Before Chrift, about 280. 87 



be obtained in former times ; and thence this age was pecuHarly diftin- 

 guifhed by eminent writers and philofophers, among whom there were 

 feverals who improved geography and the other fciences connedcd with 

 commerce, particularly Timocharis and Dionyfius, eminent aflronomers, 

 whofe obfervations on the ftars have been prclerved in the works of Pto- 

 lemy the allronomer and geographer ; Timoflhenes, Ptolemy's admiral, 

 who wrote a defcription of harbours; FAiclid, who even now retains the 

 firft rank among the writers on geometry ; Dicearchus, (perhaps dead 

 before this reign) a natural philofopher, geographer, and hiftorian, who 

 was a follower of Pytheas in his defcription of Britain ; and, contempo- 

 rary with thefe philofophers, (though perhaps younger than them) Cle- 

 anthes of Samos, who was accufed by Ariftarchus of violating the reli- 

 gious creed of the age, and overturning the whole fyftem of the uni- 

 verfe, becaufe he taught that the heavens remained immoveable, and 

 that the earth was carried round in an oblique orbit, revolving in the 

 meantime round its own axis. [^Plut. de facie in orhe lunce.~\ Thus Clean- 

 thes had the honour, of all who lived in the weftern world after Pythag- 

 oras, and before Cardinal Cufa *, to approach the nearefl to the true 

 fyftem of the uiiiverfe, as it was explained in later times by Copernicus, 

 and afterwards demonflrated by the ufe of the telefcope. 



Beddes Dicearchus, fome other writers of this age have thrown fome 

 faint glimmerings of light upon the hiftory oi BritiJJj counnerce, particU' 

 larly Timseus, a Sicilian, and a follower of Pytheas, whofe account of 

 the tin trade will be prefently noticed ; and Ifidorus, who feems alfo to 

 have derived his information from the fame great difcoverer. Our ifland 

 was alfo noticed in the work upon the world, afcribed to Ariftotle, but 

 more probably of this age, and by Sotacus, an author feemingly as early 

 as the others, who thought amber a diftillation from trees growing in 

 Britain f. [P/w. L. iv, c. 16 ; L. xxxvii, c. 2.] 



The Britiih commerce, hitherto engrofled by the Phoenicians of 



* Ariftarchus flourifhed about 260 years before of Gadir or Carthage, the Grecian authors were, 

 the commencement of the Chriftian xra, and Cufa till a late period, the only ones from whom he 

 in the middle of the fifteenth century. could poffibly obtain any account of Britain ; for 

 -j- Thefe were all Gieeks, and they were fome Rome does not appear to have had any writers in 

 of the writers who induced Pliny to fay in his veiy the times now under our confideration. But I 

 brief defcription of Britain, [L. iv, c, 16] that it know of no warrant in hiftory for a belief that 

 was renowned in Grecian and Roman records, any native cf Greece ever landed on the coaft cf 

 (' clara Grscts noftrifque monumentis.') And this Britain before the Roman invafion, far Icfs carried 

 claufe is with fome modern writers a fufficient on a long-continued intcrcourfc, fufRcient, if any 

 proof that the Greeks had fo great an intercourfe furh inlercourfe could e-vcr be fujficieni, to change the 

 with this ifland as to introduce their language and language and manners of the people, as has been ' 

 manners. fuppofed. Pytheas, a Maifiiian, was of very re- 

 It is natural to fuppofe that the remote and al- mote Greek anceftry : but his intercourfe with 

 moft-unknown ifland of Britain would be frequent- Britain was not near fo much as that of Captain 

 ly mentioned, after the difcovery of it by Pytheas, Cook with Otahelte in his repeated vifits to that 

 by the Grecian writers, ever fond of the marvel- ifland ; and yet the people ot Otahcite do not 

 ous : and as Pliny probably had not read, or per- fpcak Englifh. 

 haps could not read, any of the Phcenician writers 4 



