io6 UNIVERSAL ERUDITION; 



render themfelves powerful, opprefied mankind 

 by violence and injuftice. The filver age, there- 

 fore, muft terminate with the time that Nimrod, 

 the grandfon of Cham, rendered hi mfelf terrible, 

 built Babylon, and laid the foundation of the em- 

 pire of the Chaldeans, about the year of the world 

 1771, and -i 15 years after the deluge. The 

 third was the brazen age, which was, when ra- 

 pacious men, pofiefled with the luft of domi- 

 nion, endeavoured to reduce their brethren to a 

 flate of flavery. The fiege and burning of Troy 

 by the Greeks happened in this age, with which 

 likewife the poets finim the time when thofe 

 heroes they called demi-gods appeared upon 

 the earth. The fourth age is that of iron, 

 which began with the firft Olympiad, that is, 

 in the year of the world 3228. About this time 

 Hefiod complains of living in an iron age j and 

 Ovid, in the defcription he gives of it, fays, 

 that all forts of crimes began then to prevail. 

 They pretend it flill continues 5 but we may fay 

 with the worldling, % 



Oh ! k bon terns, que cefiech de fer ! 



XV. As we comprehend, in the idea of an- 

 cient hiftory, a continued feries of all facls and 

 events that have happened among civilized na- 

 tions, from the creation of the world to the 

 birth of Chrift, being a fpace of about 4000 

 years, we are here to confider, under profane hif- 

 tory, 



i. The 



