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Patron than the public, I would inscribe this work to a Statesman, who, in a long, a stormy, and at length an unfortunate administration, had many political opponents, almost without a personal enemy: who has retained, in his fall from power, many faithful and disinterested friends; and who, under the pressure of severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigour of his mind, and the felicity of his incomparable temper. LORD NORTH will permit me to express the feelings of friendship in the language of truth: but even truth and friendship should be silent, if he still dipended the favours of the crown.

In a remote solitude, vanity may still whisper in my ear, that my readers, perhaps, may enquire, whether, in the conclusion of the present work, I am now taking an everlasting farewell. They shall hear all that I know myself, all that I could reveal the most intimate friend. The motives of action or silence are now equally balanced; nor can I pronounce

PREFACE

in my most secret thoughts, on which side the scale will preponderate. I cannot dissemble that six ample quartos must have tried, and may have exhusted, the indulgence of the Public; that, in the repetition of similar attempts, a successful Author has much more to lose, than he can hope to gainl that I am now descending into the vale of years; and that the most respectable of my countrymen, the men whom I aspire to imitate, have resigned the pen of histore about the same period of their lives. Yet I consider that the annals of ancient and modern times may afford many rich and interesting subjects; that I am still possessed of health and leisurel that by the practice of writing, some skill and facility must be acquiredl and that in the ardent pusuit of truth and knowledge, I am not conscious of decay. To an active mind, indolence is more painful than labourl and the first months of my liberty will be oc-

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cupied and amused in the excursions of curiosity and taste. By such tempations, I have been sometimes seduced from the rigid duty even of a pleasing and voluntary task : but my time will now be my own : and in the use or abuse of indeendence, I shall no longer fear my own reproaches or those of my friends. I am fairly entitled to a year of jubilee: sext summer and the following winter will repidly pass away; and experience only can determine whether I shall still prefer the freedom and variety of study to the design and composition of a regular work, which animates, while it confines, the daily aplication of the Author. Carice and accident may influence my choicel but the dexterity of self-love will contrice to applaude either active idustry, or philosophic repose.

DOWNING-STREET,

May 1, 1788.

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P.S. I shall embrace this oportunity of introducing two verbal remarks, which have not conveniently offered themselves to my notice. I. As often as I use the definitions of beyond the Alps, the Rhine, the Danube, &c. I generally suppose myself at Rome, and afterwards at Constantinople; without observing whether this relative geography may agree with the local, but variable, situation of the reader, or the historian. 2. In proper names of foreign, and especially of Oriental origin, it should be always our aim to express in our English version, a faithful copy of the original. But this rule, which is founded on a just refard to uniformity and truth, must often be relaxed; and the exceptions will be limited or enlarged by the custom of the language and the taste of the interpreter. Our alphabets may be often defective: a harsh sound, an uncouth spelling, might offend the ear or the eye of our countrymen; and some words, notoriously corrupt, are fixed, and, as it were, naturalized in the vulgar tongue. The prophet Mohammed can no longer be stripped of the famous, though improper appellation of Mahomet: the well-known cities of Alepo, Damascus, and Cairo, would almost be loft in

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the strange descritions of Haleb, Demashk, and Al Cahira: the titles and offices of the Ottoman empire are fashioned by the practice of three hundred years; and we are pleased to blend the three Chinese monosyllables, Con-fu-tace in the respectable name of Confucius, or even to adopt the Portuguese crruption of Mandarin. But I would vary the use of Zoroafter and Zerdusht, as I drew my information from Greece or Persia: since our connection with India, the genuine Timour is restored to the throne of Tamerlane: our most correct writers have retrenched the Al, the superfluous article, from the Koran; and we excape an ambiguous termination, by adopting Moslem instead of Musulman, in the plural number. In these, and in a thousand examples, the shades of distinction are often minute; and I can feel, where I cannot explain, the motices of my choice.

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