EXHIBITING A SUMMARY VIEW ОР THE RISE, PROGRESS, REVOLUTIONS, DECLINE, AND FALL, OF THE STATES AND NATIONS ОР ANTIQUITY. BY JOHN ROBINSON, D. D. Rector of Clifton, in the County of Westmorland, and Author of the "Antiquities of A NEW EDITION, IMPROVED, AND ILLUSTRATED WITH MAPS. LONDON: JOHN SOUTER, SCHOOL LIBRARY, 131, FLEET STREET; FROM ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD. PREFACE. HISTORY is a pleasing and an useful science, which demands the regard and consideration of all who feel an interest in their own species, and in the transactions of the world in which they dwell.— It directs our attention to past ages and events, and exhibits to our view the rise of states, their progress in arts and civilization, the revolutions by which they have been agitated, and the causes of their declension and decay. In the annals of the world we behold, as in a mirror, the different characters who have acted their parts in the drama of life, and who have distinguished themselves either by their virtues or their vices. We there behold the various changing scenes which have taken place in the great theatre of human affairs. The Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman empire, all pass in perspective before our eyes, and present a view, which no one can see with indifference, of the instability and continual fluctuations of all things human. "History," says Cicero, "is the attestation of ages, the torch of truth, the storehouse of memory, the guide of life, and the herald of antiquity*;" and he adds that "for a person to be ignorant of the events which have preceded his own time, is always to remain in a state of childhood+." Indeed, if our knowledge were confined to the narrow limits of our own experience, and restricted to those events which fall within our own observation, the progress of mankind in art and science would be completely obstructed, and men would remain in utter ignorance of all those discoveries and inventions which the annals of the world have unfolded and made known. On the other hand, the prudent reflections which history affords, or enables us to make, teach us to be Cic. lib. 2. de Orat. t Cic. in Orat. 29551. 778 (RECAP)' |