| Description Of Item | This section contains the diaries of Sir David Hume or Home. Seven years after his appointment to the bench, and two years after he was knighted, Home began to keep the diary from which most of the interest in and information about his life derives, starting with a lengthy account of his past experiences ‘for my own and my successors information’. The diary is largely a record of the financial affairs of a Scottish laird in the latter half of the seventeenth century, full of interesting detail on how estates were acquired, relatives provided for, disputes conducted, and settlements made. Occasionally more weighty matters of politics creep in, as well as a good deal of personal detail on topics that are not obviously financial. Some remarks are frustratingly succinct, like the note on 13 April 1681: ‘I gott my hurt that occasioned the cutting off my leg’.
[Source: Dictionary of National Biography] |