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Lordship would endeavour to procure from Dublin translations of such little notes in the Irish Annals prior to 1054 as concern Scotland. There are in the College Libraries at Dublin three or four books of Annals in Irish, as the Psalter of Cashel, written in the tenth age; the Annals of Tigernac, in the eleventh, &c. and perhaps one or two passages about the Alban Scots may be found in them. I would write to Colonel Vallancey, the antiquary, at once, but he is so hot-headed in his writings, that I fear he would load me with fables. But accurate translations, with a note of the age of the MS. are what I want, and if your Lordship would use your influence, Scotland would ever be grateful for the attention: and any expense whatever attending it I shall most thankfully pay to Mr. Nichols, or any other person, by your Lordship's order. In short, your Lordship cannot confer a greater obligation on a whole kingdom than by this service, not to mention the extreme favour it will do me as an individual.

"O'Flaherty, in his 'Ogygia,' mentions a Chronological Poem of the Scottish Kings. If this be in any library in the College at Dublin, as I am told, an exact copy of the original, and a literal translation, would be a vast acquisition, as it bears to be written under Malcolm III. A great point is the colony of Reuda mentioned by Beda, what account the Irish Annals give of it; if the Dalreudini were originally settled in Scotland, but returned to Ireland, where we find them in Irish Annals; or if from Ireland they went under the name of Dalreudini to Scotland. I particularly beg that your Lordship will ask at different Irishmen, what is the meaning of dal, as Macpherson says it does not signify a portion or district in Irish; yet the Irish antiquaries say it does.

6

"Has your Lordship ever seen Douglas's Palace of Honour,' printed at London 1553, and at Edinburgh 1579? It is the only old Scottish piece which I can find nowhere. The Complaint of Scotland,' 1549, is quoted in the Reliques.' Does your Lordship know where any copy is? If your Lordship wishes any extract, &c. from the Museum, or any public library here, please let me know, and I shall gladly do it, for I shall with great pleasure make any little return I can for the trouble I give you, knowing that it will not be in my power to express by any

important service how much I am, my Lord, your Lordship's most obliged faithful servant, J. PINKERTON."

Mr. PINKERTON to the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. "MR URBAN,

66

Feb. 13, 1786.

"As I find that a writer in the Critical Review* hath, in his account of my little work, made two reflections on my character, which might stain it both as an author and as a man, I must beg of you to admit a few lines in vindication. The reflections are, 1. An accusation of puffing my own writings, though I loudly condemn that practice in these Letters. 2. A positive charge of plagiarism from a book, called 'Letters by Mr. Jackson,' very lately printed. "1. The error of the first charge may, perhaps, be more particularly known to you, Mr. Urban, because you have admitted many friendly letters about my trifling performance into your miscellany, and, it is likely, know from what hands they come. But I must add, and that upon the whole faith and veracity of a man who hath a much more precious character than that of author to maintain, that I never have used, nor shall use, any such infamous arts. If any friend has sent any thing in this way to the periodical prints, it is utterly without my knowledge. But, indeed, the numerous attacks upon these Letters are of such a nature, that no man can sincerely imagine my friends, or me, to have any concern in them. By puffing, I here mean, Mr. Urban, any intercourse with any periodical prints, either in praise or blame of one's writings. In respect of defence, this may surely be allowed; yet, were it not for an occasion of this singular kind, I should ever entrust that to the reader with respectful silence.

"2. With regard to plagiarism, heavy is the charge, nay, utterly destructive, were it not wholly without foundation. For, Mr. Urban, upon the solemn adjuration above used, and by every tie of truth which can bind a man to society, I never have seen the above work of Mr. Jackson, called, as the reviewer says, "Thirty Letters;' nor have ever heard it mentioned. Nor have any letters, or other writings, of Mr. Jackson, been ever read, seen, or heard of by me.

* The Letters of Literature were reviewed in the Critical Review for January 1786, p. 13; and "A Letter to Robert Heron, Esq." containing Remarks on his Letters of Literature, in the same volume, p. 471.

Perhaps some of your correspondents can inform when that book was published ;* and, if quite recently, I solemnly assure you that my Letters' were designed, as appears from my common-place books, in 1779 (two years before any other work imputed to me was published), and were, in 1780 and 1781, mentioned as a design to two or three friends were begun in 1782, and finished in November, 1783. Of the last date proof can be produced, if one or two respectable friends have kept my letters, or can charge their memory with the time. At any rate, a letter from one of our first literary characters, dated Dec. 28, 1781† [eighty-ONE], and in answer to one in which I acquainted him with the title, plan, and chief subjects meant to be treated, is left with Mr. Nichols, your printer, for the inspection of any person: in which he says, 'I shall be very glad to see any future publication of yours, and especially the Letters of Literature which you propose,' &c.

"As the reviewer seems as much disposed to praise as to blame, and is not destitute of candour, though quite misinformed in many particulars he admits, for want of reflecting that the most insignificant writer may have many enemies, it is hoped he will with pleasure retract these two great mistakes.

