¹ Shapin, Steven, ‘Property, patronage, and the politics of science: the founding of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’, The British Journal for the History of Science, (1974), 7, pp. 1–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

² The Moderates have been the subject of a recent book by Sher, Richard, Church and University: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh, Princeton, 1985.Google Scholar

³ Clark, Ian D.L., ‘From protest to reaction: the moderate regime in the Church of Scotland’, in Scotland in the Age of Improvement (ed. Phillipson, NT. and Mitchison, Rosalind), Edinburgh, 1970, pp. 200–224, 203.Google Scholar

⁴ Cant, Ronald C., ‘David Steuart Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan: founder of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland’, in The Scottish Antiquarian Tradition: Essays to Mark the Bicentenary of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and its Museum, 1780–1980, ed. Bell, A.S., Edinburgh, 1981, pp. 1–30, 8–9Google Scholar. The involvement of Thomas and Henry Erskine with Scottish radicals is noticed in Bewley, Christina, Muir of Huntershill, Oxford, 1981.Google Scholar

⁵ This is discussed by Emerson, R.L. in four recent articles: ‘The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh 1737–1747’Google Scholar; ‘… 1748–1768’; ‘…1768–1783’, The British Journal for the History of Science, (1979, 1981, 1985), 12, 14 and 18, pp. 154–191, 133–176, 255–303Google Scholar. More material concerning the P.S.E. can be found in ‘The Edinburgh Society for the Importation of Foreign Seeds and Plants, 1764–1773’, Eighteenth-Century Life, (1982), 7, (n.s., 2), pp. 73–95Google Scholar. Information about the P.S.E. presented here is drawn from those papers.

⁶ Thomson, John, An Account of the Life, Letters, and Writings of William Cullen, M.D., 2 vols, Edinburgh, 1859, 2, pp. 218–219Google Scholar; Glasgow University Library (hereafter G.U.L.), Cullen Mss, Box 9.7, ‘Memorial for the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh’.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Kerr, Robert, Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Correspondence of William Smellie, 2 vols, Edinburgh, 1811, i, pp. 63, 65–67Google Scholar. The reference to ‘police’ may refer to the ‘Memorials’ which contains complicated rules for fining absent members or working out a schedule for the reading of papers.

⁹ Shapin, Steven, ‘The Royal Society of Edinburgh: a study of the social context of Hanoverian science’, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Pennyslvania, 1971, pp. 132–135.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Edinburgh University Library (hereafter E.U.L.), Horn Papers, Box 4, ‘Transcriptions of the Edinburgh Town Council Minutes’, 26 October 1774. The Town made it clear to Duncan that his service as a deputy would give him no claim on the chair. Other contenders for the chair included Drs Gregory Grant, William Buchan, (? Daniel) Rutherford and James Lind (b. 1736).

¹¹ ‘All that Dr Duncan wished for was that the magistrates should as formerly, send to the professors a list of the candidates that might offer, requesting their opinion which of them they believed to be best qualified for discharging the duties of that important office in all its branches; or, if they had any particular reason for not thus consulting the professors, that they should take the opinion of the colleges of physicians and surgeons at large on the same question. But in place of this, the Lord Provost [James Stoddart, who opposed Sir Lawrence Dundas in burgh affairs c. 1776–1777] put a verbal question to the Medical Professors, asking whether they had any objection to Dr James Gregory. To which the Professors returned an answer in writing informing him that they had no objection to Dr Gregory’, Medical and Philosophical Commentaries, (1776), 4, 1, p. 99.Google Scholar

¹² Rosner, Lisa M., ‘Andrew Duncan M.D., FRSE (1744–1828)’, Scottish Men of Medicine, Edinburgh, History of Medicine and Science Unit, 1981, pp. 3, 8.Google Scholar

¹³ ‘… Mr Fullerton of Carstairs, Mr Durham of Lago, Mr Henry Erskine Advocate, Mr John Graham Advocate and several other of my friends and acquaintances have taken the charge of subscription papers’. H.M. Register House (S.R.O.), GD136/410/33. To identify the political views of voters in 1788 I have used View of the Political State of Scotland… (1788) (ed. SirAdam, Charles Elphinstone), Edinburgh, 1887.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Gray, James, History of the Royal Medical Society, Edinburgh, 1952, pp. 52–56Google Scholar. The medical professors seem not to have opposed this effort to secure incorporation and public recognition.

