in Strype that "of this edition of Asserius there had been great
expectation among the learned." We can add, that of this edition the
interest is not yet extinct.

How far Parker's books were done by himself and how far he was dependent
on his literary assistants, is a question of little importance. No
doubt, a great deal of it was the work of his secretary, Joscelin. We
look at Parker as a master builder, not as a journeyman. The name of
Joscelin meets us often when we are following the footsteps of those
times. His writing is seen on many a manuscript, and we have to thank
him for much valuable information. It is chiefly through his annotations
that we know the external and local relations of our several Saxon
chronicles.[24] In August, 1565, he was at St. Augustine's, Canterbury;
and there he found the old transcript of the first life of St. Dunstan,
which is now in the Cotton Library.[25]

But the chief labourers and reconstructors of the first movement were
William Camden (b. 1551--d. 1623), and Sir Henry Spelman (b. 1562--d.
1641). The name of Camden's "Britannia" is still alive, and is familiar
as a household word with all who explore even a little beyond the beaten
track. But it is otherwise with Sir Henry Spelman, whose studies were
more recondite, and to whom Abraham Wheloc looked back as to "the hero
of Anglo-Saxon literature." His "Glossary" was a work of vast compass,
and for it he corresponded much with learned men abroad; among others
with the famous Northern antiquary, Olaus Wormius, the author of
"Literatura Runica," of which he sent Spelman a copy in October,
1636.[26] His son, Sir John Spelman, wrote the "Life of King Alfred."
Before he died, Sir Henry Spelman founded an Anglo-Saxon chair at
Cambridge; and the first occupant of it was Abraham Wheloc, who edited
Bede in 1643 and with it that Saxon Chronicle which was burnt in 1731.