152 THE ORIGIN OF THE SHIRLEYS AND OF THE GRESLEYS. 



concerned with the knights' fees held by the ancestors 

 respectively of the families of Shirley and of Gresley. 



As no one, perhaps, is better known as a critic of pedigrees 

 than myself, I should be the last to be suspected of undue 

 credulity or of lightly accepting a descent which rests on 

 no foundation. Nevertheless, Mr. Pym Yeatman, who has 

 chosen, we shall see,, to reject both the above pedigrees, has 

 assailed me with curious fury for accepting that of Gresley — 

 and would doubtless be no less wrathful if he knew that I had 

 classed with it that of Shirley— as those of families whose 

 ancestors were among "the companions of the Conqueror."* 

 It is singular that, while selecting for attack two of the best- 

 known English pedigrees, Mr. Yeatman dedicates the latest 

 section of his Feudal History of Derbyshire to a gentleman 

 whose modest pedigree in Burke's Landed Gentry reveals him 

 as the son of a Mayor of Manchester, but whom Mr. Yeatman 

 hails as "himself a lineal descendant from the great family 

 of Albini."t 



In this latest section of the work he terms The Feudal History 

 of the County of Derby, Mr. Yeatman observes, in his preface, 

 that " a good deal of this book has been necessarily devoted 

 to exposing " my " crass ignorance." No one, I presume, will 

 expect me to reply to mere abuse. Indeed, from Mr. Yeatman 

 abuse is a compliment; for on p. 192 we read of Mr. Sidney 

 Lee- — a scholar whose work, as editor of the Dictionary of 

 National Biography, and whose authority on Shakespeare are 

 held in the highest repute on both sides of the Atlantic — 



Having given up the search for the stinkpot of John Shakespere, the 

 shoemaker in Henley Street, to tickle the ears of the great McDowie's 

 " stinkpots " of New York with his crudities and inanities. 



It appears to be Mr. Lee's offence that he has not deigned 

 to take notice of Mr. Yeatman's work. As in my case, the 

 latter, we read, has " exposed them " (the " crudities and 



* See my paper with that title in the Monthly Review, June, 1901, 

 PP- 103-5. 



tMr. Yeatman, after speaking thankfully of his patron's munificence, 

 expresses his satisfaction at being able to offer so interesting an account 

 of his ancestry. I gather from p. 144 that this includes the Peverels. 



