93 



A very learned writer,* who has been a pioneer of the sources 

 of English history for later writers, has by some of these been 

 recommended "to be used with care," and to be "read with 

 caution."! This, as we shall see, is very good advice ; but may 

 be extended to most of the later writers about these early times, 

 and not only to Sir F. Palgrave, who was a most learned, 

 original, ingenious, and interesting writer. He has been fol- 

 lowed with more than equal steps ; although others of his 

 followers are far behind him. At the risk of being reminded 

 of the latest [Amen.] demise of a Sovereign Queen, it may here 

 be said that the more recent work, known as "The History of 

 the Norman Conquest of England," by E. A. Freeman, D.C.L., 

 &c., if not the greatest book of the present generation, is one of 

 not more than the two or three greatest. Perhaps, however, in 

 such comparisons some " law " is due to the first who treads the 

 clods of a field never crossed before. Among the many authori- 

 ties with which Sir F. Palgrave's marginal references bring a 

 reader, most likely for the first time, acquainted ; one turns up 

 from time to time as the " Devonian Compact." To any one in 

 this quarter of England, a strong desire is raised to know more 

 of a document with this unheard of title. But it is only in the 

 supplementary volume J that it comes to light, what the docu- 

 ment is, and why the author has given it this new title. 



In the collections of the Anglo-Saxon Laws|| is printed a short 

 international Code ("geraednes") or agreement of a Witan of 



* Sir F. Palgrave, English Commonwealth, 1832. Also his History of 

 Normandy and England, 4 vols. 



f Rev. J. R. Green, both his Histories of English People. 



J Engl. Comm., Proofs, ccxxxiii., and cclxiii. Also Vol. I. p. 464. 



This method of usurping the place of long received titles of ancient 

 texts by new ones by means of persistent unexplained iterations, leaving 

 the reader to gradually find out for himself what is the monument really 

 quoted, is not unfrequent among the learned of the present age. In his 

 Short History, Mr. Green continually cites what he calls, and declares to bo 

 " now known " as " The English Chronicle," for what has always been known 

 to all the rest of the world as the " Saxon " or "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," 

 and it is only far then on in his book that he condescends so far as to admit 

 the words ("or Anglo-Saxon") in a bracket for tho tardy help to those who 

 are unlearned in the innovation. 



|| Lambarde 1568, in Anglo-Saxon, with Latin translation ; republished 

 by Whelock, 1648 ; by Wilkins, 1721. Public Records, with English by 

 Thorpe, 1840, folio, pp. 150-152. 



