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THOMAS JOHNES, ESQ.
Memoirs of the life of Sir John Froissart
page 63
To this great number of manufcripts others muft be added, whidi contain only very fhort abridgments of the chronicle of Froiflart, and which are to be found in the natiohal library, among the manufcripts of the Colbçrt coHeétion. Such are the numbers 169 9 including part of the firft and fecond ^ volumes abridged, 258, nearly conformable to the foregoing, excepting where they have added « at the end four pages, containing ' the tenour of the letters of alliance of France with Scotland,9 in 1379, with the names of thofe lords, as well Scots a* French, who figned the treaty, and 2444, which comprehends the abridgment of the four volumes. This is preceded by a preface, wherein the abbrcviator, having ft id he fhould follow Froiflart ' chapter by chapter,^ adds, 'and becaufe this fame mafter John Froiflart has not made an index to his firft book, and by means of the index to a book we may, at one glance, fee thofe parts* which we may be defirous to read, I have refolved to divide this firft book, into one hundred and twenty-feven chapters/*
We fee nothing in thefe manufcripts which either eftablifhes the pretended", enmity of Froiflart againft the French, nor which jollifies the accufation brought againft Sauvage of having altered the text of his hiftorian ; but a magnificent manufcript at Breflaw furniftiesj according to fome writers, an inconteftible proof of it. The learned world, fay they, believe they have an entire Froiflart : it has been groflly deceived by Sauvage, who has. not preferved the tenth part of it in his edition. We may reply to this charge, I ft, That Sauvage will be always exempt from reproach, fince he has given us the text of Froiflart, fuch as he had feen- it in the known Copies of hm time. 2dly, That the defcription they give us of the miniatures of this manufcript of Breflaw, makes us believe that it cannot be much older than towards the end of the fifteenth century ; and that* confequently, it is but of very moderate authority. - In fhort, after the agreement of fo- many other manufcripts, of which many even have been written in England, or deltined for that country, fince the author is reprcfented as offering his book to the- king and queen of England^ it will not be eaiy to perfuade the world that the fingle manufcript of Breflaw contains alone- fuch very confiderable differences. At leait, it becomes prudent to fufpend our judgment until they fhall have pubiiilied th&
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