James Sharpe may have the effect of setting all right again in the
royal mind. We address what we take, from the garb, to be a
contemporary, and find that we have stumbled on one of the seven
sleepers.

We deem it no slight advantage to the reading public of the present
day, that it should have works of this character made so easy of
access. It is only a very few years since the student of Scottish
ecclesiastical history could not have acquainted himself with the
materials on which the historian can alone build, without passing
through a course of study at least as prolonged as an ordinary college
course, and much more laborious. Let us suppose that he lived in
some of the provinces. He would have, in the first place, to come
and reside in Edinburgh, and get introduced, at no slight expense of
trouble, mayhap, to the brown, half-defaced manuscripts of our public
libraries. He would require next to study the old hand, with all
its baffling contractions. If he succeeded in mastering the
difficulties of Melville's _Diary_ after a quarter of a year's
hard conning, he might well consider himself a lucky man. Row's
_History_ would occupy him during at least another quarter;
Baillie's _Letters and Journals_ would prove work enough for two
quarters more. If he succeeded in getting access to the papers of
Woodrow, he would find little less than a twelvemonth's hard labour
before him; Calderwood's large _History_ would furnish employment for
at least half that time; and if curious to peruse it in its best
and fullest form, he would find it necessary to quit Edinburgh for
London, to pore there over the large manuscript copy stored up in
the British Museum. As he proceeded in his course, he would be
continually puzzled by references, allusions, initials; he would
have to consult register offices, records of baptisms and deaths,
session books, old and scarce works, hardly less difficult to be
procured than even the manuscripts themselves; and if he at length
escaped the fate of the luckless antiquary, who produced the famous
history of the village of Wheatfield, he might deem himself more than
ordinarily fortunate. 'When I first engaged in this work,' said the
poor man, 'I had eyes of my own; but now I cannot see even with the
assistance of art: I have gone from spectacles of the first sight to
spectacles of the third; the Chevalier Taylor gives my eyes over,
and my optician writes me word he can grind no higher for me.' It
will