272 The Library. troublous times for Scotland, yet he got Edinburgh work to do (the Book of Canons) in addition to his local work, and the number of volumes issued by him shows him to have been a busy man. Since his time, down to 1859, there has been a regular suc- cession of town's printers entitled to use the city arms, and inheriting all the types and curious old wood blocks cut and inherited from Raban's time. So far back as 1858 I had issued in the columns of the A berdeen Herald a series of nine articles, descriptive of Raban's publications. These having attracted the favourable notice of Drs. Robertson, John Hill Burton, and Grub, I was asked to re-print them, and thought of doing "so, decorating the publica- tion, and giving it an antique flavour by the use of the original wood-cut borders, the head and tail] pieces which were so quaint and characteristic, and of which some ten years previous, I had, seen two large boxfuls in the office of the printer, Raban's successor. It may be imagined with what grief I heard, and with what deep sorrow the intelligent printer related, that in the days of his predecessor, the printer's devils had lighted the office fires with them. The shock was so severe, that I have felt an old man ever since. The want of my purposed publication has been much more than supplied by that of " The Aberdeen Printers," by Mr. J. P. Edmond, who got full liberty to the use of my articles. To you, and with my limited time, it is not necessary to even enter on the ground occupied by him. And I simply remark that while all the volumes issued by Aberdeen printers are valuable to such an institution as the British Museum, yet when duplicates are acquired by them, or by other libraries, these duplicates would be more highly valued and cherished if, in their old age, they were permitted to live in their native air, the best known elixir for long life yet known. Amongst the many Aberdonians whose names are on the rolls of fame, I mention, amongst many others, only John Barbour, Hector Boecejohn Leslie, Bishop of Ross, Bishop Patrick Forbes, Dr. Arthur Johnston, whose Latin translation of the Psalms is, on the continent, more esteemed than that of Buchanan, George Jamesone, the first Scottish painter (with able successors in Dyce, Cassie, and John Philip), Bishop Gilbert Burnet of Salisbury, Dr. John Arbuthnot, the wit in Queen Anne's time, and the friend of Swift and Pope, Alex. Cruden of the "Con- cordance," Dr. James Beattie, Dr. Hamilton, Alex. Chalmers,
