The New Pocket Cyclopædia: Or, Elements of Useful Knowledge, Methodically Arranged;

be retrenched from the oid style, in order to accommodate it to the new, and the same regulation has since passed into Sweden, Denmark, and England; where it was established by 24 Geo. II. c. 23. which enacts, that the supputation, according to which the year of our Lord begins on the twenty-fifth day of March, shall not be used from and after the last day of December, 1751. And that from thenceforth the first day of January every year shall be reckoned the first day of the year, and that the natural day next immediately following the second day of September, 1752, shall be called and reckoned the 14th day of September, omitting the eleven intermediate days of the common calendar, and that the several natural days succeeding the fourteenth day, shall be called and reckoned in numerical order. The adoption of the Gregorian computation accordingly took place in 1752, and is now recognized throughout the kingdom.

CHRONOLOGICAL ABBREVIATIONS.

A. M. i. e. Anno Mundi, in the Year of the World.
Ante Christum, before Christ, or

A. C.

B. C.

A. U. C.

A. D.

Before Christ.

Anno Urbis Conditæ, the year of the foundation of Rome. This abbreviation is chiefly found in the Roman historians.

Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord.

Select Books on Chronology.

Du Fresnoy's Chronological Tables, 2 vols. 8vo. Blair's Chronology, folio. The 25th volume of Dr. Mayor's Universal History, contains a very full and complete table of events. The Tablet of Memory, 12mo. The Stream of Time, by Mr. Bell, from the German of Frederic Strass, is the best chronological chart, and is not high in price. Audley's Companion to the Almanac, 12mo. an interesting and useful manual, Brady's Clavis Calendaria, 2 vols.gvo.

CHAP. IV. TABULAR VIEW OF HISTORY. THE following tabular view of antient and modern history, from the earliest period to the present time, exhibits sacred and profane, religious and secular history, on parallel pages. This chronological view is appended to Mr. PENN's very excellent Bioscope or Dial of Life explained;* and is superior to any thing of the kind we have seen, for neatness, and perspicuity of arrangement.

The Tables which now follow, contain:

FIRST; a General Chronological View of History, antient and modern, to the present time, divided into its TWELVE PRIMARY PERIODS: for an explanation of which, the reader is referred to "A CHRISTIAN'S SURVEY, &c.; in which work, the grounds of those twelve divisions are distinctly exposed.

SECONDLY; a more particular chronological view of the contents of each of those twelve divisions of History; in which, some of the leading events of each are inserted, so as to form a connected chain of incidents down to our own time.

The chronology of Sir Isaac Newton is generally followed, in the early events of heathen history; which, considered as a system, is, without comparison, the most sagacious, best considered, and best supported, of any that have yet been given to the world.

As the heathen computations fail, upon Varro's acknowledgment, before the first Olympiad, the traditional events of those first ages, which he calls Obscure, and Fabulous, can only be reconciled to history, by the aid of the Sacred Chronology.

In contemplating the remote events of antient history, it is requisite always to keep in our mind this truth, that minute exactness in point of historical dates is unattainable; and to remember, according to the wise caution expressed by Sir William Jones, " that whoever, in those early ages, expects a certain epocha, unqualified with about or nearly, will be greatly disappointed."

* This book, which deserves to be the companion and guide of our life, is entitled to a high rank among the Select Books on Ethics; and will, we think, conduce more to the acquisition of the important science of Self-knowledge, than any other work which has, hitherto, appeared.