Page:Six Old English Chronicles.djvu/24

 Bennet Coll. Cambridge, is Epitome Chron. Ric. Cor. West. Lib. I. Other works of our author are supposed to be preserved in the Lambeth Library, and at Oxford.

His theological writings were—Tractatus super Symbolum Majus et Minus, and Liber de Officiis Ecclesiasticis.—In the Peterborough Library.

But the treatise to which Richard owes his celebrity is that now presented to the reader. Its first discoverer was Charles Julius Bertram, Professor of the English Language in the Royal Marine Academy at Copenhagen, who transmitted to the celebrated antiquary, Doctor Stukeley, a transcript of the whole in letters, together with a copy of the map. From this transcript Stukeley published an analysis of the work, with the Itinerary, first in a thin quarto, in 1757, and afterwards in the second volume of his Itinerarium Curiosum. In the same year the original itself was published by Professor Bertram at Copenhagen, in a small octavo volume, with the remains of Gildas and Nennius, under this title—Britannicarum Gentium Historice Antiques Scrip tores tres: Ricardus Corine?isis, Gildas Badonicus, Nennius Banchorensis, &c. Of this treatise Bertram thus speaks in his preface: " The work of Richard of Cirencester, which came into my possession in an extraordinary manner with many other curiosities, is not entirely complete, yet its author is not to be classed with the most inconsiderable historians of the middle age. It contains many fragments of a better time, which would now in vain be sought for elsewhere; and all are useful to the antiquary ***** It is considered by Dr. Stukeley, and those who have inspected it, as a jewel, and worthy to be rescued from destruction by the press. From respect for him I have caused it to be printed."

Of the map Bertram observes: "I have added a very antient map of Roman Britain, skilfully drawn according to the accounts of the ancients, which in rarity and antiquity excels the rest of the Commentary of Richard."

This map, however, as no longer of use in an age when so much light has been thrown on its subject, has been omitted.