Autograph Letter Signed from the Scottish genealogist John Stuart to 'Miss Yonge' [the novelist Charlotte M. Yonge], concerning 'a Letter of the Great Marquis [of Montrose] recently brought to light, with reference to the historian Mark Napier.

3pp., 12mo. Bifolium. Very good. In the previous year Yonge had published her historical novel 'Journal of Lady Beatrix Graham', based on the life of the sister of the Great Montrose, and Stuart would appear to open with a jocular reference to this character, rather than to her ancestor the living nine-year-old Lady Beatrice Graham (1863-1932), when he asks Yonge 'to inform Lady Beatrix that if she cares to see a Letter of the Great Marquis recently brought to light among Lord Rollo's papers, she will find a copy of it in the third Report of the Historical MSS Commission just issued - and where a good deal of other curious correspondence is noticed. He explains how to get a copy of the report, adding that the historian Mark Napier has just been with him, 'and is so anxious to see the Letter of Montrose & others of Dundee that he wd. not wait for his own copy of the Report but has carried off mine.' He concludes by describing himself as 'one who has derived so much advantage' from Yonge's writing. At the head of the reverse of the last leaf there is a note, presumably from Yonge to Lady Beatrix, reading 'You will like to see this'.