Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/314

258 Church.' This contains a chapter entitled 'Cross-legged Effigies. Whom do They Represent?' Thence I quote the following sentences (second ed., 1895, pp. 88-89):—

Mr. Baylis gives "Mr. Habingdon in his Manuscript (1650) cited in Dr. Nash's 'Worcestershire Alvechurch,' p. 31," as his authority for saying that there are no cross-legged effigies known on the Continent. In the face of the explicit statement by at the first reference, this must, of course, now be noted as an error!

(10ᵗʰ S. v. 187).—It may be worth adding to the note on this subject that Mr. Matthew Fowlds—who pursues his calling as a weaver in the cottage in which he was born in the village of Fenwick, North Ayrshire, on 22 May, 1806, and is in sound mental and bodily health—recorded his vote at the recent election. I do not know if Mr. George Croal, Edinburgh's nonagenarian link with Sir Walter Scott, exercised his privilege as a voter; but Mr. Samuel Kinnear, his fellow-townsman—who was a printer's lad in the great Reform procession in the Scottish capital in 1832, who heard from his father (a compositor in Smellie's printing office in 1786) a description of Robert Burns, and set type himself in the same dingy case-room sixty odd years ago—was delighted at being able to vote for the Liberal candidate for his division.

(10ᵗʰ S. v. 208).—The index to 'Catalogue of a Loan Collection of Portraits,' exhibited in the Examination Schools, Oxford, April and May, 1905, does not contain the name of Brerewood. He was, I think, of Brasenose College, but in Shrimpton's guide he does not appear in the list of "learned men who have studied under the shadow of the Bodleian in B.N.C."

and more apparent with each successive volume become the merits of this splendid peerage, the most serious and capable attempt yet made to grapple with the difficulties and mysteries of Scottish genealogy. As regards the class of work, the system adopted (and now thoroughly developed) is unique. We know, indeed, of no work of the kind which combines like this the maximum of skilled labour of the expert with the greatest weight of official authority. The name on the title-page of Lord Lyon King of Arms is a voucher for the trustworthiness of the whole; while the list of contributors to the present volume includes all that is most widely known and fully recognized in Scottish genealogical research. Some thirty odd peerages are dealt with, embracing, in alphabetical order, those betwixt Crawford, Earl of Lindsay, and Gary, Viscount Falkland. Nine of these are supplied with a full-page armorial illustration. As the oldest peerages, those of Crawford, Crichton, Douglas, Dunbar, Eglinton, Elphinstone, and Erroll receive naturally the fullest treatment. In dealing with the borderland between the mythical and the historical commendable discretion is shown. The statement of Hume of Godscroft that the first Douglas was a certain nobleman who, in the days of Solvathius, King of Scotland, routed the army of Donald Bane, a pretender to the throne, in a battle in 767, which is obviously mythical, is accompanied by the mention of the suggestion—it may not be said corroborative fact—that "Donald Bane, who is an historical personage, appears as a contemporary with the earliest Douglas who is known to authentic history," William de Dufglas, whose appearance apparently coincides with the rebellion and death of Donald Bane. Abundant use is avowedly made in the account of Douglas, Earl of Douglas, of 'The Douglas Book' of Sir William Eraser. One of the most interesting lives, historically considered, is that of John Graham, first Viscount of Dundee and Lord Graham of Claverhouse. In the case of a peerage comparatively so recent as this the questions which obscure the beginnings of the great houses are scarcely to be expected; but even in this instance some dubiety exists. Little temptation is there to enter upon matters of strictly genealogical interest, concerning which doubt will always be possible, but with regard to which what is here said is the approximately final pronouncement. Still less justification is there to dwell upon feats and deeds, a full record of which is to be found in Scottish history. We can but repeat that whatever is known concerning the great Scotch houses is herein best preserved and most satisfactorily recorded. An important task is in the way of being most admirably discharged.