Dear Sir.

Impatient to Receive another of your most Entertaining Volumes,¹ I return you this, which I have gone through with the greatest pleasure to myself, but I fear without any use to you. - I [...]can pay you but with thanks, the poor man's Excheques. If [...] you this finds you at home, pray send me another book.

Dear Sir
Y^r Faithful Friend
& Servant

Ph: Yorke –

I will attend you to the Paper office, and Museum tomorrow if agreeable to you. –

Cond^t: st: Apr: 10^th. 1777
Thursday night. –

Page 1st Line 1st –
the Motto is excellently chosen; I had thought of one, inferior = Antiquam exquirere matrem.²
P: 8 – L: 10 = & supported by the Friends and Partizans of his Uncle Jasper Earl of Pembroke, created by himself (after he was King, Duke of Bedford: there remained till of very late Years at Corsygydol, the seat of the ancient Family of Vechan or Vaughan in Merionethshire, a very dilapidated part of the House, in which was a Chamber called the King's, wherein Henry occasionally lived, and was concealed by the Possessor of that day, who had a Command in a South Welsh castle (I think Aberystwith in the bay of Cardigan) under the aforesaid Jasper.³ P. 19. L: 21. the word Castle, is improperly repeated.
P: 20, L 15. The Dyke Itself I apprehend, was clearly a boundary, and not a work of defence, yet there are near upon it large Entrenchments seemingly to command it It is the same with Watt's dyke: To sport a conjecture; might not the Dyke, ^or Rampire (properly speaking) of this Foss, which was clear amidst a surrounding Country of Wood, act as a Road or Communication Pr.⁴ North to South, & be cast to a double use.
P: 30. L: 17. Is not this part of the Maid's story, too funny and gay for a grave & instructive Work.⁵
Leaf opposite to P: 32. The following pretty Monkish distich, was found engraven on an ancient Bell –
= Dum cano busta, mori; dum pulpita, vivere disce;
= Disce mori nostro, vivere, disec, sono.⁶
P: 33. L 17. On the groundwork of which Heathen Story (as hath been usual with the Monks) is built this Miraculous History.
P 37. L: 15. Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire being taken from the Baronies Marchers, were added to these 4 anc^t. Shires of N-Wales, by the incorporating Act of H: 8 –––––⁷
P: 41. L 6. I think Majesty was first applied to the Person & Character of James 1^st. –––––

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Editorial notes

1. Yorke evidently refers to a draft or proof of the volume (or a part of the volume) published the following year as Pennant's A tour in Wales 1770 [1773] (1778).
2. 'Seek out our ancient mother[land]'.
3. Pennant does not appear to have made use of this information in A tour in Wales. Philip Yorke may have been aware of the account of the Corsygedol family given by Robert Vaughan, Hengwrt. Vaughan noted that Gruffudd Vaughan 'was in great credit w^th Jasper Earle of Pembrok [sic], who lay in his house at Corsygedol when he fled to France in y^e tyme of Ed: 4, and as some report, Harry the Earle of Richmont w^th him, who afterwards was King of England'. Dwnn, Heraldic visitations of Wales and part of the marches, II, p. 219 n. 19.
4. 'Pr.' may be an abbreviation for 'proceeding'.
5. Yorke's pagination and his reference to the 'Maid' suggest that he may be referring to the section of Pennant's first volume A tour in Wales which relates to Saint Wenefrede. Pennant provides a humorous account of the miraculous story of the decapitation and restoration of Wenefrede's head by Beuno, apparently to Yorke's discomfiture at the change of tone displayed. A tour in Wales 1770 [1773] (1778), I, pp. 32–3.
6. Pennant notes an inscription on one bell consecrated to St Wenefrede in A tour in Wales 1770 [1773] (1778), I, p. 35.
7. Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire were among the seven new counties fashioned from the Marcher lordships by the Acts of Union of 1536 and 1543, and added to the other six shires of Wales, which had been established through the 1284 Statute of Wales. In the north, these shires consisted of Anglesey, Caernarfonshire, Merioneth and Flintshire. Davies, A History of Wales, pp. 232–3; Jenkins, ' "Taphy-land historians" and the Union of England and Wales 1536–2007', 4; and see 1355.