The family of Burnett of Leys, with collateral - Electric Scotland

PREFACE. IX.
my request, Sir James Balfour Paul, Lyon King of Arms,
who succeeded Dr. George Burnett in that office, has most
kindly contributed the following
much interest :
memoir. It will be read with
"George Burnett was born in 1822, and was admitted a
member of the Scottish Bar in 1845. The Parliament House,
during the eighteen years he walked its boards, was the resort
of many men whose names are intimately connected with
Scottish history and literature. When Burnett first joined the
Bar, Aytoun had just
been made Professor of Rhetoric in the
University of Edinburgh, Cosmo Innes in the year following
was elected to the Chair of Constitutional History in the same
University, Hill Burton was publishing his Life and Correspondence
of Hume, and giving evidence of that industry and
ability which afterwards made him famous as a historian. Not
only so, the systematic study of records and of family history
was
'
in the air.' Joseph Robertson, an Aberdeenshire man like
Burnett himself, had founded the Spalding Club for illustrating
the history of the north-east counties, a task in which he was
ably seconded by another Aberdeenshire man who was also to
make a name for himself as a Record scholar, John Stuart :
David Laing, the indefatigable secretary of the Bannatyne
Club, was constantly adding to our knowledge of Scotland and
its people from the deep stores of his learning. William Fraser,
with whom Burnett was destined often to cross swords in after
life, had not yet begun to write his series of histories of the
noble families of Scotland.
"It will be understood that in conditions like these a
young man with a taste for historical research was in no
want of encouragement and there can be no doubt that the
bent of Burnett's mind was always in that direction. History
does not record whether his fee-book, during the years in
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