Agreeable to my promise, I send you drawings of the Lancashire remains I mentioned to you some time ago, with a short account taken from my minutes.

In the beginning of July 1785, being upon an excursion into Lancashire, I was led to view the British remains in the parish of Warton, about eight miles from Lancaster; my curiosity being greatly excited by the accounts given thereof in conversation with Robert Gibson, Esq, who for some months in the summer makes Yelling the place of his residence, on account of the copper-works he is projecting there.

I Have taken the liberty of troubling your Lordship with an account of some Roman antiquities I met with, last summer, in Cumberland; when I had the honour of being at Rose Castle. The Gentleman who permitted me to take drawings of these assured me that they had never hitherto been taken notice of. I shall, therefore, beg your Lordship will do me the honour to lay the memoir before the Society, should you think it worthy of their notice.

Among the lesser articles of antiquity there is none which has given so much occasion for conjecture to the learned as the Inscriptions on the four sides of certain small square stones, which seem to have been used by the practitioners of physic, or the compounders of drugs.

“I take the liberty of sending you the inclosed for your in- “spection. It is a faithful transcript of a manuscript remaining “in the Augmentation office, which has the sign manual of “King Henry the Eighth. It contains some particulars “respecting the dresses in his reign, which may perhaps be “thought proper to accompany the collections of the Society “of Antiquaries which concern the houshold establishments of “our Sovereigns. At any rate, if you think it sufficiently “curious, I will trouble you to read it to that learned body “the first convenient opportunity.

I send you here some remains of antiquity which were dug up in Yorkshire a few years ago; and which, though immediately transmitted to me, I have neglected, through a natural indolence of temper, to convey before now to the Society. They consist of a chalice, pretty much mutilated, and its lid, a spur, and part of a flocking; and were found in digging a grave on the north side of Brotherton church, May 20, 1781. I must inform you, that Ferrybridge is a hamlet adjoining to Brotherton; we may therefore, I apprehend, naturally suppose that these things were buried along with one of the lords that were killed at a skirmish that happened at Ferrybridge on Saturday the 28th of May, 1461. In order to make this more intelligible to you, I will give you a short sketch of the circumstances that related to that event.

You doubtless remember the papers in the first volume of the Archæologia relating to those antique slender towers which are found belonging to some old churches in Scotland and Ireland, but generally at some distance from them, and which, though lofty, were not capable of holding bells of any size. Very different sentiments were entertained of the uses they were designed for: some supposing they were intended for watch-towers: some, for places of refuge to which the people might repair on any sudden alarm ; some, as places of penance. The conjectures of others differed from all these. The enquiries of the learned, after all, terminated in uncertainty; and I found the uneasiness of such a state, without expecting ever to meet with any thing satisfactory upon the point.

Upon a survey of the great military Roman ways and stations in this neighbourhood, I could not˜help noticing the many conjectures concerning the etymon, site, and celebrity of the ancient city Cataractonium Cateracton or Cateracta, for by such severai variations we find it mentioned by Ptolemy, the Itinerary ascribed to Antoninus, Bede, Camden, Burton, and other authors. Our great antiquary supposes it might derive its name from the Cataract in the Swale at Richmond, four miles higher up the river, and an anonymous author under the signature of Lafenbyensis published some years since in the Gentleman's Magazine deduces it from Caractacus, son of Cunobiline, who, he contends, might have been born at this place, or have made it his residence when he put himself under the protection of Cartismandua, queen of the Brigantes.

In the Custumale Roffense lately published by Mr, Thorpe, under the title, Jurati de Derente; de consuetudinibus et redditibus, p. 5, col. 2. are mentioned the rents due and services to be performed by a class of tenants styled Waldenses; and in this paper, which I will trouble you to communicate to our Society, it is my purpose to hazard a conjecture who might be the persons here meant. A few months ago, when I cursorily hinted the subject to you, it seemed to be your opinion, if I did not misapprehend it, that they might have been natives of the Weald of Kent or of Wales; but I must own, their having acquired this name from either incident appears to me to be not a little questionable.

In the year 1779 some labourers digging for stone in a field called Stockwoods, at Comb end-farm, belonging to Samuel Bowyer, Esq. in the parish of Colesbourn In Gloucestershire, discovered the remains of a very considerable building at a small depth below the surface of the earth, which on a further investigation appeared clearly, from the remains of tessellated pavements which were found in several places, to have been a Roman house. The floor of one room was preserved quite entire, the walls remaining in many places near three feet in heighth. Its dimensions were fifty-fix feet in length and fourteen in breadth (see pl. XX. fig. 1.) The entrance to it was by a stone-step on the sound side. Immediately above this pavement were found many of the slates with which the roof had been covered: they were of a rhomboidal form, and several of them had the nails with which they had been fastened remaining in them.

A severe and tedious fit of inflammatory rheumatism has hitherto prevented my acknowledgment of your last favour, and the completion of my promise respecting the communication of the discoveries of Roman antiquities made lately at Wroxeter. This communication I hope will not have been made too late for your design of presenting them to the Society of Antiquaries, before it shall rise for the ensuing season.

Agreeable to my promise I send you some remarks on the title of Thane in Scotland, and the authority that was annexed, to that most antient and honourable office by our Kings and the Estates, in the earlier ages of the Scottish monarchy. A Thane (which signifies a servant) held under the king a jurisdiction over a district called a Thanedom, and afterwards a Sheriffdom or County. His office was to give judgement in all civil and criminal cases within his Thanedom. Upon perusing the claims of hereditary jurisdiction in Scotland, when they were annexed to the crown in 1748, I find that in the year 1405 a receipt was granted by Robert duke of Albany, regent of Scotland, for infesting Donald, thane of Calder, in his thanedom, as heir at law to Andrew, thane of Calder, his father, to whom he had previously been served heir, and returned in the heritable offices of Shireef (or Thane) of Nairn, and Constable of the castle of Nairn. He was accordingly seased of his lands and thanedom ; and the seasine is produced as a voucher in the year 1748, to prove the fact.

You may remember I sent you formerly some observations upon the English language, endeavouring to prove it originally Gothic. It must indeed be allowed that many Celtic terms are visible in it; for which many causes may be assigned; but that the chief materials of which our language is constituted are purely Teutonic no one that attentively considers it can, I think, possibly deny. The Gothic of which we have happily recovered such valuable remains, is the parent, from whence a very numerous progeny are descended. The learned Grævius, in his life of Junius, has traced the pedigree with great accuracy, which, if you give me leave, I will insert in his own words: