Excerpt from The Diary of Alexander Brodie of Brodie: And of His Son, James Brodie of Brodie, Consisting of Extracts From the Existing Manuscripts, and a Republication of the Volume, Printed at Edinburgh in the Year 1740

Here it is proper to repeat, to prevent any feeling of disappointment, that the following Diary has no claim to be regarded as Historical: it properly belongs to the class of Religious Meditations, or in other words, of Spiritual Experiences, the notices of local events, and the daily occurrences in private life, being subsidiary. At that time there prevailed in all classes of the community a degree of religious fervour and a deep sense of the import ance of spiritual things, which led to the practice of recording from day to day, for personal benefit, pious exercises and re¿ections. Many of these Diaries still exist, and several of them have been printed. But the Laird of Brodie's Diary commends itself to notice, not as that of a private individual, but from his own position and his connexion with public affairs at a remark able period in the history of Scotland, and from having intermingled passing allusions, not only to occurrences in his own family and neighbourhood, but also to the stirring events of his time, as well as incidental uoticesmf the public men with whom he associated. It is, no doubt, disappointing and unsatisfactory while he alludes to circumstances and events now of general interest, that instead of furnishing the details, he should so constantly break off with pious re¿ections, and his purpose of making them the subject of prayer to God. But we must not forget what has already been remarked, that while such entries reveal as it were the inner man, they were never meant for the public eye.

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