HARINGTON HISTORY:

[To THE EDITOR OF TILE " SPEOTATO11..1

Sin,—The critic of Mrs. Halliday's book on the " Porlock Monuments," in your issue of November 18th, remarks that,— " If Harington history' has anything to do with a Cospatrick, son of Orm, it at once awakens an interest in the highest antiquity of that family.'" He adds a comment ou the difficulty of grouping aright the various " Gospatricks and Orms " in their proper consanguinity. This leads me to call his atteution to the following links of pedigree, which I draw from a paper by Mr. W. Jackson, F.S.A., in the "Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archmological Society," 1880-1, Part I., Vol. V., p. 181, foll.:-

Maldred =Alg:tha, claim of Ughtred (murdered by (bror, of Shalopearo's Canute) and Elgiya (blur. of Ethelred II.

Daum)I " The Unready.'

Gospateck=(?) Earl of Dunbar.

r- Ozioy. 7 Gunilda ‘Valdeoff

d. bef.1136 * Gospatriek=(?)

The,leas =Joan drui. of Uobt.

d,; nisotnlolraoti att.; Lord

Tto'airt do lIaver:naton=Joau eon of Michael de 11. adjusted a dispute with a e Abbot of Holm Cultism about a grant relating to

* Was witnc,s of Charter of Holm Cultram Abbey, founded by Henry III. e. of David K. of Scotland, and commanded in Appleby Castle, invaded by William the Lion 1174. Named in the Pipe hulls, 113d.

This is, of course, but a fragment ; but it purports to give what your critic desiderates,—a link between the " Gospatrick son of Orm" and the "Harington history." I ain 'unable to test the ultimate authority on which, in this grouping, Mr. Jackson relies. In the " History and Antiquities of Westmoreland," &c., 1777, by Nicholson and Burn, there is given a line qf descent from Roger de Lancastre, ending in the sixth genera- tion in daughters, of whom the first married a De Harington, and the second a Fleming,—which two houses had themselves formed an alliance before. There is, further, a curious scrap of " Harington history," with which a correspondent has favoured me, from the Record'Office. The reference given is, Duchy of Lancaster, Division XI., Registers, Vol. XV., 2nd Part, fo].16 b. It is " Henry, &c. q. A toutz, &c. Sachez ij nous de lire grace especial° et pr le bon svice cider et feint Chivaler James do Haryngton nous ad fait et ferra en temps avenir et auxint' on ploin recom- peosacion de ce qil print le Count Douglas an bataill de Salop luy avons OW cents mares appildre annuelement pr treUe do sa vie on

tang nous eions autrement ordeigne Doff, &o., lo xviij jor de Fever."

The English form of the name " James," side by side with the French form of the title " Count," is here noteworthy ; and the whole may remind us of the closing scene of Shakespeare's First Part of King Henry IV., where we learn that Douglas,— "lied with the rest

And, falling from a hill, he was so bruised That the pursuers took him."

I suppose that the microscopic attitude towards history favours the picking of minute holes, and account thus for the attention drawn to such errors in Mrs. Halliday's book as the spelling of " peivre " as " peiner," which is doubtless somebody's clerical error or uncorrected press-slip. Any one who writes these two rapidly will be at once convinced how easily a copyist might take one for the other. Again, the critic cannot easily digest " Imperial personage " as applied to Sigismund, called by Lingard, 1416, " Sigismund, King of the Romans, and Emperor elect " at the time. If Lingard is right, Mrs. Halliday has exactly hit her bird with both barrels, in calling him at once an " Imperial personage " and a " Royal visitor." Such criticism reminds one of an elephant with laborious minuteness picking up pins., Further, as regards the "Inquisitions Post Mortem," &c., being given in English, one may remark that, had they appeared in their original Latin, out of the small fraction of readers who were competent to read them, a still smaller fraction of that fraction would have cared to do so. But, again, to the microscopist, that minute fraction stands nearer the apple of his eye, and effectually eclipses all the rest.—I am, Sir, &e.,

EXUL.

P.S.—One might add that a speculation, even erroneous, on the Church is more germane to its monuments than any record of a " battle of the kites and crows " from the Chronicles.