period either considerably earlier, or a good deal later than
that era. It is my comfort, that errors of this kind will escape
the general class of readers, and that I may share in the
ill-deserved applause of those architects, who, in their modern
Gothic, do not hesitate to introduce, without rule or method,
ornaments proper to different styles and to different periods of
the art. Those whose extensive researches have given them the
means of judging my backslidings with more severity, will
probably be lenient in proportion to their knowledge of the
difficulty of my task. My honest and neglected friend,
Ingulphus, has furnished me with many a valuable hint; but the
light afforded by the Monk of Croydon, and Geoffrey de Vinsauff,
is dimmed by such a conglomeration of uninteresting and
unintelligible matter, that we gladly fly for relief to the
delightful pages of the gallant Froissart, although he flourished
at a period so much more remote from the date of my history. If,
therefore, my dear friend, you have generosity enough to pardon
the presumptuous attempt, to frame for myself a minstrel coronet,
partly out of the pearls of pure antiquity, and partly from the
Bristol stones and paste, with which I have endeavoured to
imitate them, I am convinced your opinion of the difficulty of
the task will reconcile you to the imperfect manner of its
execution.

Of my materials I have but little to say. They may be chiefly
found in the singular Anglo-Norman MS., which Sir Arthur Wardour
preserves with such jealous care in the third drawer of his oaken
cabinet, scarcely allowing any one to touch it, and being himself
not able to read one syllable of its contents. I should never
have got his consent, on my visit to Scotland, to read in those