, it seemed to Ralph Brooke that it became
his duty to denounce the too successful antiquary as a charlatan. He
accordingly fired off the unpleasant little gun already mentioned,
and, for the moment, he hit Camden rather hard.

The author of the _Britannia_, to justify his new advancement, had
introduced into a fresh edition of his book a good deal of information
regarding the descent of barons and other noble families. This was
York Herald's own subject, and he was able to convict Camden of
a startling number of negligences, and what he calls "many gross
mistakings." The worst part of it was that York Herald had privately
pointed out these blunders to Camden, and that the latter had said it
was too much trouble to alter them. This, at least, is what the enemy
states in his attack, and if this be true, it can hardly be doubled
that Camden had sailed too long in fair weather, or that he needed a
squall to recall him to the duties of the helm. He answered Brooke,
who replied with increased contemptuous tartness. It is admitted that
Camden was indiscreet in his manner of reply, and that some genuine
holes had been pricked in his heraldry. But the _Britannia_ lay high
out of the reach of fatal pedantic attack, and this little cloud over
the reputation of the book passed entirely away, and is remembered now
only as a curiosity of literature.

In the preface the author quaintly admits that "many have found a
defect in this work that maps were not adjoined, which do allure the
eyes by pleasant portraitures, ... yet my ability could not compass
it." They must, then, have been added at the last by a generous
afterthought, for this book is full of maps. The maritime ones are
adorned with ships in full sail, and bold sea-monsters with curly
tails; the inland ones are speckled with trees and spires and
hillocks. In spite of these old-fashioned oddities, the maps are
remarkably accurate. They are signed by John Norden and William Kip,
the master map-makers of that reign. The book opens with an account of
the first inhabitants of Britain, and their manners and customs; how
the Romans fared, and what antiquities they left behind, with copious
plates of Roman coins. By degrees we come down, through Saxons and
Normans, to that work which was peculiarly Camden's, the topographical
antiquarianism. He begins with Cornwall, "that region which, according
to the geographers, is the first of all Britain," and then proceeds to
what he calls "