to the Church History Who is best prepared to read it Two intervals of time to be chiefly regarded The History of the first is contain'd in the Holy Bible And with them Josephus his Antiquities to be read The Judgment of Learned Men concerning Josephus The pretended Hegesippus not totally to be rejected In what sense usefull and commendable Sulpitius Severus his Sacred Story is deservedly recommended here to the Reader SECT XXXIII The history of the second Period or of the Christian Church is in the first place to be drawn from the Evangelists and other Authours of the New Testament who saw the Cradle of the Church But then of those that saw her Infancy with their eyes there is scarce any Writers extant some Books indeed are abroad in the world which are said to be written by Men that lived in those days in which are described the sufferings of the first Martyrs but are esteemed counterfeits by Learned Men because they are deformed with Fables Baronius confesseth that some of the latter Writers were guilty of this fault And the same complaint is made by Lodovicus Vives and Melchior Canus and some of the Ancients Therefore the Ecclesiastical History is to be read with care And yet too much incredulity is to be avoided How we should be disposed in the Reading the Church History the first and most ancient to be preferred before the latter SECT XXXIV At length in the Third Century the Church beginning to flourish its History did so too Eusebius Pamphili the Prince of all Church Historians He equalled or imitated Xenophon in his Books of the Life of Constantine Many of his Books are lost His Authority vindicated How far the History of Eusebius comes Of Ruffinus Scaliger's opinion of him The Tripartite Story The Reading of Eusebius his Panegyrick recommended SECT XXXV Socrates in what time he lived from whence and how far he brought his History Of Theodoret what is contained in his books The Censure of Photius upon him Sozomenus Salaminus He continues the History in Nine Books to the year of Christ 423. A Place of St. Gregory against Sozomen considered and answered Sozomen's Candor The Testimony of Euagrius concerning him Euagrius follows and continues the Tripartite History to the year of Christ 597. Theophilactus Simocatus continues it on to the year 601. SECT XXXVI In the Seventh Century and two or three more which follow there is very few that have written the Church History well An Ocean of Legends of the Saints of Miracles and Wonders Times of swelling Words and Ignorance SECT XXXVII Nicephorus Constantinopolitanus may succeed Simocatus Nicephorus Calistius full of errors Georgius Cedrenus The opinion of Scaliger and Vossius concerning him SECT XXXVIII The Third Tome of Zonaras commended to the Reader The History continued to the year 1118. by Anna Comnena's Alexiada The transcendent praise of that excellent Lady SECT XXXIX Nicetas Achomiatus follows immediately after Zonaras Why put here Lipsius his judgment of both of them The faith of Nicetas call'd into question Johannes Cantacuzanus is here recommended to the Reader by Vossius After the former follows Laonicus Calcocondylas SECT XL. Blondus Foroliviensis may supply the defect of the Eastern Writers as to the Church History And amongst others Sigebertus Gemblacensis The opinion of Cardinal Bellarmine concerning him Robertus Abbas continues Sigebertus to the year 1210. Chronicon Hirshavense to the year 1370. and the omitted passages of the last Chronicon are supplied and continued to the last Age by others The Cosmodromus of Gobelinus Person when to be read The praise of it In stead of the Cosmodromus may be read the Metropolis of Albertus Crantzius in which are many things which are taken out of the Cosmodromus from the times of Charles the Great to the year 1504. Nauclerus also may be made use of instead of the other two and that the Reader may avoid repetitions he may begin with the Middle Generations in the second Tome Johannes Sleidanus hath written Ecclesiastick Commentaries from the year 1517 to the year 1556. which are continued again by Caspar Lundorpius to the year 1603. SECT XLI Venerable Bede and Usuardus are not in the mean time to be neglected nor the Writers of the Lives of the Popes of Rome Anastasius Bibliothecarius and Barthol Platina their great Elogies Onuphrius reviewed Platina and continued him to the year 1566. Sigonius also in his Histories has interwoven the affairs of the Church and in this place are the Elogies of Sigonius and Onuphrius to be taken in SECT XLII The Magdeburgian Centuriators put forth a most usefull Work of this nature The Judgment of the Reverend Bishop of Chichester upon it What is commendable in it The foundation of it well laid Whence the matter for the building was collected An excuse for the defects SECT XLIII The most Learned and Reverend Bishop of Chichester proves that the Centuriators have been obnoxious to many errours Casaubon yields as much and yet that Reverend Bishop shews that it is a most usefull work SECT XLIV Baronius his Annals equal to the Centuriators A stupendious Work Casaubon's Judgment of it As also that of the said Reverend Bishop of Chichester Why those Annals are to be read with great caution Spondanus the Jesuit the Epitomizer of them SECT XLV The first eight Magdeburgian Centuries reduced into a Compendium by Lucas Osiander not unprofitably He leaps from the VIII th to the XVI th the affairs of which he discourseth more at large To this Century belongs the History of the Council of Trent The Encomiums of that History and its Authour Jac. Augustus Thuanus has inserted the Church Affairs into his Accurate History from the year 1546 to the year 1608. and it is now continued to the year 1618. Part the Second SECT I. Young Men as they are not so well capacitated for Moral instructions so neither are they to be esteemed the best qualified for the reading of History What things are required to both the end and scope of Reading The different opinions of the Learned Vossius and Keckerman about this question SECT II. Keckerman's opinion defended Tongues are scarce well Learned without Rules There is a vast difference betwixt learning Languages and the Accounts of Actions Moral Philosophy is as well required in a Reader as Writer of History Ubertus Folietta Sebastianus Foxius and Viperanus do all seem to be of this opinion And the Learned Vossius himself affords strong Arguments for it SECT III. Vossius his third Argument against Keckerman doth hardly seem to be strong That a naked relation of an Affair doth not satisfie a prudent Reader Which is proved from Ludov. Vivis Dion Halicarnassaeus and Vossius himself That the Reading the same Histories by a Child and by a Man of Learning is very different SECT IV. The Argument Borrowed from Quintilian consider'd and an Answer made to it SECT V. The Opinion of Simon Grynaeus on this account Approved and it is more largely shewn
of Persia Anno Mundi 3588. In his XVI th Book he gives an account of the actions of Philip of Macedonia the Son of Amyntas from his entrance into his Kingdom to the end of his Life And in the same Book takes notice of other things which happened then in other parts of the known World The History of this XVI th Book may be made much more clear and large by reading the Lives of Chabrias Dion Iphicrates Timotheus Phocion and Timoleon written by Cor. Nepos The actions of these great Commanders made these times very famous from the CV th to the CXI th Olympiad from the second year of which Olympiad the XVI th Book begins to shew the Noble actions of Alexander the Great and to teach us how he gave a beginning to the third great Monarchy in the 112 th Olympiad SECT XII Many Historians have written of the Actions of Alexander the Great Arrianus and Quintus Curtius their Elogies in what time they flourished Diodorus prosecutes the History of the Successours of Alexander to which usefull Additions may be made from other Authours BUt others both Grecians and Romans have written the History of that great Monarch more at large viz. Plutarch in the Life of Alexander and in two other Books which he writ concerning the Fortune of Alexander and Arrianus the Nicomedian in VII Books written in an Elegant and Xenophontean Style I say in VII Books because the VIII th which is usually added to them concerning the Indian Expedition of Alexander is a piece by it self as appears both in Photius and in the end of the VII th Book as the Learned Vossius observes these two writ in Greek And in Latine Justin in his X and XI th Book and Q. Curtius Rufus an excellent and a subtile Writer but his History has lost its beginning by the injury of men or times or both Both Arrian and Q. Curtius are florid Writers saith Colerus but Curtius is the brighter and sweeter than any Honey he does rather weary than satiate his Reader he abounds with direct and oblique Sentences by which the Life of man is strangely illustrated Justus Lipsius gives the same judgment of Q. Curtius he is saith he in my opinion an honest and true Historian if any such there have been there is a strange felicity in his Style and a pleasantness in his Relations he is contracted and fluent subtile and clear careless and yet accurate true in his Judgments subtile in his Sentences and in his Orations Eloquent above what I can express Accidalius thus speaks of him Q. Curtius a Latine writer of the actions of Alexander the Great is more diligent than any of the Grecians a true candid and most upright Writer if we have any writer of Integrity The Learned Vossius in a prolix discourse has made it very probable that Curtius Lived and Published his History under Vespasian about LXXX years after Christ. Nor is Arrian to be defrauded of his deserved Commendation who is reported amongst the Grecian Writers to have been a man of so great Integrity in Writing that he was styled the Lover of Truth and even still honoured with that Sirname by Coelius Rhodoginus He was a Philosopher born at Nicomedia and famous at Rome in the Reigns of Adrian and Antoninus and was commonly call'd the new Xenophon as Cataenus testifies in his Commentary upon the Epistles of Pliny these I say have written more largely of Alexander the Great The same Diodorus Siculus prosecutes the History of his Successours in his XVIII th XIX th and XX th Books from the second year of the CXIV Olympiad to the end of the CXIX th Olympiad A. M. 3650 which interval may yet be made much more clear if the Reader please to take in the XIII th XIV th and XV th Books of Justin and the Lives of Demetrius and Eumenes written by Plutarch and because the last XX Books of the Sicilian in which he had continued the Universal History to the Expedition of Julius Caesar into Britain that is to the CLXXX th Olympiad are lost I would advise the Reader not to dismiss Justin here but to go through with the following Books to the XXIX th to which he may subjoyn Plutarch's Pyrrhus Aratus Aegides Cleomenes and Philopoemenes and also the Eclogs or Excerptions out of those Books of Diodorus which follow the XX th which are published in the Edition of Laurentius Rhodomannus the Reader will find many things there concerning Agathocles the Sicilian Tyrant and his Actions in Sicily and of Pyrrhus his War in that Island and also of the first Punick War which are well worth his Notice nor do I think he should deviate from the right method of Reading Histories if he should even then proceed in Justin till he hath read all but the two last Books SECT XIII Polybius where to be read what times he wrote the History of how he came to apply his mind to Writing how great a man he was with what Elogies he has been Celebrated the greatest part of his History is lost or dissipated into fragments the Contents of the Books that are still Extant BUt if the Reader thinks otherwise he may after Diodorus Siculus pass to Polybius a prudent Writer if any be who flourished 220 years before Christ in the 140 th Olympiad he propos'd to himself the representing those times and transactions which gave beginning and perfection to the Growing greatness of the Roman Empire and that he might effect this with the greater certainty and felicity he undertook long Journies with much hazard travelling over Africa Spain Gall now France and the Alpes and then Composed his General History of LIII years We may conjecture at the worth and greatness of this Person by the number of Statues which the Grecians Erected to him in Palantium Mantinoea Tegoea Megalopolis and other Cities of Arcadia the Inscriptions of one of which testifies saith Pausanias that he travelled over all Seas and Lands was a Friend and Allie to the Romans and reconcil'd them being then incensed against the Grecians and another Inscription thus If Greece had at first pursued the Council of Polybius it had not offended but being now miserably afflicted he is her onely Comfort or Support Nor is it less observable which Pausanias testifies of him that he was so great a States-man that whatever the Roman General did by his advice prospered and whatever he acted against it had ill success yea he was so great a man that all those Cities which United with the Achaeans made him their Stateholder and Law-giver therefore we doubt not but the great Elogies which have been given to his History by Learned men were well deserved as for Example that of John Bodinus Polybius is not onely every where Equal and like himself but also wise and grave sparing in his Commendations sharp and severe in his Reprehensions
and as Sincerity was the Foundation of all he wrote so his Works are in so great esteem that a very grave and Learned Modern Writer who hath written the Life of Mary Stuard confesseth that he took his Directions for that Work from Camden ' s Annals of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth this Testimony is of the more value because from a prfessed Enemy who deplores Camden's dying an Heretick The Commendations given by the Authour in the end of the last Section to Camden's Annals of Queen Elizabeth are deservedly due to them and much more for he being his Patron as he saith and Founder of the History Lecture in Oxon which our Authour then had he would not break into those Commendations of him which he otherwise would have done lest his gratitude might have seemed to have bribed his Judgment but I believe it is granted by all the Learned World that Camden's Annals is one of the best pieces that hath seen the Light since the reviving of Learning in this Western part of the World and that great Princess had this additional felicity given her from Heaven that as her Reign was long and prosperous and her memory is precious still and ever will be to all English men so she found in Camden a noble learned eloquent ingenious Celebratour of her actions which hath given her a second Life here on Earth in the memories of men which shall last till the Resurrection instate her in the third the last and most perfect Life of consummated Glory but then all this is meant of the Original Latine for the English Version which we now have is a poor mean harsh style and translated not from the Latine neither but from a French translation so that I will ever hope to see an Elegant new Version made upon the Original and in some degree worthy of that great man But to continue down the History one Robert Johnston a Learned Scot hath written an History of the British and much of the French Dutch and German Affairs both Civil and Ecclesiastick in XXII Books from the year 1572 to the year 1628 that is from the first year of King James the VI th of Scotland to the third year of Charles the first of England which History though for thirty years of it parallel with Camden's Annals yet is even there worthy of our serious reading but then he has brought down the English History XXVI years lower than Mr. Camden did I could wish I could give the Reader a better account than I now can of this Authour who is not known to me by any thing but this History of his but all I can now do is to give the account Printed in the Epistle to the Reader before his History which is this in short This Authour in his Life time published the two first of these Books and dedicated them to Charles the first and then went on in writing the rest which he promised the World then how candidly he has acted in these Histories is left to the judgment of the World in the interim this Good man as was fit gives this testimony of himself I have not sold my Fidelity for Money nor engaged it to any man for his favour and as to my stock of ingenuity I submit it intirely to your censure I onely beg my Reader would treat me in Reading with the same equity he desires I should him in Writing for I seek no other recompence for my Labour besides that of Praise and Memory in after times And a little after No Mortal Man can satisfie all the World because some are delighted with Antiquity and the musty expressions of former times mixed with grave and wise Sentences others are onely to be pleas'd with a Laconick brevity concise and dark expressions whilst at the same time others being enemies to all excessive brevity and too great subtilty are onely to be won by an high and sublime style But it is a folly to expect in the Writers of our Age the Perfect Eloquence of Caesar the Brevity of Cato or Salust the Pomp of Tacitus or the Briskness and Height of the Livian Oratory I willingly acknowledge that in this Narrative I have performed nothing that is great or high I have onely represented the British Affairs in necessary words without any paint or fraud and without the suspicion of Favour or Aversion and in short I am so far from all desire of vain-glory and seeking the Applause of Many that I seek no Praise for my ingenuity but industry I am not in love with Glory but studious of truth and desirous of the reward of a good Conscience and a good Name from Posterity In the interim saith the Publisher the Courteous Reader will easily observe how religiously the Authour pursues all those things which are capable to give an Historian credit and which excite the minds of the Reader to Vertue Probity and Prudence And you will easily observe saith he how many things he relates worthy of Knowledge and which will render a Prince fit for the Administration of publick or domestick affairs in Peace or War at home or abroad and a Clergyman prudent in the Administration of Church-Government This Person was no way tainted with that Presbyterian Levin which then infected the Scotch Nation almost generally nor was he poisoned with the Republican Principles of the Age but every where with great prudence discovers the rise of those Men and Principles which afterwards imbroiled and bid fair for the Ruine of these Nations No Man perhaps having better set forth the turbulent behaviour of the Parliaments in the times in which he Wrote The Combinations and secret underminings of the Factious Levites and their disciples the Good Commonwealth-Men as they were styled in that Age. His Style is short and concise but very clear saving that he affects a little too much the use of Greek Words which may make him a little the less intelligible and pleasant to a mere Latin Reader who is not acquainted with the Greek Tongue Dr. George Bates a Learned Physician hath Written the History of our late Rebellion with great Elegance Judgment Brevity and Fidelity to the Deposition of Richard Cromwell May the 7th 1659. in two parts in which he hath excellently described the Methods by which that abominable War was raised and maintained by our Factions the Execrable Murther of Charles the Martyr and the Miseries that followed thereupon and overwhelmed the English Nation Dr. Thomas Skinner another Learned Physician has continued the former till the year 1669. describing the excessive joy of England at the Restitution of Charles the Second of Blessed Memory and the Catastrophies of the Regicides with an Elegance as bright and sparkling as the English exultation was in the day when God so wonderfully turn'd the Captivity of our Israel a day never to be forgotten by Englishmen SECT XXXI Although we have no perfect Body of our English History in Latin Written according
than Caesar Salust Livy and the rest of the great Princes of the Senate of Historians in which the native Vigour and Spirit of the Roman Language exerts it self and in truth there are not many who aimed at the perfections of those middle Writers and they are yet more scarce who have attain'd to that degree of perfection and yet they are not to be persecuted or reprehended for this neither because they fell into this Misfortune more by the necessities of the times in which they Lived than by their own faults which is enough to bespeak their Pardon with all candid Readers In ancient Coins we regard the Weight and the Matter much more than the Neatness of the Stamp and so in those Authours which have been depressed by the iniquity of their times and thereby disabled from shewing their Vertues we ought rather to consider the weight and excellence of the things they have delivered than the brightness or sweetness of Discourse what Cicero said of the Philosophers if they bring with them Eloquence it is not to be despised but if they have it not it is not mightily to be desired is by us to be applied to an Historian But as to those who Wrote after the reviving of Learning and the restitution of the Just esteem of Eloquence as there is a Circulation of all things they I say have more illustrated History and treated it according to its Dignity so that the following Ages have many Historians which if I should presume to compare with the Ancient Writers I should not be destitute of the suffrage of the Greatest men for men of no mean Learning have heretofore thought that Guicciardin Comines and Aemilius were so far from being inferiour to Livy Salust and Tacitus that they might contest the Precedence with them ARTICLE II. The Historians of the Germans and of all those people which live betwixt the Alpes and the Baltick Sea and the Rhine and the Weissell to which is joyned the History of the Goths Vandals Hunnes Herulans Switzars Lombards Polonians Muscovites Danes and Swedes WE have a small piece of Tacitus of the Situation Manners and People of the Ancient Germans and it is resonable that we should believe he understood the affairs of those People very well because he was employed as a Souldier in the Wars against them and was Governour of the Low Countries under Hadrian the Emperour and he in his Annals frequently takes notice of the German affairs and especially of the Expedition of Caesar Germanicus and the Victory he obtained against Arminius General of the Châ—ruscians now call'd Mansfelders but there is none of those Historians which are now Extant which hath so largely described tâ—e Battel in which Arminius routed and totally destroyed Quintilius Varus and his Army as Dion Cassius in his LVIth Book Ammianus Marcellinus also who was a Souldier under Constantius and Julianus the Roman Emperours takes notice of many things concerning the Franks Alemans and other German Nations which are very true and worthy to be known Huldericus Mutius Hugwaldus who lived about the year of Christ 1551 Wrote XXXI Books of the Origine of the Germans their Manners Customs Laws and memorable Actions in Peace and War from their first beginning to the year of Christ 1539 which he collected out of their best Authours Conradus a Liechtenaw Abbas Urspergensis Wrote a Chronicle from Belus the first King of the Assyrians to the IXth year of Frederick the second that is to the year of Christ 1229 who in the affairs of others is very short but in what concerns the Germans in his own times and those that went just before him he is much larger and has as Vossius saith many things that may be read with great advantage Gaspar Hedio continued the latter from the year 1230 to the year 1537 adding many memorable things omitted by Urspergensis and besides this Continuation he also Wrote a German Chronicle Lambertus Schafnaburgensis who flourished about the year of Christ 1077 Wrote one Volume of the History of Germany which he brought down to the year 1077 which as Trithemius expresseth himself is very well and pleasantly done and Justus Lipsius saith of this and Rodoricus Toletanus that they are as Good as that Age could possibly afford but the Commendation of the Learned Joseph Scaliger in his piece de Emendatione temporum is very illustrious in truth saith he I admire the Purity of this man's style and the exactness of his Computation in so barbarous an Age which is so great that he might put the Chronologers of our times to the blush if they had any sense of these things Nor will I conceal the censure of Melancthon I have not seen saith he any Writer of the German History that hath Written with greater industry though he hath also put in some private things which are unworthy of the knowledge of Posterity upon which account and for that his Fidelity is suspected in some things pertaining to the Controversie between Henry the 4th and Gregory the 7th he has been censured by some others A certain Monk of Erfurd has brought down the last named Authour to the year 1472 and has also Written an History of the Landgraves of Duringer the principal Town of which is Erfurd Marianus a Scot by Nation but a Monk of Fuld in Germany an Elegant Writer for the times as Sigebertus saith of him produced a Chronicle to his own times that is to the year 1073 in three Books which Dodechinus afterwards continued to the year 1200. Otto Frisingensis of Freising in Noricum and not of Friseland as Aeneas Sylvius insinuates descended of an imperial Family has Written a Chronicle from the beginning of the World to the times of Frederick the first that is to the year of Christ 1146 in VII Books for the VIIIth is not an History but a Dissertation concerning Antichrist the Resurrection of the Dead the end of the World and the last Judgment which is continued by an ancient Authour to the year 1210 and the same Otto Wrote the Life of Frederick the first his Cousin or Nephew Sirnamed Aenobarbus by the Command and Encouragement of this Prince in II Books which Radevicus another Writer by adding two Books more brought down to the year 1160. This Otto though he was Uncle to this Emperour Frederick yet that Relation did no way prejudice the truth as Aeneas Sylvius saith who was afterwards Pope by the Name of Pius Luitiprandus Ticinensis beginning from Arnolphus Emperour of Germany and the year 891 in which the Saracens took Frassinel a small Town upon the River Po in Italy Wrote in six Books the History of the principal Transactions of his own times in Europe in many of which he himself was present which ends Anno Christi 963. He was a privy Counsellour to Berengarius the second King of Italy and falling into his
