work to seven hundred and ninety-six, and others to nine hundred and ninety-four. The recent inquiries of Mr. Stevenson, to be found in the Preface to his new edition of the original Latin, render it unnecessary at present to delay the reader's attention from the work itself. The present translation is substantially that of the Rev. W. Gunn, published with the Latin original in 1819, under the following title: "The 'Historia Britonum,' commonly attributed to Nennius; from a manuscript lately discovered in the library of the Vatican Palace at Pome: edited in the tenth century, by Mark the Hermit; with an English version, fac-simile of the original, notes and illustrations." The kindness of that gentleman has enabled the present editor to reprint the whole, with only a few corrections of slight errata, which inadvertency alone had occasioned, together with the two prologues and several pages of genealogies, which did not occur in the MS. used by that gentleman.
Chap. V.—GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH.
Geoffrey, surnamed of Monmouth, is celebrated in English literature as the author, or at least the translator, of Historia Britonum, a work from which nearly all our great vernacular poets have drawn their materials for some of their noblest works of fiction and characters of romance. He lived in the early part of the twelfth century, and in the year 1152 was raised to the bishopric of St. Asaph.
The first of his writings, in point of time, was a Latin translation of the Prophesies of Merlin, which he undertook at the request of Alexander bishop of Lincoln. His next work was that on which his principal fame rests, the Historia Britonum, dedicated to Robert, duke of Gloucester, who died in 1147. Into this second work he inserted the Latin translation above-mentioned, which now appears as the seventh book of Historia Britonum. A third composition has also been ascribed to Geoffrey, entitled Vita Merlini, in Latin hexameter verse: but the internal ec#vidence which it affords, plainly proves that it is the work of a different author.
Although the list of our Chroniclers may be considered as complete, without the addition of this work, yet we have thought it worthy of a place in our series for many reasons. It is not for historical accuracy that the book
