Giraldus mingles in the crowd, catches its accents, is borne along by its changing passions, and thus becomes a very mirror of that fighting, chaffering, praying age.

To his industry we are exclusively indebted for all that is known of the state of Ireland during the whole of the middle ages, a few barren Chronicles excepted.

Giraldus, garrulous, egotistic, spiteful, as he is, makes us half forget his faults in the endless instruction, the endless amusement, of his pages.

Nec alia, ut arbitror, gens quam haec Kambrica, aliave lingua, in die districti examinis coram Judice supremo, quicquid de ampliori contingat, pro hoc terrarum…