1825. 
sive quarto impregnates. the economical 
miscellany, and: is breathed through the 
cheap compilation, and even through the 
columns of the diurnal sheet, which every 
man may read for his penny. It begins to 
be perceived that our Saxon ancestors were 
not altogether barbarians: that if they 
shared, with other nations, the rudeness 
and the violence, the ignorance and the 
superstition of the dark ages in which they 
flourished, they were, at any rate, not be- 
hind them in political wisdom, nor quite 
so destitute of arts and accommodations, 
as the desolation in which they were 
plunged by the savage ferocity of their 
Norman tyrants, during the centuries that 
succeeded their subjugation, seemed to 
exhibit them. In short, Anglo-Saxon his- 
tory became a subject of literary investiga- 
tion and curiosity. It commanded even 
the attention of our Universities. After a 
delay of seven years, from the time when 
the proposals for a subscription were first 
circulated, the Rev. Mr. Ingram, who had 
been an Anglo-Saxon professor in Oxford, 
sent abroad his invaluable edition of “ The 
Saxon Chronicle, with an English Trans- 
lation, and Notes, critical and explanatory ; 
a Short Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Lan- 
guage,’ &c. &e. which has left, at least, no 
apology for continuing to retain, in the 
early sections of our popular English His- 
tories, many of the absurd and baseless 
fables and misrepresentations with which, 
hitherto, they have been’ successively, and 
without exception, disgraced. Pending 
the preparation of this authentic and in- 
estimable work, the first volumes of “A 
History of England from the first Invasion 
by the Romans,” {a misnomer, by the way, 
for there was no Englard prior to the esta- 
blishment of the Saxons in the island !] 
had appeared—a continuation of which we 
shall presently have to notice :—a work 
evidently written, as history should be 
written, from original research, and re- 
ference to primitive documents, and the 
earliest accessible authorities ; and in which 
will be found the only tolerably-accurate 
and authentic sketch of the Saxon period 
which, hitherto, we have met with in any 
thing bearing the name of History of Eng- 
Jand, and calculated for general perusal, 
The work of M. Thierry, now before us, 
and from which we may seem so widely to 
haye digressed, though bearing the mere 
modest title of “ History” (not “a His- 
ae. as claiming unity or entireness; or 
“ the History,” as pretending to specific 
importance and pre-eminence ; but aspir- 
ing only to be regarded as a fragment or 
portion of history relative to the period it 
treats of % is, with respect to that period, a 
still more important compilation than even 
that which we have just commended ; and 
not the less valuable for coming from a 
foreign pen, and, therefore, less liable to 
the prejudices of prepossession and na- 
tional partialities, Brief as is the sketch 
Monthly Review of Literature. 
55 
of the Saxon period, it shews (as, indeed, 
does every part of the work) the depth and 
accuracy of a very extended research ;' and 
breathes throughout not only a learned, but 
a philosophic spirit, that may justly rank it 
with the most approved productions of the 
author’s countryman, Vertot, with a preg- 
nancy of allusion, and even, occasionally, a 
poignancy of sarcasm, that approximates to 
the style and pertinency of our unrivalled 
Gibbon. M. Thierry is evidently familiar 
with many authorities, which our verna- 
cular historians have either overlooked or 
purposely disregarded; and if he has not 
disdained occasionally to seek for materials 
of history in the traditions of bards and 
minstrels, he has used them as the philo- 
sophical historian should use such docu- 
ments, not to dogmatize on the dates and 
facts they profess to record, but to illus- 
trate what is obscure in other, not always; 
perhaps, ‘more authentic records, and pre- 
sent a more lively picture of the habits and 
sentiments of the people, and the condition 
of society in the ages to which they refer. 
As the object of the author is to trace 
the causes, and develope the consequences, 
as well as to record the events of the Nor- 
man Conquest, he, very properly, does not 
confine himself to the mere occurrences of 
the conflict, the preparations for the inva- 
sion, and the struggle through which the 
conquest was achieved; nor does he, in 
his introductory chapters, attach his nar- 
rative merely to the soil of England. The 
Normans are as much a portion of his sub- 
ject as the Anglo-Saxons, and the tribes 
or nations commingled with them in the 
composite population of the country. He 
traces, therefore, with a like discerning 
spirit, the rise and progress of the Gallo- 
Norman colony and power; and marks 
also, with a clearness, in which our histo- 
rians, in general, have been censurably de- 
ficient, the circumstances which had intro- 
duced, and progressively extended, Nor- 
man influence and Norman innovation into 
this island, prior to the invasion, and pre- 
pared, thereby, the way for that conquest 
which the arms of William had, otherwise, 
been inadequate to achieve. 
Our limits do not permit us to enter 
even into the most brief analysis of these 
important volumes; to follow the author 
through his philosophical survey of the rise 
and progress of the contending nations, the 
causes which prepared and gave success to 
‘the invasion—“ the last territorial conquest 
that has taken place in the western part of 
Europe ;” or much less to pursue the nar- 
rative through the five epochs of that con- 
quest, from the battle of Hastings, in 1066, 
to the early part of the thirteenth century, 
when “ Normandy itself, the country of 
the kings, the nobles, and the military po- 
-pulation of England, was separated, by 
conquest, from the country, to whose con- 
-querors it had given birth.” Nor can we 
even be permitted to do justice to she 
eigh 
+. 
