tice at the bar, particularly in cases demanding special legal learning. ‘His speaking,’ says Cosmo Innes, ‘was not impressive. He could not condense his matter, his argument was unstudied; neither his voice nor his action was pleasing, and it seemed as if he despised the art and touch of oratory. Yet he spoke easily and always pertinently: rather as a man of education and legal accomplishment conversing about the case than like an advocate arguing for a side.’ He was constitutionally more fitted to excel as a legal student than as a barrister; and gradually his course of life turned more and more in this direction. Legal and historical antiquities, which had engrossed much of his leisure, soon absorbed his whole attention. In 1800 he was selected to edit an edition of Lord Hailes's ‘Works,’ with memoir and correspondence; other matters occupying his time, the edition never appeared; but the edition of Hailes's ‘Annals’ and ‘Historical Tracts,’ 1819, acknowledged the guidance of Thomson's advice.
Although a close associate of Jeffrey and other projectors of the ‘Edinburgh Review,’ Thomson contributed but three papers to that periodical: on Darwin's ‘Temple of Nature,’ 1803; Miss Seward's ‘Memories of the Past,’ 1804; and Good's ‘Life of Geddes,’ 1804. Occasionally, however, he undertook the editorship of the ‘Review’ in Jeffrey's absence.
The main service rendered by Thomson to legal and historical learning was the work undertaken by him as deputy clerk-register of Scotland, to which he was appointed on 30 June 1806, the office having been created but eleven days previously. That work mainly consisted in reforming the system of public registries and the method of the custody of records, in rendering these records accessible to research, in rescuing and repairing old records, and in editing the acts of the Scottish parliament and other governmental records under the authority of the record commission.
In February 1828 Thomson was chosen one of the principal clerks of the court of session. On the institution of the Bannatyne Club in 1823 he had been chosen vice-president, and on the death of Scott in 1832 he was unanimously chosen to succeed him as president. Devoted as he was to legal and antiquarian research, Thomson was remarkably neglectful in regard to matters of finance, and careless in the expenditure of money. After an inquiry into the accounts of the register office in 1839, they were found so unsatisfactory that he was removed from the office of deputy clerk-register. He died at Shrub Hill, Leith Walk, near Edinburgh, on 2 Oct. 1852. A portrait of Thomson by Lauder and a bust by Sir John Steell [q. v.] are in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.
For facilitating research in the register office Thomson prepared the following manuals: ‘A Continuation of the Retours of Service to the Chancery Office from the Union, A.D. 1707;’ ‘An Abbreviate or Digest of the Registers of Sasines, General and Particular, arranged in Counties with relative Indexes, from the 1st of January 1781;’ ‘An Abbreviate of Adjudications from 1st January 1781 to 1830;’ ‘An Abbreviate of Inhibitions, General and Particular, arranged in Counties, from 1st January 1781 to 1830.’ His various ‘Reports’ from 1807, with index of contents, are also of value. Of works published by him under the authority of the record commission, by much the most important was ‘The Acts of the Parliament of Scotland,’ vol. ii. to vol. xi. mccccxxiv–mdccvii, 1814 to 1824, 10 vols. folio. Vol. i., containing the ‘Regiam Majestatem,’ with the most ancient recorded proceedings and acts of parliament, was reserved to be published last, and, although almost completed before 1841, when Thomson's connection with the record office ceased, did not appear until 1844, when it was edited, with additions, by Cosmo Innes. The immense labour involved in the publication of these acts of parliament cannot be realised at a glance. ‘Taking as complete,’ says Mr. Innes, ‘the preliminary education, the thorough appreciation of the objects of the work, there was still to find the authenticity of each statute and code of laws, and to test its value by all the canons of charter learning. Next came the settling of the texts by a search and collation of innumerable manuscripts always in subjection to sense.’ Other works published under the authority of the record commission were: ‘Inquisitionum ad Capellam Domini Regis Retornatarum, quæ in Publicis Archivis Scotiæ adhuc servantur, Abbreviatio, 1811, 1816,’ 3 vols.; ‘Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum in Archivis Publicis asservatum, mcccvi–mccccxxiv,’ 1814; ‘The Acts of the Lords Auditors of Causes and Complaints, mcccclxvi–mccccxciv,’ 1839; and the ‘Acts of the Lords of Council in Civil Causes, mcccclxxviii–mccccxcv,’ 1839. Other not ‘strictly official works,’ but of the same class as the foregoing, and mainly derived from the same sources, were: ‘A Compilation of the Forms of Process in the Court of Session during the earlier periods after its establishment, with the Variations which they have
