THE PUBLISHER’S ADVERTISEMENT

THE Series of Chroniclers of our Early History which we possess is by far the most complete which any nation of Europe can lay claim to. This opinion has been held by our greatest Historians, from Carte down to Hume, Henry, Lingard, and Turner. In the elaborate History of the latter, his references to, and quotations from, these invaluable sources, fully bear out his record of their worth: “that such a series of regular chronology and true incident; such faithful, clear, and ample materials for authentic history,” are not to be met with elsewhere. However well these materials may be worked up, however impartially used, and however diligently compared with one another; still, the great charm, the narrative of an eye-witness of events which were passing before him, communicated in the language of the time, and embodying the predilections and impressions of the public mind of the period, can never be superseded by the philosophical and elaborate style of the Modern Historian.

Four centuries have passed away since the invention of printing; and whilst the press has groaned under the reimpressions of works, which claimed no other merit than excessive rarity to account for their resuscitation, no attempt has hitherto been made to rescue these important aids to English History from the tomb of a dead language. The recent establishment of an English Historical Society, the success of which has more than realized the most sanguine expectations of its founders, has awakened a curiosity respecting our early Monkish Chroniclers, which promises to open to our view the most important discoveries respecting the great causes of England’s continued prosperity, both in Church and State. To render these invaluable Works, published by the Historical Society in the original Latin more generally useful, a Series of Translations of the most interesting Writers is now proposed, to be completed in Twenty Volumes, embracing the most important of our Early Monkish Chroniclers, commencing with the first records of our History, and forming a regular Chronological Series of Events, chiefly narrated by eye-witnesses. The work, when completed, will be rendered more useful by the addition of Chronological Tables, in which the conflicting dates, ascribed by the various writers to the same events, will be reconciled, and the real period assigned to each.