ALTHOUGH THERE IS CURRENTLY NO scholarly consensus regarding the origins and nature of the Scottish Enlightenment, there is no doubt that the eighteenth century was an exceptionally fertile period in the cultural and intellectual history of Scotland. From roughly 1690 until 1815, the Scots made significant contributions to virtually every field of human endeavour, and their activities were widely recognized in the European republic of letters. In medicine, a succession of Scottish physicians from Archibald Pitcairne through to Robert Whytt, John Gregory, and William Cullen established themselves as theorists of the first rank in Europe, while the Edinburgh medical school founded in the 1720s gradually displaced Leyden as the centre of medical education in the Atlantic world. Mathematicians such as Colin Maclaurin and Robert Simson were likewise renowned across Europe. In the physical sciences, Scottish professors were among the first to introduce Newtonian science into their teaching, and Sir Isaac Newton counted amongst his earliest disciples a number of Scots, including Pitcairne, and David Gregory, who left Edinburgh to become the Savillian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford in 1691. Maclaurin, who eventually inherited Gregory's mantle as the leading Newtonian in Scotland, was succeeded by John Robison. During the second half of the eighteenth century, there was no more distinguished chemist in Europe than Joseph Black, and in the related sciences of natural history and geology, Scotland boasted naturalists of the calibre of James Hutton, whose account of the history of the earth revolutionized geological thought at the turn of the nineteenth century. In the technological sphere, one need only mention James Watt's improvements to the steam engine to realize that the modern industrial world has its origins in eighteenth-century Glasgow.

In moral philosophy, the Enlightenment "science of man"grew out of the writings of Adam Ferguson, David Hume, Thomas Reid, and Adam Smith, while Smith's Wealth of Nations gave birth to the discipline of political economy. Writing in 1770, Hume declared that "this is the historical Age and this historical NationÓ, and he had good reason to do so, in view of the success of his own historical writings, as well as those of other notable Scottish historians, such as William Robertson and Henry Home, Lord Kames. The Scots also excelled in literature. At the beginning of the Enlightenment, the Latin verses of Pitcairne and his circle perpetuated the Scottish humanist tradition, while the vernacular poetry of James Thomson, Allan Ramsay, James Beattie, James Macpherson, and Robert Burns later shaped the literary tastes of eighteenth-century Britons. The novel flourished, too, with best-sellers written by Tobias Smollett, Henry Mackenzie, John Galt, and Sir Walter Scott. In the fine arts, Scotland's achievements were more limited, but Allan Ramsay the younger and Henry Raeburn were portraitists who rivalled the best of their English contemporaries, while such Scottish architects as Colin Campbell, James Gibbs, and Robert and James Adam helped transform the visual landscape of eighteenth-century Britain. Nor should one forget the medallions and gems of James Tassie, or the fine printing done by the Foulis Brothers in Glasgow. And if the Scots did not produce a composer to rival Corelli or Handel, Scottish music echoed throughout the Atlantic world in the rhythm of the Scots snap, the fiddle tunes of Neil Gow, the skirl of the pipes, and the songs of Burns.

The exhibition, "The Culture of the Book in the Scottish Enlightenment", celebrates the richness of eighteenth-century Scottish culture as seen from the perspective of the newly emerging discipline of the history of the book. The materials on display are intended to illustrate both the intellectual achievements of the period, and the different facets of the culture of print. Among the items exhibited is a copy of an exceedingly rare pamphlet by David Hume, written to promote the sales of his Treatise of Human Nature, along with other works by Hume, and those of his fellow moralists George Turnbull, Thomas Reid, and Adam Smith. The exhibition also displays an impressive selection of finely bound copies of the major texts written by Scottish historians during the course of the eighteenth century, as well as a sampling of the periodical literature of the day, and a survey of the different editions of the poems of Ossian. In addition, many of the books and pamphlets convey a sense of the dynamism of science and medicine in the Scottish Enlightenment, ranging from a copy of the widely admired, but less widely read Philosophiæ naturalis principia mathematica of Sir Isaac Newton, to one of the most popular medical self-help tracts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, William Buchan's Domestic Medicine. Taken as a whole, the exhibition thus serves as a guide to the breadth and intellectual significance of the Scottish contribution to the Enlightenment.

