[2] A much more correct copy is printed in the french translation of Ducarel, published in 1823.
THE CHRONICLE.
PROLOGUE CONCERNING THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK, SETTING FORTH HIS INTENT AND DEGREE.
To commemorate the deeds, the sayings, and manners of our ancestors, to tell the felonies of felons and the baronage of barons[1], men should read aloud at feasts the gests and histories of other times; and therefore they did well, and should be highly prized and rewarded who first wrote books, and recorded therein concerning the noble deeds and good words which the barons and lords did and said in days of old. Long since would those things have been forgotten, were it not that the tale thereof has been told, and their history duly recorded and put in remembrance.
Many a city hath once been, and many a noble state, whereof we should now have known nothing; and many a deed has been done of old, which would have passed away, if such things had not been written down, and read and rehearsed by clerks.
The fame of Thebes was great, and Babylon had once a mighty name; Troy also was of great power, and Nineveh was a city broad and long; but whoso should now seek them would scarce find their place.