MR. DUNKIN'S letter (which was accompanied by a copy of the prospectus issued by him in 1844) claims precedence, as showing the steps which _that_ gentleman has already taken. It is a communication highly creditable to his exertions in the cause, but does not alter our views as to the practicability of any successful attempt to accomplish this object by individual exertion. In No. 73. Vol. iii. of "NOTES AND QUERIES" you have honoured me by an allusion to the _Monumenta Anglicana_ I have in the press, as "a plan which would have your hearty concurrence and recommendation, if it were at all practicable; but which must fail from its very vastness." It may be so; but the motto of my family is _Essayez_. Every "gigantic scheme" must have a commencement, and this "scheme," I am perfectly aware, is one "that no individual, however varied in attainments and abilities, could without assistance hope to achieve." My father, upwards of half a century since, commenced collecting mortuary memorials; many of the monuments from which he copied the inscriptions have since been destroyed by time, and many, very many, more by the ruthless innovations of beautifying churchwardens. These "very vast" collections--the labour of a life--however, only form a portion of the materials I now posses; for since I issued my prospectus in 1844, I have received many thousands of inscriptions and rubbings of brasses from clergymen and others; and I trust I shall be favoured with still further assistance, as in all cases where information is rendered, the source whence derived shall be most thankfully and freely acknowledged. {314} The plan I have adopted with regard to arrangement is to folio each page three times, viz., i. each parish by itself; ii. each county; iii. alphabetically; so that each parish can be considered complete in itself; each county can be bound up by itself; or the whole alphabetically, gazetteer-wise. The index will be also in three divisions,--i. general; ii. names of places; iii. names of persons. With regard to the number of volumes,--I need not say that that is entirely _in nubibus_. My impression is limited to seventy-five copies, the same as my father's _Oxfordshire_, with which it corresponds in size. I should have preferred seeing the government performing the task of preserving manuscripts of all existing monuments; but it is the fashion in Britain for government to leave all apparently national undertakings to individual exertion. I will here conclude with a quotation from the report I have just published of the Transactions at the Congress of the British Archaeological Association held in Worcester: