Gildas, called _Badonicus_, because said to be born at Bath, was, for his singular prudence and the severity of his morals, surnamed the WISE; he was a monk of Bangor, and his “Description of the state of Britain,” above alluded to, is the only one of his writings extant, as we are assured by Archbishop Usher. Gildas wrote this work in Latin, in a style, according to that age, harsh and perplexed enough. The first printed edition of it was published by Polydore Virgil, in octavo, London, 1525, and dedicated to Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, which, however, was from an incorrect copy. It was reprinted at Basil, in 12mo, in 1541; and at London, 1548, though Bishop Nicolson says 1568. It was again printed at London, in 12mo, in 1638, translated by Thomas Habingdon, of Henlip, in Worcestershire. John Josseline, secretary to Archbishop Parker, reprinted Gildas more correctly from two new manuscripts, Basil, 1568, 12mo; and Paris 1576; but these are little more perfect than the first.—The latest and best copy of Gildas is in Dr. Gale’s collection of Ancient English Historians, 2 vols. folio, Oxford, 1687 and 1691; who had the advantage of a more ancient and better copy, as Bishop Nicolson observes. Besides Habingdons’s translation above mentioned, there was another printed during the Cromwell rebellion, in 1652, for the mere purpose, it has been said, of retailing Gildas’s sharp reproofs of Kings and Priests.—For an account of this edition, see Oldys’s British Librarian, and Savage’s Librarian, vol. 1. p. 117. Footnote 10: Strutt, in his “Chronicle of England” has given a plate representing a page of this manuscript, and in Astle’s “History of Writing,” there is a plate of the same page, coloured, in imitation of the original. Footnote 11: Bede, commonly called the Venerable Bede, was the most learned man of the age in which he lived; he was born at Weremouth, in Northumberland, in the year 672. Both ancient and modern authors have bestowed the highest encomiums upon the learning of this extraordinary man. His works are many, making eight large volumes, in folio, the principal of which is his Ecclesiastical History of the Anglo-Saxons, consisting of five books, from whence the more perfect part of our early history is formed; his other works are the Lives of Saints, Treatises on the Holy Scriptures, and Philosophical Tracts. This great man died at his cell at Jarrow, in the year 735, aged 63. Footnote 12: