PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 197 



an object of amusement, History may vie with poetry and romance ; 

 since facts are often more wonderful, than the fictions which they 

 suggest. But in order to develope its full utility, Civil History 

 should contain something more than a record of wars and battles, 

 the intrigues of courts, and the crimes or exploits of princes and 

 heroes. It should imbody the form and spirit of each succeeding 

 age ; portraying its moral and social features, in the walks of com- 

 mon life ; and exhibiting its progress in those arts and sciences which 

 have so much improved the condition of the human race. This 

 study cannot be fully appreciated, and enjoyed, without an adequate 

 knowledge of Geography ; nor unless accompanied by the study of 

 Chronology and Antiquities ; by the aid of which the reader is 

 transported in imagination to the very time and place of the scenes or 

 events described. 



The progress of Historical knowledge, has naturally been coex- 

 tensive with that of the means of recording and transmitting informa- 

 tion. Next to the books of Moses, and the Egyptian Hieroglyphics, 

 the oldest historical work, of which some fragments are still pre- 

 served, is that attributed to Sanchoniathon, of Phoenicia, who is sup- 

 posed to have lived some time before the Trojan war. For a long^ 

 period after this date, the chief sources of History, were poetical or 

 oral traditions ; monuments and brief inscriptions ; and festivals or 

 ceremonies, in commemoration of great events. The poems of 

 Homer, are an example of the first class ; the chronicle of Paros, or 

 Arundelian marbles, of the second ; and the Grecian games, may be 

 cited as an example of the third. Pherecydes, of Leros, and the 

 three Milesians, Dionysius, Cadmus, and Hecatseus, all of whom 

 lived between 550 and 500 B. C., are mentioned as the earliest 

 writers of History in prose ; but their works are mostly lost. From 

 this period History began to assume a more accurate form, in the 

 hands of the classic writers, who will be mentioned in their due 

 place. 



Archaeology, is that branch of knowledge which treats of anti- 

 quities, or the memorials and relics of ancient times. The name is 

 radically derived from the Greek ap^cuoj, ancient; corresponding to 

 the Latin antiquus, of the same signification. Antiquities were 

 termed, by Lord Bacon, " the wrecks of history ;" and certainly 

 they are so interwoven with it, that their study may to a certain 

 extent be regarded as a part of it, and comprehended in the same 

 department of knowledge. Archeology relates not only to the re- 

 mains of ancient art, such as buildings, monuments, statues, coins, 

 inscriptions, books, manuscripts, vessels, weapons, and utensils ; but 

 also to the manners and customs, politics and religion, sciences and 

 arts, of past ages. Thus, each country has its own antiquities ; 

 which serve to illustrate and enliven its history. Each of the arts has 

 also its own antiquities, to which we shall refer in their place. An- 

 tiquities have been subdivided into theological, political, literary; 

 technical, domestic, and military ; but we think that those of each 

 nation, and especially those of each departrnen^of knowledge, merit 

 a separate consideration. Instead, therefore, of devoting a distinct 



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