The bibliography of the following little tract is extremely obscure.
The title-page of the edition of 1815, which we reproduce, gives
the date as 1691. Sir Walter Scott says in his _Demonology and
Witchcraft_ (1830, p. 163, note), “It was printed with the author’s
name in 1691, and reprinted, in 1815, for Longman & Co.” But was
there really a printed edition of 1691? Scott says that he never met
with an example. Research in our great libraries has discovered none,
and there is none save that of 1815 at Abbotsford. The reprint, of
one hundred copies, was made, as it states, from no printed text,
but from “a manuscript copy preserved in the Advocates’ Library.” On
page 45 of the edition of 1815, at the end of the comments on Lord
Tarbott’s Letters, there is a “Note by the Transcriber”—that is, the
person who wrote out the manuscript in the Advocates’ Library: “See
the rest in a little manuscript belonging to Coline Kirk.” Now Coline
or Colin Kirk, Writer to the Signet, was the son of the Rev. Mr.
Kirk, author of the tract. If the son had his father’s book only in
manuscript, it seems very probable that it was not printed in 1691;
that the title-page is only the title-page of a manuscript. Till some
printed text of 1691 is discovered, we may doubt, then, whether the
hundred copies published in 1815, and now somewhat rare, be not the
original printed edition. The editor has a copy of 1815, but it is
the only one which he has met with for sale.
The Rev. Robert Kirk, the author of _The Secret Commonwealth_, was
a student of theology at St. Andrews: his Master’s degree, however,
he took at Edinburgh. He was (and this is notable) the youngest and
_seventh_ son of Mr. James Kirk, minister of Aberfoyle, the place
familiar to all readers of _Rob Roy_. As a seventh son, he was, no
doubt, specially gifted, and in _The Secret Commonwealth_ he lays
some stress on the mystic privileges of such birth. There may be
“some secret virtue in the womb of the parent, which increaseth
until the seventh son be borne, and decreaseth by the same degree
afterwards.” It would not surprise us if Mr. Kirk, no less than the
Rev. Robert Blair of St. Andrews (1650-60), could heal scrofula by
the touch, like royal persons—Charles III. in Italy, for example.
As is well known to all, the House of Brunswick has no such powers.
However this may have been, Mr. Kirk was probably drawn, by his
seventh sonship, to a more careful study of psychical phenomena
than most of his brethren bestowed. Little is known of his life.
He was minister originally of Balquidder, whence, in 1685, he was
transferred to Aberfoyle. This was no Covenanting district, and
there is no bigotry in Mr. Kirk’s dissertation. He was employed on
an “Irish” translation of the Bible, and he published a Psalter in
Gaelic (1684). He married, first, Isobel, daughter of Sir Colin
Campbell of Mochester, who died in 1680, and, secondly, the daughter
of Campbell of Fordy: this lady survived him. From his connection
with Campbells, we may misdoubt him for a Whig. By his first wife
he had a son, Colin Kirk, W.S.; by his second wife, a son who was
minister of Dornoch. He died (if he did die, which is disputed) in
1692, aged about fifty-one; his tomb was inscribed—
ROBERTUS KIRK, A.M.
Linguæ Hiberniæ Lumen.
The tomb, in Scott’s time, was to be seen in the east end of the
churchyard of Aberfoyle; but the ashes of Mr. Kirk _are not there_.
His successor, the Rev. Dr. Grahame, in his _Sketches of Picturesque
Scenery_, informs us that, as Mr. Kirk was walking on a _dun-shi_,
or fairy-hill, in his neighbourhood, he sunk down in a swoon, which
was taken for death. “After the ceremony of a seeming funeral,”
writes Scott (_op. cit._, p. 105), “the form of the Rev. Robert
Kirk appeared to a relation, and commanded him to go to Grahame of
Duchray. ‘Say to Duchray, who is my cousin as well as your own,
that I am not dead, but a captive in Fairyland; and only one chance
remains for my liberation. When the posthumous child, of which my
wife has been delivered since my disappearance, shall be brought to
baptism, I will appear in the room, when, if Duchray shall throw
over my head the knife or dirk which he holds in his hand, I may be
restored to society; but if this is neglected, I am lost for ever.’”
True to his tryst, Mr. Kirk did appear at the christening, and “was
visibly seen;” but Duchray was so astonished that he did not throw
his dirk over the head of the appearance, and to society Mr. Kirk has
not yet been restored. This is extremely to be regretted, as he could
now add matter of much importance to his treatise. Neither history
nor tradition has more to tell about Mr. Robert Kirk, who seems to
have been a man of good family, a student, and, as his book shows, an
innocent and learned person.