OLD SATCHELS.
(Vol. vi., pp. 10. 160.)
Your correspondent Sigma having called attention in your pages to that respectable character Old Satchels, I should be sorry to see him dismissed with the dry bibliographical Note of T. G. S. If any proof were wanting of Captain Walter Scot's claim to more respectable notice, we have it in the fact of his book having reached a third edition: and, with your permission, I will take the liberty of supplying a few "jottings," furnished and suggested on turning over the reprint of 1776.
The whole title, or titles, of this curious production runs thus:
"A true History of several Honorable Families of the right honorable Name of Scot in the Shires of Roxburgh and Selkirk, and others adjacent. Gathered out of ancient Chronicles, Histories, and Traditions of our Fathers, by Captain Walter Scot,
An old Soldier and no scholler,
And one that can write nane,
But just the letters of his name.
4to., pp. 60. End of First Part. Edinburgh: Printed by the Heirs of And. Anderson, printer to his most sacred Majesty's City and College, 1688, and reprinted by Balfour and Smellie, 1776."
"Satchel's Post'ral, humbly presented to his noble and worthy Friends of the Names of Scot and Elliot, and others. Part II., 4to., pp. 97. Edinburgh as above, 1688 and 1776."
Lockhart, in his Life of Scott, has told us with what enthusiasm Sir Walter welcomed a copy of the first edition of this "True History," procured for him by Constable; and its rarity is accounted for by the author himself, when he says,—
"Therefore begone, my book, stretch forth thy wings and fly
Amongst the nobles and gentility:
Thou'rt not to sell to scavingers and clowns,
But giv'n to worthy persons of renown.