¹⁵ The details of these negotiations can be found in the ‘Minute Books of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’, vol. 6, pp. 66–152Google Scholarpassim; 23 October 1763, 30 October 1776–22 May 1778, Royal College of Surgeons Library.

¹⁶ Ibid., 7, p. 75. A Regius Chair of Clinical Surgery was finally established for James Russell in 1803. It rewarded his and the College's loyalty to the Dundas interest.

¹⁷ See Appendices I and II.

¹⁸ Shapin, , op. cit. (9), pp. 146–155Google Scholar. There is some indication that Kames as late as February 1778 had not given his support to Walker; National Library of Scotland (hereafter N.L.S.), Newhailes MSS.7228/24, Walker, John to Dalrymple, David, Hailes, Lord, 28 02 1778.Google Scholar

¹⁹ G.U.L., Thomson/Cullen Mss 2255, Walker, John to Cutter, William, 7 02 1778.Google Scholar

²⁰ Shapin, , op. cit. (9), pp. 146–147, 160–163.Google Scholar

²¹ It is impossible to date their election precisely but it is likely to have been about the time the P.S.E. was revived.

²² Shapin, , op. cit. (9), p. 140.Google Scholar

²³ Cant, , op. cit. (4), pp. 7–9Google Scholar; Shapin, , op. cit. (9), pp. 138–139.Google Scholar

²⁴ This is printed in: Smellie, William, Account of the Institutions and Progress of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1782, pp. 4–18.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid., p. 4.

²⁶ Sometime in 1783, Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, who listed himself as ‘FRS Edin’. but not as a Fellow of the S.A.S., read before the P.S.E. a paper entitled ‘An Account of some Extraordinary Structures on the Tops of Hills in the Highlands; with Remarks on the Progress of Arts among the Ancient Inhabitants of Scotland’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh [T.R.S.E.], (1790), 2, ii, pp. 1–31Google Scholar. This paper was in part a criticism of others on this subject by John Williams and James Anderson who had presented theirs to the S. A. S. Scots Magazine, (1781), 43, p. 51.Google Scholar

²⁷ Smellie, , op. cit. (24), p. 7.Google Scholar

²⁸ This issue is well discussed by Murdoch, Alexander in The People Above: Politics and Administration in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Scotland, Edinburgh, 1980, pp. 124–131Google Scholar; and by Murdoch, and Dwyer, John, ‘Paradigms and politics: manners, morals and the rise of Henry Dundas, 1770–1784’, in New Perspectives on the Politics and Culture of Early Modern Scotland (eds. Dwyer, John, Mason, Roger A., Murdoch, Alexander), Edinburgh, n.d. [1980], pp. 210–248Google Scholar. Discussion of many of the social problems which the Scots pondered in these years is contained in Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (eds. Hont, Istvan and Ignatieff, Michael), Cambridge, 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ Smellie, , op. cit. (24), pp. 9–10Google Scholar. On page 14 of his discourse the Earl praised the historical work of Lord Kames, Sir John Dalrymple, Walter MacFarlane, Sir Robert Douglas, William Tytler, Walter Goodall, Hugh Blair, John S win ton and Hugh Arnot. He had nothing to say about William Robertson or David Hume, who had also written history which had been critical of the works of Dalrymple, Tytler and Goodall.

³⁰ Stuart, Gilbert, A View of Society in Europe in its Progress from Rudeness to Refinement: or Inquiries Concerning the History of Law, Government and Manners, 2nd edn., London, 1782, p. 318Google Scholar. The more Whiggish writings of Sir John Dalrymple are praised.

³¹ N.L.S., Ms. 582, Watson Autographs, f176; see also E.U.L. Gen. 1429/16, n.301, Buchan, Lord to Charles, William Little of Liberton, 26 11 1782.Google Scholar

³² See, R.L. Emerson, ‘Sir Robert Sibbald and The Royal Society of Scotland’, forthcoming in Annals of Science. In a curious way, Buchan's true Scots were the kinds of men whom Sir Walter Scott also admired and in his own ways emulated as an improver, antiquary, patriot and member of an Episcopal church. Scott was no Jacobite but his sympathies were with them and others who had asserted the independence and honour of Scotland. He thought Buchan eccentric, nearly mad and possessed of a ‘crack-brained’ wit, but he shared more than a bit of his romanticism with the extraordinary Earl. At his funeral, Scott ‘felt something at parting with this old man, though but a trumpery body’, The Journal of SirScott, Walter (ed. D(avid) D(ouglas)), 2 vols, Edinburgh, 1890, ii, pp. 272, 274.Google Scholar

³³ Extracts from Buchan's ‘Discourse’ composed the leading article in the December issue of The Scots Magazine, 42, pp. 621–623.Google Scholar

³⁴ Shapin, , op. cit. (9), p. 174Google Scholar; (1), p. 23.

