Eight volumes came into the possession of the Faculty of Advocates, and under their auspices two folio volumes of legal decisions from 1678 to 1712 were published in 1759 and 1761.[6] In 1837 the Bannatyne Club printed The Historical Observes, 1680-1686, a complete Ms. in the Advocates’ Library, and in 1848 they printed two volumes of Historical Notices, 1661-1688.  These are after 1678 selections from the same MSS. from which the folio of 1759 was compiled, and the additions to the text of the folio are not numerous, though the historical matter, which was buried among the legal decisions, is presented in a more convenient form.  But from 1661 to 1678 (about half of vol. i.) and especially from 1670 (for the previous entries occupy only a few pages) the notices are all new and many of them of considerable interest.  In printing these volumes, which I believe are acknowledged to contain some of the best material for the history of Scotland at the time, the Bannatyne Club carried out a design which had been long cherished by the late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder,[7] though he did not live to see its complete fulfilment, and he was helped in his efforts by Sir Walter Scott.  The story[8] is worth telling more fully than has yet been done.  In the winter of 1813-14 Sir Thomas, then a young man, met Sir Walter at a dinner-party.  Sir Walter expressed his regret ’that something had not been done towards publishing the curious matter in Lord Fountainhall’s MSS.,’[9] and urged Sir Thomas to undertake the task.  In 1815 Sir Thomas wrote to Scott asking about a box in the Advocates’ Library believed to contain MSS. of Fountainhalls.  Sir Walter replied as follows:—­

    [6] See Mr. David Laing’s Preface to the Historical Notices,
        p. xx, Bannatyne Club.

    [7] Author of The Moray Floods, The Wolf of Badenoch, and other
        well-known books.

    [8] The original correspondence was bound up by Sir Thomas in a volume
        along with Mylne’s book (see infra), and is in the
        possession of Sir T.N.  Dick Lauder.

    [9] Letter, Sir T.D.  Lauder to Sir W. Scott, 22nd May 1822,
        infra.

’Dear Sir,—­I am honoured with your letter, and should have been particularly happy in an opportunity of being useful in assisting a compleat edition of Lord Fountainhall’s interesting manuscripts.  But I do not know of any in the Advocates’ Library but those which you mention.  I think it likely I may have mentioned that a large chest belonging to the family of another great Scottish lawyer, Sir James Skene of Curriehill, was in our Library and had never been examined.  But I could only have been led to speak of this from the similarity of the subject, not from supposing that any of Lord Fountainhall’s papers could possibly be deposited there.  I am very glad to hear you are busying yourself with a task which will throw most important light upon the history of Scotland, and am, with regard, dear sir, your most obedt. servant,

  ’Walter Scott.
  ‘Edinr., 19 February 1815.’