In an epistle to the reader, contained in his answer to Tyrie, Knox mentions that he had beside him a collection of letters which {372} he had written to Mrs Bowes, and which the state of his health alone prevented him from publishing. It also appears from Field’s dedication prefixed to Knox’s Exposition of the fourth of Matthew, (see p. 240,) that a number of our Reformer’s manuscripts were in circulation in England as well as Scotland. I have in my possession a manuscript volume, containing tracts and letters written by him between 1550 and 1558. This is unquestionably the identical volume which formerly belonged to the Rev. Mr Wodrow, (author of the History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland,) and described under the name of the _Quarto volume_ of MSS. in Crawfurd’s Life of Knox, p. 53, 54, prefixed to the edition of his Historie published in 1732. It consists of 518 pages, including the contents. On the leaf at the beginning of the volume is this title: “The epistles of Mr John Knox, worthy to be read because of the authority of the wryter, the solidity of the matter, and the comfortable Christian experience to be found therein. Edr. 22 feb. 1683. H. T. m. p.” Below, in a hand considerably older, are these words: “This booke belong’d somtyme to Margaret Stewart, widow to Mr Knox, afterwards married to the knight of fawdonesyde. Sister shee was to James Earl of Arran.” Then follow the six tracts described by Mr Crawfurd, in the place above referred to. At the beginning of the Letters, in a hand older than the former, and the same with that in which the Letters themselves are written, is this title: “Certane epistillis and letters of ye servand of God, Johne Knox, send from dyvers places to his friendis and familiaris in Jesus Chryst.” On the margin of the tracts are several short notes by the transcriber, referring to his own times, such as this, “our case at this day in Scotland, 1603.” This ascertains the date of their transcription; and I think it highly probable that they were copied by Mr John Welsh, a son‑in‑law of the Reformer, one of whose letters is inserted on some blank leaves in the middle of the volume. The letters have evidently been written by the same person (although the hand appears older); and, on the margin of a treatise at the end of them, “1603” occurs. Margaret Stewart, the Reformer’s relict, was alive about the end of the 16th century; but whether the manuscript in my possession belonged to her, or be considered as a transcript from hers, there can be no doubt of its antiquity and {373} genuineness. I have found, upon examination, that all the six tracts in the beginning of the volume have been published; but as the manuscript is more correct than any of the printed editions which I have seen, I have generally followed it in the extracts which I have given from these tracts. The letters are forty‑three in number, besides the letter to the queen