several times since then, Paris's great work had remained exactly in the same state as Parker (or whoever his agent was) had left it three centuries ago. That is to say, that by far the most important work on English history during the 13th century--not to mention European affairs--and by far the most minute and trustworthy picture of English life and manners during the reign of Henry III.--a record, too, drawn up by a contemporary writer of rare genius and literary skill--was defaced by blunders, audacious tampering with the text and gross inaccuracies, to such an extent that no conscientious student could allow himself to quote the printed work without first referring to one of the very MSS. which the Archbishop professed to have used. Nevertheless, the task of bringing out a critical edition of the 'Chronica Majora' did not appear less formidable as fresh sources of information cropped up; and Dr. Luard shrank from the immense labour that such an edition involved, it was because he had formed a correct notion of its magnitude. In 1861 he brought out in the same series the 'Letters of Robert Grosseteste,' the heroic and magnanimous Bishop of Lincoln; and while working at this volume, the England of the 13th century became more and more alive and present to the mind of the student. But distinctly and grandly as one noble character after another revealed itself, there was a strange mist that required to be dispelled before even the importance of great events could be rightly estimated. The inner life of the monasteries, great and small, must be enquired into, so far as it was possible to get any information on so obscure a subject; and, above all, the paramount influence which so magnificent an institution as the Abbey of St. Alban's exercised upon the intellectual life of the country must be studied with patient impartiality. Before a scholar with so lofty an ideal of an editor's duty could venture upon his _magnum opus_, there was indeed an enormous mass of preliminary work to get through. The horizon seemed to widen everywhere as the years of historical discovery went on. It was left to Mr. Riley to attack that wonderful collection of documents to which he gave the title of 'Chronica Monasterii Sancti Albani'--a series occupying twelve thick volumes, and which furnish us not only with a priceless _apparatus_, by the help of which a hundred problems perplexing the historian are furnished with a clue towards their solution--but which afford such an insight into the life of the greatest monastery in England during its best times as nobody expected could ever be forthcoming. While Mr. Riley was occupied with the _Chronicles_ of St. Alban's and the lives of its Abbots, Dr. Luard was engaged in collecting all the _Annals_ of the lesser monasteries which he could lay his hands on. Some of these had already been printed more or less carelessly; others had never seen the light since they were written. Such as were printed were extremely