So said a learned antiquary of a humble, but also learned, and a pains-taking brother. Far more reluctant was Nicolson to give praise where praise was due. The latter person does indeed say of the laborious John, that he had a head the best disposed towards history of any of our writers. “Speed,” says Nicolson, “would certainly have outdone himself, as far as he has gone, beyond the rest of his profession, if the advantages of his education had been answerable to those of his natural genius. But what,” he adds most impertinently, “what could be expected from a tailor? However,” reluctantly continues this costive eulogist, “we may boldly say that his chronicle is the largest and best we have hitherto extant;”—nay, he even adds that Sheringham was right in speaking of honest John Speed as “summus et eruditus antiquarius.” So, go on, little Farington, in pleasant Cheshire, to be proud of your son. Just three centuries have dissolved in the abyss of Time, since his father, on his shop-board, heard the boy’s first cry from an inner room; and if any one could have _then_ asked, “What could be expected from a tailor?” he might have pointed to the little stranger, and exclaimed, _Ecce filius!_ Stow was an indifferent tailor, yet excellent author. Speed was both; and he was more fortunate than his brother antiquary and tailor. After he had _served_ in Cheshire, he settled in London as master, and he had Sir Fulke Greville for a customer. The men, wide as they were apart socially, were brothers intellectually; and both loved and comprehended literature. Sir Fulke paid his tailor after a better fashion than that of most fine gentlemen of his day. He took the artisan from his board, and set him a student at his books. The result was profitable not only to those then present living, but also to posterity. Speed nobly inaugurated the opening years of the seventeenth century by producing his ‘Theatre of Great Britain,’ wherein the three kingdoms of our own empire are presented in their exact geography, and there is an elaborate detail not only of counties, but of county towns. The maps were designed by the author, who applied to his use, in the text, much scattered matter from other sources. Some few years after, he published his ‘History of Great Britain under the Conquests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans; their originals, manners, wars, coins, and seals, with the successions, lives, acts, and issues of the English Monarchs, from Julius Cæsar to our most gracious Sovereign King James.’ In this work, he judiciously borrowed from Camden, and was supplied with materials by Sir Henry Spelman, Sir Robert Cotton, and other eminent antiquarians. The book very much raised a reputation that was already of no mean height.