32 Transactions. 



posed to have been on this occasion the gift was made, though 

 it bears date the year following. This is Mr Chambers' 

 opinion in his Domestic Annals of Scotland. " Most proba- 

 " bly," says that author,* " it was while spending this month 

 " in Dumfries, and not during 1598, when he certainly did 

 " not visit the town, that he conferred this mark of his favour." 



The exjilanation of this discrepancy may be that the 

 date was put on at some distance of time after the event, 

 and in the absence of the record. 



In our two Guide Books the date assigned for the gift is 

 1617, — when the King is known to have passed through 

 Dumfries to England. The same date is also given in the 

 Statistical Account of Dumfries. But no authority is stated 

 in any of these cases, nor any reference made to the date 

 upon the Gun. 



The Town Council records of that period are not extant, 

 the earliest being, I am informed, 1650, and the Trades' 

 records, having been sold, are in the hands of a private party 

 by purchase. 



With regard to the letters I. M. on the Gun, I am not 

 aware whether any satisfactory explanation has ever been 

 given. It has indeed been said that they are the initials 

 of John Maxwell, Provost of Dumfries, if such there was. 

 But, 1, as the Gun was not given to the Provost or Magistrates, 

 as in Kirkcudbright, but to the Trades themselves, it is im- 

 probable that the Provost's name would be set upon it ; and, 

 2, in jjoint of fact it rather appears that the Provost of the 

 time was one of the Irvings of the family of Bonshaw. 



In default, therefore, of a better explanation, I am dis- 

 jjosed to think that in this instance the royal donor, who was 

 a great scholar, and prided himself not a little on his attain- 

 ments, had in his eye a reference to the classical phrase, 

 in medium or in media civitate, meaning /or all, or in trust 

 for the common good of the town.-f- 



* Domestic Annals, vol. I. p. 294. 

 t Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Terence, — in all these authors the phrase occurs, 

 in various ways, and sometimes more than once. Terence says : — 

 " In medio omnibus 

 Palma est posita."' — Ter., Phormio, prol. 

 This WRs quite the position of the Siller Gun. 



