ideal can to some extent be seen, and will be more clearly seen in future times. But we may be sure that it is less in danger of shipwreck, because more than other nations it does not disregard its past, and because it does not hastily cast off or even profoundly modify its old institutions till they have become beyond all dispute hurtful rather than beneficent. CHAP. XI. PREFACE ΤΟ THE SECOND PART. IN the following pages it has been my first aim, carefully to distinguish the contemporary sources of information for each period from those of later times, a distinction of primary importance in historical study. In the next place, I have endeavoured, wherever practicable, to supply such an amount of comment as will enable the student to form a fairly accurate notion of each author's value as an authority. In so doing, I have sought to be strictly impartial, and simply to place before the reader the main conclusions of the most recent and approved criticism. In connexion with Welsh, Irish, and Scottish history, the design of the volume seems to call for nothing further than a reference to the chief authorities for those periods or junctures when the history of one or other of these countries has been most prominently associated with that of England. Contemporary narrative, however defective or partial, rarely fails to retain a certain interest and value in after times. But general histories,—such as those of Old |