notice Huntingdon's attending Archbishop Alexander to Rome, while most of his other biographers agree in that particular, adopts this statement. Wharton, however, in his "Anglia Sacra," gives another version, quoting a Manuscript of the Epistle which says nothing of the archbishop's journey; whence Wharton conjectures that Huntingdon was at Bec in company with Bishop Alexander on their way to Rome when the letter to Warin was written.
3. An Epistle to his friend Walter, "On Contempt of the World, or on the Bishops and other Illustrious Men of his Age." Wharton[1] and Hardy[2] agree in assigning the date of this celebrated Epistle to the year 1145, or thereabouts; but it bears internal evidence of having been written many years before. Not only does it mention Bishop Alexander who died in 1148, as living at the time, but, moreover, expressly asserts of Henry I. that "his reign has now lasted thirty-five years" and quotes a prediction that it would not last two years longer, which was singularly verified, as Henry I. died in the month of December of that same year 1135. Huntingdon, indeed, in a former passage, refers to his History, to explain the discrepancy between the character he has drawn of Henry I. in the two works, but it is most probable that both were published together shortly after the king's death, this paragraph being inserted after the Epistle was written. The order in which he arranged his works, as will subsequently appear, confirms this conclusion; but, however this may be, nothing can be clearer than that Huntingdon himself assigns the year 1135 as the date of his letter to his friend Walter.
4. Our author's only other work is an account of English saints and their miracles, principally collected from Bede, the intention of compiling which he had announced in an early part of his History.
There appears to be no copy extant of what may be called the first edition of Henry of Huntingdon's History of England, which ended with the reign of Henry I.; but
