 Obscure authors had to be discovered, and long-forgotten books resuscitated; contending facts had to be weighed, and contradictory statements reconciled; while a mass of manuscripts, such as might have daunted the most zealous antiquary at a period when Scottish antiquarianism was still in infancy, had to be pored over and deciphered.And all this was to be accomplished, not by the sung Fellow of a college, reposing in learned leisure in the deep shadow of Gothic halls which the sound of the world could not reach, but by one who had the weekly and daily toil of a Scottish Secession minister to interrupt him, as well as its very scanty emoluments to impede his efforts and limit his literary resources.And all this for what?