9 



records of the social and family and human life — if I may sa 

 express myself — of Scotsmen who lived here before ourselves. 

 I think that charters^ historical documents couched very often in 

 Mediaeval Latin, should be left rather to societies formed for the 

 purpose of preserving such documents, and that we should, as far 

 as possible, confine our energies to those family papers, diaries, 

 account-books, and what not, which served to throw light on the 

 domesticity of the past, and to give us some inkling — it can never 

 be more than an inkling — of what the people inhabiting this 

 country before ourselves were like. Not that I disparage the 

 other work, or wish to exclude it, but I wish to lay special stress 

 on the domestic side of our work. It may be a humble feeling, 

 but I suspect it is much more common than is generally supposed, 

 to wish to know exactly what our forefathers were like — what 

 they did, how they lived, what was, so to speak, to use a modern 

 expression, their atmosphere. Very often the old account-books 

 which have been preserved by the care of this Society gave one a 

 better idea of how a Scotsman of the seventeenth or eighteenth 

 century spent his day than all the histories of Scotland that ever 

 were written. That is a cause for which I venture to plead, and 

 I venture to ask those who are in possession of such documents to 

 let the Society have the opportunity of inspecting tliem with a 

 view to printing them. Documents do not last very long. The 

 ink fades; they become dusty. Handmaids have a tendency to 

 throw them into the fire. 1 have always thought that our most 

 useful function was in keeping such records in a readable and 

 accessible form. I may be wrong, but I venture to think that 

 we cannot do better work, as a Society for the promotion of Scot- 

 tish history, than in the humble and unobtrusive task of letting 

 every man know in every degree of life, so far as in us lies and so 

 far as documentary evidence exists, how our forebears lived and 

 worked and carried on the business of their country in their 

 separate spheres. I beg to move the adoption of the report. 



Mr. FiTZROY Bell seconded the adoption of the report, and the 

 motion was unanimously agreed to. 



Lord Rosebery next said — Now, ladies and gentlemen, I come 

 to the real business of this meeting, which will not require such a 

 long speech as I have already made to you. There is not a person 

 here, and there is not a person conversant with the work of this 

 Society outside, who does not know the deep debt, the eternal 



