MOST NOBLE WILLIAM HENRY CAVENDISH,

DUKE OF PORTLAND,

LORD PRESIDENT OF HIS MAJESTY's COUNCIL,

CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD;

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD ELDON,

LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR of England,

HIGH STEWARD OF THE UNIVERSITY;

THE REVEREND MICHAEL MARLOW, D. D.

PRESIDENT OF ST. JOHN's COLLEGE,

AND VICE-CHANCELLOR;

AND TO

THE OTHER RIGHT REVEREND AND REVEREND

THE HEADS AND GOVERNORS OF COLLEGES AND HALLS

IN OXFORD,

THE FOLLOWING WORK

IS WITH THEIR PERMISSION RESPECTFULLY

INSCRIBED

BY THEIR OBEDIENT SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

MAY 12, 1802.

:

PREFACE.

THE following Work originally contained the fubftance of a courfe of Lectures, which the Author occafionally read to his Pupils. The fatisfaction they expreffed in hearing them, encouraged him to hope, that they would not prove unacceptable to thofe readers for whofe ufe they were made public. He has not been difappointed in his expectation; and the favourable reception which his work has met with, has induced him to revife the whole, and to make fome confiderable improvements in the prefent edition. The Lift of Books has been particularly attended to; and he has endeavoured to make it more comprehenfive from a defire to sketch fuch a profpect of the best publications, as may be pleafing to every enquirer into ufeful and entertaining Literature.

To lay claim to originality of fubject in fuch a Work as this, in order to recommend it to notice, would prove the unfitnefs of the writer for the task he has undertaken, and be a prefumptuous and vain attempt to impofe upon the good fenfe of his readers. His pretenfions to public regard muft in a great measure depend, not on the novelty of his

materials, but upon his judgment in felecting, and his skill in compreffing within a moderate compass, the fubftance of larger and more voluminous works; and upon the manner in which he has clothed old ideas in a new drefs. Upon all his fubjects, he has endeavoured to reflect light from every quarter which his reading and obfervation have afforded to him.

In the former Editions, it was his earnest endeavour to make due acknowledgments for the affiftance he derived from various fources. His 'obligations have been increased in the course of preparing the prefent Edition for the prefs; and the labour of his refearches has been confiderably abridged, by the information obtained from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Imifon's Elements of the Arts, Robertfon's Hiftory of America, and Tytler's Elements of General Hiftory. The ufe he has made of thefe excellent works is the beft proof of his opinion of their merit.

We happily live at a time when we may congratulate the rifing generation on the new establishments made for the advancement of knowledge, and the additional means adopted for the diffufion of a tafte for literature and science. The Academy inftituted at Marlow for Military Students, that now building at Hertford, for those who are defigned for the civil fervice in India, and the New College about to be erected at Cambridge, promife to anfwer the excellent purposes of their respectivé