“ Lord Hailes’s most important contribution to literature was the Annals of Scotland, of which the first volume, “From the accession of Malcolm III., surnamed Canmore, to the accession of Robert I.,” appeared in 1776, and the second, “From the accession of Robert I., surnamed Bruce, to the accession of the house of Stewart,” in 1779. It is, as Dr Johnson justly described this work at the time of its appearance, a “Dictionary” of carefully sifted facts, which tells all that is wanted and all that is known, but without any laboured splendour of language or affected subtlety of conjecture. ”