³⁵ See Appendices I and II.

³⁶ Smith had been a pensioner of the Duke since 1767. Through Buccleuch's influence he had been made a Commissioner of the Scottish Customs Board in 1777. Lumisden was a friend of Professor Dalzel, John Macgowan and others who could be expected to oppose Lord Buchan's plans.

³⁷ E.U.L., Laing Ms. III.352/l; printed in Shapin, , op. cit. (1), pp. 40–41.Google Scholar

³⁸ Shapin, , op. cit. (1), pp. 19–22.Google Scholar

³⁹ Smellie, William, Account … Part Second, Edinburgh, 1784, pp. 3–5.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 5; Shapin, , op. cit. (9), pp. 25–27.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Clerk-Maxwell was the other Vice-President of the P.S.E. but he was not very active in these years because of illness and because he was in his old age bereaved by a series of deaths in his family. He did not sign the P.S.E. caveat, perhaps because he was probably still a member of the S.A.S. as William Cullen was not. Lord Kames, the P.S.E. President, does not seem to have been active in the Society during its last years.

⁴² E.U.L., Laing Ms. III.352/4, Cullen, William to Walker, John, 18 10 1782.Google Scholar

⁴³ These are printed in Smellie, , op. cit. (39), pp. 13–18.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Buchan, , op. cit. (31).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ibid.

⁴⁶ Library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh [hereafter R.C.P.E.], Cullen Mss. 32:3 Buchan, Lord to Cullen, William, 28 11 1782Google Scholar. Shapin, , op. cit. (1), p. 30Google Scholar, cites what seem to be identical letters from Buchan to Allan Maconochie, Professor of Public Law and Andrew Dalzel, Professor of Greek. Both are dated 28 November 1782.

⁴⁷ On St Andrews Day, when the professors met, Buchan and the S.A.S. members celebrated at Fortune, 's Tavern the anniversary of their Society. Scots Magazine, (1782), 44, pp. 613–614Google Scholar. In his ‘discourse’ to the Society, the Earl did hope that the Society would find more ‘zeal’ in its members so that it would ‘become more and more respectable’. And, he said, perhaps sadly, ‘I have observed, with concern, that, when the pleasure arising from the novelty of our undertaking has passed, few were disposed to contribute to the interest or welfare of the Society; but that many, from whom I expected better things, have contented themselves with the amusement of passively attending our meetings, without studying the nature of our undertaking, or attempting to enable the Society to avail itself of public confidence to weather the storms which arise from the blast of envy, or to watch over the diseases to which infancy is so subject’, Smellie, , op. cit. (39), p. 11.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Memoir of Andrew Dalzel (ed. Innes, Cosmo), Edinburgh, 1861, pp. 39–40Google Scholar. Other comments on the members are contained in The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence (ed. Lewis, W.S.), 34 vols, New Haven, 1933–1966, 2, p. 261Google Scholar; 15, p. 154; 23, pp. 367–368; 29, pp. 106–107; 33, p. 365. Another Whig, John Anderson, Professor of Natural Philosophy, tried to secure a Royal Visitation of the University of Glasgow in 1784. He too was opposing friends of Dundas who dominated that university. Professor Anderson was frustrated by London politicians.

⁴⁹ Shapin, , op. cit. (1), pp. 30, 35.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Smellie, , op. cit. (39), pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

⁵¹ G.U.L., Ms.2255, Thomson/Cullen Mss, William Cullen to Dundas, Henry, Lord Advocate, 14 12 1782.Google Scholar

⁵² Membership in the Literary Class of the Royal Society was chosen by Adam Ferguson, Allan Maconochie, William Miller, William Robertson, John Russell, Adam Smith, John Steedman, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Buccleuch, William Barren, Sir Adam Fergusson and John Stewart. This removed eight resident members with little scientific competence from the Physical Class but only one man, Steedman, who was professionally concerned with science or who had sought to contribute to its advancement. He was nearly blind and no longer active as a scientist.

