Sir R. Baker and Mr. Grainger have implicitly followed Stowe.

Camden, in his Remains, (article apparel,) cites a manuscript history called " Eulogium," but of what age does not appear; which says, "their shoes and pattens are snouted and piked more than a finger long, crooking upwards, which they call crackars, resembling the devil's claws, which were fastened to the knees with chains of gold and silver." Du Clercq, a writer who is very particular in describing the dress of the French about 1460, does not notice these pointed shoes.

Le Gendre says these shoes were called poulaines, from the name of the inventor; but he does not say they were tied up with chains.

MR. DILLY TO MR. PINKERTON.

Jan. 11th, 1796.

I shall have no objection to purchase your History of Scotland in manner following: one hundred pounds, when a quarter be printed; a second hundred, on the half being printed; a third hundred, six months after the completion of the work at press. A fourth and full completion of the purchase of the copyright shall be made upon payment of a fourth hundred, which shall be by a note twelve months after the publication of the history is made.

I have proposed this sum, to prove I am inclined to engage in the work; and, as I intend to give

a further consideration,* provided the impression of one thousand should sell off in a given time, as shall be named in the agreement, I presume the conditions may be drawn up at our next meeting. I shall have no objection to go to press in the course of the next month.

REV. STEBBING SHAW + TO MR. PINKERTON.

Thornhaugh-street, Bedford Square,
Jan. 25th, 1796.

Having been applied to during a visit at Cambridge last week to copy some drawings for you in the Scotichronicon‡ in Corpus Christi College; but not being able to draw them properly, for want of transparent paper, or want of time, as I had very important university business to perform, I herewith send you a few observations I then made; and, if you will favor me with a call any

* In a subsequent letter Mr. Dilly explains what he here intends by a further consideration. He shall not object, he says, in case all the copies of the first impression should be sold in the course of two years, to pay 2007. more for the revision and corrections to be made for a second edition.

+ Of Queen's College, Cambridge: author of a Tour in the West of England, and of the History and Antiquities of the County of Stafford. He died Oct. 28, 1802.

Dr. Nasmith, in his Catalogue of the Manuscripts left by Archbishop Parker to Corpus Christi College, says of the manuscript in question, that it is of the fifteenth century, on paper, and contains four or five illuminations of considerable beauty.

morning you may chance to come to town this week, I perhaps may be able to describe the nature of the drawings better to you; and will endeavor to copy what you wish next week, when I must return to Cambridge for a few days.

I seldom go out before twelve o'clock; but will make a point of being at home any other hour you please to mention.

I have also a self-interest in wishing to see you here, to request your opinion with respect to some Roman and Saxon coins, original Saxon charters, &c. in my collection for Staffordshire.

The Scotichronicon, by John Fordun, in Corpus Christi College library, is very much injured, particularly at the beginning; and many pages seem to have been devoured by mice. In the first page is the small remnant of a drawing of a man writing at a desk, and this coat of arms adjoining:

The first illumination is at the end of the first book; viz. a small ship with soldiers, &c., and over it is written Scota gathelos." The second illumination is at the beginning of book v. ; viz. two curious figures in conversation in a room, and over them "De Rege Malcolmo Kennemor et Thano de Fiffe." The next is facing book xì., and repre

sents a funeral procession: viz. four men carrying the coffin upon two poles on their shoulders, and on the pall is delineated a

Priests or monks follow after, singing. From the opposite text it appears to represent the funeral of Alex. II. The next drawing is in the middle of book xii., and represents a battle: some on horses, but most on foot, all in armour, with part of a town and castle or fort, I think called the battle of Banockburn.

The last and least of these illuminations is a man's profile, representing the capital letter C,

thus

G

onsideranti, at the beginning of book xvi.

MR. PINKERTON TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN.

Hampstead, Feb. 28th, 1796.

I am honored with your lordship's of the 17th. With regard to the Catalogue of Portraits, with accounts by whom sent, they must be strange reasoners who think such a circumstance any authentication. I might say of the portraits at Kensington, "sent by Mr. Taylor in a rainy day to Mr. Herbert!" "Mr. Trotter being ill, his wife brought this tracing!" Fine authentication, no doubt! It has hitherto sufficed in such cases to name the collection; and even this has been too often omitted.

Of the gluttony of trifling fame, what the French call the gloriole, I trust I have none, and can see no ground of reputation in a collection of prints. In the preface to vol. I. I shall give the whole credit of the collection to your lordship, and say at once that the portraits from Scotland, amounting to about half, were all remitted by you. But I shall not say that the work would never have come to light without my exertions, which have been great and persevering, &c. &c.

Though I gain nothing but labor and cavilling by this work, yet I regard your lordship's attentions to it as a personal obligation, and have on all occasions warmly expressed my sense of them. It is, my lord, with a view to spare you some labor, that I beg to mention that one half of the tracings, &c. you have been so good as to send are foreign to the design. Archbishop Adamson, Short the optician, &c. have nothing to do with illustrious men. The king and queen of Bohemia have nothing to do with Scotland.

In a commonwealth, the dictators, consuls, &c. in a monarchy, the kings attract the chief notice: in short, the chief actors in history will ever form the first class of illustrious men. This is human nature; and no philosophy can make a shrub an oak. Our first object is therefore the monarchs, and, after them, the chief actors in history. The single portrait of James IV., or that of James III., is more interesting, even to a philosopher who knows that their personal characters influenced a whole country, than the portraits of ten obscure persons, whose virtues or vices never passed a narrow sphere.