KIOARDUS CORINENSIS. 203 



be culled from more familiar pages, including those of Stukeley himself. 

 Yet it might be assumed, without inquiry, that some scholarship, and 

 a degree of practise in Latin composition, were necessary, in order to 

 put together such a piece of work for the eyes of European scholars. 

 It is noteworthy, therefore, that Bertram in his petition for admission to 

 the University, professed to study History, Antiquities, Philosophy and 

 Mathematics ; but of the Classical Languages nothing is said. Are we 

 to infer from this that he was already so perfect in them as to regard 

 their further study superfluous; or must we assume, in accordance with 

 the ordinary practise of undergraduates, that he exercised his options 

 in selecting the departments best suited to his tastes and acquirements ? 



In reality the latinity of Richard, which so charmed Dr. Stukeley 

 and his contemporaries, is very much in the style of undergraduate, or 

 school-boy Latin composition ; and can only have passed muster with 

 them on the assumption that it was fair monkish Latin, which must 

 not be tried by too high a standard. Mr. Woodward has pointed out 

 the anachronism of a monk of the fourteenth century, using the word 

 statio, neither in its ancient sense, as the spot on which a guard was 

 placed; nor in its medieval sense as a religious station, or halting- 

 place for ecclesiastical processions : but in its wholly modern and anti- 

 quarian acceptance. Similar examples abound. But, in truth, most 

 of the original paragraphs, by means of which the classical quotations 

 are pieced together, read very much like a school-boy's exercise, first 

 written in English, and then translated, word by word, with the help 

 of his dictionary. 



This suggests an inquiry, which has hitherto been overlooked, 

 though by no means without its important bearing on the general 

 question. What part was " the famous Mr. Gramm, Privy Councillor 

 and Chief Librarian to his Danish Majesty," playing in the ingenious 

 mystification, when he wrote the " prolix and elaborate Latin epistle," 

 which Bertram enclosed to Dr. Stukeley in his own first reply? The 

 correspondence with Bertram was apparently conducted^ on both sides, 

 in English. But to Herr Gramm, as we have seen, Dr. Stukeley 

 replied in a Latin epistle as elaborate and stately as his own, in which 

 he refers to the rare and seemingly unique Copenhagen fragments of a 

 newly discovered work of Richard, monk of Westminster. It is no 

 slight apology for Dr. Stukeley's unquestioning reception of Ber- 

 tram's transcripts of an unheard-of fourteenth century MS., that its 

 existence was thus guaranteed by one of the very highest authorities • 



