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notice Huntingdon's attending Archbishop Alexander to Rome, while most of his other biographers agree in that particular, adopts this statement. Wharton, however, in his Anglia Sacra," gives another version, quoting a Manuscript of the Epistle which says nothing of the archbishop's journey; whence Wharton conjectures that Huntingdon was at Bec in company with Bishop Alexander on their way to Rome when the letter to Warin was written.

3. An Epistle to his friend Walter, "On Contempt of the World, or on the Bishops and other Illustrious Men of his Age." Wharton' and Hardy agree in assigning the date of this celebrated Epistle to the year 1145, or thereabouts; but it bears internal evidence of having been written many years before. Not only does it mention Bishop Alexander who died in 1148, as living at the time, but, moreover, expressly asserts of Henry I. that "his reign has now lasted thirty-five years" and quotes a prediction that it would not last two years longer, which was singularly verified, as Henry I. died in the month of December of that same year 1135. Huntingdon, indeed, in a former passage, refers to his History, to explain the discrepancy between the character he has drawn of Henry I. in the two works, but it is most probable that both were published together shortly after the king's death, this paragraph being inserted after the Epistle was written. The order in which he arranged his works, as will subsequently appear, confirms this conclusion; but, however this may be, nothing can be clearer than that Huntingdon himself assigns the year 1135 as the date of his letter to his friend Walter.

4. Our author's only other work is an account of English saints and their miracles, principally collected from Bede, the intention of compiling which he had announced in an early part of his History.

There appears to be no copy extant of what may be called the first edition of Henry of Huntingdon's History of England, which ended with the reign of Henry I.; but

1 Preface to the "Anglia Sacra."

2 Preface to the "Monumenta Britannica."

the Arundel MS., forming, so to speak, the second edition, ends with the death of Bishop Alexander de Blois in the year 1148. So far as it extends, the Arundel MS. follows the same order of arrangement as those MSS., which contain the entire History together with the whole series of Henry of Huntingdon's prose works. They are divided into ten Books, of which the first seven correspond with the Books similarly numbered in the present volume. The eighth Book in the MSS. of both editions, according, it would appear, to Huntingdon's own arrangement, includes the three Epistles, to King Henry I., to Warin, and Walter, already mentioned. The ninth Book contains the account of saints and miracles compiled from Bede. The tenth Book of the complete MSS. of the prose works continues the History from the death of Henry I. to the accession of Henry II. Two beautiful MSS. in the Library at Lambeth contain two additional Books, comprising our author's poetical works; the eleventh consisting of the satires and epigrams, and the twelfth of the hymns and other poems already referred to.

Henry of Huntingdon's History of England was first printed in Sir Henry Savile's collection of the "Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores," published in the year 1596. It was reprinted at Frankfort in 1603, and the first six Books are given in the "Monumenta Historica Britannica," published under the auspices of the Record Commission in the year 1848. Savile omitted the eighth and ninth Books of the manuscript copies, as interrupting the course of the narrative, and made the tenth Book of Huntingdon's order the eighth of his own. This arrangement is followed in the present volume, but our author's tract on the bishops and illustrious men of his time, contained in his Letter to Walter," and forming originally a section of the eighth Book of the History appeared to be so valuable an historical document, and throwing such additional light on the characters of many eminent personages connected with the History, that, although it could not be inserted in its former place, it was considered desirable to append it to the History.

Mr. Petrie's collation of Savile's edition with four of the

MSS. has supplied a text of great purity for the first six Books of Huntingdon's History which only are printed in his collection. He observes, that the variations obtained by the collation of the first seven Books were, on the whole, very few, and those mostly verbal; but that in the eighth Book they were much more valuable, rectifying many mistakes of Savile's printed text, and affording several additions'. Mr. Petrie's notes of these variations having been lost, it was deemed advisable that a fresh collation of the eighth Book should be made with two valuable MSS. in the British Museum, Arundel, No. 48, and Royal 13, B. 6, both on vellum, and of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. This collation, some of the results of which are referred to in the notes, has not only served to improve the present version of the eighth Book, but an examination of the MSS. has supplied the means of forming correct conclusions as to the order of Huntingdon's works and the dates of their publication. The "Letter to Walter" was printed in Wharton's Anglia Sacra," and in Dacher's "Spicilegium;" both of which editions have been consulted for the present translation.

