The first four
volumes were edited by Professor Brewer; the next two by Mr.
Dimmock; and the seventh by Professor Freeman.
W. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS. January 1908.
The following is a list of the more important of the works of
Gerald:-
Topographia Hibernica, Expugnatio Hibernica, Itinerarium Kambriae,
Descriptio Kambriae, Gemma Ecclesiastica, Libellus Invectionum, De
Rebus a se Gestis, Dialogus de jure et statu Menevensis Ecclesiae,
De Instructione Principum, De Legendis Sanctorum, Symbolum
Electorum.
FIRST PREFACE - TO STEPHEN LANGTON, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
As the times are affected by the changes of circumstances, so are
the minds of men influenced by different manners and customs. The
satirist [Persius] exclaims,
"Mille hominum species et mentis discolor usus;
Velle suum cuique est, nec voto vivitur uno."
"Nature is ever various in her name;
Each has a different will, and few the same."
The comic poet also says, "Quot capita tot sententiae, suus cuique
mos est." "As many men, so many minds, each has his way." Young
soldiers exult in war, and pleaders delight in the gown; others
aspire after riches, and think them the supreme good. Some approve
Galen, some Justinian. Those who are desirous of honours follow the
court, and from their ambitious pursuits meet with more
mortification than satisfaction. Some, indeed, but very few, take
pleasure in the liberal arts, amongst whom we cannot but admire
logicians, who, when they have made only a trifling progress, are as
much enchanted with the images of Dialectics, as if they were
listening to the songs of the Syrens.
But among so many species of men, where are to be found divine
poets? Where the noble assertors of morals? Where the masters of
the Latin tongue? Who in the present times displays lettered
eloquence, either in history or poetry? Who, I say, in our own age,
either builds a system of ethics, or consigns illustrious actions to
immortality? Literary fame, which used to be placed in the highest
rank, is now, because of the depravity of the times, tending to ruin
and degraded to the lowest, so that persons attached to study are at
present not only not imitated nor venerated, but even detested.
"Happy indeed would be the arts," observes Fabius, "if artists alone
judged of the arts;" but, as Sydonius says, "it is a fixed principle
in the human mind, that they who are ignorant of the arts despise
the artist."
But to revert to our subject. Which, I ask, have rendered more
service to the world, the arms of Marius or the verses of Virgil?
The sword of Marius has rusted, while the fame of him who wrote the
AEneid is immortal; and although in his time letters were honoured
by lettered persons, yet from his own pen we find,
