The greatest defect of the following Chronicle is its brevity. Varram, of whose life little more is known than that he was a native of Edessa, a priest, and the secretary of king Leon III., ex hibits almost all the faults of the com mon Chroniclers of the Middle Ages. He relates many barren facts, without stating the circumstances with which they were connected, and he mistakes every where the passions of men for the finger of God. The compilers of chronicles were in those ages ignorant of the true end, and unacquainted with the proper objectsviii preface.