Downing Jan- 26^th 1786.

Dear Sir

I acknowlege the receit of the bill which satisfies moses & me. I spoke to him about the condition of some of the leaves; & hope he will in future be more careful; but he ever sets less value on his own drawings than others do. I have a set or two on large paper left. if you chuse it, I will replace those leaves, & reserve them for some one less in my esteem than yourself. I have heard from many quarters of the respect payed to me by the late Doctor Johnson: but have not yet seen the book.¹ I flatter myself on the occasion; for I gave him a light lash in my voyage to the Hebrides² which he again repayed in his voyage. that done I rejoice to find he began a new score in the way of affection. Pray what gave rise to your remark on Gough. I have known him long: He is constitutionally peevish: no man more severe in the mistakes of others yet no man living more liable to error than himself. I [...]once suspecting him of forming a paper against me in the Gent. Mag: but I believe I wronged him so sent my excuses In that or some other paper is a foolish remark about the Pax I mention p. 23 journey to London. the critic w^d have it than it ought to be Pix.³ but to shew you that I was right I borrowed a Pax from a romish Priest & caused it to be drawn. it is a silver plate with a crucifixion engraven on the front which the Priest holds up to the congregation just as he dismisses them. I put in several things not very interesting, but consider nature takes a long nap between Chester & London.

I hope to hear that you will soon date from y^r own house. for I do not like those isle of wight excursions when I am in town. as to Mr Luther he is the most complaisant of Husbands. I hold up the Pax to him.

adieu
Y^rs most truely

T Pennant.

In case I add any drawings to welsh Tours or journey to London w^d you like them on thin paper in order to paste them on y^r margins.

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Editorial notes

1. For Johnson's warm commendation of Pennant as one who 'has greater variety of inquiry than almost any man', and (in answer to criticism of him) as 'a man six feet high, and you are angry because he is not seven', see James Boswell, The journal of a tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. By James Boswell, Esq., published on 1 October 1785, pp. 268–9.
2. Pennant's only reference to Johnson in A tour in Scotland and voyage to the Hebrides 1772, appears to be in the pirated Dublin edition of 1775, where he writes that the 'the isle of Col, [is] still more celebrated for being the place where Doctor Samuel Johnson had long and woeful experience of oats being the food of men in Scotland, as they are of horses in England'. Pennant, A tour in Scotland and voyage to the Hebrides. MDCCLXXII (2 vols.; 4th edn., Dublin: A. Leathley, MDCCLXXV [1775]), II, p. 270. Johnson, in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (London: 1775), p. 207, refers to a 'fit of simple credulity' of Pennant's and, less grudgingly, to the likely exactitude of the latter's measurements of two churches at p. 243. The likely publication date of the Dublin edition of Pennant's Tour makes it possible that there was interplay between the two men of the kind described in this letter.
3. The critical comment on Pennant's use of the word 'pax' in The journey from Chester to London states: 'In p. 23, l. 11, for "pax" we surely should read "pix", the box in which the Romanists keep the consecrated host'. See Gentleman's Magazine, vol. LIII (1783), 408. The letter is signed 'Antiquarius', but Gough habitually signed himself 'D.H.' in his correspondence with the magazine, and Pennant had mistaken the identity of his critic.
4. triangular stamp

i. For 'Ritratto della Regina Catarina Cornara / Palma pinxit', engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar, 1650, see here [external link] [accessed 15 May 2019]. Palma il Vecchio (?1480–1528) is identified as the artist.
ii. See Bull's instruction to Pennant on the use of 'Starch instead of flour' for pasting prints, in 1052.