206 RICARDUS CORINENSIS. 



about Eichard of Westminster," his Copenliagen correspondent had to 

 choose between confessing, and persisting in the forgery;— and how 

 many subsequent pages of antiquarian literature depended on his choice ! 

 Dr. Stulceley's importunities could not be evaded ; and once committed 

 to his dishonest course, Bertram carried it out consistently to the end. 

 His success may have delighted or alarmed him, according to the aspect 

 in which he regarded it; but, tried by the standard of that eighteenth 

 century, his delight is more probable than his alarm. He had achieved 

 for himself a name among European scholars, and established confiden- 

 tial relations with foreign literati ; and he thenceforth cultivated them 

 without dread of exposure. He appears to have attained to the highest 

 academic honours, and to have maintained a friendly correspondence 

 with his learned English dupe to the last. So late as Oct. 30, 1763? 

 Stukeley records in his Diary : " I received from my friend, Dr. 

 Bertram, 3 copies of the designs of the Danish Military, colored : one 

 for the King." 



la the age of Psalmanazar, Macpherson, and Chatterton ; a century 

 which gave birth to the " Hardyknute," the Ossian Epics, and the 

 Bowley Poems; to "the Double Falsehood" of Theobald, the "Vorti- 

 gern and Kowena" of Ireland, and so much else of a like kind : it 

 cannot be denied that the fabricator of the " Commentarioli geogra- 

 pJiici de Situ Bri'tannice, et Stationum quas Romani ipsi in ea Insula 

 sedificaverunt," ascribed to Richard of Cirencester, had his abundant 

 reward. Not only Dr. Stukeley and his credulous brother antiquaries, 

 among whom the ingenious but fanciful Whitaker may be classed ; 

 but the incredulous Ritson, the laborious and accurate Roy, with some 

 of the very foremost of historians, Gibbon, Suhm, Lappenberg, and 

 Lingard : have bowed to his authority ; and a whole century of Euro- 

 pean scholars has yielded unquestioning faith to his bold imposture. 



