Historical memoir of the family of Eglinton and Winton

P R EFACE
fTVMILY memorials, genealogy and heraldry cer-
tainly afford valuable auxiliaries to the study of
national history, whilst, necessarily, they lend im-
portant light in the contemplation of ancient manners
and the "usages of past times ; but, unfortunately,
the extreme minuteness and amount of wearisome
details to which such compositions usually, and per-
haps unavoidably, extend, render them but little
interesting to any save the parties more immediately
connected with them.
In the following pages an attempt has been made
to separate much of such purely private details from
the more important and curious portions of the
subject. Still, as Society advances in intelligence
and wealth, much of a more local nature comes to
assume greater consequence and interest in relation