however, this seldom happens, and they probably do not make a sufficient part of our diet.

As many expedients have been tried among us for preserving fruit fresh all the year, I shall beg leave to give one communicated to the public by the Chevalier Southwell, and which has been used in France with success. Take of saltpetre one pound, of bole armenic two pounds, of common sand well freed from its earthy parts, four pounds, and mix all together; after this, let the fruit be gathered with the hand before it be thorough ripe, each fruit being handled only by the stalk; lay them regularly, and in order, in a large wide-mouthed glass vessel; then cover the top of the glass with an oiled paper, and carrying it into a dry place, set it in a box filled all round to about four inches thickness with the aforesaid preparations, so that no part of the glass vessel shall appear, being buried in a manner in the prepared nitre; and, at the end of the year such fruits may be taken out as beautiful as when they were first put in.

INTRODUCTION.1

EXPERIENCE every day convinces us, that no part of learning affords so much wisdom upon such easy terms as history. Our advances in most other studies are slow and disgusting, acquired with effort, and retained with difficulty; but in a well-written history, every step we proceed only serves to increase our ardour: we profit by the experience of others without sharing their toils or misfortunes; and in this part of knowledge in a more particular manner study is but relaxation.

Of all histories, however, that which, not confined to any particular reign or country, but which extends to the transactions of all mankind, is the most useful and entertaining. As in geography we can have no just idea of the situation of one country without knowing that of others; so in history, it is in some measure necessary to be acquainted with the whole thoroughly to comprehend a part. There is a constant, though sometimes concealed, concatenation in events, by which they produce each other, and without a knowledge of which they cannot be comprehended separately. The rise of one kingdom is often found owing to political defects in some other. The arts and learning of succeeding states take a tincture from those countries from whence they were originally derived. Some nations have been applauded for plans of government, which an acquaintance with general history would have shown were not their own; while others have been reproached for barbarities which were not natural to them, but the result of erroneous imitation.

Thus no one part of the general picture can be thoroughly conceived alone; but by taking in the whole of history at one view, we can trace every cause to its remotest source, observe how far every nation was indebted to its own efforts for its rise or decline, how far to accident or the particular circumstances of the countries around it. We may here trace the gradations of its improvement or decay, mark in what degree conquerors introduced refinement among those they subdued, or how far they conformed to the soil and put on barbarity. By such reflections as these, and by applying

1 To "A General History of the World, from the Creation to the Present Time. By William Guthrie, Esq., John Gray, Esq., and others eminent in this branch of literature." 12 vols. 8vo. 1764.

VOL. III.

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the transactions of past times to our own, we may become more capable of regulating our private conduct, or directing that of others in society.

A knowledge of Universal History is therefore highly useful; nor is it less entertaining. Tacitus complains, that the transactions of a few reigns could not afford him a sufficient stock of materials to please or interest the reader; but here that objection is entirely removed. A History of the World presents the most striking events, with the greatest variety. In fact, what can be more entertaining than thus reviewing this vast theatre where we ourselves are performers, to converse with those who have been great or famous, to condemn the vices of tyrants without fearing their resentment, or praise the virtues of the good without conscious adulation, to constitute ourselves judges of the merit of even kings, and thus to anticipate what posterity will say of such as now hear only the voice of flattery? These are a part of the many advantages which Universal History has over all others, and which have encouraged so many writers to attempt compiling works of this kind, among the ancients as well as the moderns. Each of them seems to have been invited by the manifest utility of the design; yet it must be owned, that many of them have failed through the great and unforeseen difficulties of the undertaking.

Nor will the reader be surprised, if he considers how many obstructions an historian who embarks in a work of this nature has to interrupt his progress. The barrenness of events in the early periods of history, and their fertility in modern times, equally serve to increase his embarrassments, In recounting the transactions of remote antiquity, there is such a defect of materials, that the willingness of mankind to supply the chasm has given birth to falsehood, and invited conjecture. The farther we look back into those distant periods, all the objects seem to become more obscure, or are totally lost by a sort of perspective diminution. In this case, therefore, when the eye of truth could no longer discern clearly, fancy undertook to form the picture, and fables were invented where truths were wanting. So that were an historian to relate all that has been conjectured concerning the transactions before the flood, it would be found to compose by no means the smallest part of universal history; a composition equally voluminous, obscure, and disgusting.

