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Les Antiquitez & Recherches des villes & chateaux de France, in 8vo. Paris, 1624. Id. in 12mo. Paris, 1668, 2 vol. This ill-written piece has some curious things in it. The edition in twelves is the best.

Historia Francorum Scriptores Coætanei ab ipsius gentis origine ad Philippum Pulchrum, in fol. Paris 1636, 1641, and 1649, 5 vol. This is an excellent and scarce collection. It is a misfortune that Mr. Du Chesne did not pursue his design, which would have made at least twenty-four volumes of original authors of the History of France. The fifth volume was published by his son.

Les Antiquitez, & Recherches de la Grandeur & Majeste des Roys de France, in 8vo. Paris, 1609. This is a curious and rare book.

Histoire des Rois, Ducs, & Comtes de Bourgogne & d'Arles in 4to. Paris, 1619 and 1628, 2 vol. or in the collection of his works.

Histoire des Papes, in fol. Paris, 1658. This book, of which this is the best edition, is not much esteemed. Histoire d'Angleterre, d'Ecosse, & d'Irlande, in fol. Paris, 1634-In fol. Paris, 1666. 2 vol.

Histoire Genealogique des Rois, Ducs, Comtes de Bourgogne & d'Arles, extraites de diverses Chartes & Chroniques anciennes, in 4to. Paris, 1619.

Histoire Genealogiqué des Ducs de Bourgogne, de la Maison de France, des Dauphins de Viennois, & des Comtes de Valentinois, justifiée par preuves autentiques, 4to. Paris, 1628. These two volumes of Mr. Du Chesne are rare and much sought for.

Histoire Genealogique de la Maison de Dreux, in fol. Paris, 1632-De Montmorenci & de Laval, in fol. Paris, 1624-De Chastillon, in fol. 1621-De Be

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thune,

thune, în fol. Paris, 1639.-Des Chasteigniers, in fol. Paris, 1634-De Guines & Ordes, in fol. Paris, 1631. -Du Vergy, in fol. Paris, 1625.

Du Fresnoy observes that "long fince it was said of Andrew Duchesne, that he succeeded well in particular histories, but that he has ever halted, and even forced his genius in the general histories he has printed. That of England is worse than any of his others. It cannot be termed a history, but facts loosely tacked to each other. He writes in a languid stile, enters shallowly into affairs, as if he was unacquainted with the art of knowing men, and has nothing but a bare relation of their actions, which, without doubt, proceeds from the little pains he had taken to study human passions. He had applied himself to nothing but searching libraries, or archives of princes, and churches, which af ford a light for particular history; and in this it must be acknowledged he succeeded well." +

With regard to the "Scriptores Normannici," of which the full title is given at the head of this article, Dufresnoy observes that " he who would consider the beginnings of that nation may see what Duchesne has collected in that work."

I have not here room or leisure to enter very particularly into the contents of this bulky volume, of which the preface gives a minute account. The first article, by an anonymous writer, comprehends a space of fifty-nine years from the first irruption of the Normans from the North in 837 to the settlement of Rollo in Normandy in 896.

All these titles are taken from Du Fresnoy's Method of studying History, by Rawlinson in 2 vol. 8vo. London, 1730.

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The fifth article is a poem in hexameters in two books on the siege of Paris by the Normans. It begins at page 37, and ends at page 48. Then follows Dudo Dean of St. Quintin's panegyric on the manners and acts of the first Dukes of Normandy, which ends at page 160.

The next article is the "Emma Encomium," republished as above mentioned, by Baron Maseres, and this is succeeded by the work of William of Poictiers, which extends to page 213, and forms the principal part of Maseres's new edition.

Next follow Willelmi Calculi Gemmeticensis Monachi, Historia Normannorum Libri VIII. which end at page 318, and which are also printed in Camden's collection of ancient historians of England. *

At page 319 commences "Orderici Vitalis Angligenæ, Cœnobii Uticensis Monachi, Historiæ Ecclesiasticae Libri XIII. in iii. partes divisi, quarum postremæ duæ res per Normannos in Francia, Anglia, Sicilia, Apulia, Calabria, Palastina, pie strenueque gestas, ab adventu Rollonis usque ad annum Christi MCXXIV complectuntur." This forms by far the largest article in the work, and extends to page 925.

Ordericus Vitalis was born in England in 1075, the son of Odelinus, chief counsellor of Roger de Montgomery Earl of Shrewsbury. At five years old he was sent to school at Shrewsbury, and at ten was sent over to Normandy to the monastery of St. Eurole's (Utici), and in his eleventh year became a member of the order of that society; where he had already passed

*Entitled, "Anglica, Normannica, Hibernica, Cambrica, a veteribus kripta." In fol. Frankfort, 1603.

fifty-six years, when he wrote this account of himself, complaining that he then was loaded with age and infirmities, and that it was time for him to lay down his pen. In his thirty-third year he says he entered into the priesthood.

Nicholson in his Historical Library seems too severe upon this historian. "The most of his thirteen books," says this writer, "are spent in the affairs of the church within his own native country: but towards the latter end, he has intermixed a great many passages that relate to us. There are in his writings two faults, (and they are great ones) which Lucian of old condemned in history: for, first, he is immoderate in the praise of his friends, and the dispraise of his enemies; either all panegyric, or all satire. Now such discourses are rightly observed to be strangely monstrous and unnatural productions: they want metre to become poems, and truth to make them just histories; secondly, he is too large in the description of little petit matters; and on the contrary passes too cursorily over some things of such weight as would well endure reflection and a second thought."

We have already seen that Mr. Maseres estimates this historian much more highly and it may be remarked that he has preserved many curious and interesting particulars of the birth and actions of our first Norman nobility, of which Dug lale experienced the advantage in the compilation of his Baronage. And I concur most heartily with the late learned Editor in wishing to see a new edition of the remaining books of

This appears a mistake, if he means Normandy, for the historian's native country was England.

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this author, more especially if they can be illustrated by such entertaining and useful notes as that industrious and accomplished critic has subjoined to the portion he has reprinted. *

Of the remaining contents of this volume of Du Chesne, which contains eleven hundred and four closely printed pages, besides a full index, the principal are reprinted in the book of Maseres; but there is an useful article of genealogical tables at the end, entitled "Familiæ Regum, Ducum, Comitum, et aliorum Nobilium quæ in hoc volumine deducuntur."+

ART. VII. VALENTINE OLDYS.

"In a book printed under the title of "Poems, divine, moral, and satirical, by N. R. 12mo, 1632," probably Nathaniel Richards, the dramatic writer, is an acrostic upon Valentine Oldis, the elder, celebrating his great fortitude under some great calamities.

"The said Valentine Oldis was buried in Great St. Helen's, by St. Mary Axe, in the middle isle, 1644. He was the father of Dr. Valentine Oldis, who was a poet and a great encourager of poetry. He was educated at Cambridge, and created M.D. in 1670. He published a poem to King Charles on his Restoration, in folio, 1660: to Alexander Brome, on his poems, 8vo. 1668 and before the poems of Henry Bold, of New College, Oxford, 8vo. 1654. John Phillips

* See also Gibbon's Addres on the proposed republication of our old histerians, in his Miscellaneous Works," by Lord Sheffield, Vol. II. p. 707.

In some future Number I propose to insert a disquisition on the Roll of Battle-Abbey, printed by Du Chesne.

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