£813
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs - Including the Trevor Dawson Magic Collection | 613
Auction: 30 September 2020 at 11:00 BST
containing 'The Particular account of the Year 1731' and running until 1756, 392 manuscript pp., ending with the lines (prior to an index): "This Day I commit, and refer myself, both soul and body, Books, Papers... wholly, solely and only to the wise providence of God...", 8vo, bound in contemporary quarter vellum over boards, some dust-soiling
Note: An account covering 25 years of a Scottish man's life in the mid-eighteenth century, presented as religious musings. Topics covered include: "an account of a Great Drought"; "An Invitation for the Lord Jesus Christ to return to Britain and Ireland, especially to Covenanted Scotland"; "Predictions of the French invading these Lands"; and the more mundane "of having sore Shoulders". More perplexing accounts include: "Upon the 26th Day of July, out of a tent before a large Congregation at Crawford John: Mr Alexander Marshall, in a ? of Malicious Jury, named me our name and sirname, Laid grievous things to my Charge falsely, and compared me to Elimas the sorcerer, who was a Child of the Devil..."Regarding the Jacobite uprising in 1745, he writes: "About this time, the young popish pretender was come to Scotland; and had a malignant army gathered together to set him upon the throne of Britain..." and subsequently mentions people "fleeing from Edinburgh and Glasgow &c. and peoples fleeing here and there to hide and keep their horses from the pretender's men."