Pyrenean Mountains THe principal Writers of the History of Gallia which the French now possess that I may say nothing of the most ancient Julius Caesar his VII Books of the Gallick War And Hirtius who continues him nor of Appianus his Celirks which belong to this Story are these Gregorius Turonensis Bishop of Tours in his first Book brings down the History from the beginning of the World to the Reign of Theodosius the first in the other nine Books he sets forth the Lives and actions of the Kings of France to his own times and the year of Christ 594 but the XIth Book which is supposed to have been added by Fredegarius ends in the Death of Charles the Great which happened Anno Christi 814. Paulus Aemilius Veronensis a man of a Livian style of whom mention is made above Sect. XXV as Reinerus Reineccius bears witness spent XXX years in the compiling his History of France after the Dissolution of the Roman Dominion and comes down to Philip and Charles his Brother Children of Luis that is from the year 420 to the year 1488 the opinion of J. Lipsius concerning this History is that if a few things were lightly Corrected he would be a person above the Learning of our Age and deserve the Commendations given to ancient Authours and Ludovicus Vivis saith his History is written with more Fidelity and truth than that of Gaguinus who has disclosed and intermixt his own affections in his History Paulus Jovius hath written the Reigns and Lives of Charles the 8th Luis the 12th and Francis the first King of France splendidly and elegantly Arnoldus Ferronius Burdegalensis hath continued the History of Aemilius to Henry the second Philippus Comines of whom mention is made above Sect. the 25th has woven the History of Luis the XIth and Charles the VIIIth his Son in a clear and elegant style and although Jacobus Mejerus avers in many places that he is mistaken yet he is in the judgment of the Learned Vossius a true and a prudent Historian and Johannes Sleidanns gives him this Elogie This Authour is in my judgment the nearest to the ancient Historians of all those that have wrote in or near our times both in prudence and veracity for he lays before us the grave deliberations that passed in the Closets of Princes before they appeared in their Events abroad which very few have attempted to do fewer have been able to do it effectually and even those who could have done it have yet not dared to do it lest they should offend their Princes Johannes Frossardus has splendidly and elegantly written the History of those dreadfull Wars which passed betwixt the English and French from the year 1335 to the year 1400 who deserves the greater faith because he was a follower of the Courts of Kings and Princes especially of Philippa Daughter of the Count of Heynault Queen to Edward the third King of England nor did he relate any thing in his History but what he had seen with his own Eyes or heard from others who had seen them or had the chief Commands in the Wars Johannes Sleidanus hath excerpted the most material passages out of this History and turned them into Latine for it is Originally written in French and Sir John Bouchier Knight translated this intire History into English Enguerus Monstreletus hath continued Frossardus and brought down the French History to the Reign of Luis the XIIth Martinus Longaeus wrote a Commentary in X Books of the actions of Francis I. of Valoise King of France and Stephanus Doletus and Galeacius Capella have written the History of the Wars betwixt Charles the fifth and this Prince for the Dutchy of Milan from the year 1520 to the year 1530 the latter is followed by Gulielmus Paradinus who hath added the story of the succeeding years to the year 1555. A nameless person perhaps Franciscus Hottomanus has written the History of France during the Reigns of Henry the second Francis the second and Charles the IXth Rabutinus hath written the Expedition of Henry the second against Charles the Vth undertaken in the year 1552 on the behalf of the Princes of Germany Eusebius Philadelphus that is Theodorus Beza who by the Cloudiness of this name obscured himself has wrote the History of Charles the IXth and of his Mother Petrus Matthaeus a Lawyer the Royal Historian has writ the History of Henry the IV th King of France and of Navar in VII Books BESIDES these which we have mentioned there are several others which ought to be perused as Carolus Molinaeus who hath writ of the Rise and Progress of the French Kingdom and Monarchy and Hubertus Leonardus of the Origine of the French â—â—tion but then Hunibaldus Francus who has wrote the affairs of the Franks from the Wars of Troy to the times of Clodoneus is to be esteemed of the same nature with Annius his Berosus and the rest of those fabulous Writers in the judgment of the famous Vossius de Hist. lat lib. 2. c. 22. Aimoinus the Monk is to be better thought of who is an excellent Historian as the Authour de Regimine Principatus lib. 3. c. 21. calls him which work is commonly but very falsely ascribed to Aquinas he wrote the actions of the French from the year 420 to the year 826 in V Books for the proof of whose Fidelity these words of his make very much there was another Monk in the same Monastery a Priest and a professed Monk as well as he and his name was Audoaldus he was of the same age and in his Manners and Conversation very like him from whose Mouth we have received what is delivered and much more which we are confident is faithfully related Nor is Joannes Trithemius though a German to be lightly passed by who has writ III Books of the Origine Kings and affairs of France from the year of Christ 433 to the year 1500 which was the III year of Charles the VIII th Nor Nicholaus Gilius who hath Composed the Annals of France Hermannus Comes who writes of their affairs to the year 1525 or Robertus Gaguinus who has deduced their History from the most remote Antiquity to the time of the Expedition of Charles the VIII th into Italy Anno Christi 1493 though he has mixed his own affections with the History as Vivis saith and yet Mejerus is not to be admitted neither who calls him a frivolous Writer which is to be attributed to his disaffection to the French Nation and all their Historians for he saith of them in general the French do not use to relate their actions with more fidelity than they transact them and besides as Mejerus out of his too great affection to his Countrey has delivered many things done in his own times there very partially so in Foreign affairs he is not over much to be Credited Paulus Jovius affirming of
by the Turks in the year 1453 is represented by Leonardus Chiensis Bishop Mitylaen and Godefridus Langus Philippus Callimachus Experiens has writ two elegant Books of the Sack of Varne in Mysia which happened IX years before that of Constantinople Johannes Eutropius wrote the War made by Charles the V th upon Tunis and his Expedition into Africa is written by Christoph. Claudius Stella Henricus Penia hath writ the War betwixt Ismael Sophy of Persia and Selym Anno 1514. Nor is it difficult to learn many things for the clearing and enlarging on the Turkish History from the 14 Books of Epistles concerning the Turks and their affairs collected by Nicholaus Reusnerus and the elegant Epistles of Augerius Busbequius concerning his Ambassage in Turky ARTICLE XIII The Historians of the Tartars Muscovits and Sarmatians HAitonius the Nephew of a King of Armenia and a Souldier many years in his own Countrey became afterwards a Monk in the Island of Cyprus as he tells us himself Chap. 46. and at length came into France where about the year of Christ 1307 by the Command of Clement the V th he describ'd the Empire of the Tartarians in Asia and the other Eastern Kingdoms The first Emperour of the Tartars was Changius Cham about the year 1200 the V th from him was Chobitas as Haiton calls him or Cublai the great Cham. This Princes Court and a very large Empire belonging to him in the Indies and all the Eastern Countries is largely described by Marcus Paulus Venetus in his second and third Book of the Oriental Kingdoms and the Empire of the Tartars who is an Authour worthy of great Credit this Cublai was father of Timuri Lechi who is commonly call'd Tamerlan who shut up Bajazet the Emperour of the Turks in an Iron Cage In the Books which Matthias a Michou wrote of the Asian and European Tartars is contain'd a short History of the Tartars and Muscovites Matinus Proniovius wrote an History of the Tartars and Johannes Leunclavius wrote of the Wars of the Muscovites against their Neighbour Nations Paulus Oderbonius wrote the Life of John Basilides Duke of Muscovy very elegantly Reinoldus Hidenstein wrote a Commentary in VI Books of the War of Muscovy made by Stephen King of Poland Bredenbrachius wrote the War of Livonia in which the Muscovites destroyed and dessolated the whole Province of Torpate Paulus Jovius Novocomensis wrote of the Embassies of the Muscovites and Sigismundus Liberius wrote Commentaries of their affairs ARTICLE XIV The History of Aethiopia India almost all Africa and most of the new World or America THe History of Aethiopia is to be fetch'd from Johannes Bohemus Damianus a Goes Franciscus Alvaresius and Ludovicus Romanus Patritius which last hath writ VII Books of the Navigation of Aethiopia Egypt both the Arabias and the Indies Johannes Maerus Santineus hath wrote an Indian History in III Books Nicholaus Godignus hath also writ an Aethiopick History Ludovicus Vartomannus when he had travell'd Aethiopia Egypt Arabia Persia Syria and the East-Indies wrote all his Travels in VI Books Leo Afer a Moore but born in Spain and first a Mahometan and afterwards a Christian when he had travelled almost all Africa Asia the less and a great part of Europe was taken and given to Leo the X th where he translated into the Italian Tongue what he had with incredible labour and industry collected and written in the Arabian concerning the people of Africa and their Manners Laws Customs and the Description of that Countrey which Johannes Florianus afterwards translated into Latine this Authour will therefore serve instead of all others for the African Story and yet if the Reader be so pleased he may add to him P. Jovius and Alvaresius Grotius Laet Hornius and some others have Learnedly written of the Origine of the People of America but then in order to the attainment of a perfect History of the Americans the Voiages of Christopher Columbus Aloysius Cadamustus Cortesius Novius Benzo Lyrius Gomarus and others are to be perused which have been described by several Writers Gonsalus Ferdinandus Oviedus is so Learned a Writer of the History of the new World that Cardanus thinks him the onely Authour amongst the Historians of our Age who deserves to be compared with the Ancients And in general the Transactions of both the East and West-Indies China Japan Magellan c. may be known from the Navigations of the Portuges Hollanders English Spaniards to whom the Jesuites may be added as Petrus Maffaeus Johannes Acosta Mart. Martinus and others who ought yet to be read with great caution because they are excessively taken up in seting forth the Miracles and Martyrdoms of their new Saints ARTICLE XV. The Historians of some great Cities BEsides those Historians which have given us accounts of particular Nations there are some others who have made it their business to describe the affairs of some particular Cities and our design here is to give you the Names of those that have written the Stories of the most eminent Cities because it is not possible to reckon or reade all VENICE Petrus Bembus has written an History of Venice in XII Books by the order of the Council of Ten as he saith in the beginning of it with the highest degree both of elegance and truth and though Justus Lipsius the Prince of all the Criticks has made a short Invective against his Style yet in another place he excuseth his sharpness as having been transported on that occasion a little too far and the Learned Heinsius saith Bembus was the onely Historian of that Age who wrote pure Latine and which was then the propriety of the Italians his style is unmix'd and genuine neither painted with false Colours nor fantastically adorned The affairs of the Venetians are also comprehended by M. Antonius Sabellicus in XXXIII Books and in a short Chronicle by And. Dandulus a Duke of Venice of whom Petrarcha Blondus and others have made mention with commendations Petrus Justinianus hath deduced the History of this City from the building of it to the year 1575 and to these may be added Johannes Baptista Egnatius Petrus Marcellus a Venetian Janotius the Cardinal Contarenus Blondus and Moccenicus GENOVA Isaacus de Voragine has described the History of Genova to the year 1296 which Georgius Stella hath continued to the year 1422 Johannes Stella to the year 1435 Cephanus begins at the year 1488 and continues it to the year 1514 Parthenopaeus begins 1527 and ends Anno 1541 to which may be added Petrus Bizarus his History of Genova Ubertus Folietta Paulus Interjanus and Jacobus Bracellius PADOVA Gulielmus Cortusius began an History of this City but Albigretus his Kinsman was the finisher of it of whom P. Vergerius speaks thus Cortusius in writing neglected that Elegance which it was not in his power to attain to Bonus Patavinus wrote the History of Padova from its building to the
Countries The fifth Book contains the Persian Embassy to Amyntas King of Macedonia and also the just Punishment of Sisamnis an unjust Judge the Sedition of Aristagoras the Milesian and his end and then he shews what was the State of the Cities of Athens Lacedemonium and Corinth in the time of Darius Histaspis The sixth Book describes the Ruine of the Seditious Histiaeus and then shews the Origine of the Kings of Sparta and the preparations of War made by Darius against the Grecians and the Fight at Marathon in which Miltiades bravely defeated the Persians The seventh contains a most excellent Consultation concerning the War with Greece held by Xerxes and then represents his famous Expedition into Greece and the Battel of Thermopilas The eighth describes the Sea Fight at the Island of Salamine The ninth besides the punishment of one Lycidas gives an account of two great Battels fought in one day the one at Plateas in the dawn of the Morning and the other at Mycalen a Promontory of Asia in the Evening in both which the Persians were beaten and at last totally Expell'd out of Greece And in these Nine Books you will find besides the History of the Medes and Persians the Histories also of the Lydians Jonians Lycians Aegyptians Mynians Grecians and Macedonians and of some other Nations their Manners and Religions are also intermixt and delivered with that Purity Elegance and sweetness of Style that the Muses were by the Ancients feigned to have spoken by the mouth of Herodotus and for this cause the Names of the Muses were put before these Books not by the Authour but by some other persons as some think But the Learned Vossius which I think fit to remark here is of another opinion and says that he inscribed the Names of the IX Muses before his Books upon the same account that the three Orations of Eschines were call'd the Graces with relation both to their Number and the Delicateness of the Language and the same Oratours IX Epistles were also call'd by the Names of the Muses as Photius saith Sect. LXI But the same Learned man Vossius goes on and asserts that it is apparent that the Books of Herodotus were not so call'd by way of Apology for the falsehoods contained in them as Lodovicus Vivis thought as if by these Names the Reader were in the very entrance to be admonished that some things in them were related with too much Liberty to delight the mind which is allowed the Muses For though Herodotus inserts some Narratives that are not much unlike Fables yet the body of his History is compil'd with a rare Fidelity and a diligent care of Truth Concerning his other Narratives he for the most part premiseth that he recites them not because he thought them true but as he had receiv'd them from others I ought saith he to unfold in my History what I have heard from others but there is not the same necessity I should believe all relations alike which I desire the Reader would once for all take notice of and remember throughout my History And we may enlarge and confirm the History of these times of which Herodotus writ by reading the 2 3 and 7 th Books of Justin and by reading the Lives of those famous Generals Aristides Themistocles Cimon Miltiades and Pausanias written both by Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos and to these may be added the Lives of the Philosophers of those times written by Laertins viz. Anaximander Zenon Empedocles Heraclitus Democritus and others of that Age. SECT IX Of Thucydides his Elogies from whence and how far be deduceth his History which he compil'd in VIII Books the Arguments of those Books briefly and distinctly unfolded and lastly is shewn what Authours besides he have written of the same Wars and Times THucydides follows Herodotus a celebrated Historian in relation both to his Eloquence and Fidelity He flourished 460 years before Christ in the LXXXVII Olympiad and because the Elogies Learned men have made for him may perhaps accend the Reader to a more serious study of his History I shall not decline the repeating them here M. T. Cicero speaks thus of him In my opinion Thucydides excells all others in the art of Speaking he almost equals the number of his words with the number of his Sentences his expressions are so fit and short that no man can determine whether he has most illustrated his Subject by his Oratory or his Oratory by his wise reflexions Fabius Quintilianus thus expresseth his Esteem of him Thucydides is always saith he close and short and ever present to his Business Herodotus sweet candid and diffus'd Thucydides is the best representer of moved affections Herodotus of calm Herodotus is the best at a long Thucydides at a short Oration this forceth and that wins a man's consent Let us now hear the judgment of Modern Writers and in the first place that of Justus Lipsius Thucydides saith he writ an History in which he relates neither many nor great affairs and yet perhaps he has won the Garland from all those who have represented many and great occurrences his discourse is always close and short his Sentences are frequent and his Judgment sound giving every where excellent but conceal'd Advice directing thereby Mens Lives and Actions his Orations and Excursions are almost Divine the oftner you reade him the more you will gain by him and yet he will never dismiss you without a thirst of reading him again Isaac Casaubon speaks thus Thucydides is a great man and a great Historian who when he had for some time been conversant with and employed in great Transactions retired to describe them with his Pen and gave Posterity an example of an History so written for the use of Men that it will ever be the Subject of their wonder rather than imitation Christopherus Colerus speaks thus Thucydides perfected the art of Writing Histories which Herodotus just before had Adorn'd turn over and over and carry in your bosome that great treasure he has described the Peloponnesian War which he saw and in which he bore his part you will not seem to reade but see it in him and you will find as many wise instructions as Sentences he explains his Business prudently severely and gravely by which it is apparent how usefull he may be to a Politician and as to those that are to consult about War or Peace they ought to keep him ever close to them as their best Counsellour thus has Thucydides hit every point To proceed Thucydides writ an History of almost LXX years in eight Books beginning at the departure of Xerxes out of Greece where Herodotus ends and bringing it down to the XXI year of the Peloponnesian War for although his main design was to write the War betwixt the Athenians and the Peloponnesians a great part of which he was yet in his first Book in the very entrance of it he
461 year after the building of Rome and yet before our Reader proceeds though perhaps he has attain'd a rich History of the first times of the Romans out of Dionysius Halicarnassaeus and the aforesaid Books of Livy yet in this place Plutarchs Romulus Numa Pompilius Valerius Poplicola Coriolanus and Camillus may not unprofitably be read not unprofitably did I say what is there in that Authour that can be read without great advantage and reward especially if he falls into the hands of a serious Reader that is apprehensive and of an experienced Judgment Treasures of Learning Wisedom and History may be found in Plutarch yea there are some that assert that his Monuments I mean his Parallel Lives and Morals are the Libraries or Collections of all the ancient Historians or rather Writers and of all that have either spoken or done any thing honourably rightly or wisely whether they were Grecians or Romans so that Theodorus Gaza answered not imprudently when being once asked what Authour he would chuse if he were to be deprived of all others he replied onely Plutarch and therefore we so often already have and hereafter shall recommend him to the Reader to be read by parts every part in its proper place By parts I say because as Lipsius saith he did not so properly write an History as certain Particles of History and appropriated to himself the Lives of Illustrious men and yet here if we may Acquiesce in the judgment of Colerius he observes all the Laws of History more than Suetonius or any other of those that have written Lives however in the opinion of Lipsius he truly deserves above all others to be styled the Prince of Writers who doth wonderfully form the judgment and in a diffused and plain way of Writing leads a man every where to Vertue and Prudence SECT XVIII The second Decade of T. Livy that is from the X th to the XXI Book is lost how and from whence the History may be supplied Appianus Alexandrinus what Learned men think of him BUt to proceed where we should have gone on in T. Livius the whole second Decade from his tenth Book to his XXI th is lost to wit the History of LXX years from the year of the City 461 to the year 531 in which space of time besides other very remarkable things the War with Pyrrhus King of Epirus call'd the Tarentine War the first Punick War and the Ligustick Illyrick and Gallican Wars are said to have happened for the supplying therefore this defect the arguments of these Books drawn by the Epitomizer of our Authour may be usefull and for the filling up and enlarging the story Plutarch's Pyrrhus and the XVII th XVIII th and XXII and XXIII Books of Justin to these may be added 14 Chapters of the IV th Book of Orosius who flourished 415 years after Christ and the IV first Chapters of the third Book of Paulus Diaconus his Historia Miscella who lived about 787 years after Christ and especially the first and second Books of Polybius in which though we have not a full History of the first Punick War yet we shall there find more of it than in all the Latine Historians that are now Extant and we may judge the same of the Wars the Romans made with the Galls inhabiting in Italy And here Plutarch's M. Marcellus and Fabius Maximus may be taken in who fought most Valiantly and succesfully against the Ligurians and Cisalpine Galls and as they afterwards did in the second Punick War against the Carthagineans for Fabius first broke Hannibal with delays and then Marcellus taught the World it was possible to beat him as the Authour de Viris Illustribus writes Chap. 45. Lastly Joannes Zonaras may perhaps afford some assistence for filling up this Gap in the Roman History who in the second Tome of his Annals has given a short account of the affairs of the Romans from the building of the City to the Reign of Constantine the Great and also Appianus Alexandrinus will afford some help in his Punic's and Illyric's A writer according to the censure of Photius studious of delivering the truth as far as possible a Discoverer of the Military Discipline above most others and he is one of those who hath as in a Table represented to us the Provinces Revenues Armies and in general the description of the whole Roman Empire as Johannes Bodinus hath observed And Josephus Scaliger in his Animadversions upon Eusebius supposeth him to have been a mere Child in History or else that many things had been tack'd to his Syriac's by others and the Learned Vossius affirms he took many things from Polybius and useth to transcribe Plutarch word for word and in truth Franc. Balduinus acknowledgeth that some passages of Plutarch in his Crassus concerning the Parthian War are repeated in the Books of Appianus but this is supposed to be done not by Appian who was contemporary with Plutarch but by some of his Transcribers that they might fill up some Chasme in his Commentaries This Authour flourished in the year of Christ 123. SECT XIX Where the remaining XXV Books of Livy are to be read what other Authours may confirm or illustrate that History the nine last Decades and an half are intirely lost whence that loss may be supply'd the History of Salust commended and also Caesar's Commentaries by the Learned of the more ancient and of the later times OUr Reader having thus furnished himself as well as he can is now to proceed to the XXI th Book of T. Livius that is to the third Decade and let him go on and diligently reade all that remain and are still Extant in order that is two Decades and an half in which he will find an uninterrupted History of LVI years to the year of Rome 587 but together with those XXV Books of Livy for just so many besides the first Decade have escaped this common Shipwreck and besides Plutarch's Fabius and Marcellus already mentioned let the Reader also peruse his Hannibal Scipio Africanus T. Quinctius Flaminianus Paullus Aemylius and his Cato Major or Censorius because every one of these flourished in that interval of time and Plutarch hath written their Lives very largely and clearly and in them the success of the Roman affairs From the XLV th Book of Livy nine Decades and an half for he writ XIV Decades that is 95 Books are perished in that common and deplorable Shipwreck that is the History of 157 years to the Death of Drusius Nero the Son-in-Law of Augustus Caesar who died whilst he was General in an Expedition against the Germans beyond the Rhine Anno V. C. 744. The Contents of these Books are yet Extant collected by the before mentioned Epitomizer for the improvement of which after Plutarch's Cato Major follow his two Gracchi's Marius Scylla Cato Minor or Uticensis Sertorius Lucullus Pompejus Magnus and Marcus
