other history), the order of time is duly preserved. The movements of Stephen, who was in incessant action throughout his stormy reign, are described with a minuteness which shows that the author was present at the scenes he depicts. Many of them lay in the west of England, and in South Wales, where the Earl of Gloucester, the chief supporter of the cause of the empress, had great possessions, and much influence in right of his wife, and of his mother, who was daughter of a prince of that country. But the enterprises of other individual actors in those turbulent times fill a large portion of the author's pages, and these episodes form a very interesting part of the narrative. They enable us to realize the state of society, when every defensible position was occupied by a strong castle, there being no safety outside the walls, and when every man's hand was against his neighbour. In these scenes, the high-born baron, and the ruffianly freebooter, alike living by fraud and violence, are prominent figures, while licentious men-at-arms, and Flemish and Norman mercenaries, whose wages were rapine, follow in their train; and groups of affrighted and plundered citizens, and impoverished ecclesiastics, lend it horrors. Indeed, as Dr. Sewell remarks, the whole narrative is one stirring series of events of personal and individual interest, and, in this respect, it partakes much more of the character of a romance than of a history. We are transported at once into the camp of Stephen and his barons; we are present at his councils; we are hurried forward in the night march; we lurk in the ambuscade; we take part in the storming of castles and cities. Now we stand in the wild morasses of the isle of Ely; at another time we reconnoitre the fortifications of Bristol; from the hard-fought field of Lincoln we are carried to the walls of Oxford; from the dungeon of the captive king we hasten to witness the escape of the empress, during all the severities of a December night." History presented in this attractive garb, leaves on the mind a far more durable impression than is made by the generalizations of modern writers, too many of whom appear to have been very superficially acquainted with the authorities whence they profess to derive their infor mation, while most of them have written under some p ticular bias, political or religious, which has given a colo ing to their statements, if it has not led to a perversi of facts. Truth must be sought at the fountain head, a happily for those who desire to form an independent jud ment on the earlier periods of our national history, t contemporaneous chronicles which not long since we confined to the libraries of the opulent, and sealed in the obscurity of a dead language, are now broug within the reach, and opened to the perusal of the gene: reader. In the present volume, the transactions of King S phen's reign will be found recorded by two different a thors. They should be read in connection with Willia of Malmesbury's "Modern History," which embraces t same period. "Taken together," as Dr. Sewell observ. "they constitute a valuable body of history. They ciprocally develope the politics of contending partie they serve as guides whereby to arrive at the probab springs of action; they supply mutual defects of inform tion, they may serve to correct mutual errors." In co paring Henry of Huntingdon's eighth Book with the "A. of King Stephen," we have the advantage of consideri the history of the times from opposite points of view, Hu tingdon being warmly attached to the family of Henry while our anonymous author was a partisan of Stephe But it is satisfactory to find how little their personal feeli was allowed to influence their statements of facts, or the estimates of character. Huntingdon does full justice the bravery of Stephen, particularly at the battle of Linco of which he has given so spirited a description; while seldom takes an opportunity of charging the king wi those repeated breaches of faith, which were the wor stain on his character, and which the anonymous auth freely admits, with the palliation that he was influenced evil counsels. Both very much agree in their observatio on the arrest of the bishops, which, though it might justified by political expediency, was one of Stephen's mo tyrannical acts. But, while Huntingdon remarks that th prepared the way for his eventual ruin, which it probab did, by alienating the powerful clergy from his cause, the anonymous author considers that he expiated his crime by the restoration of the bishops' confiscated property, and a penance which was probably unknown to the other historian. It may be observed, in passing, that neither has done justice to the noblest character of the age, Robert, earl of Gloucester, the natural son of Henry I. They have not failed to describe his military achievements, which were not unrivalled at such a period; to appreciate his higher merits of disinterestedness, firmness, and moderation, we must have recourse to the pages of his admirable biographer, William of Malmesbury. Notwithstanding this general agreement of our two authors, there is one part of their narrative in which they are found at entire variance; and as it brings to notice a trait of some importance towards forming an estimate of Stephen's character, and is also connected with the early career of one of the greatest and wisest of our English kings, the subject may be worth a few concluding remarks. Perhaps no part of Huntingdon's History does him more credit, both in point of style, and as a clear and succinct narrative of events, than his account of the expedition in which Henry, duke of Normandy, embarked, to enforce his rights to the English crown. The historian represents the young prince as having hazarded a landing with a small body of troops, depending upon the justice of his cause, and the attachment of a large part of the suffering nation; and that, impatient of delay, he shortly afterwards took Malmesbury Castle by storm. He then, we are told, offered battle to Stephen, who had hastened to its relief; but the king drawing off his army, the duke threw succours into Wallingford Castle, and then having laid siege to the neighbouring castle of Crawmarsh, again offered battle to Stephen under its walls, though his forces were far inferior to the royal army. The history relates that the barons, on both sides, interfered to stop the further effusion of blood, and a truce was agreed upon, which, after some further successes of the Duke of Normandy, led to a treaty of peace, by which his right of succession to the throne was solemnly guaranteed. Such is Henry of Huntingdon's account of the campaign and its results. Let us now turn to that given by t anonymous author of the "Acts of King Stephen." It 1 lates that, on Henry's landing, he took no brilliant ente prise in hand, but wasted his time in sloth and negligenc that he was repulsed with disgrace from Cricklade a Bourton, the only places he is said to have attacke and that his army, unnerved and enfeebled by their disa ters, at length disbanded. We are then informed that t young duke, worn out with shame and distress, applied his mother, the Countess of Anjou, whose treasury bein exhausted, she had no means of supplying his pressin necessities. He also, it is said, had recourse to his unc the Earl of Gloucester who, according to all other accoun died before his nephew's expedition-but he, we are tol was too fond of his money-bags, and chose to reserve the for his own occasions. In this dilemma the young du applied to King Stephen, his cousin, who generously su plied the wants of his greatest enemy. This noble trait is perhaps not inconsistent with St phen's general character, but, to say nothing of the an chronism respecting the Earl of Gloucester, and th improbability of the conduct attributed to so faithful adherent to the cause of his sister and nephew, th account given of the young duke's pusillanimity an negligence is as much at variance with the personal hi tory of that gallant and indefatigable prince, afterwar Henry II., as it is with Huntingdon's account of the transactions. Nor can it be understood how, with t ruined fortunes here described, Henry was shortly afte wards able to establish his right to the throne, as it is a undisputed fact that he did. Our anonymous author's account of the closing scen of Stephen's reign, of which we are deprived by the r vages of time, may have thrown some light on the i consistency of the two statements, and it is just possib that his description of Henry's failure and distress m refer to some previous unsuccessful enterprise of th young prince, which Henry of Huntingdon and all t other chroniclers have passed over in silence. But th is by no means probable, and the reasonable concl sion appears to be, that the present is one of tho |