⁵³ Smellie, , op. cit. (39), p. 12.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Shapin, , op. cit. (1), p. 33.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Smellie, , op. cit. (39), pp. 18–28.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Nichols, John, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, 8 vols, London, 1831, vi, p. 501.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Shapin, , op. cit. (1), pp. 33.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Cullen wrote to Buccleuch, on 19 02 1783Google Scholar hut the Duke made no reply until 3 March. Then he wrote: ‘I can assure you my negligence did not proceed from any disrespect to you, or to the Philosophical Society who have honored with their votes in Electing me a Member and by that additional mark of their esteem in making me their President. I am afraid I am but ill qualified to succeed that worthy respectable and learned Man Lord Kaims. But I hope my Public and Private Conduct will at all times secure me the esteem and Confidence of that learned Society however unworthy I may be in many respects to be at their Head. I must in a particular manner thank you for that mark of your friendship in proposing me as a Candidate to that learned Society. But I am afraid your friendship has made you overlook in me those Qualifications so necessary to belong to a Member of that Society’. Buccleuch was not such a strange choice as one might think. In addition to being close to Henry Dundas and Adam Smith, he had had a hand in 1774 in tightening up the requirements for Scottish medical degrees and had been made an Honorary F.R.C.P.E. for his efforts. In 1774, he had also been chosen to present a copy of the College's new edition of the Pharmacopoeia to the King. G.U.L., Thomson/Cullen Mss, 2255; Buccleuch, to Cullen, , 19 03 1783Google Scholar; Thomson, , op. cit. (6), i, pp. 476–472Google Scholar; Thomson, /Cullen, , SirPringle, John to Cullen, William, 19 08 1774.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Smellie, , op. cit. (39). p. 29.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ A copy of the letter written by William Cullen to an unknown foreigner on 25 July 1783 states that the Royal Society ‘has absorbed and extinguished the late Philosophical’. Cullen suggested that he regarded it as dissolved by 23 June; it was certainly gone a month later. R.C.P.E.L., Cullen Mss, 33.12.

⁶¹ T.R S.E. (1788), 1, p. 11.Google Scholar

⁶² Shapin, , op. cit. (1), p. 2.Google Scholar

⁶³ Shapin, , op. cit. (1), p. 36.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ The most complete work on Edinburgh clubs is McElroy, D.D., ‘Literary clubs and societies of eighteenth-century Scotland’, Edinburgh University Ph.D. thesis, 1952Google Scholar. See also McElroy, 's shorter work, Scotland's Age of Improvement: A Survey of Eighteenth Century Literary Clubs and Societies, Pullman, Washington, 1969.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ This periodical was begun in 1773 and said it was published by ‘a Society in Edinburgh’. The Scots Magazine's account of the journal [35 (1773), pp. 204–205]Google Scholar said that Andrew Duncan was ‘secretary to our society’. It may have had some relation to the AEsculapian Club, but their ‘Minute Book’ held at R.C.P.E.L. gives no evidence to support this belief. The journal had no tie to the Philosophical Society. Duncan was its editor and the only one acknowledged in its pages. It seems, like its successors, to have been his property. No known secretary of the P.S.E. (unless Duncan was one) claimed any connection with it. Finally, if the journal had been a P.S.E. publication, that would have been announced to increase sales and Duncan could not have used it for his personal ends. The Medical Commentaries and its successors are noted by Couper, W. J. in The Edinburgh Periodical Press, 2 vols, Stirling, 1908, ii, pp. 122–130Google Scholar; and by Comrie, John D., History of Scottish Medicine, 2 vols, London, ii, pp. 507–508.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Emerson, , op. cit. (5).Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Lord Buchan submitted or intended to submit papers to this club c. 1782–1783. These dealt with ‘the leafing of different trees and Shrubs in Scotland during… 1779 and 1782… a Journal of the state of Farenheit's Thermometer during the contrasted States of the Months of January 1780, and that of the end of July and the beginning of August in [1779]’. Walker joined the Natural History Society of Edinburgh soon after the club was formed in 1782. ‘Several of his unpublished manuscripts are preserved as handwritten copies in the records of this society’. Lectures on Geology by John Walker (ed. Scott, Harold W.), Chicago and London, 1966, p. xxviii.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ A contemporary account of its founding is contained in Prize Essays and Transactions of the Highland Society to which is prefixed An Account of the Institution … by Mackenzie, Henry, Edinburgh, 1799, p. iii.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ E.U.L., Laing Mss. III: 352/3, ‘Agricultural Society of Edinburgh’.

