ixx ought,' as much as poffible, never to lofe fight of two obje&s which I have particularly endeavoured to point out in the preceding pages : I mean to fayy on one hand, the details of his life, his different attachments Jo divers princes and to certain lords, .the connexions he had, or the friendihips he contrafted 'with various perfons -f on the. other, the fituations in which he was placed when he wrote his hiftory, what parts of it were undertaken at the felicitation of the count de Namur, a partifan of the Englifh, and thofe which he compofed by the command of the count de Blois, a friend to France. For, if we be determined to perfuade ourfelves, that he ought to be difpofed to favour the Engliih in ail he relates to the year 1369 ; from the fame reafon. heil'ould lean to the French in all the enfuing years to the conclufion of his chronicle, I muft not neglcft to mention that his prejudices are fometimes, vifible when he enters into the minuteft details, as we may be convinced by the praifes he gives to the piety and other virtues of the count de Foix, ftrongly contracted by thofe aftions of cruelty he had juft before related. But an hiftorian, difcngaged from all paffion, fhould hold an even balance between the different parties ; when to this quality he fhall add, that which caimot be refufed to Froiffart, I mean, a continual anxiety to be informed of eyery event, and of every particular, that may intereft his readers ; he will yet be very far from perfe&ion, if with thefe acquirements he does not exer'cife a found criticifm, which, in the multitude of difcordant relations, knows how to feparate every thing that is -- datant