MR. DIXON must now himself judge of the credit to be placed on the informant. As for the information in my own case, it bore internal proofs of being worthless; and if such a pedigree as is described should exist, I feel assured it is not the work of Camden, but more probably of a cotemporary, of rather discreditable notoriety among genealogists, of the name of Dakyns. MONSON. Gatton Park. I can give no information on the Dixon family, but having some years ago received a letter from the same Mr. Spence, with an account of my own family, every word of which is not only entirely without authority, but a gross invention opposed to the facts, I thought MR. DIXON might like to know that Mr. Spence founds the romance in question on a "Pedigree of Cotgreave de Hargrave, the work of the celebrated Randle Holme, anno 1672, from documents compiled by that learned antiquary William Camden, in the year 1598," evidently the same veracious authority with that mentioned in the letter to MR. DIXON. EV. PH. SHIRLEY. Eatington Park, Stratford-on-Avon. The following note will, I think, satisfy your correspondent R. W. DIXON that the letter of William Sidney Spence which you inserted for him was an imposture, and that Mr. J. H. Dixon was not without reason in rejecting the information offered. A friend of mine, assuming descent from "a good old" family of the same name, which he was unable to prove, received, about the same time as MR. DIXON did, a communication from Mr. William Sidney Spence to precisely the same effect, and having no cautious brother to consult, readily took the bait, and paid some pounds for a specious pedigree, setting forth his "distinguished progenitors," with their armorial bearings, &c., purporting to be authenticated as a true copy of one in Miss Cotgreave's possession under that lady's own hand. The information so received being subsequently submitted to a genealogical friend, some doubt was excited of its genuineness in proving too much; and an inquiry, which I made through a correspondent in Cheshire, tending to confirm this suspicion, a reference was had to Miss Cotgreave herself, when it turned out that the whole was an ingenious fabrication. Mr. Spence was then dead, and my friend, whose name I do not mention, as the subject is rather a sore one, was obliged to be content with the practical experience he had bought. The probability is, that whenever Mr. Spence read in Burke's _Landed Gentry_ that Mr. A. or {276} Mr. B., in preference to being considered as the founder of a new family, supposed himself, or wished to be supposed by others, to be descended from an old stock of the same name, he kindly offered to supply the desired information, and was ready to execute a pedigree to order. G. A. C.