Sanconiathon, Manetho, Berosus, and such like, how wellsoever the names may sound in the ear of ignorance, or come from the lips of vanity, the learned have, for several ages, forsaken them as sources from whence little or no information can be derived.

The little we have of them remaining is not less useless by mutilation than absurdity. Sanconiathon is without authority; and as for Manetho, what we have of his, according to Eusebius's account of him, is but a translation into the usual Greek character of monuments written in sacred characters, and preserved by the Egyptian Hierophantes; which monuments were themselves translated from a sacred language, which was extracted from a different sacred character, which was engraven on columns before the flood. The truth is, that long before the time of Manetho, the old Egyptian sacred character was unknown; for it is probable that it continually suffered innovation. As early as the times of Herodotus, those which were engraven on some of the pyramids were utterly unintelligible to the priests themselves; but long after, upon the invasion of Egypt by Alexander, the Grecians, who had at first received their learning from the Egyptians, returned the obligation, and brought philosophy back to Egypt very much improved; by which means the refined opinions of the conquerors began by degrees to mix themselves with Egyptian theology.

From this period, therefore, the ancient systems began to be neglected, and their new mixture of superstition and philosophy to be written in new characters; so that at the times Manetho, Asclepiades, Palephates, Cheremon, and Hecateus, published their works, it is most probable that the ancient Egyptian learning was even unintelligible among the Egyptians. What credit, therefore, can be given to such forgeries, the most ordinary reader is left to

judge; as for the learned, they have determined the point already.

All other monuments, therefore, of remote antiquity, except those contained in the sacred text, are obscure, mutilated, and trifling; nor is it, perhaps, any great loss to the present world, that such useless materials are thus fallen in the wreck of time. Man, while yet unreduced by laws, and struggling with the beasts of the forest for divided dominion, while yet savage and solitary, was scarcely an object whose actions were worth transmitting to posterity. The value of history arises from the necessary diversity of laws, arts, and customs among men, which inform the understanding, and produce an agreeable variety; but savage life is the same in every climate and every age, presenting the observer only with one uniform picture—a life of suspicion, indolence, improvidence, and rapacity. Besides, the nearer history comes home to the present times, the more it is our interest to be acquainted with it, the accounts of ancient ages being only useful as introductory to our own; wherefore it happens well that those parts of which we know the least, are the least necessary to be known.

Sensible, therefore, how liable we are to redundancy in this first part of our design, it has been our endeavour to unfold ancient history with all possible conciseness; and, solicitous to improve the reader's stock of knowlege, we have been indifferent as to the display of our own. We have not stopt to discuss or confute all the absurd conjectures men of speculation have thrown in our way. We at first had even determined not to embarrass the page of truth with the names of those whose labours had only been calculated to encumber it with falsehood and vain speculation. However, we have thought proper, upon second thoughts, slightly to mention them and their opinions,

quoting the author at the bottom of the page, so that the reader who is curious about such particularities, may know where to have recourse for fuller information.

But critical philology of this kind is pretty much and justly exploded in the present age: at the revival of letters, indeed, when all the stores of antiquity were as yet unexplored, the learned, as might naturally be expected, made greater use of their memory than their judgment, and exhausted their industry in examining opinions not yet well known. But all that could conduce to enlighten history has been since often examined, and placed in every point of view; it now only remains to shew a skill rather in selecting than collecting, to discover a true veneration for the works of the ancients, not by compiling their sentiments, but by imitating their elegant simplicity.

As in the early part of history a want of real facts hath induced many to spin out the little that was known with conjecture, so in the modern department the superfluity of trifling anecdotes was equally apt to introduce confusion. In one case history has been rendered tedious from our want of knowing the truth; in the other, of knowing too much of truths not worth our notice. Every year that is added to the age of the world, serves to lengthen the page of its history; so that to give this branch of learning a just length in the circle of human pursuits, it is necessary to abridge several of the least important facts.

It is true we often, at present, see the annals of a single reign, or even the transactions of a single year, occupying folios but can the writers of such tedious journals ever hope to reach posterity? or do they think that our descendants, whose attention will naturally be turned to their own concerns, can exhaust so much time in the examination of ours? Though a late elegant writer has said much in favour of abridgments, we neither approve nor contend for

them; but even such mutilated accounts are better than to have that short duration allotted us here below entirely taken up with minute details and uninteresting events. There are many other useful branches of knowledge as well as history to share our industry; but from the extent of some late works of this kind, one would be led to suppose that this study alone were recommended to fill up all the vacuities of life, and that to contemplate what others had done was all we had to do.

A plan of general history rendered too extensive, deters us from a study that is perhaps of all others the most useful, by rendering it too laborious; and instead of alluring our curiosity excites our despair. A late work has appeared to us highly obnoxious in this respect. There have been already published of that performance not less than fifty-four volumes, and it still remains unfinished, and perhaps may continue to go on finishing while it continues to find purchasers, or till time itself can no longer furnish new materials. Already, as Livy hath expressed it upon a different occasion: "Eo creavit ut magnitudine laboret sua;" it is grown to such a size, as actually to seem sinking under the weight of its own corpulence.

In fact, where is the reader possessed of sufficient fortitude to undertake the painful task of travelling through such an immense tract of compilation; particularly if through the greatest part of this journey he should find no landscapes to amuse, nor pleasing regions to invite, but a continued uniformity of dreary prospects, shapeless ruins, and fragments of mutilated antiquity? Writers are unpardonable who convert our amusement into labour, and divest knowledge of one of its most pleasing allurements. The ancients have represented history under the figure of a woman, easy, graceful, and inviting; but we have seen her in our days converted, like the virgin of Nabis, into an instrument of

torture. But, in truth, such as read for profit and not for ostentation, seldom have any thing to do with such voluminous productions, which are utterly unsuited to human talents and time: they are at first usually caught up by vanity, and admired by ignorance; from their weight they naturally descend into the lower shelves of a large library, and ever after keep their stations there in unmolested obscurity.

How far we have retrenched these excesses, and steered between the opposites of exuberance and abridgment, the judicious are left to determine. We here offer the public a history of mankind from the earliest account of time to the present age, in twelve volumes, which, upon mature deliberation, appeared to us the proper mcan. For as some have lengthened similar undertakings to ten times that size, so others have comprised the whole in one-tenth of our compass. Thus, for instance, Turselinus, Puffendorf, Bossuet, and Holberg, have each reduced universal history into a single volume: but as the former are found fatiguing from their prolixity, so the latter are unsatisfactory from the necessary brevity to which they are confined

It has been, therefore, our endeavour to give every fact its full scope, but at the same time to retrench all disgusting superfluity; to give every object the due proportion it ought to maintain in the general picture of mankind, without crowding the canvass : such a history should, in one respect, resemble a well formed dictionary of arts and sciences; both should serve as a complete library of science or history to every man, except in his own profession, in which more particular tracts or explanations may be wanted. We flatter ourselves, therefore, that this will be found both concise and perspicuous, though it must be candidly confessed, that we sate down less desirous of making a succinct history than a pleasing one; we sought after