INTRODUCTORY. Campbell's The Lives of the Lord Chancellors, by LORD CAMPBELL (4th edit. 1856-7), commence with the institution of the office in Saxon times, and extend to the accession of George IV. As an historical production, the whole work is wanting in a due sense of the obligations cellors and imposed by such a task, is disfigured by unblushing Lord Chief Justices. plagiarisms, and, as the writer approaches his own times, by much unscrupulous misrepresentation. It, however, supplies a want; and the literary execution is often characterised by much felicity and graphic power. The Lives of the Chief Justices (3 vols., 1849-57), by the same author, includes only the more notable characters who have succeeded to the post, ending with the death of lord Tenterden in 1832. This work is similarly wanting in regard for historical accuracy, but the concluding volume contains information which probably no other living writer could have supplied. cal History. In connexion with our ecclesiastical and university Ecclesiastlhistory, Le Neve's Fasti1 is an indispensable work of Le Neve's reference. It consists of complete lists of ecclesiastical Fasti. dignitaries in England and Wales, and of the chief academic officers of the two universities from the earliest times to the present century, accompanied by concise biographical data. the Na In connexion with the industrial and commercial Works on progress of the nation, MACPHERSON'S Annals of Com- tional Inmerce, &c.,2 was designed to supply a history of the trade 2 1 Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae; or, a Calendar of the Principal Dignitaries in England and Wales, and of the chief Officers in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge from the earliest times to the year 1715. Compiled by John Le Neve. Corrected and continued from 1715 to the present time by T. Duffus Hardy. 3 vols. Clarendon Press, 1854. 2 Annals of Commerce, Manufactures, Fisheries, and Navigation: containing the commercial Transactions of the British Empire and other Countries from the earliest Accounts to Jan. 1801. By David Macpherson. 4 vols. 4to. 1805. dustry and Commerce. INTRODUCTORY. Macpher son. Porter. Leone Levi. James's of the British Empire and other countries from the earliest accounts to January, 1801. It is, however, rather a chronological record of successive transactions, having in relation to the subject more the character of a dry chronicle than of an intelligent and coherent historical survey. PORTER'S Progress of the Nation1 takes up the narrative at the point where it is left by Macpherson, and is a valuable repository of facts, social as well as economical, connected with the national development during the following half-century. Professor LEONE LEVI'S History of British Commerce and of the Economic Progress of the Nation (2nd edit. 1880) commences with the year 1763 and terminates in 1878. His treatment of the subject is at once wider in its scope and more philosophic in its conception, dealing with every event which may be supposed to have contributed to or to have influenced the development of commerce, such as inventions and discoveries, free trade, monetary crises, the gold discoveries, &c. The writer also treats occasionally of the conditions of trade in other countries. For the history of the English navy, the work by JAMES2 is on the whole the best authority. The introductory chapter furnishes a brief outline of the chief improvements in vessels of war and marine artillery from 1488 to 1792; with the latter date commences the historical narrative, which, in the last edition, is continued to the battle of Navarino in 1827. The well-known collection entitled the Harleian The Progress of the Nation in its various social and economical Relations from the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. By G. R. Porter. 2nd edit. 1851. 2 The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793 to the Accession of George IV. By William James. A new edition, with Additions and Notes. 6 vols. Bentley, 1878. INTRO DUCTORY. Harleian Miscellany1 consists of selections from the valuable collection of manuscripts formed by the eminent statesman, the first earl of Oxford, and subsequently sold by the The family to the British Museum. The contents are too Miscellany. multifarious to admit of being here described, and they remain, unfortunately, as yet, without an index. To the student of English history, the volumes afford material assistance, and in fact there are few branches of research in connexion with which they will not be found of service. The Harleian Miscellany. Edited by Oldys and Park. Io vols. 4to. 1808. 232 CHAP. I. CHAPTER I. AUTHORITIES TO A.D. 450. (A.) Contemporary Writers.-Among these the first place must be assigned to CAESAR (de Bell. Gall.) and The Classi- TACITUS (Agricolae Vita and Annales, lib. xiv). Tradi cal Writers. tions respecting the British Isles, and occasional allusions Itinerarium of Antoninus. to their history, are to be found scattered in many of the ancient writers, among whom Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, the younger Pliny, Ptolemy the geographer, Dion Cassius, Antoninus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Claudian, the compiler of the Notitia Utriusque Imperii, and certain of the Byzantine writers are the principal. A complete list of these authorities, with references to the different passages in each, will be found in Sir T. D. Hardy's Descriptive Catalogue (i. cxvi-cxxxi). In the Monumenta Historica Britannica, the passages are printed in full. On these sources of information, much auxiliary light has been thrown by the discovery of coins and inscriptions belonging to the period, and of these also the Monumenta supply a good account. 1 Next to Caesar and Tacitus, the Itinerarium of ANTONINUS must be considered as of the most direct value. This work was originally compiled by the order of Julius Caesar, and completed in the reign of Augustus, 1 Itinerarium Antonini Augusti et Hierosolymitanum. Ed. G. Parthey and M. Pinder. Berlin, 1848. but in the following century the additions and corrections made under M. Aurelius Antoninus, the philosopher, were so considerable that the compilation has generally passed under his name. It forms a fairly complete Itinerary of the whole Empire, in which the principal towns and cross-roads are described by an enumeration of the towns and stations by which they pass, the intermediate distances being given in Roman miles. СНАР. I. The Notitia Dignitatum, or official list of the Empire Notitia Dignita under the Romans, is the original source from whence tum. we derive our knowledge of the organisation of Britain during the Roman occupation, and the division of the country into five provinces, each ruled by a consul. It was probably compiled about the time of Honorius.1 (B.) Non-contemporary Writers.-The first native his- Gildas. torian is a British ecclesiastic of the name of GILDAS, who lived in the sixth century and wrote in Armorica (circ. 550-560) his treatise, de Excidio Britanniae,2 which Gale, its editor in the seventeenth century, somewhat arbitrarily divided into two works, the History and the Epistle. The treatise, however, may fairly be regarded as composed of two distinct portions: (1), from the invasion of Britain by the Romans to the revolt of Maximin at the close of the fourth century; (2), from the close of the fourth century to the writer's own time. Very different views have been taken of the value of ControGildas as an author. Dr. Guest, whose opinion must carry the greatest weight, says, 'I am not aware that its this Writer. genuineness has been questioned by any one whose scholarship or whose judgment is likely to give weight ! Notitia Dignitatum et Administrationum omnium tam Civilium quam Militarium in Partibus Orientis et Occidentis. Ed. Edwardus Böcking. 2 vols. Bonn, 1839-53. Ed. Otto Seeck, Berlin, 1876. 2 De Excidio Britanniae Liber Querulus. Migne, P. L. lxix. 330. Printed also in Gale's Scriptores XV. (see supra, p. 217); and edited by Mr. Stevenson in 1838 for E. H. S. versy re specting |