COMPRISING A PERIOD OF EIGHTY-FOUR YEARS, WITH THEIR GENUINE LETTER S, FROM THE COLLECTION OF AMBOISE. THE SECOND EDITION. Perfonne n'eft obligé d'écrire l'hiftoire; mais quiconque l'entreprend AND R. FAULDER, NEW BOND-STREET, LONDON. M.DCC.LXXXVIII. ADVERTISEMENT. T HE indulgence with which the public has received the History of Abeillard and Heloifa, induces me to venture on this fecond edition. I have made no alterations in the work itself; because the expediency of doing it was not fuggefted even by the critics. But I have prefixed an Introduction of fome length, containing a general view of that part of the eleventh century, which had preceded the period I defcribed. It will be given gratis to the purchafers of the first edition. The whole volume I now mean fhould be an Introduction to the hiftory of the fucceeding periods, which I purpose, at my leifure, to carry down to the beginning of the fixteenth century. It comprises three hundred and fifty years. Two large volumes, I hope, will contain the whole, which shall be published Separately. The The PREFACE. T HE Hiftory of the Lives of Abeillard and Heloifa, which I now offer to the public, has, in some sense, been the work of many years. No one has without be ever read Mr. Pope's inimitable poem, ing interested in the fate of the lovers, whofe fad and tender story, he, as a poet, has told fo well. This intereft I felt, and I was prompted to inquire more into the real history of their lives. The firft annals of the church, I could meet with, foon gave me the information I wanted, and I found that the general impression made by the poet's tale was not to be relied on. Abeillard, I faw, had not one trait of the character, he had portrayed; and that Heloifa merited a much more favourable delineation. I also discovered that they were great and confpicuous perfonages, who had commanded the attention of the age, and whofe virtues their contemporaries even had been careful to celebrate. I then viewed the other characters, and the general events of the period, in which they lived, and they were b interefting |