"I have asked old Bell the descent of his family. He said he was really sprung from Ninewells, but that the lands fell to an heiress who married a brother of Polwarth's. "By Godscroft's account, Tinningham was the third son of Home in the same generation that Wedderburn was the second, so that the difference of antiquity is nothing, or very inconsiderable. "The readiest way of vouching these facts would be for you to take a jaunt to the churchyard of Hutton, and inquire for Bell's monument, and see whether the inscription be not obliterated; for it is above twenty-five years ago that I saw the paper in Sir James Home's hand, and he told us, at that time, that the inscription was somewhat difficult to be read. If it be still legible it would be very well done to take a copy of it in some authentic manner, and transmit it to Mr. Douglas, to be inserted in his volume. If it be utterly effaced, the next, but most difficult task would be to search for the paper above-mentioned in the family of Home: it must be some time about the year 1440 or 1450. If both these means fail, we must rest upon the tradition. "I am not of the opinion of some, that these matters are altogether to be slighted. Though we should pretend to be wiser than our ancestors, yet it is arrogant to pretend that we are wiser than the other nations of Europe, who, all of them, except perhaps the English, make great account of their family descent. I doubt that our morals have not much improved since we began to think riches the sole thing worth regarding.[4:1] "If I were in the country I should be glad to attend you to Hutton, in order to make the inquiry I propose. I doubt whether my brother will think of doing it: he has such an extreme aversion to every thing that savours of vanity, that he would not willingly expose himself to censure; but this is a justice that one owes to their posterity, for we are not certain that these matters will be always so little regarded. "I shall farther observe to you, that the Lord Home, founder of Dunglas, married the heiress of that family, of the name of Pepdie, and from her we always bear the Pepingos in our arms. "I find in Hall's Chronicle that the Earl of Surrey, in an inroad upon the Merse, made during the reign of Henry the Eighth, after the battle of Flouden, destroyed the castles of Hedderburn, West Nisgate, and Blackadder, and the towers of East Nisgate, and Winwalls. The names, you see, are somewhat disfigured; but I cannot doubt but he means Nisbet and Ninewells: the situation of the places leads us to that conjecture.