“ LAING, DAVID (1793–1878) , Scottish antiquary, the son of William Laing, a bookseller in Edinburgh, was born in that city on the 20th of April 1793. Educated at the Canongate Grammar School, when fourteen he was apprenticed to his father. Shortly after the death of the latter in 1837, Laing was elected to the librarianship of the Signet Library, which post he retained till his death. Apart from an extraordinary general bibliographical knowledge, Laing was best known as a lifelong student of the literary and artistic history of Scotland. ”