Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/80

 Chapw ill. O^-KfA'Nfc'HES T ! E R. 53 CHAP. m. I. THE only accounts that had defcended to us concerning the Roman ftations,and the Roman roads within the iftand in the year 1757 were the Geography of Ptolemy, the Itinerary of Antoninus, the Imperial Notitia, and the Anony- mous Chorography. But in that year the fcience of Roman antiquities received an extraordinary illumination from the dis- covery of a work, which contains a very curious account of Ronian Britain, and exhibits to us a new Itinerary for the whole of it. And, what infinitely enhances the value of the work to a Roman-Britifh antiquarian, the Itinerary is more antient than that of Antonine, is more extenfive in its defign, and is more circumftantial in its execution. .T^his appears to have been the furprifing colle&ion of a monk in. the fourteenth' century,' who, having the fpirit to travel,, had the good fortune to meet with and the good ienie to preferve thel^ invaluable, remains. But in an age when general curiofity was little aw^ke a?d antiquarian curiofity had (lumbered op for agesi being perhaps "originally^* cojafined within, a, fpv ,MSS» ' thoie feeing moft probably reduced, to one, and t^at f tr»nfpo,^ed out of 'the kingdom ■ to .which alone it had any relation ; the " work was in the moft imminent danger of periihing for. ever. In this ftate Mr. Bertram an Engliih gentleman difeovered } it at Copenhagen in 1 747, and immediately acquainted pr, 5,tukeley ^ith thedifcovpry. Struck with the pature of tl}eyor)^ a ?Qjjy % of which had tiien transmitted to him* and with V copy of the hand-writing, which Cafley the Keeper of the Cottonian Library pronounced to be* of the fourteenth century, the Dodor foUicited
 * and Mr. Bertram made A publication of it. In 1757 Do Stiikdley

pubiifhea a tranflation of the Ittxaepry with a.comipent ja, quarto from the tranfcript. And in the beginning of the fubfequent 1 year