TO THE RIGHT REVEREND

HENRY,

LORD BISHOP OF EXETER,

THIS TRANSLATION OF

GILDAS,

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,

BY HIS LORDSHIP'S

OBEDIENT AND HUMBLE SERVANT,

J. A. GILES.

PREFACE.

OF Gildas, the supposed author of this work, little or nothing is known. Mr. Stevenson, in the Preface to his edition of the original Latin, lately published by the English Historical Society, says: "We are unable to speak with certainty as to his parentage, his country, or even his name, the period when he lived, or the works of which he was the author." Such a statement is surely sufficient to excuse us at present from saying more on the subject, than that he is supposed to have lived and have written what remains under his name during some part of the sixth century. It may not be irrelevant to inform the reader that he may shortly expect some valuable elucidations from the pen of Mr. Wright, who has kindly communicated to the translator his intention to reduce the History of Gildas to so shadowy a state of existence that no more than