Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Welsh in Dorset / by Thomas Kerslake. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![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 E. 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 (“ gersednes ”) or agreement of a Witan of * Sir P. Palgrave, English Commonwealth, 1832. Also his History of Normandy and England, 4 vols. t Rev. J. R. Green, both his Histories of English People, t Engl. Comm., Proofs, ccxxxiii., and cclxiii. Also Vol. I. p. 464. § This method of usurping the place of long received titles of ancient texts hy 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 he “ 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 farther on in his book that he condescends so far as to admit the words “ (or Anglo-Saxon)” in a bracket for the tardy help to those who are unlearned in the innovation. II Lambarde 1668, in Anglo-Saxon, with Latin translation; republished by Whelock, 1648; by Wilkins, 1721. Public Records, with English by Thorpe, 1840, folio, pp. 150-152.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22473191_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
