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Printed for A. STRAHAN; and T. CADELL Jun. and W. DAVIES
(Succeffors to Mr. CADELL) in the Strand.

M DCC XCVII.

CHICVCO TIBBYBA

IIG 311

G4

464851

PREFACE.

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The whole

NOW discharge my promife, and complete my design of writing the Hiftory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, both in the Weft and the Eaft. period extends from the age of Trajan and the Antonines, to the taking of Conftantinople by Mahomet the fecond; and includes a review of the Crufades and the state of Rome during the middle ages. Since the publication of the first * volume, twelve years have elapfed; twelve years, according to my wifh," of health, of leisure, and of perse"verance." I may now congratulate my deliverance from a long and laborious fervice, and my fatisfaction will be pure and perfect. if the public favour should be extended to the conclufion of my work.

* Alluding to the Quarto Edition, in which fize the Work was originally published.

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It was my first intention to have collected under one view, the numerous authors, of every age and language; from whom I have derived the materials of this hiftory; and I am till convinced that the apparent oftentation would be more than compensated by real ufe. If I have renounced this idea; if I have declined an undertaking which had obtained the approbation of a master-artist *, my excufe may be found in the extreme difficulty of affigning a proper measure to fuch a catalogue. A naked lift of names and editions would not be fatisfactory either to myself or my readers; the characters of the principal Authors of the Roman and Byzantine Hiftory have been occafionally connected with the events which they defcribe; a more copious and critical enquiry might indeed deferve, but it would demand, an elaborate volume, which might fwell by degrees into a general library of historical writers. For the prefent I shall content myself with renewing my ferious protestation, that I have always endeavoured to draw from the fountain-head; that my curio

See Dr. Robertfon's Preface to his Hiftory of America.

fity,

fity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have fometimes eluded my fearch, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend.

I fhall foon revifit the banks of the lake of Lausanne, a country which I have known and loved from my early youth. Under a mild government, amidst a beauteous landskip, in a life of leifure and independence, and among a people of eafy and elegant manners, I have enjoyed, and may again hope to enjoy, the varied pleasures of retirement and fociety. But I fhall ever glory in the name and character of an Englishman: I am proud of my birth in a free and enlightened country; and the approbation of that country is the beft and most honourable reward of my labours. Were I ambitious of any other patron than the Public, I would infcribe this work to a Stateman, who, in a long, a ftormy, and at length' an unfortunate administration, had many political opponents, almost without a perfonal enemy who has retained, in his fall from power, many faithful and difinterefted friends;

and

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