⁷⁰ By 1783, one could have gone to Edinburgh surgeons who specialized as dentists, opthamologists, midwives, lithotomists and as general surgeons. Among physicians there were men whose practises were largely given over to women, children and internal medicine or to a science connected with health care. In 1700, these specialties were absent; about half were followed by 1740.

⁷¹ The best short analysis of the distinctive social theory of these Scots is by Andrew Skinner and is found in the ‘Introduction’ to the Pelican Classics Edition of Smith, Adam's The Wealth of Nations, Harmondsworth, 1970, pp. 11–97.Google Scholar

⁷² T.R.S.E., (1798), 4. p. 18.Google Scholar

⁷³ Among the more generalist societies which had come and gone were ephemeral virtuoso clubs existing in 1688, 1698, 1703, 1705, c. 1710, The Honourable the Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland (1723–1746), and the Select and Edinburgh Societies (1754–1763).

⁷⁴ For a summary of the topics of known and conjectured papers presented to the P.S.E. see the lists given in the articles cited in Emerson, , op. cit. (5).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Shapin, , op. cit. (9), pp. 218–235Google Scholar. Shapin thinks of the early R.S.E. as an interdisciplinary forum and that ‘cross-disciplinary activity would not have been a normal feature of the professional role at the University’. Maybe, but one should remember the historical prefaces to scientific, anatomical and medical lectures and the literary essays of John Walker and James Mutton. These were still expected of professional men whose outlook also made them eager to engage in such activities even while their normal occupations tended to exclude such avocations.

⁷⁶ This has been studied in a recent Ph.D. thesis: Dwyer, John, ‘Virtuous discourse: practical morality in late eighteenth-century Scotland’, University of British Columbia, Ph.D. dissertation, 1985.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ The best study of the survival of a patriotic, improving and humanist outlook among men of this class is contained in Freeman, F.W.'s Robert Fergusson and the Scots Humanist Compromise, Edinburgh, 1984Google Scholar. Freeman's work is important in understanding these men because Fergusson was one of them. The poet of the Cape Club and the friend of Andrew Duncan was critical of or at least ambivalent about the cultural ideals of the enlightened literati.

⁷⁸ Brown, Iain Gordon, The Hobby-Horsical Antiquary: A Scottish Character 1640–1830, Edinburgh, 1980, p. 38Google Scholar. Others besides Robertson, Dalzel or Walker saw the antiquaries in this light. Among them were David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes and Horace Walpole. Shapin, , op. cit. (1), p. 23Google Scholar; op. cit. (48).

⁷⁹ Something justifying the contemporaries' view of James Cummyng can be gleaned from his papers which contain coarse jokes: E.U.L., Laing, Mss II. 81–83; III. 547.

⁸⁰ These included the Scots Magazine, The Caledonian Mercury. The Gentleman's Magazine, The Bee, Archaeologia Scotica, Archaeologia; his pamphlets were numerous. A bibliography is included in Lamb, J.G., ‘David Steuart Erskine, 11^th Earl of Buchan: a study of his life and correspendence’, unpublished D.Phil, dissertation, University of St Andrews. 1963.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Shapin, Steven, ‘The Audience for science in eighteenth century Edinburgh’, History of Science, (1974), 12, pp. 95–121CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Christie, J.R.R., ‘The origins and development of the Scottish scientific community, 1680–1760, History of Science, (1974), 12, pp. 122–141CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Christie, John R.R., ‘The rise and fall of Scottish science’, in The Emergence of Science in Western Europe (ed. Crosland, Maurice), New York, 1976, pp. 111–126.Google Scholar

⁸² Donovan, Arthur L., Philosophical Chemistry in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Doctrines and Discoveries of William Cullen and Joseph Black, Edinburgh, 1975.Google Scholar

⁸³ The models for the more important élite societies were generally and explicitly foreign: the Acta Medica Berolinensia and Acta Wratislaviensia for the Medical Society (1731); the Royal Society of London and numerous foreign academies for the P.S.E.; the Dublin Society and the Royal Society of Arts for the Edinburgh Society; the Royal Academies at Berlin and St Petersburg for the R.S.E.; the Académie des Inscriptioǹs, the Royal Society of Antiquaries of London and similar bodies in Italy and Denmark for the S.A.S. Among the non-aristocratic clubs could be counted the Glasgow Literary Society, the Gordon Mills Farming Club, the Aberdeen Philosophical Society and perhaps the Rankenian Club. All lasted longer than the Select Society, two outlived the Improvers of 1723–1746 and one the P.S.E.

