all well pleased with it, and are thereby convinced how great an Antiquary that Noble Lord was. I suppose you are by this time settled in your Curacy, at least I hope so. Pray give me a line this week. "As to Lord Stamford, I should be glad if you would ask your mother, who I think is still living, whether there was any printed Catalogue of his Coins? in what year they were sold? what year the Books were sold? whether any Catalogue of them is remaining any where to her knowledge? whether any gentlemen in your neighbourhood or elsewhere bought any number of them? "A. C. DUCAREL." RICHARD FRANK *, Esq. to Dr. DUCAREL. "DEAR SIR, Campsall, Dec. 10, 1755. "I am obliged to Dr. Burton for making me acquainted with a gentleman of your abilities, and inclination to serve even those that are no other ways known to you than from the recommendation and a general inclination to the like studies and inquiries with yourself. I had immediately acknowledged your kind and useful letter, but that I waited for that which you gave me reason to expect from Dr. Johnson, which I received the following post, containing some account of the MSS. inquired after †, according to the alphabetical letters and numbers, in both of yours. This account is, to be sure, very short; but I could not reasonably expect a more exact one, from the little time and leisure from the business of his profession that the Doctor could have for the making of it. I could be glad to have these MSS; and, I believe too, Dr. Johnson had rather they passed into my hands, as a relation, than another; but, whether I or any other be the purchaser of them, it must be in a good measure at a venture, and without knowing what they are worth, and I fancy there will not be many that, on these terms, will care to give what you, on a cursory view of them, judge them to be worth, though I shall lay a great stress upon your opinion whenever a price is set upon them, which as yet hath not been. But, to judge of the account of them now before me, there is a good part of them that, though useful to the Collector, and at the time his collections were made, that is * Recorder of Pontefract and Dorchester; a polite scholar, and a lover of Antiquities. He was elected F. S. A. in 1756; and died May 22, 1762. Of his valuable Collections, see the "Literary Anecdores," vol. V. p. 328; and his Epitaph, written by Dr. Ducarel, in the same volume, p. 698. + Of the Collections of Dr. Nathanael Johnson, or rather Johnston, see the "Literary Anecdotes," vol. V. p. 528. not not so to others, nor now: and, presuming on your excuse for the tediousness of it, I will venture to lay before you some short observations in support of what I have said, upon the heads sent me : "A. 1. History from William the Conqueror. This proba bly must be met with more fully in the several Histories we have, both modern and antient, wrote near to his time. "B. 1. Antiquities of York. This hath been fully treated of and exhausted in Drake's Antiquities of York. "B. 2. Terms of Law. There are a multitude of printed books, as Terms de la Ley; Spelman's Glossary; Cowel's Interpreter; Jacob's, Bohun's, &c. Law Dictionaries. "B. 5, 6. Indexes. "B. 9. Index to Dodsworth. "D.-A. 2. Index, &c. -- "D.-C. 1, 2. Earls and Dukes of Shrewsbury. I suppose these to be an historical and genealogical account of those Earls and Dukes, the substance of which will doubtless be found in Dugdale's Baronage. "D.-C. 3. Kings of Northumberland.—In all our Histories. “D.—D. 3, 4. Earls and Dukes of Shrewsbury.-Vide D.—C. 1 and 2. "D.-E. 1. Towns' names. There is an Index Villare of all the Towns in England published. "D.-G. 4. Index of Towns, from Dodsworth. "D.-K. 1. General Index to ch. i. "D.-K. 3. Alphabetical List of K. 2, (being an alphabetical list of parochial antiquities in K. 2.) "D.-L. 1. Indexes and Letters. "D.-X. 3. Earls of Shrewsbury. —Vide D.-C. 1, 2; and D.-D. 3, 4. “ D.—X. 6, 7, 8. Ditto. "E. 2. Ditto. "E. 4. Siege of Pontfreit Castle. I have a copy from the same original MS. which the Collector made use of. "E. 5. Forms of Law.-Can be of no great use. "E. 6. Livings, Patrons, &c.-Published in Willis's Northern Cathedrals, and in Ecton's Thesaurus, and Torr's MSS. in the Cathedral of York, of which I have a copy. "E. 9. Antiquities of York.