It is two centuries and a half since Lord Herbert produced his _Life and Reign of Henry VIII_.[1] The late Mr.Brewer, in his prefaces to the first four volumes of the _Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII._, published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, dealt adequately with the earlier portion of Henry's career.

But Mr.Brewer died when his work reached the year 1530; his successor, Dr.James Gairdner, was directed to confine his prefaces to the later volumes within the narrowest possible limits; and students of history were deprived of the prospect of a satisfactory account of Henry's later years from a writer of unrivalled learning.
[Footnote 1: The edition cited in the text is that of 1672.] Henry's reign, from 1530 onwards, has been described by the late Mr.
Froude in one of the most brilliant and fascinating masterpieces of historical literature, a work which still holds the field in popular, if not in scholarly, estimation.

But Mr.Froude does not begin until Henry's reign was half over, until his character had been determined by influences and events which lie outside the scope of Mr.

(p.

vii) Froude's inquiry.