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Henry of Huntingdon's merits as an historical writer were, perhaps, overrated by the old bibliographers, Pitts, Polydore Virgil, and John Leland, while modern critics have done him but scanty justice. The value of his History varies, of course, with its different epochs. The earlier Books being, as he informs us in the Preface, a compilation from Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Chronicles, meaning the Saxon Chronicle, they are of little worth, although occasionally supplying additional facts. The third Book, describing the conversion to Christianity of the several kingdoms of the Heptarchy, though wholly compiled from Bede, has the merit of being a well-digested epitome, and of omitting the greater part of the miraculous accounts which break the thread of the venerable historian's narrative, our author judiciously reserving them for a separate book. Indeed, Henry of Huntingdon's works in general are interspersed with very few of those sacred legends which, however characteristic of the age, mar the historical effect, though they Preface to the "Monumenta Historica Britannica," p. 81. 2 Vol. ii. p. 694. 3 Tom. viii. p. 157.

may not weaken our reliance on the general truthfulness of the narrative. In this respect he contrasts favourably not only with Bede, but with Roger de Wendover and most other chroniclers, not excepting his illustrious contemporary William of Malmesbury. His frequent references to the immediate interposition of Providence may be unsuited to the taste of many readers of the present day, but it must not be forgotten, that while he sometimes claims the divine interference for very questionable objects, he genetally takes just views of the human means employed in working out the dispensations of Providence.

Approaching his own times, our author assumes the character of an original historian, and, at the commencement of his seventh Book, tells us that now he has to deal with events which had passed under his own observation, or which had been related to him by eye-witnesses. Still, however, the Saxon Chronicle seems to have been the basis of his History for the reign of William II., although additional matter is frequently introduced. But the latter part of the seventh, and the whole of the eighth Book, containing the reigns of Henry I. and Stephen, are more valuable, the author having been contemporary with the events he describes, and possessing singular opportunities of being well informed on all that passed, from his familiar intercourse with Bishops Bloet and Alexander de Blois, the nephew of Roger Bishop of Salisbury, the greatest statesmen of the time; as well as from his personal knowledge of many other eminent characters, as we learn from his "Letter to Walter."

Borrowing large portions of his materials from the Chronicles, it was natural that Huntingdon's History, which Matthew of Westminster, indeed, calls "his Chronicles," should partake of the same character. Although the science of history may be considered as then in a transition state, Henry of Huntingdon has the merit of being among the earliest of our national Historians, as distinguished from Chroniclers. The skeleton of history now began to be invested with consistency of form and proportions, the scattered limbs to be united, and life breathed into the dry bones. Political changes were traced to their origin,

events connected with their causes, and developed in their effects, and the lines of individual character fully and vigorously drawn. Huntingdon's colouring is often florid, but he was too much of a chronicler to fall into the error of some of our most esteemed modern historians, who, under a specious guise, and in polished sentences, convey a very small amount of exact information. The genius, however, which enabled him to form the plan of his extended work, distributing it into the successive periods of the Roman, the Saxon, the Danish, and the Norman occupations of England, and the sagacity of his observations, while tracing the origin of some of these revolutions, distinguish him from the mere recorder of passing events. The climax of the long series of events is wrought out with dramatic effect, when, in glowing language, but without losing sight of historical truth, he pictures England as panting for a deliverer from her ruined and distracted state, hailing, with exultation, the accession of Henry II., and entering on an era of peace and prosperity, the anticipation of which forms a happy conclusion to the work.

The freedom with which he canvasses the conduct of the great men of the time, both in his History and his "Letter to Walter," not sparing even his patron, King Henry I., and the two Williams, his immediate predecessors, gives a favourable idea of our author's independence of character, and exhibits, what we should call, the liberty of the press, in a light we should hardly have expected under the iron sway of the Norman kings. But suspicion is thrown on parts of his narrative which are unsupported by concurrent testimony. That would, however, be a singular canon of criticism which should, on such ground, discard the statements of an old writer, whose general credit is unimpeachable, where there is no improbability in the circumstances related; and Huntingdon's History contains several incidents, unnoticed by other contemporaneous writers, which we should be reluctant to surrender 1. No one could have clearer views of the duty of an historian, as we have

1 For examples see the notes pp. 195 and 199. See also the note, p. 189.