much fidelity and industry that he seems to be the onely man amongst all our Writers who hath performed the part of a good Historian and the famous Camden speaks thus of him both the Civil and Church History of England is much in debt to that man He writ in V Books the History of the Actions of the Kings of England from the year of Christ 449 in which the English and Saxons entered Britain to the year 1116 which was the XVI th year of the Reign of Henry the first to which he afterwards added two Books more from the XX th year of that Kings Reign to the 8 th year of King Stephen which was the year of Christ 1143 in which times he Lived There are some who advise the beginning with Jeffery of Monmouth because he begins his History much higher and affirms that one Brutus a great Grandchild of Aeneas and LXVIII Kings besides Reigned here for about one thousand years before Caesar entred Britain but we thought it very fit to pass him by because he seems to write of things that are very obscure and dark by reason of their Great Antiquity and are involved with mere fabulous Stories nor have we done or spoken this upon our own private judgment onely many Learned men having said the same thing before us Neubrigensis who Lived not long after Jeffery of Monmouth speaks thus In our times saith he there Sprung up a certain Writer who to Expiate the faults of the Britains set forth a number of ridiculous inventions extolling their Vertue and Valour with an impudent Vanity above the Macedonians and Romans his Name was Jeffery and he was Nicknamed Arthur because taking the Fables of the ancient Britains concerning Arthur out of their old Romances and encreasing them with his own Additions and giving them the Varnish of the Latine Tongue he Cloathed them with the Honourable Name of an History He also with greater boldness published the fallacious divinations of one Merlin which he hath also improved by his own Additions whilst he turned them into Latine for Authentick Prophecies which were grounded upon unmoveable truth John of Withamsted who flourished in the time of Henry the VI th doth in part agree with William of Newbury According to other Histories saith he which in the judgment of some deserve more Credit this whole process concerning Brute is rather Poetical than Historical and for many causes seems to be founded in fancy rather than in any Reality and Bale confesseth that there are many things in his History which exceed belief and John Twin a diligent searcher out of the British Antiquities calls him the British Homer the Father of Lies but Ponticus Virunnius a very Learned man in the esteem of Vossius who lived above 130 years since and reduced Jeffery's History into an Epitome passing by the fabulous parts of it bestows this Elogy upon him Jeffery of Monmouth was a famous Historian and a Cardinal a man of much Authority with Robert Duke of Gloster Son of Henry II King of England he was a great favourer of his Countrey and Collecting a History of the most ancient times from the Records of their Kings and out of their highest Philosophy he continued the same in an uninterrupted Series from the times of the Trojans That his History is most true will appear from the Custome of the Western Kings which was to have always some with them who should faithfully relate their greatest Actions and John Leland also defends him against Newbury and Polidore Virgil he flourished about the year of Christ 1160 under Henry the II. But however as I said before for these reasons we have passed him by and rather put our Reader upon William of Malmesbury Henry Archdeacon of Huntington follows next who in VIII Books shewing the Origine of our Nation and continuing the History of King Stephen and his Successours goes on to the year 1153 he wrote many other excellent Pieces which would enrich our History but that they lie concealed from the World in Manuscripts in Libraries Polidore Virgil styles him an excellent Historian and John Leland an approved writer he flourished about the year of Christ 1160. William of Newbury beginning with the Death of Henry the first continues the History a little farther to wit to the year 1197 he is a great lover of truth in the opinion of Polydore Virgil but he is sharply reprehended by John Leland because in reprehending Jeffery of Monmouth he kept no mean he flourished about the year of Christ 1220. To Conclude Roger Hoveden deduced our History to the year of Christ 1202 in his Annals which he hath divided into two parts that is to the IV th year of King John's Reign in whose time this Authour flourished An ADDITION There is a passage cited by Mr. Selden concerning this last Authour out of John Leland which I think worth the inserting here Simeon Dunelmensis is to be deservedly reckoned with the principal Monks of his Age He very well understanding that the things which had happened beyond the Severn both by reason of the sloath and negligence of their Writers in the fury of so many Danish Wars and also by the injury of time were so obscured and oppressed that in a short time the memory of them would be lost except the diligence of some Learned man repaired the memory of them by Collecting them together and digesting them into order entered into a serious Consultation with himself how he might prevent this mischief deliberating a long time with himself that which was most necessary and usefull offered it self at last to him which was carefully to search out the remainders of those ancient Libraries which had been Ruined by the Danes c. for the Monks had preserved some fragments of them whilst they fled from the fury of their Enemies c. All these the curious diligence of Simeon sought out found and examined so that his ardent Care had no remission till he had brought the History of the Northumbrian Kingdom from the times of Bede to the Reign of King Stephen the Usurper I design not saith he in this place to write the praises of Simeon his work is immortal and will Live though I say nothing of it onely I would have the Reader take notice that there was one Roger Hoveden a not unlearned man who in the same order with Simeon hath deduced the History from Bede to the Reign of King John whom as I cannot but commend for his History of our Ancestours so I must needs blame him that he rifled the Flowry Meads of Simeon ' s History without ever mentioning his Name the same Leland calls him in another place as Mr. Selden acquaints us a Commendable person with the former exception notwithstanding and Mr. Selden tells us hereupon that many men thought these two works were the same but saith he as it is most certain that R. Hoveden made use of Simeon ' s Annals
as he did of many other written in Latine and Saxon and that he begins where Bede ends as Simeon doth but yet it will appear to any person who shall compare these two together that Hoveden has an innumerable number of things which Simeon hath not and that there are some things again in Simeon which R. Hoveden passed by so that he is not to be esteemed a plagiary in relation to Simeon but rather a very diligent Writer who hath Collected from Simeon and many others who went before him and made out of all a copious single work which is usually done by the best Historians of all Ages When our Authour wrote this method of Reading Histories this Simeon Dunelmensis was not Printed but in the year 1652 this and nine other ancient Historians were first published together and out of Mr. Selden's Prolegomena's to them I have transcribed the passage above which will give the Reader a fuller account of R. Hoveden and at the same time present Simeon Dunelmensis to him as a person worthy of his observation This History begins as the Title tells us after the Death of Bede Anno Domini 732 and it ends Anno Domini 1129 it contains the History of CCCCXXIX years and IV months Joannes Hagustaldensis continued this History XXV years that is from the year 1130 to the year 1154 which was the 19 th and last year of King Stephen's Reign he flourished under Henry the Second and Richard the first he was a very good witness of what he Wrote as Living in or very near those times he represents he was a most excellent and a most diligent Writer as Mr. Selden styles him Richardus Hagustaldensis wrote the IV first years of the Reign of King Stephen which are Printed immediately after the former Ailredus Rievallis Abbas wrote amongst other things a Genealogie of the Kings of England to Henry the Second Radulphus de Diceto Dean of St. Paul's in London wrote an Abbreviation of the Chronicles from the year 589 to the year 1147 where he begins another work which he calls the Images of History which he continues to 1199 or the beginning of King John's Reign Joannes de Brompton wrote a Chronicle from the arrival of Augustine the Monk Anno Christi 588 to the beginning of King John's Reign 1199 which is especially valuable for a Collection and version of the Saxon Laws in Latine made in the time of Edward the third at the least he was an industrious Student as Vossius speaks of him and wrote in the Reign of Edward the third Gervasius Dorobernensis wrote a Chronicle from the year 1112 to the year 1199 which was from the 12 th year of Henry the first to the Death of Richard the first he was made a Monk about the year 1142 he was as Leland saith of him Studious of Antiquities above belief and for that end Collected a vast number of Historians especially of those who accurately handled the British and Saxon affairs till at last he himself entred the Lists and made tryal of his own parts by publishing an excellent Volume in which he deduced the History of the Britains from their Original together with that of the Saxons and the valiant atchievements of the Normans to the Reign of King John thus far Leland of him but whether the beginning of this History is lost I cannot say but we have onely this Printed which I have mentioned of the particular English History Henricus Knighton Leicestrensis wrote a Chronicle of the Events of England as he styles it in his first Book he gives a short account of some Saxon and Norman affairs from the time of Edgar who began his Reign Anno Christi 958 to the Reign of William the Conquerour and then he writes more largely to the year 1395 which was the 19 th year of Richard the Second in whose times this Historian flourished All these Authours were Printed in one body by Cornelius Bee in the year 1652 under the Title of the ten Writers of the English History before which time they were onely Extant in Manuscripts in Libraries and so could not possibly be taken into our Authour's method as I observed before SECT XXIX Asser Menevensis his History commended in what time to be read with the former as also Eadmerus his History Matthew Paris his History Baronius his judgment of him Thomas of Walsingham his Chronicle the actions of King Stephen written by an unknown Authour the Life of Edward the Second by Sir Thomas de la Moore Knight is also to be taken in due time I Must confess those latter Historians do not make any great addition of years to Malmesbury's History yet they will illustrate it and sometimes perhaps make it more full and perfect of this the Reader will have a great Experience if about the year of Christ 849 he take in the Life of Alfred written by Asser Menevensis which History as the famous Camden saith will afford no small pleasure to thy mind nor will it bring less profit than pleasure if whilst the mind is fixed on the Contemplation of those great things you endeavour wholly to conform your self to the imitation and as it were representation of them Asser Menevensis flourished about the year of Christ 910. This great Prince who was the wonder of the age in which he Lived has found many admirers since but none have so well deserved of his Memory as the Learned Sir John Spelman Son of the Great Sir Henry Spelman who wrote the Life of this Alfred King of England in three Books in English which I suppose was never Printed but an Elegant version of it in Latine with very excellent marginal Notes by the Students of Great Hall in Oxon with a great Collection of our Coins and several other great rarities was put out in Folio at the Theatre there in the year 1678 I wish we might yet have the Original English also printed And then if about the year of Christ 1060 the Reader please he may also take in Eadmerus his History which was lately brought to light and illustrated with Notes and excellent Collections by the Learned John Selden a Lawyer of rare Erudition This History contains the Reigns of William the first and second and Henry the first to wit from the year of Christ 1060 to the year 1122 in which time the Authour Lived he was very dear to Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury in those times and died Archbishop of St Andrews in Scotland himself after he had been Abbat of St. Albans in England a preferment in those days of great honour To these the Reader may add that true and faithfull History written by Matthew Paris which beginning with the Coronation of William the Conquerour Anno Christi 1067 is continued by him to the year 1253 and by another as Bale assures us to the year 1273 that is to the Death of Henry
of Posterity and others as Fabricius c. have as much commended his industry Nicholaus Marescalcus wrote of the Heruli and Vandals Helmoldus a Sclavonian Presbyter wrote the History of the Sclavonians Saxons and the adjoyning Nations from the year 800 or thereabouts when they were converted to Christianity by the care of Charles the Great to the year 1168 about which time Helmoldus flourished as he saith himself in his Preface viz. about the times of Barbarossa And there Arnoldus the Abbat of Lubeck begins who begins his Preface with these words Because Helmoldus a Priest of Blessed memory was not able to bring his History of the Vocation and Submission of the Sclavonians and the Lives of those Bishops at whose instance the Churches of these Countries were Founded to such End and Conclusion as he desired and intended we therefore with the assistence of God have resolved to pursue that Work and accordingly he brought his supplement to the times of Otto the IV th under whom he lived the Learned Vossius speaks thus of this Arnoldus in the Sclavonian affairs he deserves Credit but not in what he wrote concerning the French Sicilians and Grecians in whose affairs it is much better to consult others who have made it their business to treat of them ARTICLE VI. The Historians of the Lombards now call'd the Dutchy of Milan PAulus Warnefridus a Deacon of Aquileja wrote VI Books of the affairs of the Lombards he was Chancellour to Desiderius King of the Longobards of whom Sigebertus Chap. 61. writes this He wrote the History of the Vinnuli who were afterwards called Lombards in an excellent and copious Style Raph. Volaterranus is much mistaken who takes this Warnefridus to be a different person from the Deacon of Aquileja he flourished about the year of Christ 780. Hieron Rubeus wrote also of the Goths and Lombards A Monk of Padua whose name is not known has comprehended in III Books the Transactions of his own times in Lombardy and the Marquisate of Tarvisina he begins Anno Christi 1207 in which Azo Marquis of Este was by the Monticuculli cast out of Verona and he comes down to the year 1270 in which the Christian Princes passing into Africa took Carthage and besieged Tunis Flavius Blondus who was privy Counsellour to several Popes and who had the honour to have his Works Epitomized by Pius another of the Popes wrote of the affairs of the Lombards in his VII Books of the illustrating of Italy as almost all other Italian Writers ARTICLE VII The Historians of the Polanders and Borussians MArtinus Chromerus Composed XXX Books of the Origine and Actions of the Polanders and in the first X Books as he saith in his Proem he has described the Rise and Infancy of that Nation under Barbarous and Idolatrous Dukes then the flower of its Youth under Christian Kings and then its diseased and Crazy Constitution which resembles a State Sickness under several and those disagreeing Princes after the Monarchy was destroyed He wrote II Books also of the Situation People Manners Magistrates and Government of the Kingdom of Poland Chromerus flourished Anno Christi 1552. Alexander Gaguinus wrote also an History of Poland from Lechus the first Duke of that Nation to Henry of Voloise Joh. Decius wrote one Book of the Antiquities of Poland and of the Family of the Jagellons and of the Reign of King Sigismund Math. Michovius wrote a Chronicle of the Kingdom of Poland from the first rise of that Nation to the year 1504 in IV Books he is somewhat more Barbarous and Chromerus more Polite Michovius flourished about the year of Christ 1540. Joannes â—uglossus who is sometimes styled Longinus Bishop of Leopold who under Casimirus the third King of Poland was employed in many great Embassages and was also Praeceptor to this Princes Children has wrote a Chronicle of Poland to the year 1480 in which this great man Died Philippus Callimachus hath writ a History of the Wars of the Poles against the Turks he lived Anno Christi 1508. Erasmus Stella a Libanothan writ II Books of the Antiquities of the Borussians which he dedicated to Frederick Duke of Saxony the first of which treats of the old inhabitants thereof and of their Propagation Names and Manners the latter of their ancient Kings and of their Succession he professeth to follow the Annals of Borussia Jornandes his History of the Goths Helmoldus his History of the Sclavonians and Albertus Magnus who travelled over Borussia and others ARTICLE VIII The Historians of the Bohemians Switzars or Helvetians and Saxons COsmus a Deacon of the Church of Prague in his Chronicle of Bohemia which he has written in III Books represents the Origine of that People and the actions of their ancient Dukes to Wartislaus who was created King of Bohemia by the Emperour Henry the IV th Anno Christi 1086. Dubravius also deduceth their History from their first Original to Ferdinand the Emperour in XXXIII Books he comes down to the year 1558 and was a very Learned and ingenious Person The History of Aeneas Sylvius comes down to the year 1458 that is to Frederick the third in which year the Authour was Elected Pope by the name Pius the second he writes the Succession of all their Dukes or Kings to Poigebrach but in the business of the Hussites and what happened under the Emperour Sigismund he is much more large and diffused Charles King of Bohemia who was after Emperour and the IV th of that Name wrote a Commentary of his own Life Franciscus Guillimanus wrote V Books of the Antiquites and Actions of the Switzars Henricus Suizerus in his Chronicle of Switzerland gave an account of their affairs to his own times Josias Simlerus wrote of their League and Commonwealth and also of their affairs from Rudolphus to Charles the Vth. Wernerus Rolevinckius wrote III Books of the ancient Seat of the Saxons that is of Westphalia their Manners Vertues and Commendations Witikindus a Saxon Wrote III Books of the Actions of the Saxons and Albertus Crantzius wrote the History of Saxony in XIII Books to his own times he died in the year 1504 this is continued by an unknown hand David Chytreus in his Chronicle of Saxony and the Northern Nations begins a little higher at the year 1500 and ends with the year 1599 which is continued by Georgius Fabricius in his Saxony illustrated in II Books to the year 1606 Johannes Garzo wrote of the affairs of Saxony Thuringia and Misnia Rein. Reineccius of the Family and actions of the Palatines of Saxony Cyriacus Spangenbergius wrote a Saxon Chronicle and Sebastiau Boisselinterus wrote of the Siege of Magdeburgh ARTICLE IX The Historians of the Celti or Gauls and French under which Name we include all those people who live betwixt the Rhine and both the Seas and the Alpes and
him that in the affairs of Italy he does blunder and mistake so strangely that those who did not regard the Elegance of his style were apt to be much incensed against him There are also several Authours who have written of the Expeditions of the French Nation into the East and of the Kingdom Erected by them in Jerusalem almost all which the Learned Jacobus Bongarsius has collected together and rescued from the Moths and Dust of the Libraries in which they before lurked by publishing them after he had with great study and pains Corrected them of these the first is Robertus a Monk who wrote the History of Jerusalem A nameless Italian who wrote the Actions of the French and others at Jerusalem in which actions he was present and therefore deserves the greater Credit Baldericus Aurelianensis who wrote the History of the same V years with the last named Italian that is from the year 1095 to the year 1100 and Raimundus de Agiles Canon of Le Puy wrote the History of the same time Albertus Steward of the Church of Dax who wrote XII Books from the beginning of the Expedition of Godfry of Bulloin and other Princes to the second year of King Balduin the Second and so has as Vossius saith accurately written the History of XXIV years after him follows Fulcherius Carnotensis who writes from the beginning of that Expedition to the year 1124 and Gauterus Cancellarius who described what passed at Antioch where he was present after these comes William Archbishop of Tyre the Prince of all these Historians a man of no vulgar Learning pleasant above what that Age afforded as the Learned Bongarsius saith of him He wrote in XXIII Books beginning at the year 1095 and ending at 1180 the â—istory of LXXXIV years of what ever had passed in the Holy Land and in all Syria which the Bishop of Accon his Suffragan continued and thus far of the French Historians ARTICLE X. The Historians of the Dutch and Flandrians c. THere is scarce any thing delivered concerning the Flandrians worthy of Credit before the year 445 from which time Mejerus begins his Annals of Flanders which he has included in XVII Books in which he hath also given a large account of the Earls of Flanders from Lydericus Harlebacanus who flourished about the year 800. to Charles the Hardy Duke of Burgundy's Death in the year 1476. Hadrianus Barlandus hath compiled a Chronicle of the Dukes of Brabant from Pipin the first Duke of that Province Grandchild of Caroloman Son of Braban the third Prince of Brabant before this Province had the name or title of a Dukedom given it to Charles the Vth Emperour of Germany the Son of Philip. Jacobus Marchantius hath written IV. Books of the Memorable affairs of Flanders Aemundus hath Writ of the Dukes of Burgundy from the Trojan War to Charles the Vth. Beisscllus also of the Actions of the Flandrians and of late Olivarius Uredus J. C. Brugensis has with infinite study and labour written the Flandrian Genealogies and the History of the Earls of Flanders Hadrianus Junius his Batavia unfolds the History of the Dutch Nation the Antiquities of their Island their Origine Manners and many other things belonging to their History Noviomagus his History of Holland gives an account of their Princes from Bato their first King to Charles the Vth Emperour and to Charles of Gelders Nor is Gerhardus Geldenhaurius to be omitted who hath drawn an History of Holland with an Appendix concerning the most ancient Nobility Kings and Actions of the Germans Johannes Isaacus Pontanus Historian to the King of Denmark and State of Gelders by the command of the States hath Written an History of that Province from their beginning to the year 1581 which is a vast Work Ubo Emmius and Winsemius have both written the History of Frisland and Jacobus Revius that of Daventry Ludovicus Guicciardinus hath written a brief History of all the Transactions of Europe especially what relates to the Low-Countries from the year 1529 to the year 1560 that is from the Peace of Cambray betwixt Charles the Vth Emperour of Germany and Francis the First King of France This last Age hath afforded several most elegant Writers of the Dutch History as first Johannes Meursius who in X. Books hath writ the Life of William Prince of Orange and the Transactions of those Countries during all his time to the end of the Government of Ludovicus Requesenius that is from the year 1550 to the year 1576 and in another Work in IV. Books the beginning of the Low-Country-War or Six years Government of Ferdinand Duke de Alva to which he added a Vth Book in which is the History of the Truce Famianns Strada who in XX. Books wrote the History of those Wars from the Resignation of Charles the Vth that is from the year 1558 to the year 1590. Hugo Grotius who wrote V. Books of the Annals of Holland and XVIII Books of History in which he hath given an Account of all the Affairs of the Low-Countries from the departure of Philip the Second into Spain to the Truce that is from the year 1566 to the year 1609. ARTICLE XI The Historians of Spain THe Writers of Spanish History may perhaps not unfitly be ranked according to the four different ages of that Kingdom So the Infancy of Spain is lightly touched by Pomponius Mela who was a Native of Spain The youth of Spain as I may call it which was under the Roman and Gothick Dominion is described by Tacitus Dion Vopiscus Suetonius Appianus in his Iberica Procopius Eusebius and some others It began to arrive at Manhood in that Age in which it began to shake off the yoke of the Moors in which War 700 years were spent this then may be call'd the time of their Manhood And then their Ripest Age began under the Reign of Ferdinando the Catholick who expelled the Moors out of the whole Kingdom of Spain the most of those Writers I shall here mention Wrote of this last and the preceding Age. Isidorus Pacensis who is supposed to be the Authour of the Chronicle of Spain of whom Vasaeus Wrote thus rigidly in the Fourth Chapter of his Chronicle Isidorus Bishop of Badajoz or Baxagus Wrote a Chronicle of Spain whose Chronicle if that which bears this name be his I should rather call a Monster than a Chronicle he Writes so prodigiously ill and rather in the Gothish than Latine Tongue Rodericus Ximenes Archbishop of Toledo acquired much Glory by IX Books which he wrote of the Spanish History which he brought down to the times of Ferdinand the third the censure of Rodericus Sanctius is that the style of it is short but very pleasant and the Learned Lipsius saith it is as good as it was possible it could be in such an Age and Mariana gives him high Commendations in several places nor will I
