ve to our architecture, our
agriculture, our coinage, our commerce, our naval and military
glory, our laws, our liberty, and our religion. 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 Warton's elaborate annals of English
Poetry. Philosophically considered, this ancient record is the
second great phenomenon in the history of mankind. 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 and
chronological panorama of a PEOPLE, described in rapid succession
by different writers, through so many ages, in their own
vernacular LANGUAGE. Hence it may safely be considered, nor only
as the primaeval source from which all subsequent historians of
English affairs have principally derived their materials, and
consequently the criterion by which they are to be judged, but
also as the faithful depository of our national idiom; affording,
at the same time, to the scientific investigator of the human
mind a very interesting and extraordinary example of the changes
incident to a language, as well as to a nation, in its progress
from rudeness to refinement.

But that the reader may more clearly see how much we are indebted
to the "Saxon Chronicle", it will be necessary to examine what is
contained in other sources of our history, prior to the accession
of Henry II., the period wherein this invaluable record
terminates.

The most ancient historian of our own island, whose work has been
preserved, is Gildas, who flourished in the latter part of the
sixth century. British antiquaries of the present day will
doubtless forgive me, if I leave in their original obscurity the
prophecies of Merlin, and the exploits of King Arthur, with all
the Knights of the Round Table, as scarcely coming within the
verge of history. Notwithstanding, also, the authority of Bale,
and of the writers whom he follows, I cannot persuade myself to
rank Joseph of Arimathea, Arviragus, and Bonduca, or even the
Emperor Constantine himself, among the illustrious writers of
Great Britain. I begin, therefore, with Gildas; because, though
he did not compile a regular history of the island, he has left
us, amidst a cumbrous mass of pompous rhapsody and querulous
declamation some curious descriptions of the character and