The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle | Page 4

two
former editions, compared with the present, the reader may form some idea, when he is
told that Professor Wheloc's "Chronologia Anglo-Saxonica", which was the first attempt
(4) of the kind, published at Cambridge in 1644, is comprised in less than 62 folio pages,
exclusive of the Latin appendix. The improved edition by Edmund Gibson, afterwards
Bishop of London, printed at Oxford in 1692, exhibits nearly four times the quantity of
the former; but is very far from being the entire (5) chronicle, as the editor considered it.

The text of the present edition, it was found, could not be compressed within a shorter
compass than 374 pages, though the editor has suppressed many notes and illustrations,
which may be thought necessary to the general reader. Some variations in the MSS. may
also still remain unnoticed; partly because they were considered of little importance, and
partly from an apprehension, lest the commentary, as it sometimes happens, should seem
an unwieldy burthen, rather than a necessary appendage, to the text. Indeed, till the editor
had made some progress in the work, he could not have imagined that so many original
and authentic materials of our history still remained unpublished.
To those who are unacquainted with this monument of our national antiquities, two
questions appear requisite to be answered: -- "What does it contain?" and, "By whom was
it written?" The indulgence of the critical antiquary is solicited, whilst we endeavour to
answer, in some degree, each of these questions.
To the first question we answer, that the "Saxon Chronicle" contains the original and
authentic testimony of contemporary writers to the most important transactions of our
forefathers, both by sea and land, from their first arrival in this country to the year 1154.
Were we to descend to particulars, it would require a volume to discuss the great variety
of subjects which it embraces. Suffice it to say, that every reader will here find many
interesting facts relative 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 manners of the inhabitants; not only the Britons and Saxons, but the Picts and Scots
(6). There are also some parts of his work, almost literally transcribed by Bede, which
confirm the brief statements of the "Saxon Chronicle" (7). But there is, throughout, such
a want of precision and simplicity, such a barrenness of facts amidst a multiplicity of
words, such a scantiness of names of places and persons, of dates, and other
circumstances, that we are