-Published by Drake. E. 10. Catalogue of Towns. Vide D.-E. 1; D.—E. 4. "By which you will see that most of the above articles, though useful, and almost necessary to the collection, are, by what hath happened since the time, become, if not entirely, at least much less so now. "I have had in my hands the two volumes relating to Pomfret for near a twelvemonth; and can therefore say, with certainty, that they did not answer my expectation of them; and I fear the same may turn out with respect to many others. But there is one material article, which, I have been told by the late late Dr. Johnson, was in this collection, which I see no account of, viz. a thick folio MS. being an historical and genealogical account of the D'Arcy family, now Earl of Holderness, compiled by Sir William Dugdale, Dr. Johnson, &c. at the instance and for the use of the then Lord D'Arcy of Aston, who caused it to be transcribed upon vellum, and the arms, &c. to be finely illuminated, which book of Lord D'Arcy's perished in the flames when Aston House was burnt, during this Lord Holderness's minority; so that this first draught is the only one (wherever it is) now remaining of it, and consequently very valuable to that family and others. The deceased Dr. Johnson told me, he had mentioned it to Sir Conyers D'Arcy, who gave him (as he thought) but a cool answer, and put off the consideration of it till Lord Holderness should come to age. Whether Lord Holderness then got it, or what is become of it, I know not; but, perhaps, this was as valuable as any of the whole collection; and, I fear, if the whole present one was carefully compared with the Catalogue sent in by the Collector on the publication of the Catalogus Librorum MSS. in Angliâ et Hiberniâ,' and which may be there seen, tit. Johnson, there will be found many others, and perhaps the most material ones, wanting. "I have heard that the Society of Antiquaries have published, and continue still so to do, many Ruins, &c. of Castles, Abbeys, &c. I should be glad to know whether a set of these, so far as they have gone, are purchaseable, and at what price, of which doubtless you can inform me. "You see, Sir, what sort of a Correspondent your good-nature hath drawn upon you; who hath no other excuse for the liberty and tediousness of this; but that amiable principle which regards every thing in the most favourable light, as I hope it will do this, that I may have the continuance of your correspondence. You will please to add this favour,-to present my compliments to Dr. Simpson, and tell him, I purpose to place my nephew in his College this spring; and, if my affairs admit of coming on to town, the greatest pleasure I propose to myself from it will be to pay my respects to him and you. "I am, dear Sir, your obliged friend and humble servant, "RICH. FRANK." Pomfret, Jan. 12, 1757. "DEAR SIR, "I cannot forget my friends at Doctors Commons, so long as Dr. Simpson and you are there; and if I could be guilty of sliding into so much ingratitude imperceptibly, you would kindly recover me from it, by daily heaping new favours upon me, such as I must esteem this last of your Treatise of the Coins of the Dukes of Bretagne, &c.; at the same time that I lament my own inability to answer the expectations you have more kindly than justly conceived of me. Nevertheless, as you desire it, I have carefully examined the MS. compared it with Lobineau and Gale, and made some little trifling observations upon it, which accompany this. I do not return the MS. &c. as it VOL. III. 2 Q seems seems to me you did not intend I should; but, if I have mistaken you, I beg you will immediately correct me, that they may be as immediately returned. I have likewise added a small sketch of part of the Pedigree of Johnson; by which you will see that the last Dr. Henry was grandson, not son, of the Antiquary, who did not deal much in Coins, at least as far as I am yet acquainted with his MSS; the number of which, when I purchased them, was 97; since which they have received an addition by those you were so kind as to recover for me by means of Mr. Martin; but the exact number cannot well be ascertained, as they have been differently bound up, or rather put together, since the Catalogue published in the Catalogus