the prejudices of the age in which it was written, and in fact only embodies something of that spirit and of those opinions which we have known as still lingering in our own Reminiscences.
If it were not on my part a degree of presumption, I might be inclined to consider myself in this volume a fellow-labourer with the late accomplished and able Mr.Robert Chambers.

In a very limited sphere it takes a portion of the same field of illustration.

I should consider myself to have done well if I shall direct any of my readers to his able volumes.

Whosoever wishes to know what this country really was in times past, and to learn, with a precision beyond what is supplied by the narratives of history, the details of the ordinary current of our social, civil, and national life, must carefully study the _Domestic Annals of Scotland_.