Excerpt from A Country Schoolmaster Sm, - I suggested to the late James Shaw of Tynron Parish School, a few months before his death, that he ought to write his autobiography and incorporate with it a selection from the contri butions he had made to literature. With this object in view he had collected a number of papers, but he had done very little in the matter of selection or arrangement. The papers have come into my possession, and it is suggested that a book of about 800 pages 8vo should be issued, containing a brief historical sketch of Shaw's life and work, and a selection from his voluminous writings on a great variety of scientific, antiquarian, and popular subjects. A book of this kind would be a suitable tribute to the memory of one who possessed in a conspicuous manner literary instincts of an exceptionally brilliant order, which, had they been turned in any one direction, would have made for him a highly distinguished name in the world of letters. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.