The book, in which these notices are found, is entitled _Itinerarium, sive Liber Rerum Memorabilium Willelmi Botoner dict. de Worcester_. It had existed in manuscript only, till the year 1778, when it was published at Cambridge, from the original autograph in the Library of Corpus Christi College, by James Nasmith, formerly a Fellow of that Society. Besides this, indeed, there is another manuscript of the journal in the same library, but it is only a copy of the former, made by the procurement of Archbishop Parker; and as it is very incorrect, it is of no value in itself, and could have been of little use to the editor. This Itinerary seems to have been a memorandum book, which the author kept with him on his journeys, not only into this county, but to other parts of this kingdom; and accordingly we find it stored with desultory notices of separate facts, and distant places, and abounding with trifling and unconnected observations, which seem to have been associated on the same page, only as the book was accidentally opened, and recorded rather from some present impulse, than with any settled and ultimate design. Nothing can be more rude than the style, or more worthless than many of the statements; and whatever might have been the writer’s real intention, it is very certain that his remarks, in the condition which they have actually come down to us, could not have been meant for publication. It might have been his purpose, when leisure and opportunity should serve, to arrange and expand the hasty and unconnected notes thus made by the way; but the brevity of the greater number would have insufficiently secured him against perplexities and mistakes; and as he might have erred occasionally through the acknowledged failure of his memory, or the unconscious influence of his imagination, it is possible that a careful and regular composition subsequently made, might have been less useful, than even the confused and scanty memorandums we possess. Worcester came into Cornwall in the year 1478. Mr. Whitaker says, that it was in 1440. How he could have committed such a mistake, it is difficult to conceive, as the date is expressly recorded in the Itinerary itself. Mr. Polwhele, indeed, appears to have erred likewise; for, according to him, William’s journey was performed in 1473; but this is evidently nothing more than a misprint. In one of our county histories, the journey is stated to have occurred in 1460: it is probable, however, that the writer had never seen the Itinerary.