Series 1 > Grameid: an heroic poem descriptive of the campaign of Viscount Dundee in 1689, and other pieces

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they are never disinterred; and our great object is to invite pro¬
prietors who may care about their records, and who may wish to
have them preserved, to offer them for the examination, and, if
possible, for printing by the Society. In connection with that, I
should be prepared to propose to the Society an amendment on the
rules, which, I think, would offer an inducement to the proprietors
of such papers to offer them to us. We at present offer twenty
copies as the property of the editors of these volumes, and that is,
I think, a very fair and adequate arrangement. But I do not
think we have made any provision for those to whom the papers
belong, and it seems to me that it is well worth the consideration
of the Society whether we should not offer to the proprietors of
mss. who are willing to place them at the disposal of the Society
twenty or thirty copies, which would be at their sole disposal, and
which would make it an object for proprietors to offer them for
printing or publication. There are many persons, I do not doubt,
who have very interesting diaries and journals and records of the
past, and who would be very glad to see them printed, and to be
able to have a few copies to give to the members of the family
whom they concern. They might not be in a position to print
them for themselves, and they might gladly avail themselves of
the instrumentality of the Society to secure that family publicity,
if I may so say, which they desire. I think that is well worth the
attention of the Society; and I trust that those members who
know of manuscript journals or collections of letters, or any papers
throwing light on the domestic history of Scotland of the past,
will not lose any opportunity of impressing on the proprietors of
these collections what a chance is offered by this Society of ren¬
dering them permanently valuable to the historian of the present
and of the future. I think I may congratulate you most warmly
on the appearance of your two first volumes. They will vie with
the publications of any of the old book-clubs of Scotland, both in
appearance and printing. To the future volumes we shall append
a short private report of the proceedings of the Society, so that we
may not be bothered with those little fly-leaves and those pam¬
phlets which are difficult to preserve. But I think that even in
the present we have great reason to be proud of our publications;
and I must congratulate the Society upon them. I have nothing
more to say about the report, except to move its adoption, and to
ask any members present to favour us with any practical sugges¬
tions as to developing the further utility of the Society.