The ancient story of early Scotland will not be fully told until much more study has been completed, The face of the land literally is pockmarked with the remains of settlements and dwellings—many unexcavated—raised in an age so remote from our own, we scarcely know the names of the races that inhabited them. Riddles there...

In graceful prose not unworthy of his subject, the distinguished English biographer Lord David Cecil paints an endearing portrait of “St. Charles,” as Thackeray was later to call Lamb. Saint he was, certainly, and sinner, too. The death of Lamb’s mother at the hands of his intermittently mad sister, Mary, caused him lasting grief and...