PREFACE. THE Volume now presented to the public contains seven biographies, which were originally published in the columns of the Fifeshire Journal, as specimens of a contemplated series of some forty or fifty. The field, which has been merely touched, is ample and interesting; and, at a future period, the author may be persuaded to cultivate a piece more of it. This, however, will depend on the reception which the present volume may meet with. The objects which the author had most in view in the handling of these lives, and his notion of how they should be treated, will be explained in the following introduction prefixed to the biographies as they originally appeared : "In commencing a series of notices of Eminent Men of Fife,' we do not think it necessary to aver, as a justification of our undertaking, that the kingdom of Fife' is the most intellectual district in all Scotland, and has produced the most distinguished Scotsmen though, if any one were to deny that it has had its fair share of men of learning and talent, |