From the point of view of the history of the book, the exhibition illustrates the many facets of the culture of print in the eighteenth century. Then as now, bibliophiles amassed impressive libraries, and the riches of the collection assembled by Archibald Campbell, Third Duke of Argyll, can be sampled in the selection of titles listed in the published catalogue of Argyll's library. But these titles do more than attest to Argyll's bibliomania, for he was also one of the most powerful politicians of his day. Through his management of Scottish affairs, he made a signal contribution to the cultural transformation of Scotland in the first half of the eighteenth century, and hence the books he collected tell us about the kind of enlightenment he sought to create north of the Tweed. Like Argyll and the other great collectors of the past, historians are interested in the physical properties of books, such as their format or quality of paper, but for different reasons. A second group of books on display is intended to show how the question of format is closely linked to matters of intellectual authority, intended audience, and the construction of authorial identity. The extensive holdings of titles by David Hume in the Fisher Library can be used to trace Hume's attempt to construct a canon of works which defined his identity as an enlightened man of letters, and to underline the point that the quarto format was regarded by authors and readers alike as a sign of status and credibility. Moreover, the prominence of the quarto format speaks to the economic structure of the book trade, and in so doing, reminds us that authors and publishers in the eighteenth century were no less affected by the realities of the market place than they are in our own age of multinational media giants. The corporate moguls of today would certainly recognize the marketing strategies involved in the publishing of the successive editions of the poems of Ossian, exhibited alongside the works of Hume.

One person who had an intimate understanding of the workings of the book trade as both a printer and an author was William Smellie, who was a leading figure in the literary scene of the Athens of the North for much of the second half of the eighteenth century, and the editor of the first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. A third group of books illustrates the different strands of his career, from his apprentice work on a prize-winning Latin edition of Terence's comedies, to his printing of University of Edinburgh theses, his efforts as a journalist, and his engagement in the fields of science and medicine. By the time of Smellie's death in 1795, Edinburgh had established itself as the centre of the Scottish book trade, although from 1740 until the mid-1770s the preeminence of Edinburgh's booksellers and printers was seriously challenged by the Foulis Press in Glasgow. With the assistance of the typefounder Alexander Wilson, Robert and Andrew Foulis became famous primarily for their editions of the classics, which were renowned for both their physical beauty and their scholarly excellence. The Thomas Fisher Library boasts an extensive collection of Foulis imprints, and those displayed in the exhibition demonstrate why books from the Foulis Press were so eagerly sought after by discerning buyers in the eighteenth century, and why they continue to attract collectors today. Any book lover will readily appreciate the superb craftsmanship involved in the exquisitely bound Bibles on display. The Fisher Library is fortunate to have such outstanding examples of Scottish wheel and herring-bone bindings, and although these Bibles can hardly be said to be typical products of the binder's art, they nonetheless provide us with notable instances of this facet of the culture of the book.

The most difficult dimension of the history of the book to document is the relationship between reader and text. There can be little doubt that reading practices have changed over time, but there is much about the experience of reading in the past that eludes us, not least because of the paucity of evidence. The copies now in the Fisher Library of Thomas Reid's Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man and Essays on the Active Powers of Man, which were once owned and annotated by Reid's associate, John Robison, are, therefore, of considerable historical importance, because Robison's extensive annotations allow us to gain some insight into how he read Reid's works. Although several questions remain about how Robison read Reid, the annotations brings us far closer to the reading practices of the past than is usually possible, and they permit us to overhear the "conversation" between Robison and his much respected colleague. In addition, the personal dimension to the history of the book can be traced in the exhibition through the number of association copies on display. Of note in this regard are Thomas Reid's copy of Berkeley's Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, Lord Kames's copy of James Macpherson's Temora, and the copy of Sallust given by the distinguished Edinburgh Professor of Moral Philosophy, Dugald Stewart, to his nephew. Such details serve to give a human face to the culture of the book in the Scottish Enlightenment, as do the Tassie medallions and the mezzotint portrait of David Hume on display, kindly lent by the Royal Ontario Museum and by Michael Walsh. Outside of Scotland, there are few other libraries in the world capable of providing the range and quality of printed materials from the eighteenth century to be found in the Fisher Library. This exhibition ought, therefore, to be regarded as a tribute not only to the cultural vitality of the Scottish Enlightenment, but also to the magnificent resources of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

Paul Woo
University of Victoria

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