Parliament long since deemed worthy of being printed (3) among
the Public Records, by Commissioners appointed for that purpose.
The other work, though not treated with absolute neglect, has not
received that degree of attention which every person who feels an
interest in the events and transactions of former times would
naturally expect. In the first place, it has never been printed
entire, from a collation of all the MSS. But of the extent of
the two former editions, compared with the present, the reader
may form some idea, when he is told that Professor Wheloc's
"Chronologia Anglo-Saxonica", which was the first attempt (4) of
the kind, published at Cambridge in 1644, is comprised in less
than 62 folio pages, exclusive of the Latin appendix. The
improved edition by Edmund Gibson, afterwards Bishop of London,
printed at Oxford in 1692, exhibits nearly four times the
quantity of the former; but is very far from being the entire (5)
chronicle, as the editor considered it. The text of the present
edition, it was found, could not be compressed within a shorter
compass than 374 pages, though the editor has suppressed many
notes and illustrations, which may be thought necessary to the
general reader. Some variations in the MSS. may also still
remain unnoticed; partly because they were considered of little
importance, and partly from an apprehension, lest the commentary,
as it sometimes happens, should seem an unwieldy burthen, rather
than a necessary appendage, to the text. Indeed, till the editor
had made some progress in the work, he could not have imagined
that so many original and authentic materials of our history
still remained unpublished.

To those who are unacquainted with this monument of our national
antiquities, two questions appear requisite to be answered:--
"What does it contain?" and, "By whom was it written?" The
indulgence of the critical antiquary is solicited, whilst we
endeavour to answer, in some degree, each of these questions.

To the first question we answer, that the "Saxon Chronicle"
contains the original and authentic testimony of contemporary
writers to the most important transactions of our forefathers,
both by sea and land, from their first arrival in this country to
the year 1154. Were we to descend to particulars, it would
require a volume to discuss the great variety of subjects which
it embraces. Suffice it to say, that every reader will here find
many interesting facts relati