⁸⁴ Shapin, , op. cit. (1), p. 38.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Emerson, , op. cit. (5).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Medical Commentaries, (1773)1—.

⁸⁷ Buchan, to Nichols, John, 15 06 1784, op. cit. (56), pp. 503–504.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ E.U.L. Laing Mss III. 352.1, Robison, John to Walker, John, n.d. (c. 1785).Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Among those men are Alexander Garden, Matthew Stewart, Alexander Monro II, William Cullen, Thomas Melville, Joseph Black and James Grainger.

⁹⁰ In 1766, Buchan visited the ‘mines of Mendip’ with Walker to whom he seems to have sent seeds. N.L.S., Ms.588, f187–188, Walker, John to Buchan, Lord, 12 04 1766.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Smellie, , op. cit. (24), p. 6Google Scholar; Emerson, , op. cit. (32), forthcoming.Google Scholar

⁹² G.U.L., Murray Mss 502/201/58, autobiographical sketch of Lord Buchan; E.U.L., Gen. 1087, ‘Notices concerning the Letter Foundry by the Wilsons at St Andrews and Glasgow’. This may be by Patrick Wilson, the son of Buchan's friend.

⁹³ E.U.L., Ms. Gen. 1429/16/2.

⁹⁴ Emerson, , op. cit. (32), forthcoming.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Walker, John, Essays on Natural History and Rural Economy, London, 1808, pp. 357–361Google Scholar; E.U.L., Ms. Dc.2.37 ‘Extracts and Notes on Natural History’. This has notes by Walker on published works and manuscripts by Sir Robert Sibbald and some of his correspondents, including William Bennet of Grubet, James Wallace, M.D., George Sinclair, Dr … Archibald and John Brand.

⁹⁶ The Rev. John Walker's Report on the Hebrides of 1764 and 1771 (ed. Murray, Margaret M.), Edinburgh, 1980Google Scholar; Walker, John, An Economical History of the Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland, 2 vols, Edinburgh, London, 1812Google Scholar. Buchan's own surveying interests are noted by Cant, , op. cit. (4), p. 17Google Scholar. They involved no personal field work.

⁹⁷ E.U.L., Ms. Dc.2.39.2.

⁹⁸ Scott, , op. cit. (67), p. xxixGoogle Scholar. Walker sought but was refused the University of Edinburgh's new Chair of Agriculture in 1789. E.U.L., La III.352.4, Walker, John to SirPulteney, William Johnston, 27 03 1789.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ E.U.L., La III.352.2.

¹⁰⁰ Walker, , op. cit. (98).Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Scott, , op. cit. (67), p. xxviii.Google Scholar

¹⁰² E.U.L., Dc.2.17, ‘Lectureson Natural History’, vol. 1, pp. 5, 67.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ See, op. cit. (97).

¹⁰⁴ Walker's attitude, like that of John Robison, changed dramatically when the French Revolution went too far in 1791–1792. Like Robison, , he too became suspicious of the philosophes. E.U.L., DC. 1.58.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Home, Henry, Kames, Lord, The Gentleman Farmer being an Attempt to Improve Agriculture by Subjecting it to the Test of Rational Principles, 5th edn. (1st 1776), Edinburgh, pp. 391–405Google Scholar; Walker, , op. cit. (96), Hebrides, 2, pp. 414–416.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Scott, , op. cit. (67), pp. xxx–xxxiiGoogle Scholar; N.L.S., Saltoun Mss, S Misc. 54, ‘An Experiment upon the Motion of the Sap in Trees’. The unsigned, incomplete report is of work done in 1761; it is identifiable as Walker, 's from the manuscript cited in op. cit. (88).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Smellie, , op. cit. (39), p. 13.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ The term is Duncan Forbes' and denotes the defences of Whiggish values and achievements given by Scottish social analysts such as Hume, David, Smith, Adam and Millar, John: “Scientific Whiggism': Adam Smith and John Millar”, Cambridge Journal (1953–1954), 7, pp. 643–670.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Godechot, Jean, France and the Atlantic Revolution 1770–1799, London and New York, 1965Google Scholar; Palmer, R.R., The Age of Democratic Revolution: a Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800, 2 vols, Princeton, 1959–1964.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ The most interesting discussion of these problems is Davie, George Elder's, The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and Her Universities in the Nineteenth Century, 2nd edn., Edinburgh, 1964.Google Scholar