be qualified for the place by greater
knowledge, and by his long connexion with the College of Arms.
His mode of righting himself lacked judgment, and he was twice
suspended from his office, and was even attempted to be
expelled therefrom.--ED.

[400] In Anstis's edition of "A Second Discoverie of Errors in the
Much-commended 'Britannia,' &c.," 1724, the reader will find
all the passages in the "Britannia" of the edition of 1594 to
which Brooke made exceptions, placed column-wise with the
following edition of it in 1600. It is, as Anstis observes, a
debt to truth, without making any reflections.

[401] There is a sensible observation in the old "Biographia
Britannica" on Brooke. "From the splenetic attack originally
made by Rafe Brooke upon the 'Britannia' arose very _great
advantages to the public_, by the shifting and bringing to
light as good, perhaps a better and more authentic account of
our nobility, than had been given at that time of those in any
other country of Europe."--p. 1135.

CAMDEN AND BROOKE.

Literary, like political history, is interested in the cause of an
obscure individual, when deprived of his just rights--character of
CAMDEN--BROOKE'S "Discovery of Errors" in the "Britannia"--his
work disturbed in the printing--afterwards enlarged, but never
suffered to be published--whether BROOKE'S motive was personal
rancour!--the persecuted author becomes vindictive--his keen reply
to CAMDEN--CAMDEN'S beautiful picture of calumny--BROOKE furnishes
a humorous companion-piece--CAMDEN'S want of magnanimity and
justice--when great authors are allowed to suppress the works of
their adversary, the public receives the injury and the insult.

In the literary as well as the political commonwealth, the cause of an
obscure individual violently deprived of his just rights is a common
one. We protest against the power of genius itself, when it strangles
rather than wrestles with its adversary, or combats in mail against a
naked man. The general interests of literature are involved by the
illegitimate suppression of a work, of which the purpose is to correct
another, whatever may be the invective which accompanies the
correction: nor are we always to assign to malignant motives even this
spirit of invective, which, though it betrays a contracted genius, may
also show