and consistent statement. The time which these investigations consume prevents the possibility of their being effectually pursued by the general historian; and if more than a year has been necessary to produce a history of one event, a life as extended as that of the patriarchs of Scripture would be requisite for a history of England on a similar plan.

The cause which has produced this work, as well as the plan upon which it has been written, must be briefly explained.

A research among the MSS. in the British Museum accidentally discovered a list of the peers, knights, and men-at-arms, who were at Agincourt. From the interest which it possessed for their descendants, and still more from its containing data for estimating the amount of the English army on that occasion, it was immediately printed, and a few pages were intended to be prefixed to it containing a description of the battle, so as to make a small tract; but it appeared that a history of that victory which would be at all deserving of the appellation,

would at least form an ordinary sized volume. The original idea was therefore abandoned, and it was resolved to collect all which had been said by contemporary writers of both countries on the subject; together with an account of the preparations for the expedition itself, from the public records.

In the execution of this task, the plan of former historical works has been slightly deviated from; for instead of merely citing the authorities for each assertion, the authorities themselves are translated and given at length in the first part of the work; to which the author has added his own narrative, deduced from such of the preceding statements as were consistent with each other and with truth.

The most valuable writer of the period is the anonymous chronicler, or rather historian, who is so continually referred to in the following pages. His labours have never been printed, but exist in the British Museum, in the Cottonian MS., Julius E. iv., and the Sloane MS. 1776. It appears that he was a priest, and,

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having accompanied the expedition, was, as he expressly tells us, present at Agincourt, where he sat on horseback with the other priests, among the baggage in the rear of the battle." His MS. is in Latin, and it has never, it is believed, been cited by any other historian than Mr. Sharon Turner, and by him only in the octavo edition of his work. Such parts of it as relate to the year 1415 have now been literally translated; and every word which occurs from the day on which the fleet quitted England until Henry entered his palace at Westminster, after his return, has been introduced into the text. A few other inedited chronicles of the time, and more particularly that which has been since published from the Harleian MS. 565, and entitled a "Chronicle of London," have also been carefully consulted, and some curious facts have been gleaned from them. Of the printed authorities the most accurate seems to be the History of Charles VI. by Jean le Fevre, Seigneur of St. Remy, who asserts that he was with the English

army, and the circumstantial manner in which he relates what he saw carries with it evidence both of his veracity and powers of observation. The contemporary writers who are more generally known, namely, the biographer of Henry, who styled himself Titus Livius, Elmham, Walsingham, Hardyng, Otterbourne, Monstrelet, Pierre de Fenin, and especially Jean Juvenal des Ursins, and those edited by Mons'. Laboureur have been copiously quoted, whilst most valuable information has been derived from the Fœdera, and Rolls of Parliament. As, however, the authority for every assertion in the work is given in the notes, a more detailed enumeration would be superfluous.

After briefly describing the grounds upon which Henry pretended to justify his invasion of France, an account is given from the Foedera of the preparations for it, by levying men and matériel as well as by raising the necessary funds; and the extraordinary minuteness of these particulars cannot fail to amuse the most general reader, and to excite the interest

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to antiquaries. From that, and other sources of scarcely less authenticity, every fact which could be discovered of Henry's proceedings previous to his embarkation at Southampton, including a notice of the conspiracy of the Duke of York and Lord Scrope, has been stated, and which extend to p. lxxxvii. At that page the narrative of the chronicler in the Cottonian MS. Julius E. iv. is introduced into the text, whilst the notes contain such parts of every other contemporary writer's labours as relate to the subject, together with occasional remarks, illustrative of the circumstances or persons mentioned by them. These extracts and notes end at p. ccxlvii, from which to p. cclxii a metrical but faithful account of the expedition and battle by Lydgate is inserted. The Author has then resumed his own narration, and has submitted such comments as it is the province of the historian to make upon the events which are the subjects of his attention. These are again interrupted at p. ccclxxiv, by the singular and entertaining description which the