think I mentioned to you that they were already engraved in the Monthly Magazine for July, 1806; though the editor unaccountably neglected to engrave the larger fac-simile of the inscription. As I esteem this to be one of the most curious things ever discovered in our country, I much wish that some explanation of it could be procured. The emblematical figures, so common upon our monumental stones, also very much require and deserve illustration.

half in length, and cut to the depth of about a quarter of an inch.

"This curious inscription, which is, it is believed, unique, is now submitted to the literati. The characters seem to resemble the Anglo-Saxon, as published by Hickes, especially those on the coins of the kings of Northumbria of the ninth century. is reasonable indeed to infer that any arts of civilization passed from the south to the north, there being no intercourse with the continent except by rude mariners; for, even in the sixth century, as we learn from the life of St. Columba, Gallic mariners visited the western islands of Scotland. It is also remarkable, that in the same curious biography we find mention of a Saxon pistor, or baker. In later times we know from an English historian, the Scots made, on one occasion, so many prisoners, that scarcely a cottage was without its slave. It is also to be supposed that, during the inroads of the Pagan Danes, many of the Christian Saxons sought refuge in a country, which, though often inimical, was yet of the same faith. But these observations are submitted to the curious inquirer, and the letters and the language to the examination of the learned of all countries."

THE REV. DR. STUART TO MR. PINKERTON.

College, Aberdeen, Nov. 3d, 1813.

I hope you have received safely the small parcel announced in my former letter, which was sent by a young man, Mr. Ogilvie, a student of medicine, who promised to see it carefully delivered.

As, without any compliment, I consider you as one of the persons most capable in this country of deciphering (if it may be so called) the hieroglyphical sculptures on our ancient stone monuments, which, although of much importance, has scarcely hitherto been attempted,* I now send

66

It is well known," says Mr. Pinkerton, (second edition of his Inquiry into the History of Scotland, p. x.) " that there exist in various parts of Scotland, but chiefly on the east side from the river Tay as far as the county of Sutherland, singular erect stones, generally with crosses on one side, and upon the other sculptures not ill executed for a barbarous age. These chiefly abound in the county of Angus, the centre of the Pictish dominions. There are four at Aberlemno and five at Meigle, including a lintel over the door of the clergyman's garden, which has upon one side cattle and a deer seized by a dog, and on the other salmon and other fish; but the latter have been almost erased by a barbarous modern chisel. That at the chapel at Auldbar is singular; as, instead of horsemen and spears, there are two persons sitting, probably religious; and beneath them, a man seemingly tearing out a lion's tongue, perhaps Samson, and opposite to him a curious figure of an antique harp: under these are a man on horseback, a lamb, a bullock, and perhaps an ass. At Meigle the most curious is that representing a lady riding in a British car with a single horse and driver.

One at Glamis, like the lintel above mentioned, and

you two other specimens of the same kind, with similar emblematical figures. One of them was originally placed alongside of the two already in your possession, and the other at no great distance in the same neighborhood: you may depend on their being accurately copied.

another at Meigle, presents salmon, which, like the deer and cattle, probably point to the sources of wealth of the distinguished persons to whose memory they were erected. Under the salmon at Glamis is a mirror, which always indicates a female. On the stone lately discovered at Dunnichen, the seat of my excellent friend, George Dempster, Esq., there are a mirror and a comb; and the same symbols occur on another published by Mr. Cordiner in his Picturesque Antiquities, and which also represents the lady riding out to hunt, with two footmen blowing horns, and two other attendants on horseback.

It is much to be wished that a general collection of all these curious monuments were published in plates of a just size; those of Mr. Pennant being too diminutive, as well as those of Mr. Cordiner, whose representations cannot be trusted, his imagination being strangely perverted by some fantastic ideas of the picturesque, while those of Mr. Gordon are too rude and in-. accurate."

inscription sent you in October with the alphabet of Ulphilas's Gospels,* and found some of the characters similar, but others by no means so. It must, however, belong to some northern alphabet; and I believe we know of none of these more ancient than his Gothic. I forget whether I formerly mentioned to you that it had been submitted to the well known General Vallancey, who translated the Phoenician scene in Plautus as good old Irish ;† and he read the two first words of it Gylf-Gummara, i. e. "Prince Gylf," but acknowledged his inability to proceed any farther; and even in this I think he was wrong. Gulph or Gylf, he says, led a body of northern Scythians from the western

* For the alphabet used in Ulphilas's Gospels see Fry's Pantographia, p. 103, where it is styled Mæso-Gothic. Mr. Astle, in his Origin and Progress of Writing, p. 87, says on this subject: "Those writers are certainly mistaken who attribute the invention of Gothic letters to Ulphilas, bishop of Masia, who lived in the fourth century. The gospels translated by him into the Gothic language, and written in ancient Gothic characters about the year 370, were formerly kept in the library of the monastery of Werden; but this manuscript is now preserved in the library at Upsal, and is known among the learned by the title of the "silver book of Ulphilas," because it is bound in massy silver. Several editions of this manuscript have been printed. See a specimen of it in Hickes's Thesaurus, Vol. I. preface, p. 8. Dr. Hickes positively disallows this translation to be Ulphilas's; but says it was made by some Teuton or German, either as old, or perhaps older than Ulphilas; but whether this was so or not, the characters are apparently of Greek original."

+ See Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language in the Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, II. p. 302, and Sir L. Parsons' Defence of the Ancient History of Ireland, p. 138.

coast of the Black Sea to the Baltic, soon after Odin, of whom he was a descendant. His residence was at Upsal, about the æra of the expedition of Pompey against these people.

Gumnar, or Gummar, he says, "dicuntur populi

duces." He refers to Ihre's Lericon Suevo-Gothicum, and Rozin's Essay on the Mythology and Ancient Literature of the North, which I have never

seen.

MR. DEMPSTER TO MR. PINKERTON.

Dunnichen, Nov. 30th, 1813.

Your favor of the 18th and I have been playing bo-peep till yesterday, when we met full face here.

There is nothing more natural than your wish to be placed in our Register Office; you, whose works are the only true register of Scotch public events. I don't think you quite so accurate as to those falling under our own observation. How can you imagine merit supplants interest, or that your views can be promoted by explaining their public utility to a dotard, who retired twenty years ago from public affairs, and who has survived two or three whole sets of members of both houses of parliament, except the very man who could serve you, Lord Frederick Campbell; but with whom he never but once eat or drank, and scarce ever conversed, and to whom any application from me would do no service, but on the contrary hurt? It would be said I was tampering