length in the infancy of navigation, beyond

:

them both that they cultivated no liberal arts, and had no use of letters, but formed a variety of dialects, as their tribes were variously ramified; that, fecondly, the children of HAM, who founded in Iran itself the monarchy of the first Chaldeans, invented letters, obferved and named the luminaries of the firmament, calculated the known Indian period of four hundred and thirtytwo thousand years, or an hundred and twenty repetitions of the faros, and contrived the old fyftem of Mythology, partly allegorical, and partly grounded on idolatrous veneration for their fages and lawgivers; that they were dispersed at various intervals and in various colonies over land and ocean; that the tribes of MISR, CUSH, and RAMA fettled in Africk and India; while some of them, having improved the art of failing, paffed from Egypt, Phenice, and Phrygia, into Italy and Greece, which they found thinly peopled by former emigrants, of whom they fupplanted fome tribes, and united themselves with others; whilst a fwarm from the fame hive moved by a northerly courfe into Scandinavia, and another, by the head of the Oxus, and through the paffes of Imaus, into Cafhghar and Eighúr, Khatá and Khoten, as far as the territories of Chin and Tancút, where letters have been used and arts immemorially cultivated; nor is it unreasonable

to believe, that fome of them found their way from the eastern ifles into Mexico and Peru, where traces were discovered of rude literature and Mythology analogous to thofe of Egypt and India; that, thirdly, the old Chaldean empire being overthrown by the Affyrians under CAYU'MERS, other migrations took place, especially into India, while the reft of SHEM's progeny, fome of whom had before fettled on the Red Sea, peopled the whole Arabian peninsula, preffing clofe on the nations of Syria and Phenice; that, laftly, from all the three families were detached many bold adventurers of an ardent spirit and a roving difpofition, who disdained fubordination and wandered in separate clans, till they settled in diftant ifles or in deferts and mountainous regions; that, on the whole, fome colonies might have migrated before the death of their venerable progenitor, but that ftates and empires could fcarce have affumed a regular form, till fifteen or fixteen hundred years before the Chriftian epoch, and that, for the first thousand years of that period, we have no history unmixed with fable, except that of the turbulent and variable, but eminently distinguished, nation descended from ABRAHAM.

My defign, gentlemen, of tracing the origin and progress of the five principal nations, who have peopled Afia, and of whom there were

VOL. I.

confiderable remains in their several countries the time of MUHAMMED's birth, is now complished; fuccinctly, from the nature of the e effays; imperfectly, from the darkness of the fubject and scantiness of my materials, but clearly and comprehensively enough to form a basis for subsequent researches: you have seen, as diftinctly as I am able to fhow, who thofe nations originally were, whence and when they moved toward their final stations; and, in my future annual difcourfes, I propose to enlarge on the particular advantages to our country and to mankind, which may refult from our fedulous and united inquiries into the hiftory, fcience, and arts, of these Asiatick regions, especially of the British dominions in India, which we may confider as the centre (not of the human race, but) of our common exertions to promote its true interefts; and we fhall concur, I trust, in opinion, that the race of man, to advance whose manly happiness is our duty and will of course be our endeavour, cannot long be happy without virtue, nor actively virtuous without freedom, nor fecurely free without rational knowledge.

THE TENTH

ANNIVERSARY DISCOURSE,

DELIVERED 28 FEBRUARY, 1793.

BY

THE PRESIDENT.

ON ASIATICK HISTORY, CIVIL AND NATURAL.

BEFORE our entrance, gentlemen, into the difquifition, promised at the close of my ninth annual difcourfe, on the particular advantages, which may be derived from our concurrent refearches in Afia, it feems neceffary to fix with precision the sense, in which we mean to speak of advantage or utility: now, as we have defcribed the five Afiatick regions on their largest fcale, and have expanded our conceptions in proportion to the magnitude of that wide field, we should use thofe words, which comprehend the fruit of all our inquiries, in their moft extensive acceptation; including not only the folid conveniences and comforts of focial life, but its elegances and innocent pleasures, and even the gratification of a natural and laudable curiosity; for, though labour be clearly the lot of man in

this world, yet, in the midst of his most active exertions, he cannot but feel the substantial benefit of every liberal amusement, which may lull his paffions to reft, and afford him a fort of repofe without the pain of total inaction, and the real usefulness of every purfuit, which may enlarge and diverfify his ideas, without interfering with the principal objects of his civil ftation or economical duties; nor fhould we wholly exclude even the trivial and worldly fense of utility, which too many confider as merely fynonymous with lucre, but should reckon among useful objects those practical, and by no means illiberal, arts, which may eventually conduce both to national and to private emolument. With a view then to advantages thus explained, let us examine every point in the whole circle of arts and sciences, according to the received order of their dependence on the faculties of the mind, their mutual connexion, and the different fubjects, with which they are converfant: our inquiries indeed, of which Nature and Man are the primary objects, must of course be chiefly Hiftorical; but, fince we propofe to investigate the actions of the feveral Afiatick nations, together with their respective progress in science and art, we may arrange our investigations under the fame three heads, to which our European analysts have ingeniously reduced all the branches