—It is too bad! In Vol. iii., p. 282., there is a good page and a half taken up with a verbatim extract from Echard, which has either been alluded to or quoted by every writer on Cromwell from Echard's time down to a few months ago, when it appeared in Chambers's Papers for the People, No. 11. Again, in Vol. iv., p. 19., there is another page and a half relating to Cromwell, which, I fearlessly assert, I have seen frequently in print, but cannot at present tell where; and more important avocations forbid me to search. As if that was not enough, in Vol. iv., p. 50. there is another half page respecting the preservation of these precious MSS.! Is it not too bad? Do, worthy Mr. Editor, make the amende honorable by publishing the true characters of the MSS. forwarded by S. H. H., which you have so inadvertently published as original.
W. PINKERTON.
[Our correspondent seems to doubt that the communications to which he refers were really printed from contemporary MSS. The Editor is able to vouch for that having been certainly the fact. They are not printed from transcripts from Echard, but from real MSS. of the time of Charles II., or thereabouts; while the fact of these early transcripts having been printed surely does not furnish any argument against the valuable suggestion of S. H. H. as to the preservation of similar documents for the use of the public, and in the manner pointed out in his communication.—ED.]
Anonymous Ravennas (Vol. i., pp. 124. 220. 368.; Vol. iii., p. 462.).
—Your correspondents have neglected to observe that this author's Chorography of Britain was published by Gale, "ad calcem Antonini Iter Britanniarum," viz., Britanniæ Chorographia cum Autographo Regis Galliæ Mso. et Codice Vaticano collata; Adjiciuntur conjecturæ plurimæ cum nominibus locorum Anglicis, quotquot iis assignari potuerint: Londini, 1709, 4to.
A copy of the edition of Anonymi Ravennatis Geographiæ Libri Quinque (of the last of which the Chorography of Britain forms a part) noticed by J. I. (Vol. i., p. 220.) is now before me; as also a later edition, published by the editor's son, Abram Gronovius: Lugduni Batavorum, 1722, 8vo.
Horsley's Britannia Romana, book iii. chap. iv., contains "1. Some account of this author and his work; 2. The Latin text of this writer;[2] 3. Remarks upon many of the places mentioned by him, and more particularly of such as seem to be the same with the stations per lineam valli in the Notitia." His remarks are diametrically opposite to the conjectures of Camden and Gale.
[2] The Chorography from Gale's edition.
T. J.