David Laing, the eminent Scottish antiquary, was the second son of William Laing, a bookseller in Edinburgh, and was born in that city on the 20th of April 1793. He was educated at the Canongate Grammar School, and afterwards attended the Greek classes of Professor Dalzel at the Edinburgh University.[98] At an early age he was apprenticed to his father, and in the year 1821 he entered into partnership with him. His father died in 1832, and David Laing continued to carry on the business until 1837, when, having been elected librarian to the Society of Writers to H.M. Signet, he gave it up, and disposed of his stock by public sale. Laing was Honorary Secretary of the Bannatyne Club from its foundation by Sir Walter Scott in 1823 to its dissolution thirty-eight years later, and himself edited a large number of its publications. He also edited papers for the Spalding, Abbotsford, and Hunterian Clubs, and the Shakespeare and Wodrow Societies; while his contributions to the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, of which he was elected a Fellow in 1826, consisted of upwards of one hundred separate papers. In 1864 the University of Edinburgh conferred on him the degree of LL.D. He died unmarried on the 18th of October 1878.
Laing's life was one of great literary activity, and although he did not produce any large original work, he edited many of the writings of the old Scottish authors. His acquaintance with the early literary and ecclesiastical history, as well as the art and antiquities, of Scotland was very extensive; and Lockhart, in Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, states that he possessed a 'truly wonderful degree of skill and knowledge in all departments of bibliography.' A list of the various publications issued under his editorial superintendence from 1815 to 1878 inclusive, together with his lectures on Scottish art, appear in a collection of privately printed notices of him edited by T.G. Stevenson, Edinburgh, 1878.
Laing availed himself of his exceptional opportunities to form a very large and fine library, which was particularly rich in books illustrative of the history and literature of Scotland, many of which were of excessive rarity, and several unique. Nearly every publication relating to Mary Queen of Scots was to be found in it. After Laing's death his library, with the exception of his manuscripts, which he bequeathed to the University of Edinburgh, was sold in four portions by Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge.
First Sale—
December 1st, 1879, and ten following days. Three thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine lots = thirteen thousand two hundred and eighty-eight pounds, eight shillings and sixpence.
Second Sale—
April 5th, 1880, and ten following days. Four thousand and eighty-two lots = one thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight pounds, three shillings.
Third Sale—
July 20th, 1880, and four following days. Two thousand four hundred and forty-three lots = seven hundred and seventy-one pounds, nine shillings and sixpence.
Fourth Sale—
February 21st, 1881, and three following days. One thousand four hundred and nineteen lots = seven hundred and thirty-eight pounds, eighteen shillings.
Large prices were obtained for many of the books, especially for the early ones printed in Scotland.
The following are a few of the rarest of the volumes, together with the amounts for which they were sold:—
A Roman Breviary on vellum, printed by N. Jenson at Venice in 1482, and ornamented with borders to the pages, drawn by a pen, ninety-three pounds; Lo Doctrinal de Sapiensa, in the Catalan dialect, by Guy de Roye, printed about 1495, one hundred pounds; Missale pro usu totius Regni NorvegiÆ (HaffniÆ, 1519), with the arms and cypher of the King of Denmark on the back of the binding, one hundred and thirty-two pounds; The Falle of Princis, etc., by Boccaccio, translated by John Lydgate, and printed by Pynson in 1527, seventy-eight pounds; The Catechisme of Archbishop Hamilton, printed at 'Sanct Androus' in 1552, one hundred and forty-eight pounds; Tractate concerning ye Office and Dewtie of Kyngis, etc., written by William Lauder, and printed by John Scott at Edinburgh in 1556, seventy-seven pounds; Confessione della Fede Christiana, by Theodore Beza, printed in 1560, containing the autograph of Sir James Melville, and having MARIA R. SCOTOR[=V] stamped in gold on each cover, one hundred and forty-nine pounds; The Forme and Maner of Examination before the Admission to ye Tabill of ye Lord, usit by ye Ministerie of Edinburge (Edinburgh, 1581), seventy pounds; the first edition of the author's corrected text of Don Quixote (Madrid, 1608), together with the first edition of the second part (Madrid, 1615), one hundred and ninety-two pounds; dedication copy to King Charles II. of the Institutions of the Law of Scotland, by Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, afterwards Viscount Stair, two volumes (Edinburgh, 1681), in a remarkably fine contemporary Scotch binding, with the royal arms in gold on the covers, two hundred and ninety-five pounds; a first edition of Robinson Crusoe, three volumes (London, 1719-20), thirty-one pounds; one of the twelve copies, printed at a cost of upwards of ten thousand pounds, of the Botanical Tables of the Earl of Bute, nine volumes, with the arms of the Earl impressed in gold on the bindings, seventy-seven pounds; the first edition of Burns's Poems (Kilmarnock, 1786), with lines in the autograph of Burns, and a letter from J.G. Lockhart, ninety pounds; and a fine collection of Scots Ballads and Broadsides, one hundred and thirty in number, issued between 1669 and 1730, many of great rarity, one hundred and thirty-three pounds. Laing left a collection of drawings to the Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, of which he had been elected Honorary Professor of Ancient History and Antiquities in 1856. His prints were sold by Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge on the 21st of February 1880, in two hundred and thirteen lots, and realised two hundred and seventy pounds, thirteen shillings.
