455 
of Edinburgh, Session 1874 - 75 . 
formed in the year 1824, and with whose labours he became, for a 
long period, substantially identified. 
Thomas Thomson was one of the most able and learned antiquaries 
and “ .Record Lawyers” that Scotland has produced, and he would 
probably have been recognised as the greatest among them, if his 
efficiency had not been marred or impaired by some defects of 
character and peculiarities of taste which interfered greatly with 
his practical powers. His fastidiousness, his aversion to hasty or 
ill considered opinions, and his general tendency to procrastination, 
led him to allow duties to stand over that should have been in- 
stantly and resolutely performed. As a member of the “ Record 
Commission” he became busily occupied in the arrangement of 
the Ancient Records and Muniments of Scotland, and the publica- 
tion of the old Acts of Parliament of the country came to rank as 
the “magnum opus” of his life. At the time when Mr Innes be- 
came acquainted with him, he was completing, or had completed, 
the eleventh volume of that collection, but the first volume of it 
had not been begun, being the portion of the work attended with 
the greatest difficulty, involved in the deepest obscurity, and for 
which new materials were daily coming to light from sources hitherto 
undiscovered. 
The character of Mr Thomson, and his eventful history, full of 
varied incidents, some of a most pleasing, and some of a most 
painful kind, are exhibited in the interesting Memoir of him 
written after his death by Mr Innes, at the request of Mr James 
Craig. The latter years of Mr Thomson’s life were obscured by no 
ordinary gloom of misfortune. In his administration as a “ Record 
Commissioner,” and as “ Depute Clerk-Register,” his accounts were 
allowed to run into great arrear and confusion, and attention came 
at last to be called to them by the officials connected with the 
financial departments of the Government. There had, undoubtedly, 
been great neglect, and considerable disregard of the proper limits 
of expenditure, which it was found wholly impossible to justify, but 
which, I am satisfied, would all have been put right by Mr Thomson 
and his many friends, if time had been allowed. But some of the 
officials concerned, particularly the men of mere routine, were too 
peremptory, and too punctilious, to look to anything but purely 
arithmetical considerations, and that, perhaps, took place which is 
3 N 
VOL. VIII. 
