'I received your splendid work the other day; and have placed it in my little library, having only looked over the plates, and some references from these; and read the general history, in which I have found many things that interested me in no ordinary degree.' [Later in the same letter, after recounting a local farmer's amazement at the size of the book, Hogg calls it 'your extraordinary work, in which the labour and research truly confounds me']