direct the writer, and determine the judgment of the reader.

It is the duty of fair criticifm to estimate the merits of writers at their juft value. If therefore we feek for those hiftorians who approach nearest to this ftandard, by excelling in that particular department which each has undertaken, we ought to felect from the Greek writers, THUCYDIDES and POLYBIUS; from the Latin, LIVY and TACITUS; and from thofe of Great Britain, CLARENDON, ROBERTSON, and HENRY. Their excellent productions are marked by ftrong and lively defcription, energy of thought, love of virtue, and zeal for truth; and their refined talents for political fpeculation were exercifed with a view to the welfare of their own countries, and the general improvement of mankind.

CHAPTER

CHAPTER III.

Geography.

GEOGRAPHY and Chronology are, with the greatest propriety, called the eyes of hiftory, because this metaphor, expreffes, better than any other, how effectually they affift us in taking a full and comprehenfive view of every transaction.

Geography gives a defcription of the globe, as confifting of land and water. The land is divided into Continents, Islands, Peninfulas, Ifthmufes, Capes, and Promontories. The water is divided into Oceans, Seas, Gulphs, Bays, Lakes, and Rivers.

A Continent is a large portion of land which includes feveral regions or kingdoms, not feparated from each other by feas; as Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. An Inland is a portion of land furrounded by the fea, as Britain, Ireland, Jamaica, &c. A Peninfula is a portion of land almost furrounded by the fea, and joined to the main land by an Ifthmus, as the Morea in the Mediterranean fea, joined to Greece by the Ifthmus of Corinth. An Ifthmus is a narrow neck of land, which joins a peninfula to a Continent, as the Ifthmus of Suez, which joins Africa to Europe, and the Ifthmus of Darien,

which unites North to South America. A Promontory is a high mountain which projects into the fea; the extreme point of it is called a Cape, as the Cape of Good Hope, and Cape Horn.

An Ocean is a vast body of falt water, which is bounded by fome of the largeft divifions of the earth. There are three oceans, the Atlantic, the Indian, and the Pacific. A Sea is a body of falt water communicating with an ocean by means of a straight, as the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the Euxine, the Cafpian, and the Red Sea. A Gulph is a part of an ocean, or fea, which runs far into the land, as the Gulph of Perfia and of Mexico. A Bay is an inlet of the fea between two capes, not fo narrow, in proportion to its length, as a gulph, and approaching in fhape, to a greater or fmaller fegment of a circle. Such is the Bay of Bifcay, of Naples, and Dublin. A Lake is a body of water usually fresh, completely furrounded by land, except where rivers run in or out of it, as Kefwick Lake, in Cumberland, the Lake of Geneva, &c. A River is a body of water rifing from fountains, or fources inland, and flowing into a lake, the fea, or the ocean, as the Thames, the Orinoco, &c.

Geography teaches likewife the divifions of the artificial globe. An artificial globe is a round body or sphere, the furface of which is in every part equally remote from the centre, and on which the external form of the world is reprefented, and

all

all parts of the earth and fea defcribed in their natural form, order, diftance, and fituation. The chief points and circles on the terreftrial globe are the axis, the poles, the equator, the meridians, the zodiac, or ecliptic, the tropics, the polar circles, and the horizon.

The aris is a ftraight line paffing through the centre, upon which the globe is fuppofed to turn. The poles are the two extreme points of the axis, diametrically oppofite to each other, the one called the north, the other the fouth pole. The equator divides the globe into two equal parts, called the northern and fouthern hemifpheres. The equator is likewife called the equinoctial line, because when the fun is in this circle, the days and nights are equal to all the inhabitants of the earth. The meridians are circles that pafs from one pole to the other, and cut the equator at right angles. Places fituated under different meridians, are faid to differ in longitude. Circles drawn parallel to the equator, and confequently croffing the meridian at right angles, are called parallels of latitude. When the meridian lines are 24 in number, they are 15 degrees, or one hour, diftant from each other; thofe who live under the meridian line on the right hand, have the fun an hour before.us, and those who live under the meridian line on the left have the fun an hour after us; and this shows what is meant by eaftern and weftern longitude. As longitude is the diftance of any place eaft or weft of the first meridian, fo latitude is the, diftance

of

of a place north or fouth from the equator. If it be north of the equator, it is called north latitude; if fouth, it is called fouth latitude.

The Tropics are two circles parallel to the equator, the one on the north called the tropic of cancer, the other on the fouth called the tropic of capricorn; they are each at the diftance of 23° 30' from the equator. The polar circles are two

circles at 23° 10' diftance from the north and fouth poles; parallel to the equator, and at the diftance of 66° 30′ each from it. The northern circle is called the arctic, and the fouthern the antarctic. The ecliptic, or zodiac, is a great circle dividing the globe into two equal parts, and cutting the equator, or equinoctial, in two oppofite points. It touches each of the tropics, and makes an angle with the equator of 23° 30′. It marks the apparent annual path of the fun; when the fun approaches one of the tropics, he feems to be stationary for a few days, and then gradually recedes towards the other; hence they are called the fummer and winter folftices. The circle feen on a clear day, when the fky and water, or earth, seem to meet, is called the visible horizon; parallel to which, at the earth's femidiameter, is the true and rational horizon.

By means of the circles already defcribed, the pofition of any place whofe actual fituation has been ascertained, can easily be affigned to it upon the artificial globe; and vice verfâ, by the fame

means,