pass by the opinion of Johannes Gerundensis in the History of Spain Trogus Pompejus Orosius and Isidorus Hispalensis are worthy of great esteem Roder of Toledo is tolerable the rest are mere Dreams The last cited Authour Johannes Margarinus Bishop of Girona wrote an History of Spain in X Books from the Arrival of Hercules to the Reigns of Arcadius and Honorius the Children of Theodosius the Elder in the times of which Princes the Goths entred Spain he styles it the omitted History of Spain because in it he relates what had been omitted by the Writers of the latter Ages Johannes Mariana has writ the History of Spain from the first times of it to the Ruine of the Moors in XX Books which in X Books more is continued to the Death of King Ferdinand that is to the year 1516. Franciscus Tarapha brings down an History of Spain to Charles the V th Rodericus Sanctius Palentinus who was Chaplain and Counsellour to Henry the IV th King of Castile and Leon hath consigned to paper in a very great Volume an uninterrupted History of Spain down to his own times that is to the year 1467 concerning whom and two other more ancient Historians of that Nation Luca Tudiensis and Rod. Ximenius Alph. Garsias a Rhetorician of Alcala an University in Spain gives this judgment because they did not seek to please the Ears of men but to inrich the memories and judgments of Posterity as they sought not after pleasing Language so neither have they entertained their Readers with trifles and falsehoods Marineus Siculus wrote an History of the memorable affairs of Spain in XXII Books which ends in Charles the 5 th Laurentius Valla wrote the Reign of Ferdinand King of Aragon in III Books but as P. Jovius justly thought he wrote this work in such a style as no man can conceive that it was penn'd by him who gave the precepts of Latine Elegance to others and you may there find several other things concerning this Historian Carolus Verardus who flourished under Innocent the VIII th about the year 1484 wrote the History of the Conquest of the Kingdom of Granada and the History of Andaluzia Hieronymus Conestagius wrote the History of the Union of Portugal to the Kingdom of Castile in X Books in which he gives an account of the State of that Nation from the time in which Sebastian the first passed with a vast Fleet into Africa to fight against the Moors to the times when it was by the Conduct of Philip the second united to the rest of the Spanish Provinces Damianus à Goes has writ the actions of the Portuges in the Indies Aelius Antonius Nebrissensis hath written the History of the affairs under Ferdinando and Elizabeth in XX Books and he hath also writ the War of NAVAR in II Books Vasaeus in his Chronicle of Spain Chap. 4 th saith it is an History worthy of so great a man and he is commended by Erasmus as a man of various Learning and that deservedly there is also an high Commendation given him by Alphonsus Garsia in the Book which he wrote of the Learned men and Universities of Spain to these may be added Hieronymus Osorius a Polite Writer of the memorable things of Spain Johannes Brucellus of the Spanish War in V Books and Florianus Ocampus who by the Command of Charles the V th published a general Chronicle of Spain the rest I omit ARTICLE XII The Historians of the Turks and Arabians who heretofore were possessed of the Dominions of Africa Syria Persia and Spain and are commonly call'd Saracens THe History of the Saracens is to be sought in Harmannus Dalmata Leo Africus Robert the Monk William of Tyre and Benedictus de Accoltis a famous Elogie upon whom is Extant in Lilius Gyraldus his second Dialogue of the Poets of his time and in those other Authours which we have mentioned above when we discoursed of those Historians who had given an account of the affairs of the French in the East Caelius Aug. Curio wrote also an History of the Saracens in III Books and he also wrote a particular History of the Kingdom of Morocho Erected by the Saracens in Barbary There are several who have given accounts of the Origine of the Turks for there it is fit to begin the reading of their History as Baptista Egnatius Theodorus Gaza and Andrea Combinus Martinus Barletius in his Chronicle has excellently described the Origine of the Turks their Princes Emperours Wars Victories Military Discipline c. And he hath also writ the Life and Actions of George Castriot who by Amurath for the greatness of his actions was Sirnamed Scanderbeg very elegantly in XIII Books whose fidelity will appear from that passage in his Preface I have saith he committed to writing what hath been related to me by my Ancestours and by some others who were present and saw what passed Laonicus Chalcocondylas an Athenian wrote an History of the Turks in X Books he is the onely Grecian Historian who wrote since the barbarous Turks possessed themselves of Constantinople with any applause he flourished in the end of the fourteenth Century about the year of Christ 1490 he begins from Ottoman the Son of Orthogul who began his Reign about the year of Christ 1300 and he ends in the year 1363 in which Mahomet the II stoutly repell'd the invasion made upon him by Mathias King of Hungaria and the Venetians Johannes Leunclavius also hath collected and published an History of the Musulmen out of their own Monuments with great industry in XVIII Books about the year 1560. Paulus Jovius ought here to be taken in too who has accurately and elegantly represented their affairs especially from the XII th to the XVII th Book and again from the XXXII to the XXXVII th Book of whom the Authour writes above Sect. 25. Henricus Pantaleon has collected an History of all the memorable Expeditions both by Sea and Land which have been undertaken for 600 years by the Christians in Asia Africa and Europe against the barbarous Saracens Arabians and Turks to the year 1581 to which you may add Reinerus Reineccius his Oriental History Martinus Stella hath written concerning the Wars of the Turks in Hungaria Petrus Bizarus hath written of the War made by Solyman against Maximilian the Emperour Melchior Soiterus hath writ the War made upon the Turks by Charles the V th and Ferdinand his Brother Nicholaus Honnigerus hath writ of Solyman the XII th and Selym the XIII th Emperour of the Turks against the Christians Ubertus Folietta hath writ the Siege of Malta and of several Expeditions into Africa and also of the War in Cyprus betwixt the Turks and the Venetians Ubio Esinus and Caelius Cec. Curio have also both of them writ of the Cyprian War and the latter of them of the Siege of Maltha too the taking and Sacking of Constantinople
times of Albertus the Emperour Anno 1334 to which may be added Bernardus Scardaonius Joan. Bap. Ramnusius and others FLORENCE Leon Aretinus wrote an History of Florence in XII Books of whom Aeneas Sylvius presumes to say that no man since Lactantius ever came nearer the style of Cicero Poggius Florentinus employ'd his Pen on the same Subject too but it seems both of them fearing to give offence contrary to that great Law of History which is not to dare to write any thing that is false nor fear to write any thing that is true are mealy mouthed in those things that relate to their intestine Commotions which is the reason Nich. Machiavellus assigns why he began his History from the Foundation of the City and not from the time the Family of the Medices obtain'd the Sovereignty of that State and from thence he has brought the Story down to the year 1493. May I have leave here in passing to consider what may justly be thought of Machiavell what he writes concerning Princes and Politicks is so Infectious that no man can approach this Pest of Mankind safely without the Antidote of an Antimachiavell or some other potent Preservative But then as to his Florentine History he is not in that destïtute of Subtilty and an unusal Prudence and there are many things in it very rare and no less usefull as for instance what he relates Concisely and Elegantly concerning the fall of the Roman Empire the Migration of the Northern Nations and the rise and increase of the Papal Power and yet a man ought not to be secure here neither except he hath the faculty of separating the Ore from the Dross I think it not impertinent to subjoyn here the censure of Possevinus Machiavell saith he was not destitute of subtilty but Piety and Experience which wings being wanting in any man if he attempts to fly he must of necessity fall down headlong but to return to our Subject to Aretinus Poggio and Machiavell you may add Jacobus Nardus Leon Florentinus Ugolinus Verinus and others who have illustrated the Florentine History by their Writings NAPLES Pandulphus Collenutius has Composed an History of this City from the times of Augustus to Charles the V th to whom you may add Jovianus Pontanus his Naples c. but to be short Franciscus Guicciardinus has wrote the History of Italy from the year 1494 to the year 1596 and Michael Tubingensis hath given us an account of the Wars of Italy Of the Affairs of SICILY Fazellus Ritius and Verrerius of the Ferrarian History Jo. B. Pigna of the Brixian Elias Capreolus of the Bononian Car. Sigonius of the Ravennian Hiero. Rubeus of that of Milan Corius and Arlunus of that of Mantua Platina of that of Este Johannes Bonacosta of the Bergamonian M. Antonius Michael of the actions of the Millanois Gaud. Merula and others have written distinct Histories And thus kind Reader I have communicated to you what I have in some spare hours collected and laid together concerning the Historians of particular Nations nor did I design this Appendix should encrease to a larger Bulk THE METHOD and ORDER OF Reading Church Histories SECT XXXII A Transition to the Church History who were better able to have done this two intervals of time especially to be observed the Bible contains the first Period and with it Josephus his Antiquities are to be read The Judgments of Learned men concerning Josephus Hegesippus though ascribed to a wrong Authour not to be rejected in what sense that Authour is usefull and commendable the Sacred History of Sulpitius Severus is deservedly recommended to the Reader WHen I was once got thus far I thought verily I had performed the Work I undertook as the Subject of my first Chapter but some Learned young men who heretofore were my Hearers admonished me that it was much desired that I should in the same manner give an account of the Writers of the Church History Now though I thought this might much more reasonably be desired at the hands of him who is the greatest Divine we have the Regius Professor an excellent Person A plentifull fountain as of all other sorts of Learning so amongst the rest of all sorts of Histories at whose Waters I have very often with the greatest pleasure quench'd my thirst yet because some of my more Learned Acquintance persuaded me to doe it I did not hink it fit wholly to decline the task So at last I resolved to adjoin here a Chain of the Writers of the Church History Whoever therefore desires to understand and in a good Order and Method reade the Ecclesiastical History should propose to himself two Intervals of time that I may pass over the thing with as few words as is possible The first of these is from the Creation of the World to the Incarnation of Christ our Redeemer during which interval of time the Church of the Old Testament call'd the Jewish is storied to have sometimes flourished and at others to have suffered a hard servitude under several Tyrants the other period is from the Incarnation of Jesus Christ to the Age in which we live in which the New Testament or Christian Church performs its warfare The first Interval contains Four thousand years abating Fifty if we may believe Scaliger whom we have all along hitherto followed The second contains One thousand six hundred and so many years over as we commonly count and are still going on And therefore it is the Story of that first interval I say is to be fetched in the first place from the Old Testament which the Reader ought above all others in the first place diligently to turn over and studiously to search into and he will soon see his Labour is well bestowed if together with the Scriptures he take in Josephus his Antiquities of the Jews and those Books he wrote of their Wars For in these Books the Eloquent Son of Matathias has woven the History of the Old-Testament-Church from the Creation of the World to the last destruction of Jerusalem which happened somewhat above Four thousand and thirty years after the Creation of the World and that with so great a fidelity that St. Hierome no dull Censor gave him a place amongst the Ecclesiastick Writers And the great Scaliger thought it more reasonable to believe him than all the Greek and Latin Writers not onely in the Jewish affairs but also in what he relates concerning other Nations That there are saith Baldwin the Civil Lawyer some mistakes in Josephus who can deny But then how many true great and necessary things are there in him for the illustration of the Sacred History besides what others call falsehood Melchior Canus more mildly calls errours they being the deviations of an Ignorant Man not the Lies and Frauds of a Deceiver Some Man would here persuade the Reader to subjoin or rather take in together with Josephus his History of the Wars of the Jews Hegesippus
Authour Accurately Corrected and Amended and Eloquently continued out of Sleidan's History of the IV. Monarchies to the Empire of CHARLES the Vth of that Name The Truth is Sulpitius has some Errours concerning which the Reader may if he please consult Bellarmine his Piece concerning the Ecclesiastical Writers Anno Christi 420. Thus far of those who have Written the Church History of the First Interval or Period of Time and which we think ought to be read in the first place SECT XXXIII The History of the Second Interval that is of the Christian Church is first to be sought for in the Evangelists and the other Books of the New Testament where its Infancy is describ'd there is scarce any besides extant who were eye-witnesses of any part of its first state and describ'd it there are some pieces indeed still in being whose Authours are said to have lived in the same time and to have described the brave encounters of the first Matyrs but they are thought to be spurious by Learned Men because they are overrun with fables Baronius confesseth some of the Later Writers are guilty of this fault Vives and Melchior Canus doe both make the same complaint As also some of the Ancients and therefore the History of the Church is to be read with care And yet too much incredulity is to be shun'd Of what Temper we should be in the Reading of Histories The first and most Ancient are to be preferr'd before the latter NOw the Second and other Internal which as I said took its beginning at the Birth of Christ and continues to our times is attributed to the New Testament Church which is call'd the Christian Church as the former was the Jewish Church The History of the Christian Church is first to be sought in the Evangelists the faithfull Pen-men of the Holy Ghost for they have consign'd to Writing the History of our Redeemer the Lord of all things the founder and foundation of the Christian Faith If I may be allowed to use the Words of the Reverend Bishop of Chichester After these St. LUKE that most Learned Bishop also has Consecrated to eternity the Acts of the Apostles especially the Travels of St. Peter and St. Paul their dangers and encounters in most pure and most elegant Greek so that the very Athenians themselves never Wrote the Atick Dialect more exactly than he Besides those Writers of the New Testament who have onely represented to us the Cradle of the Christian Church few others have come to our hands shall I say few or rather none who being eye-witness described those first Ages or who have committed to Writing the History of the Church till her youth Indeed there are divers Writers extant which are said to have lived in that first age of the Church as Prochorus one of the VII Deacons which the Apostles themselves Ordain'd who is reported to have Wrote that Life of the Evangelist and Apostle St. John which is now to be read in the Orthodoxographis and the Bibliotheca patrum Abdias the Babylonian one of the LXXII Disciples if we may be believe him who is said to have Wrote X. Books of the Sufferings of the Apostles Linus his Account of the Martyrdoms of St. Peter and St. Paul The Relation of the Sufferings of St. Andrew the Apostle Written by a Presbyter of Achaia and others which yet are generally by the Ancient Fathers reputed and registred amongst the Suppositious and Apocryphal Writers and even Baronius Bellarmine Sextus Sinensis Melchior Canus and many other very Learned Men of this and the foregoing Age Because in truth they are stuft with a parcel of such silly Fables that they deserve no credit in those things which perhaps are true Nor are onely the Writers as they are commonly call'd of the very first Age obnoxious to this fault but many also of the latter Writers who writing of the more Ancient times and being sick as it were of too great a Credulity do strangely abound with devised Fables Which the Great Cardinal ingenuously confesseth There is nothing saith he which seems so much neglected to this day as a true and certain Account of the Affairs of the Church Collected with an exact diligence And that I may speak of the more Ancient it is very difficult to find any of them who have published Commentaries on this subject which have hit the truth in all points John Luis Vives made just such a Complaint before Baronius I have said he been much afflicted when I have seriously considered with my self how diligently and with what exact care the Actions of Alexander Hannibal Scipio Pompey Caesar and other Commanders and the Lives of Socrates Plato Aristotle and others of the Philosophers have been written and fixed in an everlasting remembrance so that there is not the least danger they can ever be lost But then the Acts of the Apostles and Martyrs and of the Saints of our Religion and the Affairs of the Rising and Established Church being involved in much darkness are almost totally unknown though they are of so much greater advantage than the Lives of the Philosophers or Great Generals both as to the improvement of our Knowledge and Practice For what is written of these holy Men except a very few things is very much corrupted and defaced with the mixture of many Fables whilst the Writer indulging his own humour doth not tell us what the Saint did but what the Historian would have had him done and the Fancy of the Writer dictates the Life and not the truth of things Vives a little after goes on thus There have been men who have thought it a great piece of Piety to invent Lies for the sake of Religion which is both dangerous for fear those things which are true should lose their Credit by the means of these falshoods and it is by no means necessary neither because our holy Religion is supported with so many true Miracles that these false ones like lazy and useless Souldiers are rather a burthen and a hinderance than a help or assistence to it Thus far that Learned Spaniard And because his Countryman Melchior Canus a Divine of a great and not undeserved reputation with the Papists agrees with him in all this I shall not be unwilling to adjoyn his words too I speak it with grief and not by way of reproach Laertius has Written the Lives of the Philosophers with more care and industry than the Christians have those of the Saints Suetonius hath represented the Lives of the Caesars with much more truth and sincerity than the Catholicks have the affairs I will not say of the Emperours but even those of the Martyrs holy Virgins and Confessors For they have not conceal'd the Vices nor the very suspitions of vice in good and commendable Philosophers or Princes and in the worst of them they discover the very colours or appearances of Vertue But the greatest part of our Writers either
seriously to have applied their Minds and Pens to the illustrating this subject Let us cast our eyes upon the third Centery which with the two which follow it may justly in his esteem be call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Flower and Golden Age of the Church As in that Age Theological Studies flourished every where so the Church History which till then was almost totally unknown began to sprought up and grow verdant The first that set out in that Race as far as is known to us was Eusebius Pamphili who took his Sir Name from Pamphilus the Martyr who was his intimate Friend as St. Hierome acquaints us he was Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine in the Reign of Constantine the Great who as Cedrenus tells us was a Great Historian and a general Scholar and without controversie he was then thought the most Learned Man of the Age. He I say as he himself affirmeth in the entrance of his first Book was the first who applied himself to Write an Universal History of the Catholick Church Beginning therefore with the Birth of Our LORD and proceeding accurately through all the times of the Tyrants he describes the Series of the Affairs of the Church the Successions of the Apostles and other Illustrious Doctours in the Church The Doctrine of the Gospel the Persecutions which Tyrants moved against the Church and the Martyrdoms that followed in them and the perverse Doctrines of Hereticks all which he dednced with a mighty industry in Ten Books to his own times Eusebius also Wrote the Life of Constantine in Four Books which are now extant and acknowledged to be genuine by Photius But then as he followed the Example of Xenophon who described the Institution and Encomium of Cyrus more that he he might propose to our Contemplation the Image of a good Prince than that he might give a true History of him so Eusebius did not so much dress up the History of the Life of Constantine as a Panegyrick of the Praises of that Prince and his glorious Actions And therefore Photius call'd that Piece An Encomium in four Books And certainly he has therein represented to our eyes the Lively Picture of an excellent Prince which the most potent Kings and Princes may contemplate to their great advantage as Grynaeus rightly observeth And the Reverend Bishop of Chichester observes also that Eusebius collected the History of the Martyrs out of the Archives or Registers of the Churches and the Commentaries of the Publick Notaries and the common Tables or Catalogues Nor was it saith he onely a Brevary designed for the reciting their Names of the same Nature with the Martyrologie which is now in use in the Church of Rome drawn up by Bede Usuardus or other such like Authours or like the Greeks Menologies but they were Historical Narratives of the things that happened and Commentaries Written at large as the Reverend Prelate proves out of Eusebius himself Where speaking of Apollonius he saith If any person is desirous exactly to know his words spoken before the Judge and what Answer he gave to the Questions of Perennius and his Apologetick Oration which he made before the Senate Let him be pleased to Read the Book which we compos'd of the Actions of the Ancient holy Martyrs But that Work of Eusebius and many others of which St. Hierome makes mention amongst the Ecclesiastical Writers are lost and have not fallen into the hands of the Men of these later Ages But there is not a few who detract what they can from the Authority of Eusebius and say That his Church History was rejected by Pope Gelasius in a Council and pronounced an Apochryphal Book But for the Asserting the Authority of Eusebius it is sufficient that Gelasius himself tells us in the beginning of that Censure that the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea and his Ecclesiastical History are not to be intirely rejected for the rare and excellent Knowledge they afford us Which is aiso said by Volaterranus in the Decretals Eusebius his Chronicle and Church History onely are received But if any body thinks otherwise let the confirmation of Melchior Canus be considered his words are these It is sufficiently apparent that all the rest of Eusebius his Church History pleased Gelasius and the Council in that they are pleased to acquaint us with what displeased them and therefore if you take out the Fable of Abgarus and the Commendations of Origen they say in a manner that all the rest of his History is worthy of our credit and beliefe The Judgment of Scultotus pleaseth me as to this very much which he unfolds in these words Those Books which contain the History of the Church do sufficiently demonstrate that that Story of the Primitive Church is true which is fetched from the Genuine Writings of the Orthodox Fathers for as long as Eusebius in his History follows Justin Irenaeus Origen Tertullian Cyprian Clemens Alexandrinus and such other Fathers of approved faith he is an Historian worthy of our belief and trust But whenever he quotes Tradition and appeals to things that were reported but not written then he mixeth many things that are Fabulous Thus far Scultetus The truth is the Papists do frequently reprehend Eusebius with great bitterness and fiercely fall upon him but above all others Cardinal Baronius as the same Scultetus observes discovers his hatred of Eusebius for which he had no other reason than this viz. He being the Historian who hath prosecuted so largely the Commendations and Donations of Constantine to the Church has not onely not mentioned his Grant to the See of Rome but has plainly intimated it to be false in Writing that Constantine was not baptized by the Pope at Rome but by another at Nichomedia But they pretend too that he was infected with Arianisme and that he ever favoured the Arian Party and therefore he is sometimes accused of Partiality That he was infected with that Heresie before the Council of Nice is in truth too apparent to be denied but then some write that after that time he willingly imbraced the Authority of the Holy Fathers of that Council and lived most holily and piously in the Catholick Doctrine Yea it is reported amongst the Greeks as George Trapezunce bears witness that at the command of the holy Fathers he drew up the Nicene Creed which he composed in such words that he delivered to the Fathers in Writing that Form The Son of God was begotten and not made being of the same Substance with the Father by which words that Heresie was without controversie condemn'd And it is most certain that he did by Letters give a most full and perfect account to his Citizens of what was done in that Convention which Letters are still exstant as Donatus Veronensis writes But to proceed the History of Eusebius reacheth to the year CCCXXV And Ruffinus a Presbyter of Aquileia an Emulatour of St. Hierome translating
this History out of Greek into Latin added two Books of his own and continued the History to the death of Theodosius the Emperour An. Christi CCCC But then in his Translation he took too great a liberty and in his own Addition he borrowed much from Eusebius and therefore Joseph Scaliger in the Appendix of his incomparable Work de Emendatione Temporum calls him a most silly Authour and perhaps no hurt will be done if our Student pass him by for the History of the same times is written more largely and accurately by Socrates Sozomen and Theodoret. These three were translated by Epiphanius Scholasticus into Latin at the request of the Great Aurelius Cassiodorus who made of these three one body of History and put it out under the name of the Tripartite Story But then David Chytraeus a famous Man who hath done great service to the World in relation both to the Civil and Ecclesiastical History doth admonish and exhort all studious Men that they should not onely reade those fragments which are thus patch'd together by Cassiodorus but also the intire Authours which are extant and carefully Printed both in Greek and Latin and that they should begin with Eusebius his Panegyrick on the Life of Constantine in which they will find an uninterrupted History of XXX years and the chief Edicts and Laws of that Prince concerning the Christian Religion carefully expounded in the IId IIId and IV th Books which are the Fountains whence Socrates Theodoret and Sozomen have drawn many things in the beginning of their Histories SECT XXXV In what times Socrates lived from whence and how far he has brought his History and of Theodoret also and what is contain'd in each of his Books The Censure of Photius on him Sozomen the Salamine continues the History to the year of Christ CCCCXXIII A place of St. Gregorie's against Sozomen consider'd and an Answer made to it The Candor of Sozomen the Testimony of Euagrius concerning him Euagrius follows the Tripartite History and continues it to the year DXCVII Theophilactus Simocatus continued it to the year DCI. SOcrates Born at Constantinople under Theodosius Junior the Son of Arcadius beginning his History about the end of that wrote by Eusebius with the Victory obtain'd by Constantine against Maxentius Anno Christi CCCXIII. or rather from that year in which he was first declared Emperour openly in Britain that is from the year of Christ CCCIX he deduced it to the XVII th Consulship of the aforesaid Theodosius Junior that is to the year of Christ CCCCXLI in VII Books written in a style that is not extraordinarily splendid the first of which Books contains the times of Constantine the Emperour the second those of Constantius the third the Reigns of Julian and Jovian the fourth those of Valentinian and Valens the fifth those of Gratian and Theodosius the first the sixth the times of Arcadius the seventh contains XXXII years of the Reign of Theodosius the younger the whole History represents the Church affairs of CXL years as he himself tells us in express words in the last Chapter of the VII th Book This last Boak saith he contains the space of XXXII years but the whole History which is divided into VII Books contains CXL years which begins with the first year of the Two hundereth seventy and first Olympiad in which Constantine was declared Emperour and ends in the second year of the Three hundreth and fifth Olympiad at the XVII th Consulship of Theodosius the Emperour It is clear from several places that he favoured the Faction of the Novatians for which is observed by the most Learned Jacob Billius he is extremely pleased not onely when he meets but when he can but pretend to have found an occasion of speaking much in favour of the Novatians and if any Man had out of a Pious Zeal more sharply treated the Novations Socrates would be sure to find some opportunity or other to traduce his Name and Reputation but so cunningly that to a Reader of an ordinary capacity he will seem rather to have done it out of a desire of speaking truth than out of a compliance with his own Anger and Resentment This I say is the Censure of J. Billius a very Learned Man upon Socrates the Authour of the Church History which I thought fit to insert here that our Lover of History might make use of the greater caution in the reading him Theodoret lived in the same times and was Bishop of Cyrus a City of Mesopotamia or Syria He wrote an Ecclesiastical History from the end of Eusebius his History and the rise of the Arrian Heresie which he hath also brought down to the times of Theodosius Junior wherein he gives somewhat a larger account of the Actions done in the second General Council than any other Historian that is extant In the first Book of his History he gives us the History of the Church under Constantine the Great in the second he expounds what happened under Constantius in the third he tells us the Church affairs under Julian the Apostate the fourth Book he attributed to Jovian Valentinian and Valens the fifth to Gratian Theodosius the Great and Arcadius and in the same Book he toucheth the beginning of the Reign of Theodosius the younger the Censure of Photius concerning the style of Theodoret is this That it is fitter for an History than that used by Socrates or that of Hermias Sozomen or that of Euagrius Ponticus and of the same opinion is that most Learned Man Gerardus Johannes Vossius Hermias Sozomenus was Bishop of Salamine a City of Cyprus and flourished also under Theodosius to whom he dedicated his History beginning at the Consulate of Crispus and Constantinus Anno Christi CCCXXIII he continued it to the death of Honorius An Christ. CCCCXXIII which space of time he comprehends in IX Books the two first of which repeat the things done in the times of Constantine the Great the third and fourth contain the transactions under the Three Children of Constantine the fifth and sixth comprehend the times of Valentinian and Valens the seventh those of Gratian and Theodosius the First the eighth the times of Arcadius the ninth runs through the times of Theodosius the Second as far as the death of Honorius Anno Christi CCCCXXIII which was the XVI year of the Reign of Theodosius Junior But then the See of Rome refuseth to receive this Historian too and these are the words of Gregory the Great that because he tells many Lies and commends Thedorus Mopsuestia too much and saith he was a Great Doctor of the Church to the day of his death I was directed to this place by George Hackwill Professor of Divinity a person of a various erudition and of a singular both piety and prudence But to this Melchior Canus long since replied That there is no such thing to be found in Sozomen concerning Theodorus Mopsuestia And that Gregorie ' s
