of human knowledge; and my present address to the fociety fhall be confined to history, civil and natural, or the observation and remembrance of mere facts, independently of ratiocination, which belongs to philofophy, or of imitations and fubftitutions, which are the province

of art.

Were a fuperior created intelligence to delineate a map of general knowledge (exclusively of that fublime and ftupendous theology, which himself could only hope humbly to know by an infinite approximation) he would probably begin by tracing with NEWTON the system of the universe, in which he would assign the true place to our little globe; and, having enumerated its various inhabitants, contents, and productions, would proceed to man in his natural station among animals, exhibiting a detail of all the knowledge attained or attainable by the human race; and thus obferving, perhaps, the fame order, in which he had before described other beings in other inhabited worlds: but, though BACON feems to have had a fimilar reafon for placing the hiftory of Nature before that of Man, or the whole before one of its parts, yet, confiftently with our chief object already mentioned, we may properly begin with the civil history of the five Afiatick nations, which neceffarily comprises their Geography, or a de

fcription of the places, where they have acted, and their aftronomy, which may enable us to fix with fome accuracy the time of their actions: we fhall thence be led to the hiftory of fuch other animals, of fuch minerals, and of fuch vegetables, as they may be fuppofed to have found in their several migrations and settlements, and fhall end with the uses to which they have applied, or may apply, the rich affemblage of natural fubftances.

I. IN the first place, we cannot furely deem it an inconfiderable advantage, that all our hiftorical researches have confirmed the Mofaick accounts of the primitive world; and our teftimony on that subject ought to have the greater weight, because, if the refult of our obfervations had been totally different, we should nevertheless have published them, not indeed with equal pleasure, but with equal confidence; for Truth is mighty, and, whatever be its confequences, must always prevail: but, independently of our interest in corroborating the multiplied evidences of revealed religion, we could fcarce gratify our minds with a more ufeful and rational entertainment, than the contemplation of those wonderful revolutions in kingdoms and ftates, which have happened within little more than four thousand years; revolutions, almost as fully demonftrative of an all-ruling Providence, as the

ftructure of the univerfe and the final caufes, which are difcernible in its whole extent and even in its minuteft parts. Figure to your imaginations a moving picture of that eventful period, or rather a fucceffion of crouded fcenes rapidly changed. Three families migrate in different courfes from one region, and, in about four centuries, establish very diftant governments and various modes of fociety: Egyptians, Indians, Goths, Phenicians, Celts, Greeks, Latians, Chinefe, Peruvians, Mexicans, all sprung from the fame immediate ftem, appear to ftart nearly at one time, and occupy at length those countries, to which they have given, or from which they have derived, their names: in twelve or thir-. teen hundred years more the Greeks overrun the land of their forefathers, invade India, conquer Egypt, and aim at univerfal dominion; but the Romans appropriate to themselves the whole empire of Greece, and carry their arms into Britain, of which they speak with haughty contempt: the Goths, in the fulness of time, break to pieces the unwieldly Coloffus of Roman power, and feize on the whole of Britain, except its wild mountains; but even thofe wilds. become fubject to other invaders of the fame Gothick lineage: during all these transactions, the Arabs poffefs both coafts of the Red Sea, fubdue the old feat of their first progenitors, and

extend their conquefts on one fide, through Africk, into Europe itself; on another, beyond the borders of India, part of which they annex to their flourishing empire: in the fame interval the Tartars, widely diffused over the rest of the globe, fwarm in the north-east, whence they rush to complete the reduction of CONSTANTINE'S beautiful domains, to fubjugate China, to raise in these Indian realms a dynasty splendid and powerful, and to ravage, like the two other families, the devoted regions of Iràn: by this time the Mexicans and Peruvians, with many races of adventurers variously intermixed, have peopled the continent and ifles of America, which the Spaniards, having restored their old government in Europe, difcover and in part overcome but a colony from Britain, of which CICERO ignorantly declared, that it contained nothing valuable, obtain the poffeffion, and finally the fovereign dominion, of extenfive American districts; whilst other British subjects acquire a fubordinate empire in the finest provinces of India, which the victorious troops of ALEXANDER were unwilling to attack. This outline of human tranfactions, as far as it includes the limits of Afia, we can only hope to fill up, to strengthen, and to colour, by the help of Afiatick literature; for in hiftory, as in law, we must not follow ftreams, when we may investigate foun

tains, nor admit any fecondary proof, where primary evidence is attainable: I should, nevertheless, make a bad return for your indulgent attention, were I to repeat a dry lift of all the Mufelman hiftorians, whose works are preserved in Arabick, Perfian, and Turkish, or expatiate on the histories and medals of China and Japan, which may in time be acceffible to members of our Society, and from which alone we can expect information concerning the ancient state of the Tartars; but on the history of India, which we naturally confider as the centre of our enquiries, it may not be fuperfluous to present you with a few particular obfervations.

Our knowledge of civil Afiatick history (I always except that of the Hebrews) exhibits a fhort evening twilight in the venerable introduction to the first book of MOSES, followed by a gloomy night, in which different watches are faintly difcernible, and at length we see a dawn fucceeded by a sunrise more or less early according to the diverfity of regions. That no Hindu nation, but the Cafhmirians, have left us regular histories in their ancient language, we must ever lament; but from Sanfcrit literature, which our country has the honour of having unveiled, we may ftill collect fome rays of historical truth, though time and a series of revolutions have obfcured that light which we might reasonably