Date:1805 and 1695Author (in assoc. with a ms or print source)Sir Robert Sibbald (15 Apr 1641-1722)Scribe (in assoc. with a ms or print source)William Gibbs (fl. 1773-fl. 1816 )Annotation:A copy of Sibbald's lost autograph "made by William Gibb, writer, for the Advocates' Library, 1805, from the original manuscript, 1695, which has been apparently lost":
Presented, 1925, by the Faculty of Advocates to the nation on the foundation of the National Library of Scotland. ... Sibbald's autobiography was first published in Edinburgh in 1833, edited by James Maidment, later appearing in Maidment's 'Analecta Scotica' (Edinburgh, 1834-1837). Another Maidment edition was published in 1837 and the life was also edited from this manuscript by Francis Paget Hett (London, 1932) (National Library of Scotland catalogue entry).
In 1833, the autograph manuscript from which this copy was taken was held at the Boswell family's Auchinleck Library:
The original MS. is in the Auchinleck Library. The following note is written upon it by Mr. James Boswell:--" I had this curious manuscript by purchase from my uncle, Dr. John Boswell . He got it from Dr. Archibald Hamilton. I can trace it no farther ; but the handwriting is well known." That Sibbald's autobiography should have remained so long unpublished, is the more remarkable, as it was brought under the notice of the public, by Mr. Boswell, in his Life of Dr. Johnson. Indeed Boswell at one time entertained the notion of printing it, and his learned friend appears to have approven of the design. (See Croker's Boswell, vol. iv. p. 82. ) It is to be regretted that he did not do so, as, in that event, we can hardly doubt that the world would have been benefited by Johnson's instructive commentaries upon it. (11, note)