Librorum' MSS. though doubtless many have been lost. "I hope by this time you will be able to procure me all that the Society have hitherto published; and, if either Dr. Simpson or you are so good as to disburse the amount, it shall immediately be remitted, with due acknowledgement. "Your Map will be of singular use, and could not be wished to be otherways than on a large scale, if your Treatise had admitted of it; for, as to the trifling mistakes of the Engraver, they may easily be corrected. "I wish you success in all your undertakings, particularly in your studies directed to the instruction and amusement of others, and that you may be able to carry them on through many happy years, for your own honour and their benefit; and am, dear Sir, "Your obliged friend and humble servant, RICH. FRANK. Nathan Johnson, of Pontefract,. com. Ebor, M.D. the Antiquary. ..... Cudworth John-.... dau. of.... Pelham, Chas. Johnson,= "Observations on Dr. Ducarel's Henry Johnson,=. sister of Dr. John Harris, Bp. of Landaff. Treatise of Coins of the Dukes of Bretagne, Earls of Richmond, by R. Frank.' "P. 1. note b. Duke of Bretagne, and Earl of Richmond. "P. 3. M. CLVIII. Put in margin, 1158, x Kal. Maii, 22 April;' and between 'qui hoc,' and postulaverunt,' insert etiam,' for so in Lobineau. "P. 4. Coin No. 2. As the first, &c. checque is left plain, it should be bigger; and the second, &c. checque, if Azure, should be by horizontal strokes and so it is in the centre Seal, Lobineau, No. 71, 72, 73, 80, 81, 83, and in Gale, No. 6, 7, 9, 10; though it is true that in 11, it is Or (marked always by dots) and Azure, with a bordure Gules, charged with lioncels; and, in truth, as these Coins of yours are engraved, I should have blazoned the coat Azure and Sable (always marked by squares). The canton here may be charged with leaves, the rather as in the quarterings Nos. 5, 7, and 8, they seem more plainly such, though what kind of leaves I know not; and it should seem as if these were the antient arms of Bretagne, before the family of Dreux introduced into their stead, the ermines (the antient arms of the City of Brienne, from whom those of Dreux maternally descended) as Lobineau says (though I do not now remember the place) they did. "P. 5. No. 3. I should have called this cross patée. "P. 3. became Earl of Richmond June 1334, 8 Edw. III. ; r. 1338, 12 Edw. III. On his monument in Lobineau, I. 311. his shield is wholly semée d' ermine, without the checquy of Dreux. "P. 8. Campiegne, r. Compiegne. "P. 11. Coin No. 10. I take this to be intended for a ducal coronet, and that the dots are meant for pearls. "P. 12. Coin 11. I take these to be two spots of ermine reversed. I observe likewise that some of the crosses pateè are marked with perpendicular strokes, which denote Gules; and others with traverse ones Sable. Qu. the reason? "P. 12. note k. This family of Montfort might have their name Seigneural originally from Montfort in Germany; but those that succeeded to Bretagne (I think) are said by Lobineau to be of Montfort L'Aumary, in France. Vide Moreri Dict. Ideò qu. "P. 13. note 1. 15 Edw. III. 1341. "P. 16. Coins 27 and 28. Certainly no place; the head of which is rounder, and not with such a peaked nose; nor, I think, dog, but rather fox or wolf, to denote the sagacity, or fierceness, or bravery of the Prince giving it. "P. 17. Tourneuve, Tour Neuve. "P. 20. Coin 34. The outward circle is of I. and dots of Ermine with circles interchangeably." "DEAR SIR, Pomfret, May 2, 1757. "I deferred thus long acknowledging your favour, in hopes I might at the same time have returned my thanks for the Society's Prints, and which I have still to hope for from Mr. Martin, which, I do not doubt, ere long I shall be able to do. I have acquainted Dr. Burton with your kindness in being a subscriber to his book, the first volume of which is in the press, and I suppose, will soon be out, and shall be taken care of, subject to your orders. 66 I have had an infinite deal of trouble in digesting Dr. Johnson's MSS. and have not yet gone quite through with them; but have the satisfaction to tell you, from what I already know, that there are many valuable things, as well as some trash amongst them. I hope, when you send the Prints, &c. you will be so |