A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans

documents recently discovered, it is confidently hoped that a f«-esh
interest may be given, even to events which are generally known, by
revealing the secret springs in which they originated, detecting the real
motives of the principal agents, and removing much of the misconcep-
tion and error that still prevails respecting some of the most interesting
portions of our national annals. In as far, indeed, as regards the two
rebellions, the history of these extraordinary occurrences still remains to
be written ; whilst the political links by which they were connected have
never yet been attempted to be supplied by any competent hand. Of
the short-lived and ill-conducted insurrection of 1715, there absolutely
exists no readable or rational account ; for although the leading facts
were matter of notoriety, the true character of the whole affair has never
been duly appreciated, either as respects its causes or its consequences
nor has any effort worth mentioning been made to search out the truth,
or fathom the real views and objects of those who principally figured in
this remarkable movement. Nor has the bolder and better sustained
effort of 1745 been more fortunate in an historian. Home, with
materials in his hands, out of which a noble monument might have been
reared, betrayed the trust which the great Jacobite families of the North
liad reposed in him, and, in a pitiful anxiety to avoid giving offence
where none would have been taken, published to the world an account
remarkable for nothing but its barrenness and inanity ; whilst, from a
notion of enhancing the value of what was in itself really worthless, he
appears to have sacrilegiously destroyed the invaluable documents which
a too confiding generosity had, without condition or stipulation, placed
in his hands. Like the well known Frenchman in Greece, he defaced
tiie monuments which he could not appreciate and knew not how to use,
and thus created a blank which, to a certain extent, can never be filled
up. Nor has any subsequent writer yet executed the task which this
timid and time-serving man so cruelly bungled. We have indeed had
gossiping and garrulous narratives, manufactured out of scraps, collected
from the most impure sources, and replete with the catchpenny trumpery
which it is so much the fashion of the day to palm upon the public
but no HISTORY. It remains to be seen whether this may not yet be
supplied.
The nature of the second part of the work has already been indicated.
It is of a kind to interest deeply the heads of all the great families of
the North, in the first instance ; and there can be little doubt that, with
their usual patriotic liberalitj^ they will be inclined to encourage and
promote it by every means in their power. Of this disposition, indeed,
— ,
many of them have already given ample and honourable evidence, by