RICHARD OF CIRENCESTER—in Latin, Ricardus Corinensis—a well-known early English. chronicler, was born at Cirencester in Gloucestershire, in the first half of the 14th c., bin nothing whatever is known of his family or circumstances. In 1350 lie entered the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter, Westminster—whence he is sometimes called the "monk of Westminster"—and remained there for the rest of his life. His leisure was devoted to the study of British and Anglo-Saxon history and antiquities. In the prosecution of his investigations Richard is said to have visited numerous libraries and ecclesiastical establishments in England, and we know for certain that in 1391 be obtained a license from his abbot to visit Rome. He died in 1401 or 1402. Richard's principal works :Ire Jlistoria ab Rengista ad Ann. 1348, in two parts, of which the first (preserved in the public library of Cambridge) treats of the affairs of England from the Saxon invasion to the death of Harald; two theological productions (ill the Peterborough library), a Libel. de OJliciis Ecelesiasticis and a Tractatus super Synth°lam .(.11itjus et Minus; and above all his he Situ Britanxice, a treatise on the ancient state of Great Britain. This work—of which, however,- it must be admitted that the authenticity is doubtful— was, curious to say, first brought to light by Dr. Charles Julius Bertram, professor of
English at Copenhagen, in 1747, who professed to have discovered it in the royal library there, and who sent a transcript of it, together with a "fac-simile" of the original, to the celebrated English antiquary, Dr. Stukeley. This gentleman published an analysis of it in 1757, and in the same year prof. Bertram published the whole treatise, along with the "remains" of Gildas and Nennius, under the title Britannlearum Gentium 'Estonia Antiqute, Seriptores tees, Rieardus Corinensis, Gildas Badonieus, iYennius Banehoren.sis. A new edition with an English translation and and a " a biography of the sup posed author, appeared at London in 1849, and a reprint forms one of the " Six Old English Chronicles" in Bohn's "Antiquarian Library" (1848). If we could feel quite sure that the work was genuine, it would be of the highest importance for the study of British and Roman-British antiquities, but unfortunately Bertram's "original " (like the "original" of Macpherson's avian and Joe Smith's Book of is not to be found, nor does itappear that anybody ever saw it but himself, so that Gibbon's praise, " that he [Richard] shows a genuine knowledge of antiquity very extraordinary for a monk of the 14th century," must be regarded with suspicion.