458 
to the historical antiquities of our island, 
by the limited publication of The Saxon’ 
Chronicle, with an Englisk Translation, and 
Notes, Critical and Explanatory, Sc. by the 
Rev. J. Ingram. ‘The work lias been long 
expected; for, to the best of our recollec- 
tion, it must be eight or nine year’s since 
the names of subscribers, to whom the 
edition was to be confined, were first 
solicited, Whoever shall cast a careful 
and discriminating eye, however, over the 
pages of the work now produced, and ob- 
serve the minute and diligent collation of 
numerous manuscripts and authorities to 
which the editor and translator has 
appealed, will be perfectly satisfied that 
the labour of the undertaking is an ample 
excuse for the delay in the execution; as, 
also, for the otherwise heavy price of 
three guineas and a half, at which the 
volume is delivered. It is a work of 
inestimable value to those who would be 
accurately acquainted with the history of 
this country, and with the real bases of the 
English Constitution ; not that it treats of 
such subjects in any popular way, or is 
calculated for the amusement of the snper- 
ficial reader, who lounges over a book at 
the breakfast-table, or in the dressing- 
room; but, as it presents the authentic 
materials for rectifying the innumerable 
errors of our common-place historians with 
respect to the Saxon and early Norman 
eras; and to those who think as they read, 
it may demonstrate certain points of essen- 
tial importance relative to our constitu- 
tional antiquities, which it has suited the 
purposes of the factions of legitimacy and 
feudal aristocracy most grossly to misre- 
present. The greater part of the Con- 
tents, especially withreference to the first 
four or five centuries of the Saxon era, 
will be found to consist of brief chronolo- 
gical notices, the applicable value of which 
will only be appreciated by the attentive 
and reflecting student, who will ponder on 
and compare them with other statements 
and documents in his study; but, even if 
there were not, as there are, innumerable 
passages interspersed of a more amusive 
description, the value of these would be 
sufficiently apparent in the demonstration, 
how grossly aud how ignorantly they have 
been misled in facts of no small impor- 
tance, by those modern oracles. who hi- 
therto have been implicitly trusted ; but 
who, instead of appealiig to the original 
and authentic ;@urces of information, have 
continued to transcribe each other's 
errors from generation to generation, and 
to repeat and qnultiply, under a variety of 
anthoria? denominations, dejusion for fact, 
and romance for history. Nor is this the 
only point. of view in which the value of 
this publication will be regarded by the 
antiquarian student, ‘The Saxon Chro- 
nicle,” says the editor very traly in. his 
preface, ‘‘ contains the original and au- 
Literary and Critical Proémium, 
[ Dec. 1, 
thentic testimony of contemporary writers 
to the most important transactions of our 
forefathers, both by sea and land,, from 
their first arrival in this conntry to the 
year 1154. Were we to descend to parti- 
culars, it would require a volume to dis- 
cuss the ereat variety of subjects which 
it embraces. Every reader will here find 
many interesting facts relative to. our 
architecture, our agriculture, our coinage, 
our commerce, our naval and military 
glory, our laws, our liberty, and. our reli- 
gion. In this edition also will be found 
numerous specimens of Saxon poetry, 
never before printed, which might form 
the ground-work of an introductory 
volume to Wharton’s elaborate annals of 
English Poetry. Philosophically ¢onsi- 
dered, this ancient record is the second 
great phenomenon in the history of man- 
kind, For, if we except the sacred annals 
of the Jews, contained in the several 
books of the Old Testament, there is no 
other work extant, ancient or modern, 
which exhibits at one view“a regular apd 
chronological panorama of a people, de- 
sctibed in rapid succession by different 
writers, through so many ages, in their 
own vernacular language. Hence it may 
safely be considered, not only as the pri- 
meval source from which all subsequent 
historians of English affairs [ought to] have 
derived their materials, and consequently 
[as] the criterion by which they are to be 
judged, but also the faithful depository of 
our national idiom ; affording, at the same 
time, to the scientific investigator of’ the 
human mind a very interesting and extra- 
ordinary example of the changes incident 
to a language, as well as to a nation, in its 
progress from rudeness to refinement,” 
Speaking of the revival of the long sus- 
pended, but “good old custom” of 
writing our own history-in our own lan- 
guage [instead of the barbarous Latin of 
the monks], the editor observes that ** the 
importance of the whole body of English 
history has attracted and employed the 
imagination of Milton, the philosophy” 
(we should have said the fraud, the indo- 
lence, and the sophistry) ‘ of Hume, the 
simplicity of Goldsmith, the industry of 
Henry, the research of Turner, and the 
patience of Lingard. The pages of these 
writers, however accurate and luminous as 
they generally are,” [this, by the way, 
is a praise which, to some of them, and of 
those also which follow, we should be ‘dis- 
gosed to deny,] “as well as those of 
3rady, Tyrrell, Carte, Rapine, and others, 
still require correction from the Saxon 
Chronicle; without which no person, liow- 
ever learned, can possess any thing be- 
yond a_ superficial aeqijninggnces (we 
should be disposed to say ayy*thifig ‘but a 
delusive misacquaintance) “ with the’ele- 
ments of English History, and of the Bri- 
tish Constitution.” We ought to ndtice 
that 
