7$ UNIVERSAL ERUDITION. 



enough, and what memory is ftrong enough, to 

 read and retain thefe works ? Thofe of de Thou, 

 Mariana, Rapin Thoyras, Barre, Daniel, and 

 the reft of this clafs ? By naming a few hifto- 

 nans only, it is eafy to enumerate feveral hun- 

 dred folio and quarto volumes : and if we refled 

 that M. le Long, in his Hiftorical Bibliotheque, 

 has produced the names of more than twenty 

 thoufand authors who have wrote the hiftory of 

 France only ; and that the late count de Bunau 

 collected above thirty thoufand German hiftorians, 

 whom they call Scriptures rerum German! car urn, 

 we may eafily conceive how enormous a chaos 

 all this muft form, and what indefatigable la- 

 bour it would require to wade through this vaft, 

 barren defart of erudition. In proportion as the 

 v/orld increafes in years, this hiftoric body in- 

 crcafes in bulk, and muft at laft fink by its own 

 weight. All that can be done in this cafe is, to 

 regard thefe voluminous work* as hiftoric die- 

 tionaries, that are not to be read, but confulted 

 oocafionaliy. 



VIII. Independent of thefe faults, which the 

 hiftorian ought to avoid, there are alfo fome 

 precautions to be obfcrved, in order to which it 

 frill be proper here to lay down certain precepts. 

 i. No one fhould attempt to write a hiftory 

 without a perfed knowledge of all its parts. By 

 conftamly running, a man may excel in the race, 

 but he will never excel as a hiftorian, merely by 

 writing. It is true, that in the courfe of the 



work 



