passed through the hands of many the most learned and most judicious men, and such as would not misemploy their time and pains upon a trifle. As to the present management of it, it must be left to the reader to judge of, as he sees cause.

For the chronology of the several parts, I have consulted the best authors; endeavouring to fix it with as much accuracy as I could. Wherever I could certainly determine the age of any tract, printed or manuscript, to a year, I set down that year; where I could not do it (as in manuscripts one seldom can), I take any probable year within the compass of time when an author is known to have flourished; or for a manuscript, any probable year within such a century, or such a king's reign, wherein the manuscript is reasonably judged to have been written and I generally choose a round number, rather than otherwise, in such indefinite cases and instances.

Thus, for example, first in respect of authors: there is a comment of Venantius Fortunatus upon the Athanasian Creed, which I reprint in my Appendix. I cannot fix the age of it to a year-no, nor to twenty years. All that is certain is, that it was made between 556, when Fortunatus first went into the Gallican parts, and 599, when he was advanced to the bishopric of Poitiers. Within this wide compass I choose the year 570. If any one shall rather choose 580, or 590, I shall not dispute it with him; nor doth any thing

very material depend upon it: but if any good reason can be given for taking some other year rather than 570, I shall immediately acquiesce in it.

As to manuscripts, it is well known there is no fixing them precisely to a year, merely from the hand or character: and there are but few, in comparison, that carry their own certain dates with them. The best judges, therefore, in these matters, will think it sufficient to point out the king's reign, or sometimes the century, wherein a manuscript was written: and in the very ancient ones, above one thousand years old, they will hardly be positive so much as to the century, for want of certain discriminating marks between manuscripts of the fifth, sixth, and seventh

centuries.

It may be asked, then, why I pretend to fix the several manuscripts, hereafter to be mentioned, to certain years in the margin-those that carry no certain dates, as well as the other that do? I do it for order and regularity, and for the more distinct perception of things; which is much promoted and assisted by this orderly ranging them according to years. At the same time the intelligent reader will easily understand where to take a thing as certain, and where to make allowances. It is something like the placing of cities, towns, rivers, &c., in a map or a globe: they have all their certain places there, in such or such precise degrees of longitude and latitude,

which perhaps seldom answer to the strict truth of things, or to a mathematical exactness. But still it serves the purpose very near as well as if every thing had been adjusted with the utmost nicety: and the imagination and memory are mightily relieved by it. Thus much I thought proper to hint in vindication of my method, and to prevent any deception on one hand, or misconstruction on the other. I have, I think, upon the whole, generally gone upon the fairest and most probable presumption, and according to the most correct accounts of knowing and accurate men: but if I have any where through inadvertency, or for want of better information, happened to mistake in any material part, the best way of apologizing for it, will be to correct it the first opportunity after notice of it.

As to mere omissions, they will appear more, or fewer, according to men's different judgments or opinions what to call an omission. I might have enlarged considerably the first chapter, which treats of the learned moderns; though some, perhaps, will think it too large already, and that it might better have been contracted. I have omitted several moderns mentioned by Tentzelius, whose professed design was to take in all: mine is only to take the principal, or as many as may suffice to give the reader a full and distinct idea how this matter has stood with the learned moderns for eighty-five years last past.

In this second edition I have considerably shortened my Appendix, by throwing the several parts of it into the book itself, referring them to their proper places. Some few additional observations will be found here and there interspersed, and some corrections of slight moment as to the main thing (in which I make no alteration), but contributing in some measure to the perfection and accuracy of the work.

I conclude with professing as before, that I shall be very glad if what hath been here done may but prove an useful introduction to more, and larger discoveries. If any thing considerable still remains, either in private hands or public repositories-any thing that may be serviceable to clear up some dark part, or to correct any mistake, or to confirm and illustrate any important truth relating to the subject; I shall be very thankful to the person that shall oblige either me with private notice, or the public with new improvements.

Cambridge, Magd. Coll.,

Nov. 1, 1727.