It will be interesting to all votaries of antiquity to know, that this vessel, which may in some measure be esteemed a national palladium, was rescued, about eighty years ago, from the fate of being utterly lost, to which all circumstances for some time seemed to destine it. The person whom we have to thank for this good service, was the Reverend Alexander Bryce, minister of Kirknewton, near Edinburgh, a man of scientific and literary accomplishment much superior to what was displayed by the generality of the clergy of his day. Mr Bryce (who had taught the mathematical class in the College of Edinburgh, during the winter of 1745–6, instead of the eminent Maclaurin, who was then on his death-bed,) happened to visit Stirling in the year 1750; when, recollecting that the standard Pint Jug was appointed to remain in that town, he requested permission from the magistrates to see it. The magistrates conducted him to their council-house, where a _pewter_ pint jug was taken down from the roof, whence it was suspended, and presented to him. After a careful examination, he was convinced that this could not be the legal standard. He communicated his opinion to the magistrates; but they were equally ignorant of the loss which the town had sustained, and indisposed to take any trouble for the purpose of retrieving it. It excited very different feelings in the acute and enquiring mind of Dr Bryce; and, resolved, if possible, to recover the valuable antique, he immediately instituted a search; which, though conducted with much patient industry for about a twelvemonth, proved, to his great regret, unavailing. In 1752, it occurred to him, that the standard jug might have been borrowed by some of the coppersmiths or braziers, for the purpose of making legal measures for the citizens, and, by some chance, not returned. Having been informed that a person of this description, named Urquhart, had joined the insurgent forces in 1745—that, on his not returning, his furniture and shop utensils had been brought to sale—and that various articles, which had not been sold, were thrown into a garret as useless, a gleam of hope darted into his mind, and he eagerly went to make the proper investigation. Accordingly, in that obscure garret, groaning underneath a mass of lumber, he discovered the precious object of his research. Thus was discovered the only standard, by special statute, of all liquid and dry measure in Scotland, after it had been offered for sale at perhaps the cheap and easy price of one penny, rejected as unworthy of that little sum, and subsequently thrown by as altogether useless; and many years after it had been considered, by its constitutional guardians, as irretrievably lost. Mr Bryce, being permitted to take the valuable utensil with him to Edinburgh, there subjected it to a variety of experiments, from which he deduced the following facts:— The weight of the contents of the Stirling Jug, in ‘clear water,’ is equal to 26,180 grains, English Troy.