Anderson's Protocol Book.. 177 



tion of an annuity. Whether this Herbert Anderson was or 

 was not our author does not appear. We know with certainty 

 from his book and from a later collection of his protocols that 

 Anderson exercised the functions of a notary from May, 1541, 

 until January, 1568-9. Further, we find Schir Herbert Ander- 

 son mentioned in the Burgh Court Books, under date 12th 

 May, 1572, as constituting certain persons, of whom Herbert 

 Anderson, clerk, was one, his procurators in an action by 

 John Law, goldsmith (? of Edinburgh), to recover a silver 

 challace, " contenand xij vncheof siluer or thereby, "amounting 

 to " xl ss of maid werk," the challace having been delivered to 

 him eight years previously. The protocol book itself contains 

 a loose fragment, dated January, 1574, signed in a hand 

 which is very similar to that of the writer of the book itself. 

 It might, indeed, be his, but the description following the 

 signature, rather suggests that it is that of Herbert Ander- 

 son mentioned above as his procurator. The name of 

 Anderson appears frequently in the Burgh records circa 

 1561-3, as one of the Town Clerks of Dumfries, while that of 

 the second Herbert Anderson is mentioned in similar writ- 

 ings dated from fifteen to twenty years later. 



To come now to the book itself. It is a small quarto, of 

 which the covers are formed of leaves torn from two or more 

 liturgical or devotional MSS. of the 13th or 14th century. In 

 a doquet on the last page it is stated that the volume consists 

 of one hundred and twenty leaves, of which the first contains 

 an instrument concerning Janet Dunbar, lady Parton, and the 

 hundred and sixteenth an instrument concerning James John- 

 ston of Blacklaw. These instruments stand respectively first 

 and last in the book as it exists. Unfortunately, folios 29, 30, 

 45, 53-55, 97, 99, 100, 102, 104-109, and 1 17-120 are awant- 

 ing, while folios 1 10 and iii contain only the beginnings of 

 instruments. 



Occasionally Anderson's handwriting presents difficulties, 

 and some of his contractions, even when deciphered, are un- 

 familiar. Thus, in instruments Nos. i and 2, there occurs 

 what looks like " o^^s ma " or " o^s ma "—letters which re- 

 present, if we accept Mr Shirley's suggestion, the word 

 "ovirsman." It appears that not infrequently a testator 



