Sir

Bodleian Library Oct 21 1777

I did not receive your Favour of the 3^d Instant 'till Sat: Evening last having been Absent from Oxford about a Fortnight, [...]which I am the more sorry for as you are desirous of an immediate Answer. I have therefore taken the first Opportunity to let you know that I have consulted Dodsworth N^o. 4173, and have sent you [...]herewith inclosed such Extracts out of it as I thought any way serviceable to your Purpose.¹ Dodsworth's Collection is a very valuable one. It consists of 164 Volumes, of which 49 are of his own handwriting. They are chiefly Copies of Original Deeds charters Pedigrees &c especially relating to Abbies &c. and as they were collected before the rage of civil War had destroyed the Originals, they are very extensive, taking in almost all the Counties in England, but as M^r Dodsworth was a native of yorkshire there are more particulars relating to that County than to any other. I have sent the Passages in S^r H. sSpelman that where mention is made de monte alto. I am Sorry that I cannot send you a list of the Denbighshire Families this Post, M^r Price not being in Town but is expected every Day. I have made all the Search that the Shortness of the Time would allow about the Arms of Ithel Fach but to no Purpose.

In Dodsworth vol 20 page 44 are the Arms of sundry Gentlemen in Northwales. The Collection is entitled The Auntient Gentry of North Walls [sic]. Among them I find one Ithel vachan of whom there is this Account. Ithel Vachan of hym descended men of Northoppe, in F^lyntshire and others B & Lion passant Arg." – I have examined all the Coats therein delineated & described but cannot find one that bears the least Resemblance to your Draught.

I am very much obliged to you for the Sketch of the Silver Harp and am glad to find that ^you intend engraving it.

The vol. of Dodsworth that you refer to treats chiefly of Cheshire, in particular of the Abbey of S^t Werburg at Chester. Of the Foundation of it. Confirmation of its Liberties. by William Rufus &c &c.²

I have nothing to communicate to you relative to the Eisteddfa,³ none of the MSS that I know of give any account of it except what you have already received. If in the mean Time any thing relating to it falls in my Way, you may depend upon receiving it by the first Opportunity. I am

Sir
your most obedient humble Servant

Jno Jones

---

Editorial notes

1. No enclosure survives with the manuscript.
2. Pennant writes of a convent of Benedictine nuns at the monastery of St John in Chester being possibly the remains of one which had belonged to St Werburgh, referencing his information to the work of Dugdale, 'Monasticon, i. 507'. See A tour in Wales 1770 [1773] (2nd edn., 1784), pp. 193–4.
3. 'Eisteddfod'. See further 1385 and 1428, nn. 2, 10.