loan of Bishop White Kennett's invaluable interleaved copy belonging to Sir Thomas Phillipps, bart., and another equally valuable, and, if possible, more fully annotated, copy belonging to Earl Powis; he has also had access to the copies deposited in the Bodleian, the British Museum, and other public libraries.
He has added a few preliminary remarks on the ancient and present extent of each Diocese, and likewise a List of the Canons of the Collegiate Church of Southwell, prepared expressly for this edition by the Rev. J. F. Dimock, one of the canons of that Church.
It would be in the highest degree presumptuous to claim the merit of perfect accuracy for a work of this description, in which every line contains either a date or a fact, many of which are variously given by different authors and documents: such perfection is wholly unattainable, at least a perfect work of this description has never yet issued from the press. Had not the extent of these volumes rendered [1]it impossible to keep the whole of them in type at the same time, several errors, discovered by that close comparison of the different dioceses which is only practicable in a printed form, would have been rectified before the sheets were worked off. Others, it is feared, still remain for correction by local antiquaries; for when an individual directs the whole of his inquiries to one given subject, he must necessarily acquire more information on that subject than he who has to treat of several.
- ↑ The reader may form some idea of the additions which have been made to Le Neve's portion of the work, by the fact that his volume contains only 11,051 entries, while this edition has more than 30,000, and that upward of six thousand Rolls and other records have been consulted, besides printed books.
