128 ALEXANDER GORDON, THE ANTIQUARY. 



Nonumque pvematur in annum : 



Membranis intiis positis, delere licebit 

 Quod non edideris ; nescit vox missa reverti. 



But, possibly, lie lias done better if he has acquired by it new and 

 able friends to get him put in a new way of living." 



Sii' John Clerk thus amiably recalls the fact that while Mr. Gale 

 and himself were amvising an idle hour with antiquarian research as 

 a pleasant pastime, Gordon, with self-sacrificing zeal, had thus far 

 made it the business of his life. The traditions of Pennycuik House 

 recalled the author of the Itinerarium as an austere, formal enthusiast, 

 who had won for himself the soubriquet of Galgacus, from his abound- 

 ing zeal on the subject of the famed battle of Mons Grampius and 

 its Caledonian hero. " It was not in vain," he exclaims, " ^-hat 

 Galgacus, in his speech to his army, made use of this expression : 

 ' We, the bravest and most noble inhabitants of all Britain, and 

 seated in its very bosom, never so much as once looked on countries 

 of servitude, nor were our eyes at any time polluted with objects of 

 slavery ;' " he then adds : " that their situation being at the extreme 

 part of the world, among them only were liberty and fame remain- 

 ing." And so Gordon goes on to quote and translate the " Nos 

 integri et indomiti," (fee, of Tacitus, and to produce anew the 

 Caledonian chief's fictitious rhetoric : " If I be slain in Caledonia, 

 'twill not.be inglorious to have it said that I fell in a country which 

 is the extreme boundary of the earth and nature !" — and all this 

 with a faith in the old Historian's rhetoric equal, at the least, to 

 what we are wont to extend to " Our own correspondent" of the 

 Times. His weakness on this point was familiar to Sir John, and he 

 adds : " I cannot omit making some apology for him in relation to 

 what he says of the speech of Galgacus. I once endeavoured to 

 persuade him that it was only a fiction of Tacitus conformable to a 

 liberty among historians, and that there was no reasoning from any 

 thing contained in it to the advantage either of Galgacus or his 

 Caledonians; bu^t Mr. Gordon's high respect for his country hath 

 carried him too fax*, and made him commit a sort of laudable fault. 

 There are other instances of this infirmity ; but his business as an 

 antiquarian will atone for all : the best that could be said for the 

 Caledonians was, that though they had been conquered, yet the 

 Romans could not retain their conquests. I , am, I confess, of the 

 opinion of some learned men, that it is a reproach to a nation to 



