Trail family

i) Rev. William Trail, of Benholm. Poetical miscellany and recipe book entitled “An omni-gatherum”, opening with a list of books (3 pages), including numerous Whig political ballads and satirical verses on such subjects as Queen Anne’s Government and the Hanoverian succession, for example “A Turne-Coatt” (“I loved no King in forty one”) and “Robinocracie or She-land”, mostly found in contemporary printed sources but including some relating to local issues, such as “Some Lines found Written on Marshalls Gospel” (“Discouraged oft, but not deserted long”) and “The second part of hte Whiggs Lamentation in Dundee” (“Even’s mair assist us Dogrel muse...”), also with other lyrics notably “Some Lines Made by a young Woman, on her sweet heart who was a Gardiner & dyed of a decay” (“Adonis garden was so fair”) and several verse epitaphs, intermixed with various medical and industrial recipes (e.g. “A Receipt for making the plaister called the Flower of ointments”, “A Receipt for the Jandice”, “Receipt for dying linnen Yarn”), and prose memoranda mostly on political or religious subjects (e.g. “Some few Queries Humbly proposed to the Reverend and Learned Mr Alexander Robertsone indemnified Truckley in the meeting house of Drumlithie”), the volume also containing, written from the reverse, “A Catalogue of Books belonging to W. Trail att Benholme October 1718”, comprising over 250 titles (11 pages) in English, Latin and French, and farming accounts in St Monans, Fife, 1754-55 (4 pages), contemporary pagination to p.74 but with text altogether on 80 pages, plus blanks, 8vo (160 x 105mm), dated at the front Benholm, 26 February 1713, with most entries in the 1710s and then later additions to the 1750s, contemporary calf, worn

ii) Robert Trail, of Panbride. Manuscript explanation of a system of shorthand, listing prepositions, suffixes, and common words, with, written from the reverse, common phrases in shorthand and also extensive notes in shorthand, also with, written in longhand, the political ballad "The Cardinall's Coach Couped" (Parts 1 and 2) and a poem "Upon A Note of Mr Hanans Sermon" ("It's not to preach to analise the Devill"), and miscellaneous scribbled notes, with the ownership inscription of Robert Trail, 107 pages, plus blanks,  8vo (165 x 105mm), early 18th century, contemporary blind tooled calf, worn, text block split at gutter

William Trail of Benholm (1683-1743) was the son of William Trail of Borthwick. He followed his father into the ministry and was ordained Minister of Beholm, Kincardineshire, in 1710. His younger brother Robert Trail of Panbride (1687-1762), who was born in Maryland, also became a Presbyterian minister in Scotland, serving the parish of Panbride in Angus from 1714 until his death. For the system of shorthand used by the Trail family see also previous lot.