In the work, therefore, which is here presented to the public, we have been very concise in relating these fictions and conjectures, which have been the result of idleness, fraud, or superstition. Nor yet would the task have been difficult to amaze the ignorant, as some have done before us, with obscure erudition and scholastic conjecture. The regions of conjectural erudition are wide and extensive; in them there is room for every new adventurer, and immense loads of neglected learning still remain to be carried from thence into our own language. There, as in those desolate and remote countries that are colonised by sickening states, every stranger who thinks proper may enter and cultivate; there is much room; but after much labour he will most probably find it an ungrateful soil.

Were we disposed to enter upon such a province, we might easily, for instance, with some rabbins, inquire whether Adam were a hundred cubits high, or of the ordinary stature; we might, with Hornius, examine whether he were a philosopher or a savage; or with Antoinette Bourignon, whether a man or an hermaphrodite. In delivering the history of the deluge, after having compiled the systems of our own countrymen, we might have improved upon our predecessors with those of Steno, Scheuchzer, and La Pluche; having mentioned the antiquities of Egypt, we might have made a digression on the Isiac table, ran round the circle of quotation, collected the opinions of Rudbeck, Fabricius, Herwart, Kircher, Witsius, and Pignorius, concerning this singular piece of antiquity; prove that they could make nothing of it; pathetically complain that the learned

authors of a late Universal History had taken none of these subjects under consideration, and at last leave the reader in pristine ignorance.

But surely men of real knowledge cannot, without a degree of sarcastic contempt, behold such pretences to erudition, such a quackery of learning, acquired by the easy art of quoting from quotations, by consulting books, but not from reading them. Pretenders in every science are ostentatious; but real learning, like real charity, chooses to do good unseen.

We have therefore declined enlarging on such disquisitions, not for want of materials, which offered themselves at every step of our progress, but because we thought them not worth discussing. Neither have we, for this reason, encumbered the beginning of our work with the various opinions of the heathen philosophers concerning the creation, which may be found in most of our systems of theology, and belong more properly to the divine than the historian. In fact, we are not fond of building up an edifice merely for the sake of pulling it down, or of arranging the opinions of men only to show their uncertainty; for in the present instance, to use the words of Lactantius, "horum omnium sententia quamvis sit incerta, eodem tamen spectat, ut providentiam unam esse consentiant, sive enim natura, sive æther, sive ratio, sive mens, sive fatalis necessitas, sive divina lex, idem est quod à nobis dicitur Deus;" so that most philosophers agree in the main-they allow one intelligent Creator, and are found to differ less in sense than expression.

Throughout this work therefore, not to make any vain or unnecessary displays of erudition, we acknowledge that the materials to which we have had recourse, are the same with those which other historians for several ages have employed before us, and which have been well known to the learned since the revival of letters. It would be unjust to make pretences to new discoveries of this kind; since neither we nor our predecessors in universal history, whatever the ignorant may suppose, have discovered any hidden stores already unexplored for compiling ancient history. Neither they nor we have found way to the libraries of Fez or Amara; all the merit of the compiler of ancient history in the present age, lies not in his discoveries of new assistance, but in his use and arrangement of that already known.

To deal candidly with the reader, there is little known of early antiquity but what is contained in the Scriptures, those sacred books to which the ignorant may, or ought to have, recourse as well as we. As for what remains of Sanconiathon, Manetho, Berosus, and such like, how well-soever 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 the 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 knowledge, 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 show 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 track 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 anything 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 mean. 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 elegance alone, but accidentally found conciseness in our pursuit.

But to attain a just elegance order was requisite; it was necessary in so complex a subject to be very careful both of the method and the connexion.