196 RIOARDUS CORINENSIS. 



script of the work might still serve to remove all incredulity. But 

 meanwhile Dr. Carl Wex, a distinguished German scholar engaged 

 OQ a revised edition of the Agricola of Tacitus, on turning to Bichard 

 for the elucidation of his text, was surprised by the discovery that the 

 reputed occupant of a Benedictine cell in the monastery of St. Peter's, 

 Westminster, in 1350, had systematically adopted readings traceable to 

 an edition of Tacitus printed at Venice more than a hundred years 

 after his time, and supplemented by the conjectural emendations of 

 later editors. A careless compositor of A.D. 1497 for example, has in 

 setting up the passage (cap. 16), " quod nisi Paulinus cognito provinciae 

 motu subvenisset,'' &c., repeated two letters thus, co cognito. The 

 conjectural emendation by an editor of the following century of eo 

 cognito was adopted as the reading of subsequent editions ; and on 

 turning to Bichard, he is found to have anticipated the double blunder 

 before compositors or typographical errors had a being ! Similar ex- 

 amples abound. Bertram's ingenious monk of the fourteenth century 

 has an intuitive perception of all conceivable misreadings, and antici- 

 pates everywhere the corrupt text of the seventeenth century. Cumu- 

 Jative evidence of this kind, by which the minutest typographical 

 blunders, and their conjectural emendations by later editors, are all 

 found in a professed MS. of the fourteenth century, ought to suffice as 

 a settlement of the question. That a Westminster monk of 1350 

 should find Tacitus and all other classical works at his elbow, might of 

 itself surprise us ; but that he should quote the blunders of modern 

 printers can only be reconciled with any probability by assuming the 

 all-comprehensive misreading of 1350 for 1750. 



In 1846 Dr. Carl Wex embodied the prolegomena of his edition of the 

 Agricola of Tacitus — in so far as these refer to The Tractate on Britain, 

 — in an article published in the Rheinisches Museum, at Frankfort-on- 

 the-Maine, in which he is by no means complimentary to " Stukeleio 

 et anglicis antiquariia," in reference to their championship of this 

 masquerading monk of the eighteenth century. 



Mr. Arthur Hussey, in 1853, drew attention, in the Gentleman's 

 Magazine, to the spurious character of the work, and indicated Camden 

 as the source of much of its materials. More recently, Mr. B. B, 

 Woodward, the learned curator of the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, 

 has followed out an independent series of researches no less curious and 

 conclusive. If it surpasses every probability that a monk of the four- 

 teenth century should be found anticipating the cumulative blunders, 



