historical work, rather than heraldic and genealogical. For the rest, he shifts many of his faults on to his predecessor, Clarenceux Cooke, whose papers he had used. He confesses he had copied Leland, but not without acknowledgment; and argues that while Leland had spent five years, he had passed six times that number in the study of antiquity. Camden would have been to blame had he not made use of his predecessor. How much he improved upon him is too manifest to need proof (see Gough's edition, in which, under Dorsetshire, the passages taken from Leland are printed in italics). As Bishop Gibson remarks, a perusal of Leland's 'Itinerary' is Camden's best defence.
Brooke wrote a 'Second Discoverie,' in which he charges Camden with having originally rejected friendly offers of correction on the appearance of his fourth edition, and complains that his 'First Discoverie' was interrupted and cut short by the influence of Camden's friends, and he 'stayed by commandment of authority to proceed any farther.' He presented this second part of his work to King James in 1620, but was not allowed to publish it (Noble, College of Arms, p. 243; but see also Nicolas, Memoir of Augustine Vincent, 1827, p. 26), and it was not till a century later (in 1723) that it appeared in print, from the manuscript in the possession of John Anstis the elder [q. v.], with an appendix showing the corrections which Camden made, in the points in dispute, in his fifth edition of 1600.
In 1600 Camden also 'diverted himself among the ancient monuments' (Gibson), and published his account of the monuments, or rather list of the epitaphs, in Westminster Abbey, entitled 'Reges, Reginæ;, Nobiles, et alii in ecclesia collegiata B. Petri Westmonasterii sepulti,' a work which he enlarged and issued again in 1603 and 1606. In 1601 he was again stricken with fever, but recovered under the care of his friend William Heather, afterwards doctor of music and founder of a music lecture at Oxford; and in 1603, on an outbreak of the plague in London, he removed to his friend Cotton's house at Connington in Huntingdonshire, where he stayed till Christmas. In the latter year appeared at Frankfort his edition of the chronicles of Asser, Walsingham, and other historians, with the title 'Anglica, Normannica, Hibernica, a veteribus scripta,' and a dedication to Sir Fulke Greville. This book originally grew out of his preparatory labours on the 'Britannia.' He had also conceived the idea of writing a general history of England in Latin, but the vastness of the scheme compelled him to abandon the project. He had accordingly to content himself with putting forth this volume of chronicles and smaller works, dealing with particular periods, as the account of the Norman invasion which he gave in his edition of the 'Britannia' of 1607, and his annals of Queen Elizabeth. Camden's edition of the chronicle of Asser [q. v.] is famous from the fact of its containing the interpolated passage regarding the foundation of Oxford University by King Alfred. The same account had already appeared in his 'Britannia' of 1600. Conclusive evidence on the point is lost by the disappearance of the manuscripts of Asser, but it is now admitted that the passage is a late forgery. The circumstance of its interpolation in Camden's publications has naturally cast some suspicion upon his honesty in the matter; but,as Gough says, Camden had no special reason for glorifying Oxford, and his character for truthfulness stands too high to be impeached on imperfect evidence. The composition of the passage has been attributed to Sir Henry Savile (see Parker, Early Hist. of Oxford, Oxford Hist. Soc. 1884-5, pp. 39 sqq.) At this same time Camden was also preparing for the press his 'Remains,' or commonplace collections from his 'Britannia,' 'the rude rubble and outcast rubbish of a greater and more serious work,' as he styles it. The book was brought out in 1605, with a dedication to Sir Robert Cotton, signed only with the letters M. N., the last letters of Camden's two names, and passed through as many as seven editions in the course of the seventeenth century. He had originally intended to dedicate it to Sir Fulke Greville, but did honour to that patron by the dedication of his collection of chronicles in its place. On the discovery of the Gunpowder plot Camden was for the first time called upon to write in the public service, and instructed to translate into Latin the account of the trial of the conspirators. Accordingly in 1607 appeared his 'Actio in Henricum Garnetum, Societatis Jesuit icæ' in Anglia superiorem, et cæteros.'
On 7 Sept. 1607 Camden had injured his leg so severely by a fall from his horse that he was kept to his house for nine months, only leaving it at length to attend the funeral of his friend Sir John Fortescue, who had assisted him in his early work on the 'Annals.' During this confinement 'he put the last hand to his "Britannia" which gained him the titles of the Varro, the Strabo, and the Pausanias of Britain in the writings and letters of learned men' (Gibson), and published during 1607 an edition in folio, which was a considerable enlargement on those which had preceded. As his own memoranda
