PREFACE.

subject ob

§ 1. THE information which is extant con- The whole cerning Nennius, the presumed author of the scure. work entitled Historia Britonum,' is so scanty, and the literary history of that production, external and internal, is so obscure and contradictory, that we may despair of being able to decide, with any degree of accuracy, either as to the age, the historical value, or the authorship of this composition.

logues.

§ 2. It may be remarked, in the first place, that The Prothe work is ascribed to Nennius chiefly upon the authority of the Prologue, or Prologues, which are prefixed to it in some manuscripts. Two independent Prologues are extant, which agree in many particulars; both ascribe the work to Nennius, the disciple of Elvodugus; but one only contains the date when the work was written, which it assigns to A.D. 858. This dated Prologue is to be found only in one vellum manuscript, (and that of the twelfth century,) and in a modern transcript of the seventeenth century, which agrees so closely with the former as apparently to have been copied from it.' The second and shorter Prologue, found as well in the two manuscripts already mentioned, as in several other copies, (none of which are earlier

1 See the description of the manuscript marked M. at p. xxviii.