THE METHOD and ORDER OF READING Both Civil and Ecclesiastical HISTORIES IN WHICH The most Excellent Historians are Reduced into the Order in which they are Successively to be Read and the Judgments of Learned Men concerning each of them Subjoin'd By Degoraeus Wheare Camden Reader of History in Oxford To which is Added An APPENDIX concerning the Historians of Particular Nations as well Ancient as Modern By Nicholas Horseman Made English and Enlarged By EDMUND BOHUN Esq Authour of the Address to the Freemen and Freeholders LONDON Printed by M. Flesher for Charles Brome at the Gun at the West-end of St. Paul's Church yard 1685. THE PREFACE TO THE READER THE Great Number both of Greek and Latin Historians which have within the course of a few years been most accurately and elegantly turn'd into English by Persons of great Learning and of perhaps as flourishing Styles as any Age has produced may justly seem to claim a piece of the same Nature with that I here present the Reader with which though it has been attempted by several in Latin has not to my knowledge been done by any one pen in English And indeed till that great number of excellent Versions had made way for it it would have been of no use for those who could have then read the Authors are here mentioned would not have needed a Translation of this and the rest would onely have been Tantalized by it and a mighty thirst have been raised without any possibility of satisfying it in any tolerable degree But now that so many of these excellent Historians have been taught so rarely well to speak our Language which is now too become so copious elegant and smooth that it is capable of expressing all the Treasures and Beauties and almost all the Idioms and Varieties of those too Rich and valued Languages What greater service can be done to our English Nobility and Gentry than to shew them how to Marshal these Authours into their proper places in Ranks and Files to extend or enlarge the History of any Age or People as any Man's Leisure or Curiosity leads or invites him And as to those Historians which have not yet been published in our Language the very representing them here with all their beauties and rare perfections may perhaps work upon some of our Great Men and invite them to give incouragement to Learned Men to Translate them too till our Language become as Rich in Books as it is in Words and polite Expressions and as this will encrease at once their Knowledge and Delight so it will contribute to their glories too not onely in this Age and Nation but in following times and Neighbour Countries who will value our Tongue according to the number of those Excellent Pieces they find in it At least I am persuaded nothing else has perpetuated to this day the Greek and Latin Tongues now no Nation speaks either of them but the great variety of Excellent Books which were Originally written in or Translated into those two Tongues And I am confident the French Tongue is at this day as much esteem'd for the sake of their delicate Versions as for any of their Original Pieces But I must not expect this will please all There is a sort of Morose Gentlemen in the World who having at the price of many a sore Lashment possess'd themselves of the Greek and Latin Tongues would now very fain Monopolize all the Learning in them and except the Gentry and Nobility will run through all those difficulties and miseries they have done though very much against their wills many times as having been driven or dragged up into the Capitol by a sort of Men who were as terrible to them as the Triumphing Roman Generals were to the poor Chain'd-Captives which follow'd their Chariots to a certain and inevitable death But however being now as I said in possession they are very much displeased to see their pretious treasures made cheap and exposed to the eyes of all that can read English And whoever contributes to this invasion of their Privileges as they think them is sure to be branded as an Enemy to Learning and Learned Men and a betrayer of the Muses and Graces and a thousand fine things to the scorn of the vulgar And some of them are wonderfully afraid that so soon as ever all the good Books are Translated which I dare assure them will not be in their times then there will be no farther use of or esteem for the Learned Tongues and so consequently all Learning will perish out of the World But this is a mere fancy for when all is done that can Men of extraordinary industry and curiosity will be desirous to see these Authours in their Originals and will be as little satisfied with the English Translations of the Roman Authours as they are with the Latin of the Greek Authours which have not been the less but the more read for being Translated in Latin even in their proper Language And in the interim Men of less industry or leisure who could never have reaped any advantage from them in the Learned Tongues will by the means of these Versions be improved and as they become wiser and better the affairs of our Countrey which are for the most part managed by such Men will become more happy and prosperous to our great and lasting good And accordingly there hath ever been some Men who have been so far from valuing themselves upon the reputation of having many Languages that they have generously and industriously put into the Languages of their own Countries whatever they found excellent and usefull in any other And by this means was the Graecian Library rais'd out of the Phoenician Assyrian and Aegyptian and the Roman out of the Graecian and some of our Modern Scholars of these latter Ages have in the same manner enriched their several Countries with the Spoils of Rome and Athens but none more than the French who ever since the Reign of Francis the First who was a great encourager of Learning and Learned Men have employed some or others of their best Pens to go through with this laborious and as one styles it inglorious drudgery till they have by degrees attain'd to so great a perfection in it that they have equall'd or perhaps sometimes excell'd their Originals to their great glory Having premised this short Apology for Versions in general I come in the next place to that Piece I here present the Reader with which I take to be the best in its kind that ever was yet Printed because the Authour has not onely furnished the Reader with an exact Series and Method of Reading all the Greek and Latin Historians whether Civil or Ecclesiastical in their proper order and places which has in part been done by Vossius Lipsius and some others but has also taken a great deal of pains to invite the Reader to peruse them too First By giving short but very beautifull Schemes or Planes of all their several
But though his Modesty extorted this Complaint from him the Reader will scarce find it in this Oration In the year 1625 he first published this Piece in Latin which he reviewed and enlarged in the years 1635 and 1636 and Reprinted again in the year 1637. He was admitted Principal of Glocester-Hall in the same University the fourth of April 1626 where he continued till the day of his death which was the first of August 1647 and he was buried in the Chapel of that House So many years he managed this place whereas his Successour Mr. Robert Waring was chosen the 11th of August of that year and turn'd out for his Loyalty the 14th of September 1648 by the Parliamentary Visitors Besides this Piece he writ in the year 1623 a Funeral Oration containing an Historical Account of the Life and Death of Mr. Camden and a Dedication of the Statue of that Great Man in the History Schools there And also a Collection of Gratulatory Epistles Which three last Pieces were Printed together at Oxford in the year 1628. The Character given him by the Authour of the said History of Oxford is this Vir fuit Urbanus doctus Pius He was a Pleasant Learned and Pious Man To which give me leave to add that he was a Man of great Industry and Modesty as the Reader will see when he comes to read this Piece Nor is his Gratitude to the great Camden less vsible both in his Oration which he made when he entered upon the Reader 's place and also in the two others which were made and published after the death of his Benefactor Though it was his great calamity to live in times of Trouble and Confusion yet God was pleased to let him depart in peace before the execrable Murther of his Sovereign and before the Rebels had purged that University of whatever was Loyal and Constant. For though the Parliament had attempted this the June before he died yet they could not then effect their Ill Designs As to the Version I have done the best I could to make it true and smooth which was not so easie as at first I thought it would have been by reason of the great number of Quotations out of other Authours many of which are so very short and dark in their expressions that I could scarce if at all tell how to find English words that would represent their notions truely And besides this it is uneasie for a Man to accommodate himself so suddenly to such a variety of Styles as here occur in almost every Page and therefore it is not improbable I may have committed many errours and mistakes I have also presumed in some places to make Additions too when I thought it necessary but then I have given the Reader notice of them that he may know what is Added and what is the Authours A SHORT REPRESENTATION Of the several Lectures The Enterance THe Occasion of repeating these Lectures and Examples The scope of them and publick use Which yet is not to be rashly published The excessive confidence of the Writers of this Age. Modesty is recommended by the example of Pliny Secundus The Ancient Custome of reciting very usefull To be desired in this Age. No Argument of Ostentation but rather of Modesty The convenience of a living voice In what Hearing excell Reading The definition end division and several sorts of History Part the First The Heads of the SECTIONS SECT I. THree things are required to the Advantagious Reading of History Upon occasion of which the three parts of this Discourse are propos'd SECT II. What Order of Historians is to be observed And how to be entered upon Three Intervals of time to be observed What an Epocha is and of how many sorts The several Flouds In what times they happened The Unwritten Interval The Fabulous The Olympiads The Historical Interval SECT III. The Series of the Great Monarchies and their fatal Succession That there was four Eminent Monarchies That the Empire of the Medes and Persians was but one That these Empires were foretold by the Prophets The Name of Great Monarchies in vain quarrell'd by Bodinus That that of the Romans was the Greatest SECT IV. The Rise and Duration of the Assyrio-Chaldaean Empire and also of the Medio Persian then of the Grecian The beginning of the Roman Empire before Julius Caesar. How many years interven'd betwixt him and Charles the Great and betwixt the Latter and Charles the Fifth SECT V. Why these Four Empires were by way of Eminence call'd the Four Monarchies SECT VI. How the Reading of History is to be entered upon Good Epitomes are not to be condemn'd Synopsis of Histories Chronologies Some Compendiums are by name recommended What Authours concerning the Universal History are to be consulted Rauleigh is especially to be esteem'd The History of the Bible is the most Ancient and first to be Read SECT VII From whence the History of the Assyrio-Caldean Empire is to be derived Of Berosus Ctesias Megasthenes and their Counterfeited Writings That in the defect of them we must have recourse to Josephus The great loss of Diodorus Siculus to be supplied from others Especially from Josephus and the Prophetick Story Diogenes Laertius commended SECT VIII Herodotus where he began his History and where he ended His Commendation In what time he flourisht The beginning of the Second General Monarchy The Arguments of the several Books of Herodotus Why the Names of the Muses were put before the several Books In which Herodotus is excused against Lodovicus Vives From what Authours this History may be enlarg'd and illustrated SECT IX Thucydides His Elogie From whence and how far he deduces his History which he contain'd in eight Books Their Arguments shortly and distinctly laid down And what Authours writ of the same Times and Wars with him SECT X. Xenophon His Commendation and Elogie When and in what order he is to be Read That he writ the History of 48 years Which again may be enlarged out of Plutarch Justin and Diodorus Siculus SECT XI Diodorus Siculus his beautifull Elogie He travelled over several Countries before he writ his History He continues Xenophon's Story in the end of his 15th Book And in the 16th gives an Account of the Actions of Philip of Macedon And so goes on to Alexander the Great and describes the Rise of the Third general Monarchy SECT XII Divers Authours have written the Action of Alexander the Great Arrianus Q. Curtius Their Elogies In what times they lived Diodorus Siculus prosecutes the History of the Successours of Alexander the Great Other Authours afford usefull Additions SECT XIII Polybius when to be read Of what times he writ How he applied his mind to History How great a Man he was How much admired The greatest part of his History lost or reduced to fragments The Contents of the Existing Books SECT XIV Of the Fourth Monarchy the Roman A Transition to its Story The Praise of both and the loss of its Historians
deplored SECT XV. Where the Course of the Roman Story is to be begun Lucius A. Florus commended The Judgments of Learned Men concerning him That he is not the same with the Epitomizer of Livy His Mistakes excused his Method of Writing By what means in probability Errours crept in The Consulary Fasts of Sigonius and Onuphrius Pighius his Annals commended SECT XVI In what order the Roman History is to be continued Dionysius Halycarnassaeus commended How many years his History contains the Reason given why he is Recommended in the first place and confirm'd from J. Bodinus SECT XVII T. Livius is much and de servedly admir'd in what time he lived How many Books he writ by whom divided into Decads In what order to be Read How the History may be enlarged or supplied The Praise and Elogy of Plutarch SECT XVIII The second Decad of T. Livy that is from the X th to the XXI th Book is lost How and whence that loss may be supplied Appianus Alexandrinus What opinion Learned Men have of him SECT XIX When the remaining XXV Books of Livy are to be read What other Authours may confirm or illustrate the History of the same times The Nine last Decads and half the Tenth are lost From whence they may be supply'd The History of Salustius commended and also Caesar's Commentaries both by the Learned Men of the present and Ancient times SECT XX. Of Dion Cassius and his History How many Books he writ How many perished and how great the loss Vellejus Paterculus to be worthily ranked amongst the best Historians and yet his faults are not dissembled A Transition to the Writers of the Lives of the Caesars SECT XXI Suetonius and Tacitus are first to be read The famous testimonies of the most Learned Men concerning them The Judgments of the most eminent of the Criticks differ that I may not say contest each with other concerning Tacitus Light may be derived both to Suetonius and Tacitus from Dion Cassius SECT XXII How to pass on to the other Writers of the Augustan Story viz. Spartianus Capitolinus Volcatius and the other Authours which are not to be lightly esteemed The Judgment of Justus Lipsius and Casaubon concerning them Herodian is to be read in his place with the rest How far these go in the History And that amongst them Aurelius Victor and Pomponius Laetus deserve to be admitted SECT XXIII After Constantius Chlorus and a little before the History is a little perplex'd especially in the Latin Writers Eusebius Zozimus and Zonaras will render it more easie Of Zozimus and Zonaras and their Writings ' and also of Jornandes Ammianus Marcellinus has his place here The opinion of Lipsius and Balduinus the Civil Lawyer concerning the latter SECT XXIV Diaconus his Miscellane History and that of Jornandes concerning the Goths and of Procopius and Agathias who may be placed here or if you please the Third Tome of Zonaras who is followed by Nicetas Choniates and then Nicephorus Gregoras or if this seems too Prolix after Zozimus Blondius Forolivienfis may be read or else after Vopiscus Sigonius his History of the Western Empire may be admitted and from thence the Reader may pass to the Seventh or Eighth Book of the first Decad of Blondius SECT XXV Johannes Cuspinianus Paulus Jovius and Augustus Thuanus will furnish the Reader with a shorter view of the History of the Roman Emperours from the beginning of the Caesars to our own times SECT XXVI Some Writers of particular Histories that best deserve to be read are enumerated Guicciardine Paulus Aemilius Philippus Commines whose noble Elogies are remembred Meteranus Chromerus and Bembus SECT XXVII A Transition to the British Story How the Reader should prepare himself for the Reading of it In what order he should go on Camden's Britannia and Selden's Analecta are first to be Read and then George Lillies Chronicon The Compendium of the British History SECT XXVIII Gulielmus Malmesburiensis Sir Henry Savil's and Camden's Judgment of him Where he began and ended his History Galfredus Monumethensis why to be omitted The Censures of Neubrigensis John of Withamsted Bales and Jo. Twin upon his History from all which Virunnius dissents H. Huntingdonensis follows Malmesburiensis and Hoveden him SECT XXIX The History of Asser Menivensis is commended in what order to be read with the former as also Eadmerus Matheus Parisiensis Baronius his judgment of him Thomas Walsingham his History The Actions of King Stephen by an unknown Pen. The Life of Edw. II. by Sir Thomas de la Moor is to be taken in in due time SECT XXX Walsingham's Hypodigma Neustria or History of Normandy and the other Writers not to be neglected and amongst them Odoricus Vitalis of Principal note Polidore Virgil has writ the History from Henry the IV th to Richard the IIId concerning whom the Censure of the most noble Sir H. Savil is observable Richard thee IIId was written by Sir Tho. Moor Kt. and Lord Chancellour of England Henry the VII th by the Earl of St. Albans Henry the VIII th Edward the VI th Queen Mary by Francis Godwin Bishop of Landaff by way of Annals As also that of Queen Elizabeth by William Camden SECT XXXI Though we have no intire body of our history in Latin written according to the dignity of the subject yet in English John Speed has writ an excellent Theatre of the British Empire to be in the first place contemplated by the youth of this Nation and especially of those who design to travell The Addition concerning the Histories of Particular Nations ARTICLE I. The design and order of this Appendix In what order we should proceed in the Particular histories The principal historians of the several Nations are to be selected and the historians of the latter times compared with the more ancient ARTICLE II. The historians of the Germans and of all the People from the Alpes to the Baltick Sea and from the Rhine to the Vistula to which the history of the Goths Vandals Huns Heruls Switzers Longobards Polonians Muschovites Danes and Swedes are to be added ARTICLE III. The Austrian historians ARTICLE IV. The historians of the Huns and Hungarians ARTICLE V. The historians of the Goths Danes Sclavonians and Swedes ARTICLE VI. The historians of the Longobards ARTICLE VII The historians of the Borussians and Poles ARTICLE VIII The historians of the Bohemians Switzars and Saxons ARTICLE IX The historians of Celts or Galls and French under which name we include all which are enclosed by the Rhine Pyrenaean Hills the Alpes and the Ocean ARTICLE X. The historians of the Netherlands Dutch and Flandrians ARTICLE XI The Spanish historians ARTICLE XII The historians of the Turks and Arabians who heretofore had the Dominions of Syria Persia Africa and Spain and were commonly call'd Saracens ARTICLE XIII The historians of Aethiopia India almost all Africa and of the New World or America ARTICLE XV. The historians of some great Cities SECT XXXII A Transition
St. Ambrose they pass by him with many faults unperceived and as deformed Children are yet dear to their own Parents so undecent Discourses please their Writers This Custome then without Question of Pliny which I am now imitating and not onely idlely Commending would be very acceptable to all Wise men 7. But it may be objected this will look like Ostentation to many and an Affectation of a little vain empty Glory ambitiously Courted I say it is nothing less for it is rather Modesty prudence an humble esteem of a Man's self and the avoiding boldness and boasting as detestable For therefore does a man recite his Writings or submit them to be read by others that he may know their Judgments and hear the truth concerning them that if any thing has slip'd him he may amend it if any thing be obscure he may illustrate and clear it if any thing is not true he may Correct it according to the old Proverb Recitations produce Amendments Will you therefore a while hear Pliny Discoursing at once the Causes and Advantages of Publick recitations in his Epistle to Ariston lib. 5. Ep. 3. I follow saith he these reasons for reciting First He that recites reflects somewhat more sharply upon his own Writings out of Reverence to his Hearers Secondly That he may determine what he doubts of by their Advice and Counsell And though he is not inform'd what they think of him yet he may observe it by their Countenances their Eyes their Nods their Whispers or Murmurs their Silence which by Notices that are not obscure discover Judgment from affection and so it may happen if it be heeded that I have changed some things upon the judgment of some who were present who said nothing to me You see my Hearers what were Pliny's causes for Reciting and it is very apparent thereby that there were many Advantages gain'd by it Now if the Writers of our age would for the same reasons reduce it into use again who could blame them for it who could accuse them of an Ambitious vanity what if M. Cato's cavillers should infest him who will allow nothing to be well done or said by others which they will not presume to dress over again what if they will not fear to spend freely their Conjectures and to guess as readily as injuriously at the meaning of another Wise men will without concern suffer their malignant rash conjectures to run by them and pleasantly acquiesce in the rewards of a good Conscience And I will freely grant that this usage has been taken up heretofore by some Ambitious Vainglorious men who made the Noise of the Rabble the End of their Actions and courted the Popular breath Hunting after the great but indiscreet Acclamations of the Little Folk O Wisly Euge Well! Pleasantly and such like silly Exclamations by their Recitations O silly vain foolish Fellows O the miserable Slaves of Glory I hope our times afford men of more Wit and of more Generous minds they know that it is the least part of a wise Man's care to Sail by the Card of Fame and Opinion A wise man saith a Noble Greek Authour neither Speaks nor Acts any thing for repute onely Our desire then is that he that recites any thing or commits it to another to be perused should propose to himself a better End and a more Noble Design that is that whatever he intends to publish for the Advancement of Learning might by these means come forth the more Correct polite and probable for this was the end of the Great Secundus not that he might hear his Works Applauded while he recited them but that they might then be commended when they came to be read And yet nor will I dissemble it the Reply of the Satyrist does not displease us Non ego dum recito si forte quid Aptius exit Laudari metuam nec enim mihi Cornea fibra est Sed recti finémque extremúm que esse recuso Euge tuum Bellé If whilst I reade some things seem to excell I fear not praise but rather like it well I have no senseless callous heart and yet I can not yield your Acclamations great Enough to be the utmost bounding line Of what is true or my supreme design 8. And now my Hearers as to what concerns my self if I will Administer well the affairs of my own Province if in it I seek to doe the greatest good I can as I profess that is my greatest wish who is there amongst you if he be not a mere Novice and utterly ignorant of these Studies who does not know that there lies upon me an indispensable obligation of reciting and repeating some things over and over again as the occasions of my Auditory require which daily changeth and by new Successions and Vicissitudes is every day renew'd Especially when Hearers come who have great need or rather are under an absolute necessity of having the things I have now in hand taught them 9. Some other may possibly object it is in vain to delay us with a Recitation if at last you intend to publish these Discourses which every man may then reade with more Attention in the Quietness of retirement but I reply as I have said before that I recite them that they may come out the more perfect and Correct And I have also another Reason for it and that of no less moment The Rules of all Arts and Disciplines as all grant are more happily instill'd by the mouth of a Teacher than they are drawn out of Books and why then should not we conceive the same may hold true concerning the Rules of Reading History I am sure this was the opinion of the often cited Pliny for writing to his Nephew thus he tells him You will say I have several not less Elegant discourses which I can reade it may be so But then you will never want an opportunity to reade them but you may for hearing besides as it is commonly said the living Voice does most affect us for though what a man reads he attends more Accurately to yet those things we hear sink deeper which the very Pronunciation Countenance Habit and Carriage or Behaviour of the Speaker Stamps and Prints upon our minds And St. Hierome in an Epistle to Paulina saith The living Voice hath somewhat of a secret energy or power and transfusing it self from the mouth of the Authour penetrates the Ears of the Disciple with a stronger sound And therefore Fabius Quintilianus one of the greatest Masters of the Art of Rhetorick gives this as a rule for the forming a good Oratour Let the Master saith he every day speak himself something yea many things which the Scholars may repeat after him amongst themselves for though he may supply them with examples enough out of Books yet that as it is call'd Living Voice affords more Nourishment and above all others the Masters for whom the Scholars if they be rightly disposed must needs have a
