e Varro, the Strabo, and the Pausanias of Britain.

While all Europe admired the "Britannia," a cynical genius, whose
mind seemed bounded by his confined studies, detected one error
amidst the noble views the mighty volume embraced; the single one
perhaps he could perceive, and for which he stood indebted to his
office as "York Herald." Camden, in an appendage to the end of
each county, had committed numerous genealogical errors, which he
afterwards affected, in his defence, to consider as trivial
matters in so great a history, and treats his adversary with all the
contempt and bitterness he could inflict on him; but Ralph Brooke
entertained very high notions of the importance of heraldical
studies, and conceived that the "Schoolmaster" Camden, as he
considered him, had encroached on the rights and honours of his
College of Heralds. When particular objects engage our studies, we
are apt to raise them in the scale of excellence to a degree
disproportioned to their real value; and are thus liable to incur
ridicule. But it should be considered that many useful students
are not philosophers, and the pursuits of their lives are never
ridiculous to them. It is not the interest of the public to degrade
this class too low. Every species of study contributes to the
perfection of human knowledge, by that universal bond which connects
them all in a philosophical mind.

Brooke prepared "A Discovery of Certain Errors in the Much-commended
Britannia." When we consider Brooke's character, as headstrong with
heraldry as Don Quixote's with romances of chivalry, we need not
attribute his motives (as Camden himself, with the partial feelings
of an author, does, and subsequent writers echo) to his envy at
Camden's promotion to be Clarencieux King of Arms; for it appears
that Brooke began his work before this promotion. The indecent
excesses of his pen, with the malicious charges of plagiarism he
brings against Camden for the use he made of Leland's collections,
only show the insensibility of the mere heraldist to the nobler
genius of the historian. Yet Brooke had no ordinary talents: his
work is still valuable for his own peculiar researches; but his
_naive_ shrewdness, his pointed precision, the bitter invective, and
the caustic humour of his cynical pen, give an air of originality,
if not of genius, which no one has dared to notice. Brooke's first
work against Camden was violently disturbed in its progress, and
hurried, in a mutilated