"the favourite feature in my landscape." "You have "been, fir, a friend to the diftreffed," faid another of our party, who profeffed natural philofophy- -" in fav ing from the axe thofe old dry boughs, for there are "birds which will not perch among thick foliage, making rather a ftag-horned tree like this, their feat of delight all fummer.” 66 66 This converfation has come often to my mind, but the die is now caft, and complaints are vain. If however, I should have made improper choice of facts, and if I shall be found at length most to resemble Maister Fabyan of old, who writing the Life of Henry the Fifth, lays heaviest stress on a new weather-cock fet up on St. Paul's steeple during that eventful reign; my book must share the fate of his, and be like that forgotten: reminding before its death perhaps, a friend or two, of a poor man living in later times, that Doctor Johnson used to tell us of: who being advifed to take fubfcriptions for a new Geographical Dictionary, haftened to Bolt-court and begged advice. There, having liftened carefully for half an hour—“ Ah, but, dear fir!" exclaimed the admiring make all this eloquent ado about parafite, "if I am to 66 Athens and Rome, where fhall we find place do you "think for Richmond or Aix la Chapelle?" The per plexity plexity was laughable enough—yet fuch are the perplexities of a compiler; and for a mere compilation ftretched to two quarto volumes, the apology must be a ferious one. It will be found however; but among things and fituations fo far from laughable and ludicrous, that they appear even awfully impreffive. To an age of profound peace and literary quiet I should have confidered fuch an abridgment as infulting: to our disturbed and bufy days abridgments only can be useful. No one has leifure to read better books. Young people are called out to act before they know, before they could have learned how thofe have acted who have lived before them. History is voluminous, and fashionable extracts are fo perpetually feparated from each other by verses or by effays, that they leave little trace of information on the mind: a natural confequence, and manifeft difadvantage attendant upon all felections, where no one thing having any reference to another thing, each lofes much of its effect by ftanding completely infulated from all the reft. Our Work, though but a frontispiece and ruin, contains between the two fome fhaded drawings, fuch as we find in rudiments of painting, and will, like them, be good for young beginners. Perhaps too, thofe who long ago have read, and long ago defifted from reading hiftories well-known, may like to pleafe their fancies with the the Retrospect of what they feel connected in their minds with youthful ftudy, and that fwect remembrance of early-dawning knowledge on the foul. Their criticifm I not only deprecate, but hope, by dint of petty amusement, in fome measure to difarm: a plea- · fant ftory will divert, a tender tale affect them. No infolently obtrusive opinions through these pages, no air of arrogance will offend, or provoke fuch readers to say, however they may think, that the neceffity of dilating, as it advances, like an inverted cone or fugar-loaf, robs my whole building of that folid bafis which many fabricks boast, on which, after all, little fometimes is reared. A moment's thought indeed will fhew fuch criticks, that any other way would have been worfe: and half a moment will fuffice to prove, that whilft the deep current of grave history rolls her full tide majestick, to that ocean where Time and all its wrecks at length are loft; our flashy Retrospect, a mere jet d'eau, may ferve to foothe the heats of an autumnal day with its light-dripping fall, and form a rainbow round. Did no fuch book catch the occurrences, and hold them up, however maimed and broken, before the eyes of our contemporaries, we really fhould very foon forget all that our ancestors had done or fuffered. The fever of these last ten or twelve years has formed a heat fufficient to calcine the images upon our minds to duft and afhes, which once feemed ftrong as if engraved on marble; and if fome facts or characters have been called back, 'twas for the ufe of confultation they were fetched, then thrown again into the general heap, like papers we have done with, dcomed to burn. In fuch a furnace, fuch an all-devouring crucible, events can scarce retain their proper value, and the mushroom of a night has equal chance to come forth unhurt, as has the oak of a century. Besides that our motto speaks fairly for the chapter it precedes, and fays, "This work, I grant you, is at beft a fragment; but what elfe fhall we find in the most finished labours of man? The biography of one particular fovereign is a mere fragment, broken off from his own dynafty. The revolutions of a peculiar state form but a larger fragment; one piece, one page, torn from the great book, the general account of all mankind; which is itself at last no other than one fpecies, onc genus rather, among thofe uncounted millions that animate and people the earth, air, and water, of our terraqueous globe. That globe a fragment too, a trifling fpot, of which the most exact and faithful_narration would be found but a fhort chapter in the grand hiftory, the univerfal volume of our Creator's works, containing the changes and chances of fyftems without number, rolling in illimitable space, at diftances not to be judged of by humanity.? VOL. I. B But But 'tis by darkening the glaffes that we look at brightest objects; and fpots in the fun could never be difcerned unless we firft abridged him of his fplendour. Old Bradshaw, who wrote upon the origin of Chester, must in fome fort ferve as my model, who live near him, when he fays in his prologue to a work rather historical than legendary, and more valuable (as Warton tells us) for virtuous fentiments than fplendid diction; how To deferybe hye hiftoryes I dare not be to bolde, As of the fevene ages and our parentes olde, Or of the foure empyres whilom moft excelente, Knowinge my lernying thereto infufficyent. And for wicket balades ye fhall have none from me, For though I borrow not the Doctor's chair, whence at my cafe to dictate creeds and ethicks, 'tis my intent, that from this book be drawn nothing that can prove detrimental to readers whofe attention I am defirous to lure away from fiction to known truths, no less extraordinary, and at this moment far more interefting. To this end I have endeavoured not to prefs on them with my own reflections, rather suggesting thoughts in their minds, than forcing forward those entertained by the author: yet if the |