The light of the summer noon Bursts in a flood through the blind; But few are the rays of joy That shine in my darkened mind. My heart is stirred to a storm, And its passions intense and proud Feed on themselves, like fires Pent in a thunder-cloud! I think of the days of youth, And the fountains of love defiled, Till I hide my face in my hands, And weep like a little child! THE TIMES OF CHARLEMAGNE. Sir Francis Palgrave's _History of Normandy and of England_, of which the first volume has just appeared in London, is unquestionably a very important work, illustrating a period of which comparatively little has been known, and of which a knowledge is eminently necessary to the student of British institutions and manners. The subject has been partially handled by French authors--by Thierry, Guizot, Michelet, and in a desultory manner by M. Barante--but not one of these has shown the very intimate relation that exists between the history of Normandy and of England. That intermixture of the histories of the countries may indeed be inferred from old English works, such as Camden, Fortescue, Hale, Britton, Bracton, Fleta, Spelman, Somner, Chief Baron Gilbert, Daines Barrington, and others, and from labors of Bede, William of Malmesbury, Geoffry of Monmouth, and all the older chroniclers. But not one of these writers, in all their varied labors, has undertaken to show how the histories of the two countries act and re-act on each other, or how, represented in the popular mind by the epithets Norman and Saxon, French and English, they have been for a thousand years or more running against each other a perpetual race of rivalry and emulation. A worthy Picard lawyer indeed, of the name of Gaillard, who abandoned the law for literature about a century ago, wrote a work called _The Rivalry between France and England_, in eleven volumes; but who, in 1851, unless specially dedicated to historical studies, would read a French history on the subject of the rivalry between the two nations, written between 1771 and 1777, especially when it extends to eleven volumes? Independently of this, any French history on such subject is sure to be tinged with prejudice, passion, and vanity. It is true that the judicious Sharon Turner, in his _History of the Anglo-Saxons_, Henry Wheaton, in his _History of the Northmen_, and M. Capefigue, give us more or less insight into Norman history; but none of these authors attempt to show the general relations of mediæval history, or that absolute need of uniting Norman to English history, which it is the chief aim of Sir Francis Palgrave to demonstrate. As deputy keeper of the public records of England, this learned historian has had the best possible opportunities of investigation, and he tells us in his preface that he has devoted to the work a full quarter of a century.