ALEXANDER GOKDON, THE ANTIQUARY. 125 



nott get another at present ; an'l this book is absohitely necessary 

 for my designes, seeing it du'ects me to 50 or 60 places which I know 

 nothing about, besides am to trace the Vallum according to the stages 

 sett doun in his draught. All this considered, and that it may 

 chance to be of publick good, I hope you'l indulge me with this favour 

 which I came to ask of you in person ; but I heard you was at the 

 Fowl Briggs ; am therefore impatiently waiting your commands this 

 way, or if possitively you will have it returned, I shall; but at any 

 rate should not keep it long from you." 



From this we learn that Gordon was to start, in company with 

 Baron Clerk, on the following day, on what he styles an "Antiquary 

 PereoTination," or " Virtuoso Tuer," to the E,oman camp at Ai'doch, 

 and the remoter footprints of Imperial Rome lying beyond the Tay ; 

 as well as to trace the line of the Antonine Wall between the Forth 

 and Clyde, on the details of which, as it existed one hundred and 

 fifty years ago, his own learned folio throws much light. 



Sibbald's folio was^ the vade mecum of northern antiquaries, till 

 superseded by that of Gordon ; who shows his gratitude for the 

 invaluable aid derived from a predecessor to whose diligent re- 

 searches he owed the direction to fifty or sixty places, about which, 

 as he acknowledges to Mr. Anderson, he would" otherwise have 

 remained in total ignorance, by never vv eary ing in giving expression 

 to his astonishment at his blunders and shortcomings. We have 

 therefore to picture to ourselves Sandie Gordon, mounted, like Don 

 Quixote on his Rosinante, with Sibbald's "Historical Inquiries" 

 stowed away in his huge saddle-bags, for reference, as " a matter 

 of indispensable necessity," in many a learned discussion with the 

 Baron concerning the true country of the Brigantes ; the sites of 

 Borcovicus, Alauna, ^sica per lineam Valli, and above all, that of 

 the world-famous battle of Mons Grampius. " If these be in Scot- 

 land," he exclaims with bitter ii'ony, at the close of a controversial 

 dissertation on his predecessor's narrative, " Sir Robert must be in 

 the right, and Pancirolus and Cambden in the wrong; which no 

 man, I think, that has any pretence to learning, will now assert." 

 But such was the belligerent fashion of an age which Scott has 

 reproduced for us with such graphic humour. 



In this and similar exploratory tours, Gordon made himself master 

 of the details of Roman and other early remains embodied in his dry, 

 but patiently-elaborated folio, which owes the revival of its fame to 



