Aberdeen: Its Literature, Bookmaking, and Circulating. 267 gospels, with copies of grants to the abbey (written in Gaelic) carries us as far back as the ninth century. The original was found in Cambridge in 1715. Then in the eleventh century we have evidence of charters granted to the church of S. Nicolas in Aberdeen; and long after we have the celebrated Aberdeen Breviary, regarding which it is interesting to know, that in order to get it printed, Bishop Elphinstone (1431-1514), was the means of getting the art of printing introduced into Scotland, and the Breviary was the second work printed by Chapman in 1509-10. When re-printed in 1852-53, Dr. Lee, the editor says, there was then not more than one complete copy in Scotland. Next to the Churchman as bookmakers, Librarians must give credit to the Civic, Burgh, Municipal Corporations ; and here you are on interesting ground. For of all places in Scotland, Aberdeen has, amidst much turmoil by civil war, and loss by fire, managed to preserve the most complete records of civic rule to be found in Scotland ; dating almost continuously from the fourteenth century down to the present year. From 1398 to 1814, of the ninety-five volumes of the Council Register, only one (vol. iii.) is missing. As a contribution to history, local and general, as a picture of Scottish society, manners, laws, and customs, the Council Register is recognised as a mine of wealth. . It has been already tapped, but not more than tapped, by the Spalding Club, who have published two volumes of extracts, while other two were published by the Burgh Records Society. As Mr. P. J. Anderson states (and what he states may be thoroughly relied on), the 1537 printed pages of these four volumes is only about one thirteenth part of the contents of the register, and that only down to the year 1747. The old Spald- ing Club had thus ample materials to work upon, but the workers had got tired, and partly owing to the keen religious controversies of the time, and deep, if not loud grumblings against them of making the glorification of one Church their main object in their publications, the Club came to an end, leaving an enormous mass of material untouched, with a period of nearly one hundred years almost unexplored virgin soil. I say almost, because Kennedy in his " Annals of Aberdeen," made use of the Register up to the date of his publication, but in a somewhat careless and unsatisfactory manner, and nothing has been done since. One good thing done by the old Spalding Club was that it
