a monument inscribed by his name exists in the eastern parts of Kent. These two were sons of Wictgils, the son of Witta, the son of Wecta, the son of Woden, from whose stock the royal families of many provinces derived their origin.” Bede then goes on to describe how the bands of the three nations already named began to pour into the island, how they made a treaty with the Picts whom they had previously conquered and driven far away, and how they then turned their arms against their British allies. From this point he merely copies Gildas, describing in lamentable tones the ravage wrought by his countrymen. It is pointed out by Bede’s latest editor, Plummer, that such information as the Northumbrian monk possessed concerning Kent would be naturally derived by him from his Kentish friends, Albinus, abbot of Canterbury, and Nothelm, priest of the church of London, to both of whom he expressly refers in his preface. But apparently even their traditions could not carry him very far. Save for such information as the conquered race could supply, Bede’s mind was little more than a blank as to events in England between the ages of Honorius and Gregory the Great. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ is the great historical monument of our race in its youthful days, and probably owes its original inception to the wise encouragement of Alfred. As that great prince ruled in the later years of the ninth century it is plain that the interval between the historian and the events recorded is even greater in the case of the Chronicle than in that of Bede. To a considerable extent the early annals in the Chronicle are founded upon Bede’s history, and so far we may safely neglect them since they add nothing to the evidence already before the court; but there is also a certain amount of information, especially relating to the kingdom of Wessex, to which we find nothing that corresponds in Bede; and this part of the Chronicle--whatever it may be worth--must of course be treated as a primary authority. What is the real historical value of the statements which we find in it concerning yet heathen England? There is evidently in them some admixture of the fabulous. When we find, as we shall do, a Saxon chieftain, Port, described as the founder of Portsmouth, the _Portus Magnus_ of the Romans, and Wihtgar made the name-giver to the Isle of Wight, which had been known as Vectis for centuries before he was born, we feel that we are in the presence of traditions, not genuine but manufactured out of etymology. Moreover the dates so elaborately given by the Chronicle seem to have been arranged (as was pointed out by Lappenberg) on an artificial system with recurring periods of eight and four years; which looks like the work of men with slender materials trying to make the bricks of history without the straw of genuine chronology. There is a good deal of distrust of the earlier portions of the Chronicle in the minds of historical students, side by