fmooth all difficulties, and to lay dovm fuch rules as may ferve for guides to readers, I have attempted to do that, which I fliould have been glad to have found done, when I began to read this author : for, I do not fimply propofe to give an idea of our hrftorian, fuch as to fatisfy curiofity alone; my objeft is, that thefe memoirs (hould ferve as an introduftion to thofe who may be induced to read him ; and that they ihould render him, as much as circumftances will admit, more eafy, more interefting, and more inftru&ive. I. General Plan of his Hi/lory. TH E hiftory which Froiffart has left us extends from Ì326 to 1400. It is not confined to the events which were pafiing in France during this long period, but comprehends, with ajrriofl: as much detail, every confidcrable affair which happened in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Flanders. It includes alfo a number of particulars relative to the affairs of the popes of Rome and of Avignon ; of Spain, Germany, Italy ; fometimes even of Pruflia, Hungary, Tyrkey, Afric 1, and other countries, in ihort, of almoft the whole known world. But this immenfe multitude of fafite, fo different from each other, the chronological order of which is not very clearly made out, frequently prefents to the reader only a confufed mixture of events taking place at different times, and in different places, of which he cannot form any diftinft idea, nor can his memory unite fo many fcattered objefts, which have a ne* 'çeflary connexion among each other. There