Drummond J., Anderson J. Ancient Scottish weapons

A series of drawings by the late James Drummond, R.S.A with introduction & descriptive notes by Joseph Anderson, custodier of the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh. — Edinburgh; London: George Waterston & sons, 1881. — 136 p.It was, therefore, a happy inspiration which led Mr. Drummond to contemplate the formation of this unique series of drawings. Apart from their intrinsic merits as the products of a pencil specially devoted to the illustration of all that was distinctively national in the history and art of Scotland, the series thus brought together is unexampled in range and variety, and almost completely representative in character. At his death these drawings, with others illustrative of other phases of national art in Scotland, were acquired by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the purchase being effected by the aid of subscriptions from the Fellows of the Society and others, who felt that an opportunity of acquiring a collection so distinctively national should not be allowed to pass without an effort being made to secure its preservation. The drawings themselves are now preserved in the library of the Society as part of the National Museum of the Antiquities of Scotland, with which Mr. Drummond had been so long and so intimately connected. The issue of a volume containing Mr. Drummond’s Drawings of Sculptured Monuments in Iona and the West Highlands having been undertaken by the Society for its subscribing Fellows, the publishers of the present volume applied for and received the permission of the Society to prepare and issue to the public facsimile reproductions of the series of Drawings of Scottish Arms, Implements, and Ornaments, which are now delineated and described in the following pages.
The descriptions of the Plates being necessarily confined to the simplest possible statement of individual characteristics, it has been deemed advisable to prefix a brief sketch of the general historical and other relations of the different classes of objects, including some notices of Highland Dress and Armour, which are necessary to give completeness and consistency to the summary, and to embody Mr. Drummond’s views on these subjects.