following Books we deliver the History of what passed throughout the World to the Death of Alexander the Great Thus far the Sicilian But alas the five Books which follow his fifth Book which he stiles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Book of Isles because in it he treats of the Islands are to the deplorable injury of ancient History perished For in them was contain'd all the Oriental Antiquities which might have afforded much light to the Old Testament as the Learned Josephus Scaliger observes We should think this great Loss the less if Theopompus Euphorus Callisthenes Timaeus and the rest from whom Diodorus had with incredible industry compiled those five Books were still Extant Concerning which you may Consult Vossius his piece of the Greek Historians We cannot deny but some have blamed the Sicilian for those five Books that are Extant which we have recommended as first to be read and amongst them Lodovicus Vivis who admires how Pliny could say that Diodorus was the first of the Grecians who left off Trifling when saith he there is nothing more Idle But we reply that Learned Censor did not well consider that Diodorus himself owns that the History of those times was mixt with many Fables and delivered very variously by the Ancients but he was content to relate what seem'd most agreeable to Truth and yet at last he did not desire they should be taken for solid Truths but that he thought it was better to have the best knowledge we could of those Ancient times than to be altogether ignorant of them as Gerardus Joh. Vossius a man of a peircing judgment has well observed in his second Book of the Greek Historians chap. the second In the defect therefore of those Authours we have mentioned and to repair as well as we may the loss sustain'd in the former Books of the Sicilian helps are to be fetched in from Eusebius his Chronicon where we shall find many Antiquities pointed at from Plutarch's Theseus Licurgus and Solon from Pausanius his description of ancient Greece from the first Book of Orosius and especially from the Prophetick History in which onely are all those things that happened after the Death of Sardanapalus which are of certain and undoubted Faith to be found concerning the Assyrians and Chaldeans even to the beginning of the Medio-Persian Empire and a little farther and no where else amongst the Ancients if you except Josephus his Antiquities is there any thing to be found concerning these times and the Jewish State then for he indeed there treats of their State too from the times in which the Scriptures end to the XIII th year of the Reign of Domitius Caesar and LVI th year of his own Life But of Josephus we shall discourse more at large in his proper place there may also be many things worth the taking notice of observed in Diogenes Laertius his Lives of the Philosophers which will Embelish the History of the first Monarchy Especially the History of the last Century of it in which the VII wise men of Greece flourished and that famous man Pythagoras and many others whose Lives Laertius wrote in that Golden Book as H. Stephen in that most usefull Book and more valuable than Gold as the most Learned Vossius doubts not to call it SECT VIII Where Herodotus began his History and where he Ended it his Commendation in what time he flourished the Rise of the Second Monarchy the Contents of the several Books of Herodotus why the Names of the IX Muses were given them from what Authours his History may be inriched or illustrated HErodotus the Father of the Heathen History begins where the Prophetick History ends which is owing to the Goodness and Providence of God that as it were in the self same moment where the History of the Bible Concludes Herodotus Halicarnassensis should begin his For when the Prophets in the Holy Scriptures had related what seemed more worthy of the care of the Holy Ghost from the beginning of the World to Cyrus Herodotus beginning with Gyges King of Lydia Contemporary with Hezechias and Manassa Kings of Judah about the year of the World 3238 about CL years before Cyrus his Reign in Persia immediately descends to CYRUS the Great Founder of the Medio-Persian Empire and so deduceth the History of the Medes and Persians in a smooth Style which flowes like a quiet and pleasant River as Cicero in his Orator expresses it well to the time of the wretched flight of Xerxes out of Greece Which happened in the Second year of the LXXV Olympiad in the year of the World 3471. in which time Herodotus flourished and lived to the beginning of the Peloponnesian War Which Dionysius his Countrey-man relates in these words Herodotus Halicarnassaeus being born a little before the Persian Expedition lived till the Peloponnesian War That is from the first year of the LXXIV Olympiad to the Second year of the LXXXVII Olympiad for so the Great Scaliger computes his Age making him to have Lived precisely the space of XIII Olympiads that is LII years For so long Lived the sweetest Muse of Jonica as he calls him and then goes on thus He is the most ancient Writer in Prose who is now Extant the Treasury of the Grecian and Barbarian Antiquities an Authour never to be out of the hands of the Learned nor to be touched by the half Learned the Pedagogues and the Apes of Learning But however Herodotus might live somewhat longer yet it is sure he brought not his History beyond the times of Xerxes He has contained in Nine Books which he distinguished by the Names of the Nine Muses a continued History of CCXXXIV years Will you have the Contents of his several Books I will give you them shortly In his first Book besides what he relates of Gyges and the succeeding Kings of Lydia to Croesus of the ancient Jonia of the manners of the Persians Babylonians and some others he gives an Elegant account of the Birth of Cyrus the Authour of the Medio-Persian Monarchy and then of his Miraculous Preservation of his Education and Actions In his Second Book he describes all Egypt to the Life declares the Customs of the Egyptians and Commemorates the Succession of their Kings In his third Book he weaves the History of Cambyses and of Smerdis the Mage which simulated Cyrus and so Reigned VII Months and Explicates the fraud and the Discovery Then he subjoyns the Election of Darius Histaspis and then enumerates the Provinces of the Persian Empire and gives an account of the taking of Babylon by the faithfull industry of Zopirus in the praises of whom he ends it In his fourth Book he presents us with an exact Description of Scythia to which he adds the unfortunate Expedition of Darius against the Scythians and there we reade the History of the Mynians and the City of Cyrene built by them in Libya and the Description of the People of those
represents the ancient State of Greece from the times of the Expedition of the Argonauts and the Trojan War and comparing the greatness of the Peloponnesian War with all those that had preceded it and explaining the causes pretences and occasions of it he Premiseth the History of those fifty years which interven'd betwixt the flight of Xerxes and the beginning of this War without ever going on that account from his intended Subject But if the Reader desires a full and perfect History of these fifty years before he goes any farther in Thucydides let him in this place take in the Lives of Themistocles Aristides Pausanias and Cimon written by Platarch or Cornelius Nepos And the XI th and XII th Books of Diodorus Siculus and the second and third Books of Justin which all belong to this place and then let him proceed in Thucydides who in his second Book enters upon the description of that War in the first place telling us the time when it began and unfolding the method of the whole work and shewing who were the incendiaries and who began the War then follows the Oration made by the Laconian King to his Souldiers his commendation both of the Authority and Eloquence of Pericles and his Description of the dreadfull Plague at Athens then he Celebrates the worth of Phormion the Athenian General and their Naval Victories and commorates the Surrender of Potidea the Siege of the Plutenses and the ineffectual Expedition of the Thracians against Perdicca King of Macedonia and so entertains us with the History of the three first years of the War In the III Book are contained the affairs of the three next years of that War that is the defection of the Mitylenaeans and the other Lesbians to the Lacedemonians which being again reduced by the Athenian Forces there follows an illustrious Consultation concerning the punishing of them and the cruelty of Pachetis the Athenian Commander is observed the City of Platea taken and raced to the Ground the Sedition of the Cortyreans described the Seeds of the Sicilian War disclos'd the improsperous Battel of Demosthenes against the Aetolians and his more prosperous Engagement with the Ambracians In the IV th Book are read the fortifying the Pylus the Siege and the taking it and the manner of the defence the Victory against and taking the Spartan Nobility the fortunate actions of Brasida a famous Lacedemonian Commander in Thrace and these make up the History of the next three years The V th Book comprehends the History of almost seven years that is the Battel betwixt Brasida the Spartan Commander and Cleon the Athenian at Amphipolis a City of Thrace wherein both the Generals were Slain and paid for their restless disturbances then the various Leagues and Combinations of the two parties all weak and uncertain the foolish and mad stubbornness of the great men the sad effect of which follows In the beginning of the VI th Book the Authour makes a description of the ancient Sicily and gives an account of some part of their former Story Then the pretences of the Sicilian War and some Noble Consultations about it are propos'd Nicia opposing and Alcibiades promoting and perswading to it then he remembers some Prodigies which preceded that War the defection of Alcibiades to the Lacedemonians and some things which happened in Sicilia soon after the Arrival of the Athenian Fleet which things happened in the XVII th year of this War In the VII th Book Michalessus a City of Boeotia is taken by the Thracians who exercise there great Cruelties then the Authour prosecutes the Sicilian War which fell out very unfortunately for the Athenians and brought a grievous loss upon them the Commanders Demosthenes and Nicias being both taken and slain against the will of Gylippus to whom they rendred themselves These things were acted in the XVIII th and XIX th years of the Peloponnesian War In the VIII th Book he gives an account of the defection of the Athenian Confederates to the Lacedemonians their Enemies upon the News of this Overthrow and the League betwixt the Spartans and the Persian Governours of the Asian Provinces after this the Democracy of the Athenians is changed into an Olygarchy of forty men which is again soon after dissolved Lastly Thrasybulus and Thrasylus two Athenian Captains after a dubious Sea Fight at Abidus beat the Lacedemonian Fleet and their Leader Mindarus this Victory was obtain'd in the II year of the XCII Olympiad in the XXI year of this War in the Summer time where Thucydides his History ends Anno Mundi 3539. With Thucydides are the Lives of Pericles Alcibiades Chabrias Thrasybulus and Nicias written by Plutarch and C. Nepos to be read and the XIII th Book of Diodorus Siculus the IV th and V th of Justin and the first Book of Orosius Chapters the XIV th and XV th by all which the History may be somewhat enlarged and inriched SECT X. Of Xenophon his Praise and Elogies when and in what order he is to be read he gives us the History of XLVIII years which may be enlarged from Plutarch Justin and Diodorus Siculus THe thread of Thucydides his Story is continued by Xenophon who for the sweetness of his Style is call'd the Attick Muse and the Attick Bee by whose mouth also the Muses are said to have spoken as Cicero informs us in his Oratour He was famous about 410 years before the Birth of our Saviour there is an High encomium of Xenophon extant in Dion Chrysostome in his Oration concerning the Exercise of the Art of Speaking where with great ingenuity he recommends the reading of him averring amongst other things that the reading of him alone was sufficient to make a man a Politician nor is that which is related of him by Diogenes Laertius in the end of his Life the least part of his praise that Thucydides his Books being then unknown falling into his hands when he might with facility have supprest them he took care to publish them by which Act of his every man may know what Honour he deserved from those who have an esteem for the Grecian Eloquence or History and the Modern Criticks have not fail'd to give him equal Commendations Xenophon saith Lipsius in his History is a pleasant and faithfull or at least a cautious prudent Writer from which yet you may rather draw civil Prudence than that he seems to have intended it And yet Christoph. Colerus saith Civil Prudence is certainly the principal Vertue in the writings of Xenophon it sparkles strangely in his Institution of Cyrus and the Relation of his Expedition against Artaxerxes in which Xenophon discovers how great a Commander he himself was therefore let Xenophon be the Looking-glass of Kings and Princes the Viaticum as Homer was to Alexander the Great of Emperours The Glory saith Vossius of Xenophon was threefold for I will take no notice of his Eloquence he was a Philosopher an Historian and a
good Commander the truth is he left the Profession of Philosophy and wrote his History when he was a Commander I shall omit that Elegant piece of his concerning the Institution of Cyrus because it belongs to the foregoing times of which Herodotus wrote nor is it as is supposed penned as a true History but as a representation of a just Empire or Government yet Scipio Africanus that admired Personage had so great an Esteem for this Piece that he never went without it about him but to return he Composed the History of his own times in seven Books the two first of which are to be read immediately after Thucydides because they contain the residue of the Peloponnesian War and where Thucydides ends there Xenophon as it were carrying on the Web begins and relates what passed betwixt the Athenians and Lacedemonians after that Naval Victory that was obtained at Abidus by Thrasybulus against Mindarus in the 2 year of the 92 Olympiad of which we have spoken before to the taking of Athens by Lysander in the 4 th year of the 93 Olympiad and in these Books here and there he represents some of the Medio-Persian affairs as how the Medes rebell'd against Darius King of Persia and afterwards submitted again to his Empire how Cyrus the younger Son of Darius went to his Father who was then sick in the Higher Asia having first sent money to Lysander for the use of the War against the Athenians how Darius Nothus Died and Artaxerxes Mnemon his Elder Son became his Successour In the end of the second Book he gives an account of the suppressing the XXX Tyrants who had raged for two years at Athens by Thrasybulus and also the Peace and Act of Oblivion which was confirmed by the Athenians amongst themselves by an Oath by which an end was put to the Peloponnesian War which Thucydides calls the most memorable War that had ever happened and the longest and so in truth it was for it was prolonged to the XXVII th or XXVIII th year as is manifested by Xenophon these things are contained as I said in the two first Books of the Grecian History of Xenophon which being read the Reader may pass to his seven Books of the Expedition of Cyrus the younger against Artaxerxes Mnemon his Elder Brother written by Xenophon also in which we have an account how Cyrus gathered Grecian Forces and went up with them against his Brother How he fought and was Slain then how the Grecian Captains were Massacred after the Fight contrary to the Faith given and how Xenophon who followed Cyrus in this Expedition after his Death was chosen General by the Grecian Souldiers and had the felicity to conduct them from the very heart of Persia though continually assaulted by the Barbarians and harassed with other miseries and inconveniencies into their own Countrey in the first year of the 95 Olympiad When the Reader has finished these he may then proceed to the rest of the Grecian History in which the affairs both of the Grecians and Persians are continued to the Mantinensian Battel in which the Thebans beat the Lacedemonians under the Conduct of Epaminondas who whilst he perform'd the parts not onely of a Commander but private Souldier being grievously wounded died soon after and with him the Glory and power of the Theban Common-wealth Expired in the second year of the 104 Olympiad So that the Son of Gryllus will furnish the Reader with an Elegant and rich History of the affairs of XLVIII years but this the Reader may enlarge and enrich too if as in reading Thucydides he took in Plutarch's Pericles Nicias and Alcibiades so here he take in the Lives of Lysander Agesilaus Artaxerxes Thrasybulus Chabrias Conon and Datames written by Plutarch and Nepos for all these flourished in that interval of time which is represented by Thucydides and Xenophon and afford a considerable addition to the Histories of those times the IV th V th and VI th Books of Justin and the XIII th XIV th and XV th Books of Diodorus Siculus belong to the same times and as to Diodorus he is the next Authour I shall commend to the Reader SECT XI The fair Elogie of Diodorus Siculus that he travelled over several Countries before he writ his History He continues the History of Xenophon about the end of his XV th Book then he gives an account of the actions of Philip King of Macedonia in his XVI th and from thence passeth to Alexander the Great and describes the Rise of the third Monarchy FOr though Diodorus Siculus is some centuries of years younger than Xenophon as who flourished in the times of Julius Caesar and Augustus about the CLXXXIII Olympiad yet in this our Series of Authours I desire he may immediately follow Xenophon being not one of the many but a celebrated Writer and so expert in Antiquities that Greece can scarce shew another that is his Equal which Judgment may be confirm'd by the Elogie which a Learned Divine of our Countrey a Reverend Bishop and excellently versed in this and all other sorts of Learning is pleased to bestow upon this Authour Diodorus Siculus saith he is an excellent Authour who with great Fidelity Immense Labour and a rare both diligence and ingenuity has collected an Historical Library as Justin Martyr calls it in which he has represented his own and the Studies of other men being the great reporter of humane Actions but as Diodorus himself stiles it the Common Treasury of things and an harmless or safe Mistress or Teacher of what is Usefull and Good Our Reverend Bishop might well call it an Immense Labour for he spent XXX years as he himself confesseth in writing this History travelling in the mean time over several Countries to inform himself running through many Dangers as usually happens Diodorus also does rightly stile it a Common Treasury of things for we have in his first five Books the Antiquities and Transactions of the Egyptians Assyrians Libyans Persians Grecians and other Nations before the Trojan War as we have noted above the five following Books that is from the V th to the XI th are lost but from the beginning of the XI th to the XVI th we have the History of the times written by Thucydides and Xenophon as I have already said written in a continued thread but then in the end of the XV th Book he seems to design a Continuation of Xenophon's History for he speaks expresly thus in the end of the second year of the 104 Olympiad In this year saith he Xenophon the Athenian concludes his Grecian History with the death of Epimanondas and so the Sicilian passeth to the III year of the same Olympiad in which he briefly unfolds the Story of the War of Artaxerxes with the Rebel Persians and Egyptians and the rest of the great Atchievements of Agesilaus together with the Deaths both of Agesilaus and Artaxerxes to whom Ochus succeeded in the Kingdom
at the same time give you his judgment of this Authour Dionysius Halicarnassaeus saith he besides the esteem he merits by his familiar Style and pure Attick Greek has also written the Roman Antiquities from the very Foundation of the City with so great a diligence that he seems to excell all the other Greek and Latine Authours for what the Latines neglected as common and well known their Sacrifices for instance Plays Triumphs Insigns of Magistrates and all the order of the Roman publick Government their Taxes or Revenues their Auspicia or Divinations their great Assemblies and their difficult partitions of the People into Classes and Tribes Lastly the Authority of the Senate the Commands of the Plebes or lower Orders the Authority of the Magistrates and the power of the People he onely seems to have accurately delivered and for the better understanding of these he compares them with the Grecian Laws and Rites as when he fetches the Laws of Retainers Vassalage or Protection which Romulus instituted though Caesar saith the same was in common use amongst the Gauls higher and derives it from the Athenians and Thessalians and he saith also the Roman Dictatour had the same power with the Lacedemonian Harmoston the Thessalian Archum and the Mitylenean Aesymneten all which several Magistrates had in their several Countries a Sovereign Power and were not responsable for what they then did the Laws of Romulus Numa and Servius had together with the Origine of the People of Rome perished totally if this Authour had not preserved them the Latine Historians as was said before neglecting them as vulgar and well known and this happens to most Historians who neglect what is commonly known as if it were equally so to Foreigners as well as to their own People or as if they thought them unchangeable thus far Bodinus But if any man is desirous to know farther how great a person Dionysius Halicarnassaeus was and what great advantages his History affords he may reade the several works Henricus Stephanus has added to his History he lived under Augustus Caesar was a Domestick and great Familiar or friend to Varro and Bodinus thinks that from his Fountains he derived his best informations lib. 3. de Rep. c. 3. SECT XVII Titus Livius abundantly and not undeservedly praised in what time he Lived how many Books he wrote from whence the division of them came in what order they are to be read how the History may be improved or upon the defect or loss of his History suppli'd Plutarch's praise and Elogies AFter this Dionysius let the Prince of the Roman History Titus Livius follow famous above all others for his Eloquence and Fidelity that honour is given him by Cremutius Cordus in Tacitus which Quintilianus perfects and enlarges where he compares him with Herodotus Herodotus saith he will not be offended that Titus Livius is compared with him seeing he is in his Relations of things of a wonderfull sweetness and of a most clear Candour in his orations Eloquent above what can be spoken every passage in them being so exactly fitted both to the things and Persons and as to the passions especially the sweeter and milder that I may speak sparingly no Historian has better represented them and therefore he hath by the variety of his excellencies equall'd that immortal briskness of Salust nor is the censure of the famous Casaubon that Learned man though more modern inferiour to this Titus Livius is a great Authour divinely Elegant in a certain sweet plenty of Style loving Vertue hating Vices right in his judgment expert in things relating to Peace and War though no way accustomed to or experienced in the latter and if I have any Judgment this was the onely genius the People of Rome I speak as to History ever had equal to their Empire these Commendations are solid and Prolix enough and yet I cannot forbear but I must here insert also the censure of Johannes Bishop of Alariensis which Ludovicus Vivis so much admires and in truth I hope I shall perform an usefull and acceptable piece of Service by it to the Studious because it shews the perfections we should aim at in History and the defaults we should avoid whether he observed them in Livy or in considering the way of writing Histories or by comparing both these together Variety saith he hath not rendered Livy confus'd nor the simplicity of his History nauseous in the little and low matters which often happen he is not without Bloud dry and jejune and in Plenty and greatness he is not turgid and Vast being full without swelling equal and soft on this side Efeminacy neither Luxuriously flowing nor horridly barren in plain things he is not unpleasant nor Languid in soft things he does not rise in a violent and forced Oratory yet he is not so copious as to be trouble some nor Lascivious in his Pleasantness nor so light as to be careless he is not so severe as to be rud nor so simple as to be Naked nor so drest that he may seem by an affected composition to be curled with Hot-Irons his words are equal to his matter and his Sentences to his Subjects he is grave and magnificent in his Accounts of Actions and yet short and proper in Narrations he is natural and always circumspect never confounding the Order nor forerunning the Event he is no seeker of favour by Flattery or sparing in his reprehensions in expectation of a Pardon nor yet bitter to an offence he never spares the Senate that great and venerable Moderatour of the World nor the Roman People the Princess of the Earth if precipitated by rashness or deceived by Errour or by any other means whensoever they happen to transgress the bounds of Moderation and Justice not defrauding the Enemies of his Countrey of their deserved Commendation that he might some times seem onely to be a relatour and at other times a Censour he is so severe and sower as when occasion serves he never spares the gravest Censours than whom nothing at Rome was more Sacred and in his Orations he is sparing in words but rich in Sentences he is much more restrain'd and concise in his words than in his Sense in which particular he hath not onely excelled all other Writers but himself also very much This he said of Livy saith Ludovicus Vivis and I grant it the description of an excellent Historian Livy published his History under Augustus and he died the IV th year of the Reign of Tiberius he writ CXL Books which were in the opinion of Petrarch divided into Decades not by himself but by the fastidious Laziness of the Readers but of these there are onely XXXV Extant of which the three first have many things in Common with Dionysius Halicar but described with that sweetness and Elegance of Style that the Reader can never repent the Repetition in the remaining VII Books of the first Decade this Authour brings down the History to the
