An impressive volume contains the beautifully-written Inventory of the Jewel House, taken at the death of King Henry the Eighth and beginning: "First, the Kings Crowne of gold.. The crown, incidentally, weighed four-score and eighteen ounces.
The library has some surprising contrasts. Not far from the Jewel House inventory you will find a leather-bound manuscript volume of a tour in Nithsdale. A Mr. Robert Riddell made the tour during the eighteenth century, and, being full of zeal, wrote a careful account, illustrated it with water-colour sketches, and read it to the Society of Antiquaries. What gives to the book its lasting interest is the manuscript poem by Robert Burns written on one of the leaves.
Apparently, Riddell had persuaded Burns to copy the lines "written in a window of the Hermitage of Friars-Carse." They form the poem beginning: Thou whom chance may hither lead, Be thou clad in russet weed, Be thou deck in silken stole Crave these counsels on thy soul
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.