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PREFACE. The editor, some years since, during a residence in Rome, obtained permission to search the library of the Vatican palace, for manuscripts relating to the history and affairs of this country. In the course of this interesting employment, an ancient exemplar of the " Historia Brittonum" was discovered. Presuming that one which dates much higher than any hitherto known, might be free from the inaccuracies and interpolations, long complained of in those of more recent date, a copy was procured; and it is this work to which the attention of the reader is solicited. The original is on parchment, fairly written in double columns, and fills ten pages of a miscellaneous volume,1 of the folio size. Great 1 Consisting of ninety-three pages. The first eighteen contain " Nitardi Angelberti opus de rebus gallicis;" -1'rum p. 19 to 46, care has been taken to obtain a faithful transcript of it; the orthography, however erroneous, is preserved, the capital and small letters correspond with the original; there is the same division of paragraphs; the forms of the points, and the location of them, though no guide to the sense, have one common resemblance ; nor, except in a few instances, are any orthographical corrections attempted. So dry and abrupt is the style, as to set a literal version at defiance; in that now offered, the meaning of the author is, I trust, preserved. I once entertained a doubt, as to the propriety of one, since the perusal of the work will be limited to that description of readers, who will never refer to a translation as an authority, when the original is before them. Respecting the age of the manuscript, the reader is in the course of it, thrice referred to the "Frodoardi Chronicon ab obitu Karoli magni ad annum 978 ;" from p. 47 to 57, the pre...