"THE AUTHOR OF LETTERS OF LITERATURE."‡

Mr. PINKERTON to BISHOP PERCY.

"MY LORD, Knightsbridge, Jan. 23, 1786. "Since writing to your Lordship, Mr. Nichols informs me that he knows not how to send the parcel to your Lordship, and I beg you will instruct us. I have also discovered that the Psalter of Cashel cannot be found, and that Tigernac is at Oxford; so that I was mistaken in my request about them. But, my Lord, I beg that you will exert your great influence to procure literal transcripts and translations of all such sentences in the Irish Annals as relate to Scotland prior to 1055, which, it is believed, will not fill six pages.

"Lord Buchan informs me, that your Lordship is promoting an Irish Society of Antiquaries,§ which I am happy

* It appeared in 1783. See Gent. Mag. vol. LIII. p. 332.

This passage occurs in the letter of Dr. Percy to Mr. Pinkerton, already printed in this volume, p. 99.

Gent. Mag. 1786, p. 95.

§ The Royal Irish Academy.

to hear. Depend on it, my Lord, that I am a stranger to that little invidious spirit which animates most Scottish antiquaries against the antiquities of that noble island and worthy sister of Britain in which you now dwell. From the birth of Christ much may be done in Irish history; but the Irish antiquaries hurt their cause by going further, and lose the flesh by grasping at the shadow.

"But, my Lord, I entreat you by all your regard for antiquities to use your best endeavours in the following point, about which it is likely Lord Buchan may also write to you. O'Flaherty, in his Ogygia,' and in his defence of it lately published by Mr. O'Conor,* and Kennedy, in his Genealogy of the House of Stuart (Paris, 1705, 8vo.) both mention a short Chronicle of Scottish Kings in Irish rhyme, which bears in its conclusion to be written under Malcolm III. Now, my Lord, this is, of all our historical monuments, the most ancient, and of the first importance to our early history, and it would be a high favour to the whole Scottish nation if any copy of that Chronicle could be procured; for O'Flaherty speaks as if different copies were extant. I cannot too earnestly entreat your Lordship to use every application to procure so valuable a national record, which all our antiquaries as earnestly wish to see. If it is in my power to serve your Lordship by any intelligence from libraries in England, I shall with the utmost pleasure.

"I beg, my Lord, that if other avocations prevent your attending to these matters, you will by a single line let me know, that I may lose no time in applying to some learned gentleman of Ireland about them. Nor shall I murmur at this, knowing the many important duties of your station may totally prevent your minding such trifles. Depend on it, my Lord, I shall in all events retain a most grateful sense of your kindness to me, and ever be, with great respect, my Lord, your Lordship's obliged and faithful servant,

"JOHN PINKERTON."

"I am informed that your Lordship has a copy of the Complaint of Scotland' (printed 1549), and should be

*Charles O'Conor, of Balanagare, author of the Dissertations on the History of Ireland, &c. and father of the Rev. Dr. O'Conor, late librarian to the Duke of Buckingham, with whom he is confounded by Mr. Dawson Turner.-F. M.

glad, if it has the title-page, to have a fac-simile of it, as the book is meant to be reprinted. But I suspect no copy has the title, save that which belonged to Lord Oxford, and was sold by Osborn. Does your Lordship know who got this last? The title is very important, as it bears the book to be written by Wedderburn, not Sir James Inglis, as commonly thought."

Remarks on the Essay prefixed to Pinkerton's Ancient Scottish Poems. By RICHARD GOUGH, Esq. "MR. URBAN, Feb. 2, 1786. "That bold assertion and hardy declamation are talents possessed in an eminent degree by the editor of 'Ancient Scottish Poems,' in 2 vols. 8vo. can be doubted by no one who has read a collection of 'Letters' universally ascribed to him, or the prefatory essay prefixed to his avowed edition of the said Ancient Scottish Poems. The same spirit pervades both works; the same ascription of preeminence in poetry to Mr. Gray; the same determination to decry every composition or history that bears the name of Scripture.

"If cool reason, or even probable conjecture, could be permitted a fair hearing in Mr. P.'s court of judicature, one might plead that the Jews were older than the Celts, consequently than the Britons, Picts, or Scots; that Judæa was not a province of Syria till a period when Syrian history itself commenced, now almost annihilated, or reduced to a few fragments, preserved in Jewish or other writers; that Bayle's authority, like that of Voltaire, is inadmissible to those who read with care and attention; that the Christian religion is founded on the Jewish; that the Jews were chosen by God as the people, at the time of such election, best calculated to preserve his oracles and institutions pure, though not more infallible than other surrounding nations whom they were employed to extirpate, and whose vices they, like other nations who think themselves more enlightened and civilised, copied to their ruin. The God of the Jews, under these circumstances, was authorised both to extirpate the corrupt nations round his chosen people, and to reject that people also when they fell into the same corruptions;