Κν ίΧ. Of the fr/ì~ Thirty Tears which Froiffart hfs treated of at the Beginning of his Hiflory after. John le Bel ; that is to fay^ from 1326 to 1356. THE firil thirty years of the hiflory of Froiffart are properly but a preliminary, ferving to give the reader fome information relative to the wars of , 'which he was afterwards to render an account. He defcribes the ftate of Fi ance and of England ; and ihews the caufe of the quarrel between the two ciowns, which was the origin of thofe bloody wars they carried on againft each other. Froiffart cannot be reckoned a contemporary writer of thefe firil thirty years ; he was not born, or if he were, he was in his infancy, or of fuch an age that he could not make any great ufe of his reafon; He therefore fcarcely ever mentions thefe thirty years, as an author who has feen what he relates ; and, without doubt, it mull be to this period alone that can be referred what he fays in the commencement of his hiflory, that he wrote after another who had lived before : it is, as hé tells us, " the true Chronicle of " John le Bel, Canon of St. Lambert, of Liege." Thefe Chronicles have not been handed down to lis ; and I cannot difcover any thing more, either concerning the work, or its author, but what Froiffart tçlls us. He fpeaks of him as of one who no longer exiited ; but he boafts his exaftnefs, and the pains he took in comparing his Chronicles, and the confiderable expenfces he was at on this fubjeft. Her reprefents him as the favourite and confidant of John of Hainault, in company with whom he might have witneffed feveral great events, which.