KTCARDUS C0RINENSI3. 205 



history of Koman Britain, were not transmitted to Dr. Stukeley till 

 after the death of Mr. Gramm ; nor indeed was it till after that event 

 that Bertram professed to have " at length, with some difl&culty, got 

 the manuscript into his own hands." 



It is perhaps a bold hypothesis to conceive of one in the position of 

 the Royal Librarian bearing any share in a literary forgery. But the 

 age was characterised by singularly loose ideas on such subjects ; and 

 the part he is shown to have taken in the correspondence is equally 

 inexplicable, whether we suppose that a genuine MS. did exist, about 

 which he gave himself no further trouble, or that a hoax was being 

 perpetrated on English scholars in which he bore a part. Had the 

 Latin of the commentary been as creditable to the scholarship of its 

 reputed author as the enthusiasm of its first editors represented it to be, 

 we might have been tempted to trace in it the hand of Dr. Stukeley's 

 "prolix and elaborate" Latin correspondent. But in reality the 

 portions of the Tractate not made up of quotations, are, as has been 

 already said, very much in the style of Latin to be expected from the 

 Anglo-Danish undergraduate. Assuming, therefore, his ability to pro- 

 duce the Latin commentary, his familiarity with the English language 

 rendered him otherwise well fitted for the task. As to Mr. Gramm, 

 he had been in England, visited the Universities, was remembered by 

 Mr. Martin Folkes as a learned foreigner, and possibly carried away 

 with him reminiscences of its antiquarian enthusiasts which bore fruit of 

 a kind then cultivated on the tree of knowledge. The writings of Dr. 

 Stukeley are seasoned with a sufficient stock of credulous fancy to 

 provoke even a grave privy councillor into lending a helping hand at a 

 trial of his gullibility. If, on the contrary, we suppose him to have 

 been Bertram's dupe and tool, he must have proved even more gullible 

 than the English antiquary. 



As to the motives which induced the chief culprit to carry out his 

 fraud with consistent pertinacity, they need not greatly perplex us. It 

 was a work of time : begun probably with no deliberate purpose of 

 carrying it to the culpable extent it ultimately reached. Bertram's 

 first letter was probably the mere hoax of a clever, but thoughtless 

 undergraduate. But for the opportune death of Hans Gramm, — what- 

 ever the nature of his share in the correspondence may have been, — 

 it may be presumed that the later stages of full-developed imposture 

 would never have been reached. But when Dr. Stukeley settled in 

 London, " began to think of the manuscript," and became "solicitous 



