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 tafk 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 meafure depend, not on the novelty of his materials, but upon his judgment in felecting, and his skill in compreffing within a moderate compafs, 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 earneft endeavour to make due acknowledgments for the affiftance he derived from various fources. His obligations have been increafed in the courfe 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 eftablishments 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 thofe who are defigned for the civil fervice in India, and the New College about to be erected at Cambridge, promife to answer the excellent purposes of their refpective refpective founders. London engages the fair and the fashionable in the cause of polite Literature and Science; and the high reputation it has acquired, has promoted a fimilar eftablishment in another part of the Metropolis. Thus the talents and the attainments of eminent Profeffors are called into action; their labours are adapted to the peculiar profeffion for which young men are intended, and the curiofity of the public at large is gratified to a degree unprecedented in former times, by the diffufion of various kinds of knowledge. The Royal Institution in It is the boaft of the enemies of Great Britain, that they give encouragement to Science in the midft of War. Poffeffed of fuch ample means of information as our celebrated Univerfities and Schools afford us, aided by recent establishments, it should be our ambition to emulate them in the cultivation af the mind, and to convince them, by the exertion of our intellectual powers in the caufe of Learning and Science, that we have a claim to pre-eminence in the republic of letters, fimilar to that we have eftablished to the empire of the ocean. 2. Whatever progress may have been made in the course of the laft century, in any branches of Literature, Science, and the polite Arts, we may be affured, that the untutored mind can receive little fatisfaction or improvement from them; it must be furnished with preparatory information upon the respective fubjects; hence arifes the utility A 4 utility of Elementary Works; the feeds of learning must be firft fown before flowers can expand, and fruit can ripen and be gathered. That no work of man can be free from imperfection and error, is a truth which the author would not repeat, if his experience did not fully convince him, that it is applicable in a peculiar degree to publications of this kind. He muft, therefore, make his appeal to the candour of the public, with the faithful declaration that he has rendered his Work as correct and complete as his profeffional avocations and precarious health have allowed. He wishes those who may complain of his want of brevity, to confider the great extent of every one of the fubjects he has undertaken to treat; and those who, from a predilection for fome particular topic, may wish for a fuller view of it, are requested to recollect, that he profeffes to ftate principles only, and not to give complete fyftems of Science, or to particularife long details of Hiftory; and he trufts he may affert, with no lefs confidence than truth, that it will not be eafy to find fuch a variety of information, contained within the fame number of pages, in any work of the price in our Language. The motive which prompted him to undertake this Work, ftill continues to ftimulate him in every ftage of its progrefs-an ardent defire to extend ufeful inftruction beyond the narrow profeffional fphere in which he moves. If he fhould excite curiofity, |