This legend is more of Surtees' fun. "The most singular tale of
this kind," says Sir Walter, "is contained in an extract
communicated to me by my friend Mr. Surtees, of Mainsforth, who
copied it from a MS. note in a copy of Burthogge "On the Nature of
Spirits, 1694, 8vo," which had been the property of the late Mr.
Gill. It was not in Mr. Gill's own hand: but probably an hundred
years older, and was said to be "E libro Convent. Dunelm. per T.
C. extract.;" this T. C. being Thomas Cradocke, Esq. Scott adds,
that the passage, which he gives in the Latin, suggested the
introduction of the tourney with the Fairy Knight in "Marmion."
Well, WHERE is Cradocke's extract? The original was "lost" before
Surtees sent his "copy" to Sir Walter. "The notes had been
carelessly or injudiciously shaken out of the book." Surtees adds,
another editor confirms it, that no such story exists in any MS. of
the Dean and Chapter of Durham. No doubt he invented the whole
story, and wrote it himself in mediaeval Latin.

Not content with two "whoppers," as Mr. Jo Gargery might call them,
Surtees goes on to invent a perfectly incredible heraldic bearing.
He found it in a MS. note in the "Gwillim's Heraldry" of Mr. Gyll
or Gill--the name is written both ways. "He beareth per pale or
and arg., over all a spectre passant, SHROUDED SABLE"--"he" being
Newton, of Beverley, in Yorkshire. Sir Walter actually swallowed
this amazing fib, and alludes to it in "Rob Roy" (1818). But Mr.
Raine, the editor of Surtees' Life, inherited or bought his copy of
Gwillim, that of Mr. Gill or Gyll; "and I find in it no trace of
such an entry." "Lord Derwentwater's Good-Night" is probably
entirely by Surtees. "A friend of Mr. Taylor's" gave him a
Tynedale ballad, "Hey, Willy Ridley, winna you stay?" which is also
"aut Diabolus aut Robertus." As to "Barthram's Dirge," "from Ann