Tales of an antiquary - 1828 Author:Richard Thomson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE WIZARD KING. A LEGEND OF DUNSTABLE. A Scutcheon, with metal and colour resplendent, of the ancient Arms: upon a question whereof, he—as one that was well... more » schooled, and could his lesson perfect without book, to answer at full if question were asked him,—declared how the worshipful village of did obtain, long ago, these worshipful Arms in colour and form as you see. " And this is the very matter, I know it well enough. Laneham's Letter From Kenilworth Castli. It is extremely common to find, in almost every hamlet and country town, some idly industrious person, who, like the celebrated Captain Clutterbuck of Kennaquhair, by dint of continual prowling over it's ancient scenes, preserving all the traditionary tales related concerning them ; and reading every thing that can be raked together of their history and vicissitudes, becomes chief chorus to all the strangers who visit them, and the grand depository of all their legends and antiquities. Of this family, have been the numerous county historians with which Britain has been so excellently supplied, from Lambarde down to Tom Hearne; beside many others who have left no memorials behind them : who live only in the grateful recollections of their own townsmen, and whose memoranda, collected with much care, and verified by personal observation and painful travail, have adorned the works of others; who, as old Newton observed of the " Qlney Hymns,''''—" certainly had no concern in them, but as transcribers." There lived, but it is now some years since, in the town of Dunstab'e, a worthy of this class, named Launcelot Stonecrop, whose daily occupation was to traverse the ruins of King Henry's Priory, to perambulate about the Church, to trace the fragments of the Roman Watling, and Ikeneld-streets, and to search af...« less