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THE HISTORY
OF
STIRLINGSHIRE
BY WILLIAM NIMMO
Third Edition,
Revised, Enlarged, and
brought down to
the Present Time.
IN TWO VOLUMES
LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS
& CO.
GLASGOW: THOMAS D. MORRISON.
1880.
PREFACE TO THE PRESENT
EDITION.
The first edition of Nimmo’s History of
Stirlingshire was published, in 1777, by Messrs. William Creech,
Edinburgh, and Thomas Cadell, London. In 1817, the work was revised and
brought down to date, by the Rev. Willaim Macgregor Stirling, minister
of Port, and re-issued, in two volumes, at the close of the year.
What Stirling did for Nimmo, I have, as
succeeeding editor, striven to do for Nimmo and Stirling; namely, to
perform the duty, with which I engaged, conscientiously, and in as
complete a manner as circumstances would permit. The Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher, addressing a meeting in the City Hall, Glasgow, some years ago,
observed, "that the land to which he had come, though small, was as
full of memories as the heaven is of stars"; and there are
certainly few districts in Scotland to which this remark may be more
truthfully applied than to Stirlingshire. The county, indeed, is full of
interest both to the archaeologist and the historian, but there is so
much room for the application of local knowledge, and so much scope for
criticism of authorities on the Roman and other antiquities, that in
such an attempt as an exhaustive history of the county one student can
hardly be altogether successful.
My aim, throughout, has been to be
accurate, rather than elaborate; and intelligible, rather than profound;
and, now that the end is reached, I can only hope that the reader may
derive some pleasure at least – and pleasure is profit – from my
editorial labour.
R. GILLESPIE.
Glasgow, November, 1880. |
