Spottiswoode Society > History of the affairs of the Church and State of Scotland from the beginning of the reformation to the year 1568 > Volume 1

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER. XCV
rably good Collection of Papers relating to this same period,
transcribed from the Cotton Library in England ; l yet still
it is greatly to be wished that this very learned and commu-
nicative Body would provide themselves with a more large
and exact transumpt of all the Scottish Papers to be found
there, since this would not only become a shining ornament
to their Library, but be of great use also for furnishing out
a true and certain account of the transactions of our Nation.
The last and truly the principal thing of all for which the
A uthor is sensible he has very great need to pray the favour
of his readers, is the not ranging all the particular facts, and
every voucher of the facts, in their due and proper places.
Had this Work been kept up for a longer space, he would
surely have taken care to dispose the materials in their true
situation ; but as the time projected at first for the publi-
cation of it was already much elapsed, through the loss or
falling by of some Records of the Privy Council, and sundry
materials having come to hand after there was ground given
to look for no more, the Author found himself under a
necessity either to suppress these Memorials altogether, and
so leave some facts untouched at all, and others but too
imperfectly cleared up, or else to insert these still welcome
Memorials in such places as could then be most conveniently
got done. But besides all this, the Author makes ingenuous
acknowledgment also, that upon re-considering the Work,
after some part of it had been printed off, he observed that
sevei-al things might be added to it ; and these he thought
far better to throw in after the best manner he could, rather
than allow the Book to go abroad under any known imper-
fections, or to have published afterwards these Additions and
Memorials apart by themselves, or with such others as might
hereafter cast up, as indeed it may be expected that several
new Memorials may still be discovered. And therefore on
both these accounts, with great deference the Author sup-
plicates a favourable acceptation of this disorder ; and it is
under the protection of this safe-guard alone that he ven
tures to offer even here to his readers some Papers which
he supposes they would not wish to be deprived of, notwith-
standing they did not arrive timeously enough to be dis-
in any other place.
1 [In the British Museum.— E.J