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 exprest it upon a

1 The History prefaced was published in 1764, as we have shown at p. 129, the 64 volume Universal History,' to which our author is here referring, was at that time unfinished; see note at p. 132.—ED.

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 possest 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 abridgement, 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

1 Nabis, a Spartan tyrant, who caused a statue of his wife to be constructed, which, by means of springs, seized the criminal who was placed within its embrace, and tortured him in the most excruciating manner by pressing him against sharp spikes of steel hid under its robe. We have read of a similar image of the Virgin Mary, called Madre Dolorosa, which was discovered by the French in the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition.—B. The same kind of torture was inflicted in Germany in the middle ages, the implement being called "The Virgin,” and its application "the Virgin's kiss."-ED.

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 sat 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 connection. This is a point in which all writers of general history have usually vied with their predecessors, every last attempt discovering the defects in the former; and indeed, to do each justice, every last attempt seems to have been the best in this respect. Method, in very complex subjeets, is one of those attainments which is gained only by the successive application of different talents to the same pursuit; it is mended by repeated effort, and refines as it flows; so that from the times of the first writer of this kind among the moderns that we remember, down to that of the late Universal History, published in fifty-four volumes, the distribution of the parts has gone on improving. It would therefore be the height of injustice not to acknowledge our obligations to those writers last-mentioned, for their assistance in this particular. We have, however, laid hold of every opportunity that offered of improvement, particularly by proscribing all such foreign matter as tended to lead the reader away from the principal subject. Uniformity in a work of this kind should be principally attended to: in a subject like this, consisting of heterogeneous parts that are at best

feebly held together, we should never render the connection still more feeble by the insinuation of new materials; or, to express it in a different manner, where there is already danger of embarrassment from multitude, the introduction of foreign members would but necessarily increase the tumult. We hope, therefore, that the reader will here see the revolutions of empires without confusion, and trace arts and laws from one kingdom to another, without losing his interest in the narrative of their other transactions.

To attain these ends with greater certainty of success, we have taken care in some measure to banish that late, and we may add gothic, practice of using a multiplicity of notes; a thing as much unknown to the ancient historians, as it is disgusting in the moderns. Balzac' somewhere calls vain erudition the baggage of antiquity: might we in turn be permitted to make an apothegm, we should call notes the baggage of a bad writer. Scarce any other reason has been assigned for this bad practice, but that if such were inserted into the body of the work, they might impede the rapidity of the narration. It is not easy, however, to conceive in what manner a reader is less interrupted, whose eye is invited down to the note at the bottom of the page, which was certainly placed there in order to be read, than he would be by a proper insertion of the same into the body of the work. Will they persuade us, that an animal will move with less care and swiftness who carries its load upon its back, than if he dragg'd it along at the tail? It certainly argues a defect of method, or a want of perspicuity, when an author is thus obliged to write notes upon his own works; and it may assuredly be said, that whoever undertakes to write a comment upon himself will for ever remain without a rival his own commentator. We have therefore lopt off such excrescences, though not to any degree of affectation; as sometimes an acknowledged blemish may be admitted into works of skill, either to cover a greater defect, or to take a nearer course to beauty.

Having mentioned the danger of affectation, it may be 1 This was Jean Louis Guez de Balsac, called the "grand épistolier: b. 1594 d. 1655.-ED.

proper to observe, that as this, of all defects, is most apt to insinuate itself into such a work, we have therefore been upon our guard against it. From the natural bias which every historian has to some favourite profession or science, he is apt to introduce phrases or topics drawn from thence upon every occasion, and thus not unfrequently tinctures a work otherwise valuable with absurdity. Ménage tells us of a chemist, who, writing a history, used upon every occasion the language of an adept, and brought all his allusions from the laboratory. Polybius, who was a soldier, has been reprehended for taking up too much time in the history of a siege, or the description of a battle. Guicciardini on the other hand, who was a secretary, has been tedious in disserting upon trifling treaties and dull negotiations.1 In like manner, we have known writers, who, being somewhat acquainted with oriental languages, have filled a long history with long Arabic names and uncouth spellings. Were we disposed to the same affectations, it would have been easy enough, through the course of our work, to have written Mohammed for Mahomet, Tatar for Tartar, Wazir for Visier, or Timour for Tamerlane; we might even have outgone our predecessors, and have written Stamboul for Constantinople, or Ganga for Ganges, with true exotic propriety. But though we have the proper reverence for Arabic, and Malayan also, of which we profess our ignorance, we have thought it expedient to reject such peculiarities. For which reason, when we meet the name of an Arabian general at full length, we make no scruple of abridging his titles, or turning them into English. Thus, for instance, when an Arabian historian and his faithful copyists, in a late Universal History, assures us that Hâreth Ebn Talâtula led an army into the field, which by the temerity of Al Howaireth Ebn Nohaid Ebn Wahab Ebn Abd Ebn Kosa was utterly defeated, we thought less ceremony might be used with such an indifferent general, and simply mention Howaireth's folly and his defeat. To be serious, innovation,

See our author's review of Guicciardini's History, p. 388, vol. iv. -ED.

2 Another instance of the preface writer's reference to details, which seems to show that he probably also had a hand in the History itself, as mentioned at pp. 135 and 142.-ED.