î&îrfë òf the world, ii full of the groffeft .blunder*in his time commerce had not formed any connexion between thofe countries and our own : what was known of them, Wais founded on the faith of thofe whom accident had carried thither, and who had refided there too fliort a time to gain fiifficient information refpe&ing the manners, cuftoms, and hiftory of their inhabitants. But if Froiflart has committed many faulte in what he relates to ûs, the greateft, without doubt, is to have fpoken at all of what he could not with any degree of accuracy know. All thefe defe&s and imperfections do not prêtent his chronicle from being corifidered as one of the moft precious monuments of our hiftory ; and the pérufal of it from being as agreeable as inftructive to thofe who, not confining themfelves to the knowledge of general fa&s, feek in the details of particular events, and of the ufages of that period, to develope the character of mankind, and of the ages which have pafted. Froiffart was born to tranfmit to pofterity a living pi&ure of an age, which preferred the hazard of war to the folid advantages of peace ; which, amid the intervals of troubles almoft continually agitating it, found relaxation only in the moft tu* multuous pleafures. Befides the conflifts of fo many nations which he relates, and in which he defcribes divers ufages re-* fpeéHng the Ban and Arrière Ban, the attack and defence of places, fortifications, detachments, fkirmiihes, orders of battle, artillery, marine, the armour of thofe on foot, and thofç on horfeback ; we