Brutus to be read every one in his time and with them let the Reader take in Salustius his Jugurthine War and add to them also the Catilinarian Conspiracy and Caesar's Commentaries which Authours Antiquity accounted amongst the principal Historians Salustius was famous about 44 years before Christ Anno V. C. 707. And Quintilianus hath compared him with Thucydides Tacitus calls him the most florid writer of the Roman History he is call'd by Martial the Epigrammatist Crispus the first of all the Roman Historians whereupon Colerus writeth thus to Stanislaus Zelenius Consider saith he that by the testimony of the Ancients themselves there was in Salust all those Endowments that make a perfect Historian and afterwards you can repeat the Catilinarian Conspiracy by heart but to no purpose if you do not well consider that man's profound knowledge in publick affairs which he hath discovered even in that very small Book and he wrote the Jugurthine War with no less Art and his two Epistles to Caesar concerning the setling the publick affairs do they not even seem to have fallen from Heaven and Justus Lipsius saith thus of him If it were left to me I should in this Catalogue not doubt to chuse Salustius for president of the Senate of Historians and as to Caesar's Commentaries who ever thought they did not deserve the highest Commendation and to be read by young men with the utmost care Cicero averr'd that they were very much to be approved Aulus Hertius saith they were to be admir'd they are saith he so much approved by the judgment of all that they rather seem to have prevented the need of another writer than to have afforded him an assistence or occasion and yet as he goes on my wonder here exceeds that of all others for they onely know how well and Correctly he hath written them but I know with what facility and quickness he did it But what say the Criticks of our Age they do not much less esteem it The famous Vossius thus expresseth himself he is a pure and Elegant Writer and most accurate in the structure of his words and glides along like a pleasant quiet River and is politick and grave in his Sentences in which he excelleth Xenophon though in the rest he is not much unlike him and a little after In truth here is a great plenty of great and usefull things which he that neglects to please himself in the interim with the Elegance of the words is less wise than Children who do not so delight themselves with the Leaves of Trees as to despise their excellent Fruit. The piece of the African War whether it be Caesar's or Oppius or Hirtius that writ it is preferr'd by Colerus before all the rest that work saith he surpasseth the rest not onely in Bloud and Colour but in strength also and Nerves Princes and Souldiers have in it what they may reade and practise or rather admire for who can imitate Caesar Justus Lipsius differs somewhat from these two concerning Caesar's Commentaries and thus he writes of those Historians that are Extant C. Caesar is most praised if as an Elegant Narratour I willingly assent for the Style of that man is truly pure adorned but without Paint or force and worthy either the Attick or Roman Muse but if as a perfect Historian I say I doubt because in his Civil History some doubt of his Fidelity and the third requisite in a good Historian the Moral and Politick part is altogether wanting in him and therefore Caesar who was no undervaluer of himself gave them the Title of Commentaries and not of Histories and even for this he deserved true praise because he despised the false SECT XX. Of Dion Cassius and his History how many Books he wrote how many of them have perished and how great the loss is how deservedly Vellejus Paterculus is reputed one of the best Writers his Vertues are shewn and his faults not dissembled A transition to the Writers of the times of the Caesars AFter Plutarch's Lucullus the remainders of Dion Cassius or Coccejus may be taken in also who is deservedly reputed one of the best Historians they begin with the actions of Quintus Metellus in Creet Anno V. C. 686 then they express the great enterprises of Pompey beginning with the Pyratick War and so continue down the Roman History to the Death of Claudius Caesar Anno V. C. 806. In truth Dion wrote LXXX Books of History beginning with the Arrival of Aeneas in Italy and the building of Alba and Rome and so went on without any interruption ending in the Slaughter of Heliogabalus Anno V. C. 973 Christi 221 but the first XXXIV Books are lost the next following XXV are Extant and those that succeeded these again are lost how great the loss of these LV Books is will easily appear to any man from what is spoken of him by John Bodinus considering saith he that Dion spent his whole life in managing publick affairs and by all the inferiour degrees of Honours arose to that height as to be twice made Consul and after that being Proconsul Governed some Provinces to his great honour joyning a great knowledge and experience together who can doubt whether he is to be placed amongst the best writers of History in truth he gathered together very accurately the order of the Assemblies of State and the Rights of the Roman Magistrates he is the onely person who hath given an account of the Consecration or Deifying of their Princes and Divulged their Arcana imperii secrets of State as Tacitus calls them for he was a diligent searcher into the publick Councils Or if our Reader desireth to go a shorter way and to reade the rest of the History where Livy fails twisted in one thread as it were Vellejus Paterculus may very well be admitted who flourished under Tiberius Caesar as he himself testifieth Anno Christi 27. Aclear explainer of the ancient History close and of a great efficacy and Aldus Minutius speaks thus of him he is honest and true till thou comest to the Caesars where he is not every where faithfull for through flattery he conceals or covers many things yea and plainly tells them otherwise than they were yet he expresseth himself every where with a certain facil and flowing Eloquence Justus Lipsius thus speaks of him nothing can flow with greater purity and sweetness than his Style he comprehends the Antiquities of the Romans with so much brevity and perspicuity that if he were extant intire there is no other that is equal to him and he does commend the illustrious Persons he names with a certain exalted Oratory and worthy of so great a man as Johannes Bodinus saith it is commonly conceived and agreed that his Compendium of the Roman History is contained in two Books but we have onely some shreds of his first Book as Rhenanus calls them but if the Reader begins with the IX th
Chapter of the Gruterian Edition he will find the History intire from the Conquest of Perseus King of the Macedonians to the XVI th year of the Reign of Tiberius Caesar and he may all along as he pleases joyn the Lives I have mentioned above in their order with Vellejus to enlarge the History and so he may pass on to the Writers of the Caesarian times The Authour having in the end of the XVIII th Section made onely a short mention of Appianus Alexandrinus I think it not amiss here to give somewhat a larger account of him because there is an excellent Version of his Works in English whereas Dion Cassius to my knowledge was never translated into our Language Henry Stephens in his Dedicatory Epistle before Appianus calls him the Companion of Dion Cassius and saith that these two were of great use to all those who desired to know the flourishing times of the Roman Common-wealth and to understand many passages in Cicero and others concerning the State of the Roman Republick for those Latine Historians who have come down to us cannot so well satisfie their Thirst as Dion and Appianus but if they do not leave their Reader wholly Thirsty yet we cannot deny but he will remain very unsatisfied And a little after saith he I shall mention another thing in which he is the Companion of Dion that is he relates not a few things that concern the change of the Roman State and the institution of their Princes and there is one thing in which he excells Dion and all the other Historians which is his ascribing those miseries which are attributed by all the rest to Fortune to the Providence of God thus far that Learned man speaks of him Vossius saith he writ the Roman History in XXIV Books beginning at Aeneas and the taking of Troy but with great brevity till the times of Romulus and then he wrote more accurately of all the succeeding times till Augustus adding some things here and there to the Reign of Trajan but then the manner of his dividing his Works and the Titles and Arguments of his Books may be best Learned saith he from Photius and from his own Preface of this vast work we have now extant nothing but his Punick Syrian Parthian Mithridatick Iberian and Illyrian Wars and 5 Books of the Civil Wars of the Romans and a fragment of the Celtick or German War Henry Stephens prefers him also before Dion Cassius and all the rest of the Historians because he reduced his History into certain Classes that though the whole was a Roman History yet the variety of the Titles which he placed before each Book seemed to promise the Reader a kind of new Subject and by that hope alured him to proceed not to mention saith he how much more easily any thing sought after may be found in this method of Writing in this Appianus has been very ingeniously imitated by Dr. Howell in his late Learned Universal History Photius gives this account of Appianus his History of the Civil Wars of the Romans these things are saith he contained in them first the Wars betwixt Marius and Sylla then those betwixt Pompey and Julius Caesar who contended against each other and fought many great Battels till fortune favouring Caesar Pompey turn'd his back and fled then the Wars of Antonius and Octavius Caesar who was afterwards call'd Augustus against the Murtherers of the first Caesar in which many of the greatest Romans were contrary to all Laws and Justice proscribed and Murthered then the Wars betwixt Antonius and Augustus themselves who had several sharp Fights to the destruction of great Armies till at last Victory smiling upon Augustus Antonius fled into Egypt having lost his Army and there Murthered himself which being the last Book of the Civil Wars shews also how Augustus took in Egypt and the Common-wealth of Rome became a Monarchy under Augustus He gives us also this account of the Authour Appianus was by Birth an Alexandrian and at first a Pleader of Causes at Rome afterwards he was a Praefect or Governour of some Provinces under the Emperours his Style is moderate and restrain'd but as far as is possible he is a lover of truth and an exact relatour of Military Discipline apt to put Life into the desponding Souldiery and to appease them when enraged and well able to describe and imitate any passion He flourished in the Reigns of Trajan and Adrian thus far Photius speaks of him That which prevailed upon me chiefly to insert this Addition in this place was Appianus his History of the Civil Wars in V Books written with great Clearness Elegance and Accurateness In which beginning with the Gracchian Sedition about the Agrarian Laws A. V. C. 622 or there abouts and continuing it down through all the various Seditions and Civil Wars of the Romans to the Death of Pompey the younger Anno V. C. 718. which was but five years before the fatal Battel of Actium and Augustus his settlement in the Empire a story that is not writ at large and intirely by any other but this Authour and Dion Cassius and is one of the best Supplements that is extant of the last Books in the end of Livy and one of the best Introductions too to the History of the Caesars and is one of the most lively Representations that is to be found in any History of the disorders of Common-wealths and the miseries that attend great changes in Governments and so of great use in this our unsetled Age. It is certain this History has lost its end for Photius gives an account that it reached much lower down in his times than it doth now ☞ There is now in the Press an excellent History of these times written Originally in French but made English wherein all these Greek and Latine Historians which have related the History of this great change in the Roman State are reduced into one Elegant body Intituled the History of the first and second Triumvirate Printed for Charles Brome SECT XXI The History of the Caesars is first to be fetched from Suetonius and Tacitus the great Honour shewn to both of them by the testimonies of very Learned men the judgment of the most famous Criticks concerning Tacitus various or rather contrary Light afforded both to Suetonius and Tacitus by Dion Cassius AS to the Writers of the Caesarian times let the Reader begin with Suetonius Tranquillus a most correct and candid Writer as Vopiscus stiles him He flourished under Trajan and Adrian Anno Christi 127 and was Secretary to Trajan he was an intimate friend to Pliny Secundus and he deserved his esteem being as Pliny saith in a Letter to Trajan an honest sincere Learned man And thence I conclude that the Testimonies of the later Criticks concerning him are true as that of Ludovicus Vivis Suetonius is the most diligent and impartial of all the Greek or Latine Writers he seems to me to have written
or affairs require it For he as we have hinted already Wrote an History which is not to be despised concerning the Origine of the Goths and their Actions about those times And Procopius may also be here usefully Read who Wrote VII Books of the Persian Gothick and Vandallick Wars undertaken by Justinian and managed by Belisarius as his General For if we may believe Volteranus there is in his Books the knowledge of such things as will please the most curious and so many Windings and Turnings of Commanders as for the most part happeneth in such like Wars so many strategems consultations concerning the ordering alluring confuting delaying and mitigating men that they will render the most incapacitated fit for Publick and Private affairs And the Learned Casaubon calls him a Great Writer And Johannes Bodinus saith No Man can doubt whether he is not to be esteemed amongst the Principal Writers After Procopius follows Agathias a Florid and Prudent Writer he lived about the year of Christ 567. He was a Lawyer by Profession of Smyrna in Asia and Wrote V. Books of the Reign and Actions of Justinian and begins his History where Procopius ended his his Style is Terse and Florid and he was a Pagan But if the Reader should rather chuse to pursue and reade the III. Tome of Zonaras whom I have also recommended before Nicetas Choniates will then claim the next place and after him Nicephorus Gregoras which two Authours continuing the History especially of the Eastern Empire will bring the Reader down to the death of Andronicus Palaeologus the latter that is to the year of Christ 1341. The first of them flourished in the year of Christ 1300. and in XXI Books Wrote the History of LXXXV years that is from the death of Alexius Comnenus where Zonaras ended to the year of Christ 1203. the latter lived Anno Christi 1361. and Wrote a Bizantine History in XI Bâ—oks from Theodorus Lascares to the death of Andronicus in whose times he lived and therefore deserves the less credit in his History of that Prince's Reign and Cantacusenus severely corrects him for it and calls him a Light Person and a Liar his Style is much worse than that of Nicetas for it is too luxuriant and has other faults proper to that Age but he is for the most part a good Judge of the causes of things But we will not defraud any of them of that Commendation has been given them by very Learned Men. Christoph. Colerus saith the Oriental Writers pursue a florid way of Writing and affecting Elegance too much are sometimes the farther from it I confess Gregoras is almost the onely Politician Zonaras was very knowing in Publick Affairs and is especially usefull to Lawyers Choniates is often guilty of trifles yet he is Religious and sometimes discourseth prudently of the causes of Publick Calamities but we shall discourse of these again hereafter and perhaps in a more convenient place But if our Lover of History seems wearied with the reading of so many Authours and desireth to shorten his journey and reduce it to a Compendium After Dion Cassius or Suetonius he may then take Zosimus who as I have said Wrote the declining State of the Empire as he testifies concerning himself and continues the History from Augustus to the taking of the City of Rome by the Goths in the year of Christ 410 1162 years after it was built an Elegant Translation of which Authour was lately printed in English from which time to the Reign of Charles the Great which is worth our observation for the space of almost 400 years the City of Rome and all Italy which for many Ages before had been the terrour and dread of foreign Nations being now amazed either with the sense of present Miseries or apprehension of impending future Calamities never had any quiet From the time therefore in which Alaricus entred the City and Zosimus ended his History Blondus Forliniensis continues down the History of the Goths Vandals Longobards and other Nations a Thousand and thirty years to the year of Christ 1440. in which time he flourished and till 1450. Or if the Reader thinks fit when he has read Vopiscus he will not decline from the right Method of Reading History if he admits Carolus Sigonius his History of the Western Empire which he as he professeth collected with great and diligent accurateness and then in Writing consigned and commended it to Posterity with as much truth as was possible in that great obscurity of things and the darkness of times He begins in the year of Christ 284. in which Carinus being overcome by Dioclesian at Murtium perished and ends in the death of Justinian which hapned in the 39th year of his Reign Anno Christi 565. After this time saith he the Empire being wholly extinct the Roman State was divided into many distinct Kingdoms as those of the French and Burgundians in Gall of the Goths in Spain of the English and Scots in Britain of the Longobards and Normans in Italy of the Saracens in Africa and from thence the Reader may proceed to Blondus beginning at the VII or VIIIth Book of the first Decade and so go on with it to the end SECT XXV Johannes Cuspinianus Paulus Jovius and Augustus Thuanus will furnish the Reader with a much shorter course of History from the beginning of the Caesars to our present Age. BUt if the Reader desires a yet shorter course of History and will not indure to be oppress'd with such a burthen of Authours Johannes Cuspinianus hath Written the History of the Caesars or Emperours from Julius Caesar to the death of Maximilian the first Anno Christi 1518. who was a diligent searcher into Ancient Histories which is an excellent Work and worthy to be read by all In which setting down their Lives in order he hath not onely left to Posterity their Great Examples Sayings and Actions and whatever was well or ill done by them but also an uninterrupted series and thread of History which is intire and unmaimed for above One thousand and twenty years Cuspinianus flourished Anno Christi 1540. under Charles the Vth. Paulus Jovius begins almost where the other ends and Wrote not onely a History of the Caesars but an Universal History of Fifty years which is splendid and beautifull but some think he is not very faithfull in it for he is said to have Written many things very partially insomuch as Gorraeus of Paris confidently affirmed That his Romance of Amadis would not seem less true and credible to Posterity than the History of Paulus Jovius as Bodinus saith in his Method of History where he concludes thus He delivers many things concerning the Persians Abissines and Turks which he could not possibly know whether they were true or false where he could have no other foundation but rumours and publick fame having never seen the Letters Speeches Actions or Publick
the third what Baronius his opinion of this Authour was appears in these words Any man saith he may easily see how much his mind was exasperated against the Holy Seat except those Reproaches were inserted by the Publisher which if they be taken out or excepted you may call the rest a Golden Commentary it being onely a transcript word for word of the publick Records most admirably put together and consolidated After Matthew Paris I desire Thomas Walsingham his Chronicle may follow he also was a Monk of St. Albans and began his History from Edward the first where the former ends and continues it down to the end of Henry the fifth or the year of Christ 1422. But as whilst we are reading Matthew Paris there is an History of Stephen written by an unknown hand which will amplifie and illustrate the History if taken in so if after the first Book of Walsingham's History about the year 1306 the Life and Death of Edward the Second written by Sir Thomas de la Moore Knight a Servant of that King be also admitted it will enlarge that History As this Authour was dignified with the honour of Knighthood so he deserves no less esteem for his kindness to Posterity express'd by this History which deserves the more credit because he was intimately acquainted with that Prince and served under him in the Wars ADDITIONS As I took in in the end of the last Section an excellent Collection of ancient Latine Historians of the English Nation none of which are mentioned by our Authour so with the Reader 's permission I will here take in another which was printed this year at Oxon under the Title of the first Volume of the ancient Writers of the English affairs The first Authour in it is Ingulfus Croylandensis who though not taken notice of by our Authour was printed before but imperfect he wrote the History of his Monastery and in it relates many things concerning the Kings of England he begins at the year of Christ 626 with Penda King of Mercia and in the former impression it ended with the beginning of the Reign of William the Conquerour but in this latter Edition besides many Gaps in the body of it now supplied from a better Copy his History is continued by himself to the year 1089 which was the third year of William the second or William Rufus as he is commonly called This Authour was the Son of a Courtier of Edward the last King of the Saxon Race and he himself takes notice of some disputes he had in his Infancy with Edgitha the Noble Queen of King Edward he Studied first at Westminster and then at Oxon where he became an excellent Aristotelian Philosopher he was afterwards a Counsellour to William Duke of Normandy by whose good leave he went to Jerusalem in his way at Constantinople he waited upon Alexius the then Emperour and Sophronius the Patriarch returning into Normandy he became a Benedictine Monk and after William Duke of Normandy had Conquered England Ingulfus was made Abbat of Croyland he died in the year 1109 in the time of Henry the first I have transcribed all this out of Vossius onely to shew the Reader how great a man he was and how excellently qualified for an Historian The next Authour in the said Collection is Peter Blesensis his continuation of Ingulfus his History to the year 1117 which was the 17 th year of Henry the first though he mentions some things scatteringly done after that time this continuation is imperfect at the end and therefore the Publisher supposeth it to extend onely to the beginning of the Reign of King Stephen this Authour was not for Learning inferiour to Ingulfus he was first Archdeacon of Bath and afterwards of London and Vicechancellour to the King he wrote about the year 1190 and he died in the year 1200 his Life has been writ by those that published his other Works but this History was never printed before Thus far the Publisher goes in his account of him The next in this new Collection is the Chronicle of Mailros begun as the inscription tells us by the Abbat of Dundraynan from the year 735 and continued by several hands to the year one thousand two hundred and seventy which was the LIV th year of the Reign of Henry the third who this Abbat or who these Continuers were is not certainly known but this Abbie of Mailros from which this Chronicle has its Name was not that ancient Monastery placed upon the Banks of the River Tweed often taken notice of by Venerable Bede which as it seems was destroyed by the Danes who oppressed the Kingdom of Northumberland a great while but of a later date built in the same place by the Scots who under David their King had got possession of it about the year 1136 from whence perhaps a Colony of Monks were sent to Dundraynan in Galloway in Scotland in the year 1152 in which year also that Monastery was founded as this Chronicle bears witness which though for the most part it is very brief yet it affords many things that are worth the knowing especially the Series of the Kings of Scotland as also the Successions of the Princes Nobles Bishop and Abbats in those Northern parts thus far the Publisher In the year 1252 another silly Monk of Mailros began a new Collection in which he would needs bestow an Encomium upon Simon de Montefort the turbulent Earl of Leicester which is not continued for the rest is perhaps done by another hand but concludes with the Death of Henry the third so that there is onely two years added The next is the Chronicle of Burton in the beginning of which with the Reign of King John the Authour who is not known seems to have a design to continue Roger de Hoveden whom yet he calls Hugo and by his example hath collected many of the most memorable passages of that age and though some of them are also set forth by Matthew Paris yet there are many and those not common things which are not to be found either in Paris or any other printed Historian but this and the Authour whoever he was lived in the same time with Matthew Paris and so they two do mutually afford Light each to other and also at the same time bear witness to the same things onely let the Reader take notice we follow the impression of Paris printed at London in 1650 thus far the Publisher it begins Anno 1004 and it ends Anno 1263. The Last which is the continuation of the History of Croyland though in some places imperfect which the Transcriber perhaps observed not yet we saith the Publisher thought fit to add it not onely because the Authour or rather perhaps Authours designed a continuation of Ingulfus and Peter Blesensis but chiefly because the latter end of the Reign of Henry the sixth and the whole Reign of Edward
