30 ALEXANDER GORDON, THE ANTIQrASY. 



for tlie old antiquary. His fate, though no rare one in the history 

 of the Scot, was scarcely what he deserved. He must have had one 

 more point of resemblance to Jonathan Oldbuck, characteristic 

 enough of many a pilgrim from Dee-side. " Were he thoughtless, 

 or light-headed, or o'ei suae prodigus," said the old attorney who had 

 undertaken to become Jonathan's instructor in the profession of the 

 law, " I would know what to make of him. But he never pays 

 away a shilling without looking anxiously after the change, makes his 

 sixpence go farther than another lad's half-crown, and will ponder 

 over an old black-letter copy of an Act of Parliament for days, rather 

 than go to the golf, or the change-house." The author of the Itine- 

 rarium was of the same frugal type ; and having no paternal acres on 

 which to retire, after laboiiring so zealously to elucidate the anti- 

 quities of the Old World, he undertook an amj)ler Itinerarium Sep- 

 tenti'ionale beyond the furthest limit marked by column or temple of 

 the god Terminus. It was his fortune to close his diligent life 

 among the novelties of a world beyond the Atlantic, whither the 

 Roman eagle never flew. 



In 1741 Gordon was succeeded in the office of Secretary to the 

 Society of Antiquaries of London by Mr. Joseph Ames, best known 

 by his labours on typographical antiquities. He had married, and 

 no doubt found the rewards of archaeological learning and research 

 somewhat insubstantial resources on which to sustain his household 

 gods. So he accepted an invitation to accompany Governor Glen to 

 South Carolina, where he obtained an official appointment, acquired 

 a valuable grant of land, and died apparently in the year 1754, 

 leaving to his family gifts, of fortune far beyond what could have 

 been hoped for from the career of the antiquarian enthusiast. It is 

 just possible that this colonial appointment bore some slight relation 

 to his earlier researches. At least the fact is noticeable that, 

 among the Roman relics recovered by him while exploring the 

 Antonine wall, at Barhill Fort, near Auchinday, was a Roman altar 

 sculptured with patera and praefericulum, which, he says, "is now 

 in the hands of my curious and honoured friend, James Glen, Esq., 

 present Provost of Lithgow." This is no doubt the James Glen 

 of Longcroft, Esq., who appears as a su.bscriber for two royal copies 

 of the Itinerarium, and not improbably a relative of His Excellency 

 James Glen, Governor of South Carolina, the patron at whose invita- 

 tion Gordon emigrated to his later home in the New World. 



