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ALEXANDER GORDON, THE ANTIQUARY. 



A SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICE. 



BY DANIEL WILSON, LL.D. 



Professor of History and English Literature, University College, Toronto. 



In 1872 I communicated to the Canadian Institute some memo- 

 randa relative to a famous old Scottish antiquary, Alexander Gor- 

 don,* author of the " Itinerarium Septentrionale," published in 1726, ■ 

 and recalled anew to modern readers by the prominence assigned to 

 it by Sir Walter Scott in the pages of " The Antiquary." The special 

 claims which the author of the Itinerarium presented to notice in 

 a Canadian journal, rested on the fact that in his later years he 

 emicfrated to the New World, and closed his life in South Carolina 

 while that was still one of the British colonies. Attracted by the 

 fact that one of the earliest and most diligent labourers in the field 

 of Scottish antiquities had thus spent his later years on this conti- 

 nent, and among scenes so strikingly contrasting with all that had 

 chiefly invited his research so long as he resided in the Old World, 

 I was led to institute inquiries which happily resulted in the recovery 

 of a copy of his will — a curiotis and highly characteristic document. 

 This I forwarded to my friend. Dr. David Laing, Foreign Secretary 

 to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, with a view to its being 

 communicated to that body ; and as he has supplemented its produc- 

 tion in the Proceedings of that society, with letters and other infor- 

 mation concerning Gordon and his works, I have embodied them 

 here, along with some additional notes, in a consecutive narrative, as 

 a supplement to the account already contributed to this journal. 



Alexander Gordon was a native of Aberdeen, and a graduate of 

 one or other of the universities which then rivalled each other as 

 seats of learning on the banks of the Dee. But both christian and 

 surname are common in that locality ; and it has proved impossible 

 .either to trace his family relations, or to pick him out from among 



♦Alexander Gordou, the Antiquary. Vol. XIV., N. S., p. 9. 



