The Antiquary

Note C, p. #.—Praetorium.

It may be worth while to mention that the incident of the supposed Praetorium actually happened to an antiquary of great learning and acuteness, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, one of the Barons of the Scottish Court of Exchequer, and a parliamentary commissioner for arrangement of the Union between England and Scotland. As many of his writings show, Sir John was much attached to the study of Scottish antiquities. He had a small property in Dumfriesshire, near the Roman station on the hill called Burrenswark. Here he received the distinguished English antiquarian Roger Gale, and of course conducted him to see this remarkable spot, where the lords of the world have left such decisive marks of their martial labours.

An aged shepherd whom they had used as a guide, or who had approached them from curiosity, listened with mouth agape to the dissertations on foss and vellum, ports dextra, sinistra, and decumana, which Sir John Clerk delivered ex cathedra, and his learned visitor listened with the deference to the dignity of a connoisseur on his own ground. But when the cicerone proceeded to point out a small hillock near the centre of the enclosure as the Praetorium, Corydon's patience could hold no longer, and, like Edie Ochiltree, he forgot all reverence, and broke in with nearly the same words—"Praetorium here, Praetorium there, I made the bourock mysell with a flaughter-spade." The effect of this undeniable evidence on the two lettered sages may be left to the reader's imagination.

The late excellent and venerable John Clerk of Eldin, the celebrated author of Naval Tactics, used to tell this story with glee, and being a younger son of Sir John's was perhaps present on the occasion.