It is not the least among the many merits of Dr. Guest, in his treatment of our earliest history, that he has had the courage to acknowledge the merits of Gildas. Few contemporary writers have been visited with equal severity by later historians; even those who, like Dr. Lappenberg, set aside the absurd doubts thrown recently on his authenticity, lavish their censures on his ignorance of the Roman rule, his rhetorical exaggeration, and the provoking haziness of his description of the Great Co...
