[2] This forlorn volume of Anthony's "Stalls" is now a gem placed in the caskets of black-letter. This poetic romance, by its excessive rarity,--the British Museum is without a copy,--has obtained most extraordinary prices among our collectors. A copy of the first edition at the Roxburgh sale reached 84_l._, which was sold at Sir M. M. Sykes' for half the price; later editions, for a fourth. A copy was sold at Heber's sale for 25_l._ It may, however, relieve the distress of some curious readers to be informed that it may now be obtained at the most ordinary cost of books. Mr. SOUTHEY, with excellent judgment, has preserved the romance in his valuable volume of "Specimens of our Ancient Poets," from the time of Chaucer; it is to be regretted, however, that the text is not correctly printed, and that the poem has suffered mutilation--six thousand lines seem to have exhausted the patience of the modern typographer. [A more perfect and accurate edition, from that printed in 1555, was published by the Percy Society in 1845, under the editorship of Mr. Thos. Wright.] FIRST SOURCES OF MODERN HISTORY. Society must have considerably advanced ere it could have produced an historical record; and who could have furnished even the semblance but the most instructed class, in the enjoyment of uninterrupted leisure, among every people? History therefore remained long a consecrated thing in the hands of the priesthood, from the polytheistical era of the Roman Pontiffs who registered their annals, to the days that the history of Christian Europe became chronicled by the monastic orders.[1] Had it not been for the monks, exclaimed our learned Marsham, we should not have had a history of England. The monks provided those chronicles which have served both for the ecclesiastical and civil histories of every European people. In every abbey the most able of its inmates, or the abbot himself, was appointed to record every considerable transaction in the kingdom, and sometimes extended their views to foreign parts. All these were set down in a volume reserved for this purpose; and on the decease of every sovereign these memorials were laid before the general chapter, to draw out a sort of chronological history, occasionally with a random comment, as the humour of the scribe prompted, or the opinions of the whole monastery sanctioned.