Inhabitants are clearly demonstrated from that Nation many old Monuments illustrated and the Commerce with that People as well as the Greeks plainly set forth and Collected out of approved Greek and Latine Authours together with a Chronological History of this Kingdom from the first traditional beginning untill the year of our Lord 800 when the Name of BRITAIN was changed into ENGLAND faithfully Collected out of the best Authours and disposed in a better method than hath hitherto been done with the Antiquities of the Saxons as well as Phoenicians Greeks and Romans Printed in Folio in London in the year 1676 Volume the first I know very well some Learned men have taken great exceptions to this Piece and have affirmed many things in it to be fabulous and I will not contest for the truth of the whole and every part of it but then I will presume to say that I have found good Authority for some of those things which some have pretended Mr. Samms invented and if we are to stay for an History which all the World approves of before we reade one our Lives will end with as little knowledge of past times as of those that are to follow us when we are dead I know any ingenious person who shall reade this piece must reap much satisfaction pleasure and delight from it John Milton who was Latine Secretary to Oliver Cromwell a Learned ingenious but a very factious man wrote the History of Britain that part especially that is called England from the first traditional beginning of it to the Norman Conquest Collected out of the ancientest and best Authours as he saith it was printed 1670 and 1671 in Quarto and in 1678 in Octavo The style and composure of this History is delicate short and perspicuous and it is of the greater value because few of our English Writers begin to any purpose before the Norman Conquest passing over all those times that went before it with a slight hand Doctour John Heyward writ the History of the first Norman Kings William the Conquerour William Rufus and Henry the first he lived in the times of King James and was a Civilian and a very candid true and Learned Writer Samuel Daniel writ the Collection of the History of England where in making some short reflexions on the State of Britain and the Succession of the Saxons he descends to William the Conquerour and the Norman Kings and ends with the Reign of Edward the third Anno Domini 1376. It is written with great brevity and Politeness and his Political and Moral Reflexions are very fine usefull and instructive John Trussel continued this History with the like brevity and truth but not with equal Elegance till the end of the Reign of Richard the third Anno Domini 1484. In that Period or interval of time which Daniel hath written there are two Lives writ by two several Pens the first is the Life of Henry the third writ by that Learned wise and ingenious Gentleman Sir Robert Cotton Knight in a Masculine style with great labour and pains and with a Loyal design The Second is a piece which was lately Printed with this Title the History of the Life Reign and Death of Edward the II King of England and Lord of Ireland with the Rise and Fall of his great Favorites Gaveston and the Spencers written by E. F. in the year 1627 and Printed verbatim from the Original in the year 1680. Who this E. F. was I know not but that he was under the Dominion of a mighty Discontent is apparent by his short Preface to the Reader his first words there are these To out-run those weary hours of a deep and sad Passion my melancholy Pen fell accidentally saith he on this Historical Relation which speaks A King our own though one of the most unfortunate and shews the Pride and fall of his inglorious Minions If this Book was really written when pretended it may be probably conjectured this Male-Content had a mighty Spleen against the then Duke of Buckingham who being baited this year by the Commons in Parliament fell a Sacrifice to popular discontent the year following which with some other things to me unknown might occasion the suppressing this History then and it had been as well if it had never been Printed being partial to the highest degree and designed to encourage rather than suppress Rebellion Sedition and Treason and now why it was raked up out of the Dust and Printed when it was I shall leave the World to guess onely I cannot for bear observing the Authour was more ingenuous than the Publisher not onely because he concealed it but also because he had undoubtedly set down the causes of his discontent in the beginning of his Preface which are omitted in the Print for those weary hours must relate to something before exprest to perfect the nse Within this Period of time belonging to Trussel falls in the Life of Henry the IV th written by Dr. Heyward and also the Life of Edward the IV th written very Elegantly and Prudently by William Habington Esquire and the Life of Richard the third written by George Buck Gent. Francis Bioâ—di and Italian Gentleman and of the Privy Chamber to King Charles the first hath written in the Italian Tongue the Civil Wars between the two Houses of Lancaster and York from King Richard the second to King Henry the VIII th translated Elegantly into English saith Sir Richard Baker by Henry Earl of Monmouth Sir Francis Bacon Viscount St. Albans writ the History of Henry the 7 th in a most Elegant style Edward Lord Herbert of Sherbury hath writ the Life of Henry the Eighth with great Exactness and Accuracy as he was a person of great industry and capacity He was put upon this Work by King Charles the first and consulted all our Records Dr. John Heyward wrote the Life of Edward the VIth very Elegantly and as much of that Prince's Reign and that of Queen Mary was spent in matters of Religion so Dr. Peter Heylin in his Ecclesia Anglicana Restaurata has given a very good account of their two Reigns and also Dr. Gilbert Burnet in his History of the Reformation in two Volumes in Folio which is excellently Epitomized by himself in Octavo Though these two chiefly intend the Ecclesiastical History of those times yet they have carefully intermixt the Civil History also especially Burnet who with his History hath published many Original Records of those times which do purely belong to the Civil History Sir William Dugdale one of the Kings of Arms in England hath writ two Books which he styles the Baronage of England being an excellent History of the Successions of all the noble Families of England which is of excellent use to the well understanding of the English History Sir Richard Baker hath written a Chronicle of the Kings of England from the times of the Romans Government unto the Death of King James to which the Reign of Charles the first
disfavour fled to Otton I. and at Franckford Wrote this History as he saith himself lib. 5. cap. 14. Beatus Rhenanus Published III Books of the German affairs excellently Composed Johannes Aventinus Wrote X Books under the Title of Germany illustrated and also the Annals of the Bavarians from the Flood to the year of Christ 1460 in VII Books how ill Baronius thought of this Authour appears To. 9. Ad Annum 772. Georgius Fabricius Chemnicensis Wrote the History of Great Germany and of all Saxony in two Books and to Conclude MAR QU ARDUS FREHERUS first put out in one Volume some very excellent German Historians which before were unknown ARTICLE III. The Historians of Austria FRanciscus Guillimannus Wrote VII Books of the ancient and true Origine of the House of Austria he flourished about the year of Christ 1500. Wolfangus Lazius of Vienna has comprehended the History of Austria in IV Books Gerhardus de Reo and Conradus Decius have Written Annals also of Austria there is Extant too a Chronicle of the Dukes of Bavaria and Suevia written by an uncertain Authour and to these may be added the Austriades of Richardus Bartolinus Perusinus in XII Books which concern the Wars between the Dukes of Bavaria and the Princes of the Palatinate which was illustrated with Notes by Jacobus Spigelius Selestadiensis ARTICLE IV. The Historians of the Hunnes and Hungarians JOhannes de Thwroz or Turocius so call'd from the Province of Thwrocz wrote a Chronicle of the Hungarian affairs from the very rise of that Nation under Attila their first King to the Coronation of Matthias which was in the year of Christ 1464 of this Authour Trithemius Writes thus Johannes Thuroth a Pannonian was a man excellently acquainted with and well exercised in Civil Literature and not ignorant in Divine knowledge of an exalted Ingenuity and a clear Eloquence this Authour lived Anno Christi 1494. Johannes Bonfinius Composed an Elegant History of the Kings of Hungary in four Decades and an half that is in XLV Books which reacheth to the Death of Matthias Hunniades and the beginning of Vladislaus or the year 1495 which he began at the Command of Matthias Bonfinius flourished about the year of Christ 1496. Petrus Ranzanus Wrote Indexes as he calls them of the Hungarian Transactions of which Joh. Sambucus who first rescued them from the Dust and Darkness in which they lay and Published them to the World writes thus It seems the ways of Writing Histories heretofore were very various this Authour having some Indexes of the Kings of Hungary given him at Vienna by Beatrix extracted out of the same Records from which Bonfinius described his he so well deduced and illustrated them that he is in nothing inferiour to the best Writers of the Hungarian History for in this brevity he has Comprehended what ever is required to render an History Elegant and usefull and he is the more valuable also that whereas there are some Gaps and mistakes by the faults of the Transcribers in Bonfinius his History we may here find directions for the rectifying all these Erratas and be assisted at the same time in searching out the sincere and perfect truth thus far Sambucus Philip Callimachus Experiens wrote an History of the Life and Reign of Vladislaus King of Poland and Hungary so elegantly and exactly that Paulus Jovius did not scruple to say of it that in his judgment it excell'd all that had been Written of that kind since Cornelius Tacitus through so many Ages as have since followed this Authour flourished Anno Christi 1490. Melchior Soiterus and Petrus Bizarrus have Written the History of the Hungarian Wars ARTICLE V. The Historians of the Goths Danes Sclavonians and Swedes PRocopius has Written III Books of the Gothick Wars and Agathias the Smyrnean V Books both of them in Greek and in Latine Jornandes the Bishop of the Goths who reduced into II Books the History of Aurelius Casiodorus who was Secretary to Theodoricus King of the Goths and Wrote a Gothick History in XII Books Isidorus Hispalensis Composed an History of the Origine of the Goths and of the Kingdom of the Sueves and Vandals Johannes Magnus a Bishop of Sweden wrote a History also of all the Kings of the Goths and Swedes Leon Aretinus Composed also an History of the Goths but which affords nothing more than what Procopius hath written so that he seems to be no more than his Paraphrast but he is more remarkable for another thing that is that be was the first Person who restored and communicated the Greek Tongue and Learning after it had lain several Ages oppressed and troden down by the tyranny of the insolent Barbarians as P. Jovius writes of him in his Elogies he flourished Anno Christi 1420. Hieronymus Rubeus wrote of the Goths and Lombards Saxo Grammaticus has deduced an History of Denmark from the utmost Antiquity down to his own times that is to Canutus the VI th and Waldemarus his Brother the Grandchildren of Saint Canutus that is almost to the year of Christ 1200. All he hath Written is not to be admitted hand over head without Examination yet neither is he so great a Fabler as some have fansied who have no esteem on that account for him amongst whom is Goropius Becanus which is the less worth our wonder because he himself doth not write so much Paradoxes as impossibilities as to Saxo's style the Elegance of it is so great saith the Learned Vossius that it exceeded the Capacity of the Age he lived in yea it is equal to many of the ancient Writers and to most of ours he flourished about the year of Christ 1220. Idacius his Chronicle of Denmark is from the times of Theodosius the Great to the year of Christ 400. Johannes Boterus and Erpoldus Lindenbruch have written accounts of the Kings of Denmark and in the year 1596 Plantin Printed a Compendious History of the Kings of Denmark to Christian the IV th Gaspar Ens wrote Commentaries concerning the Wars of Denmark both by Sea and Land in the Reign of Frederick the second containing the most memorable Dithmarsick and Swedish War The Learned Johannes Meursius hath comprehended in III Books the Reigns of Christian the first John his Son and Christian the second his Grandchild that is from the year of Christ 1448 to the year 1523. Albertus Crantzius hath Written an History of the Vandals in XIV Books and a Chronicle of the other Northern Nations as the Danes Norwegians Swedes which is call'd Gothia and Scandia he begins at the times of Charles the Great and comes down to the year 1504 he flourished to the year 1517 in which he Died. Gerardus Geldenhaurius writes thus of him He has almost onely seemed to me to deserve the Name of an Historian because he wrote the Transactions of his own times truely freely and for the good
an excellent Authour in the Opinion of Melchior Canus a Man of an approved Faith and a grave Historian But in the esteem of the most Learned Casaubon and Vossius he is a Spurious Pretending and Suppositious and in short an Authour of no Antiquity or at least quite another Man from that Noble Hegesippus who lived near the times of the Apostles and was Contemporary with Justin Martyr and Athenagoras of whom frequent mention is made by Eusebius and St. Hierome and yet after all this there are some who think he is no contemptible or unprofitable Authour in his first Book he has given an Account of the Wars of the Jews from the times of the Maccabees to the Birth of Christ and the death of Herod the Great And in his Second Book he brings down the History to the Expedition of Vespasian into Judaea Anno Christi 69. and then in his IIId IVth and Vth Books he has Consecrated to the memory of Posterity the Story of the total devastation of Judaea and the utter Ruine of Jerusalem by Vespasian and his Son Titus which happened Anno Christi 72. But then saith Bodinus This may be better and more truely Learned from Josephus who was not onely present in these Wars but was a Commander for some time and being made a Captive obtain'd from Vespasian and Titus the Privilege of being made a Citizen of Rome and the Flavian Sir-name which was that of their own Family and also a Statue And then the Princelike Virtues of an Historian an exalted erudition a rare integrity and a great experience shone clearly in that person And it is farther objected against this fictitious Hegesippus that he doth not treat of the Affairs of the Church but onely of those of the Jews from the time of the Maccabees to the ruine of Jerusalem But we may Answer Bodinus in the first place that this Hegesippus has shortly and elegantly comprehended in that Work what Josephus hath more copiously related in his VII Books of the Wars of the Jews and scatteringly in his Antiquities And in the next place that this Authour doth no less religiously than truely set forth some things concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ which are either altogether passed by by Josephus or onely slightly mention'd by him because perhaps he had an aversion for our Religion And he also sets down in a few words the causes of the War doth Learnedly shew the sources of those great Calamities and why that People which alone was chosen by God and beloved very much was thus consum'd why Jerusalem was destroy'd which was not onely the most Celebrated City of all the East as Pliny calls it but if we consider the extraordinary Favours of God of the whole World Why the Temple was rased their Sacred Rites abolished and the Politick Government of that Nation which had subsisted so many Ages was for ever taken away For the serious consideration of these things will yield the pious and prudent Reader a plenty of the most Excellent Fruits which History can afford him Or if our Reader of History is better pleased to pass by this suppositious Authour and will not be discouraged to go back again and after the Reading the Holy Bible and the Antiquities of Josephus and to câ—ntemplate at one view the whole image of the Sacred History from the Creation of the World to the Birth of Christ and so on to the Fourth Centery of the Second Interval then let him here take in Sulpitius Severus his Sacred History which he begins with the Creation of the World and ends with the Synod of Bordeaux Anno Christi 386. He was a Man of much learning and prudence and a most Polite Writer His style is so pure and elegant that Josephus Scaliger calls him The most Pure Writer of the Church History But I cannot forbear confirming the Judgment of this great Man by the more Prolix and yet not less elegant testimony of Victor Giselin a Physician and Antiquary of a most accomplish'd Erudition He writes thus The blessed Sulpitius hath with great brevity compris'd and with an exact distinction of times shortly deduced to the Age in which he lived the Memory of those things which are contained in the Holy Scriptures from the beginning of the World Now whether any Age hath produced Another Work that is more excellent more noble and more usefull to the Christian Church than this small Piece I shall willingly leave to the Judgment of those who have better abilities than I to determine of it But as to the Elegance of it I dare undertake and I think I may safely affirm that it is not inferiour in any thing to the best of all the Church Historians but then as to all other Works which are of the same nature it hath so great advantages over them that they do not deserve to be compared with it That which I have said of it is great and may perhaps seem to most men incredible But yet what I say has so much truth in it that I am confident the veracity of the thing will prevail so much that my testimony may be spared especially as to those who will take the Pains to compare all the parts of this Authour with Orosius Florus Eutropius and the rest of the Writers of Epitomes He seems to me to have obtain'd the Garland onely by the imitation of C. Salustius a florid Writer of the Roman Story For observing that many things in him passed for excellencies which would become no other Man and were scarce possible to be imitated as his abrupt way of speaking which slips insensibly by the Reader or Hearer and doth not stay till a Man comes to it but as Seneca saith his Sentences come pouring in and his words surprize by their unexpected falls these I say be left to Salust as his sole personal excellencies And he studiously avoided his obsolete words which as Augustus said he collected out of Cato ' s Books de Originibus But then as to his spruce brevity tempered with significant Words and adapted in the highest degree to his design he imitated that Great Historian with so much Art that we may well say he rather emulated him and strove to out-doe him For he did not think it sufficient to follow his style and to divide circumscribe and cut it and make just such transitions from one thing to another except he made the same entrances to his Books the other did but with this difference that whereas he as Fabius saith chose such as had no relation to History Sulpitius accommodated his a little better to his subject All which things in History at least appear glorious as any Man may observe at the first Glance For it was written as I have said in the flower of his Age before his passionate love to Eloquence had been mortified by the severe discipline of the Monastery of Tours Thus far Giselinus The Elzivers two Dutch Printers put out this
follow the conduct of their affections or industriously fain many things so that I for my part am very often both weary and ashamed of them because I know they have thereby brought nothing of Advantage to the Church of Christ but very much inconvenience Thus saith Melchior Canus Nor are we to think that it is onely the complaint of the Learned Men of this and the last Age that the Church Writers are thus corrupted and depraved as if these faults had crept into them of late onely or as if none of the most Ancient Writers had been justly to be numbred amongst these depravers of the Church History Above a Thousand and three hundred years agon before the Church was past its youth there were some who basely infected the Monuments of the Church with Lies and made it their business to corrupt them with such impure mixtures And Arnobius in his Books Contra Gentes hath taken this notice of it But neither saith he could all that was done be written or arrive at the Knowledge of all men Many of our great Actions being done by obscure Men and those who had no knowledge of Letters and if some of them are committed to Letters and Writings yet even here by the Malice of the Devils and of men like them whose great design and study it is to intercept and ruine this truth by interpolating or adding some things to them or by changing or taking out Words Syllables or Letters they have put a stop to the Faiths of Wise Men and corrupted the truth of things Thus Arnobius And in truth what could possibly be devised to corrupt and debase the Memory of the Ancient Church which Pagans Jews or Hereticks have not deceitfully imposed upon her What hath not a silly and Credulous Superstition feigned My Hearers I have pursued these things at large that they who are desirous to know the Church History might understand and diligently consider with how much care and caution they are to be read for here a Man is in more danger of being deceived by feign'd stories than in any other sort of Histories whatsoever And yet it is confess'd by all that it is much more mischievous to be involved in errour here than in Civil History Now as it befits us to take great care on the one side that we do not imbrace falsehood for truth rashly so it becomes us to consider attentively that we do not reject what is really true as false without deliberation I confess saith the Learned Lawyer Balduinus where there are so many Ambushes and so many dangers those who remember that credit is not rashly to be given deserve to be commended for their suspitious modesty and jealousie But then the unbelief of some others is too great who will believe nothing but what is written by some one single Authour As for example they will believe nothing that is spoken concerning the Apostles but what is written by St. Luke But then St. Luke did chiefly design to Write the History of St. Paul and as to that too he omitted some things as is apparent by the Epistle to the Galatians St. Luke speaking of Simon Magus does onely tell us That in Samaria his own Town being wrought upon by the Reproof of St. Peter he confessed his Sin But shall we therefore cry out that whatever those very Ancient Writers Justin Martyr Tertullian Arnobius Eusebius Epiphanius and St. Augustine have delivered besides this concerning him is false and therefore in the Reading of Histories let us ever remember to be such as Aristotle saith those men who are betwixt youth and old age commonly are that is neither too prone to believe nor too difficult and distrustive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Neither believing nor disbelieving every thing That of Hesiod is like an Oracle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Too much too little Faith has ruin'd Men. But some Man may with great truth say That Facility of Belief and Diffidence are both in their turns of great use and safety For every verisimilitude is not presently true nor is every thing that seems at first sight incredible to be concluded therefore false Truth hath sometimes the resemblance of falsehood and again a Lie is masked with the beautifull Colours of truth at other times as Seneca saith somewhere And therefore that we may proceed where we cannot have such Witnesses as were present at the Actions they record the next care is to hear those who have faithfully delivered what they received from others especially if the Ages in which they lived their Antiquity and Virtue have given them a right to our Faith and made them of good Authority And amongst these it is fit we should prefer the most Ancient and as I may say Classick Authours before the rest What Aristole said of Witnesses is true here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The most Ancient deserve most credit because it is not so easie to corrupt them And for the most part it also comes to pass that by how much the later and newer the Account of any Ancient Transaction is so much the more faulty and corrupt it proves For as Wine by how much the oftner it is poured from one Vessel into another becomes so much the more weak and dispirited and as Fame the further it goes the further it removes from Truth and gathers so much the more of Vanity even so for the most part a History being repeated by many and toss'd to and fro and told every time in other Words is diffused takes aire and at last contaminates and degenerates into a mere Fable Indeed I have made this Discourse much longer than I intended but Prudent Readers will afford me so much the more easily their Pardon if they please to consider that all this has no other scope than the making men extremely cautious in their turning over the Volumes of the Church History And therefore I will now pass on to the Catalogue of those Authours and the Order of them which Learned Men have prescribed to be read after the Books of the New Testament in which I shall be as short as it is fit I should be SECT XXXIV At last in the Third Centery the Church then beginning to flourish Ecclesiastical History began to flourish too Eusebius Pamphili the Prince amongst the Church Historians he emulates Xenophon in his Books of the Life of Constantine Many things which he Wrote are lost His Authority vindicated How far his History reacheth Scaliger's judgment concerning Ruffinus The Tripartite History The Reading of Eusebius his Panegyrick recommended SEeing then those Writers who are said to have lived with the Apostles are to be rejected as is said above as spurious and those that followed them immediately in the two next Centeries are not extant being either swallowed up in that vast shipwreck of Learning or as the opinion of the Learned Casaubon is seeing they rather seem to have begun to think of writing something of this Nature than
Church and overflowed it which were then sent out of all and every Cloister Hospital Church-yard Xenodoch or Hospital for Travellers and Strangers and out of every Thole Cave and â—upelo And almost the same thing is said by the famous Casaubon In the Historical Monuments saith he of those Ages the Accounts of the Miracles wrought by the Saints or their Images or Relicks filled the whole Book c. Upon which account a Learned Man said He doubted whether those Ages were to be call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Times of Rotomantados or Wonder-making or of Ignorance And he will not seem to me to err much who shall affirm both things of these times especially if he has respect to the Western Empire and the Latin Church and Writers under that Empire For after these horrible inundations of the Barbarous Nations the Roman Empire falling into ruine together with it all the Knowledge of good Learning fell also and an amazing Barbarity and Ignorance poured in upon the Western parts and all the cultivation of Arts and Wits withered away as if they had been strucken with a Pestilential vapour and lay both neglected and despised insomuch that as to Learning they are the words of the Learned Bishop of Chichester after Isodorus Hispalensis who died in the year of our Lord 636 or thereabouts to Venerable Bede our Countreyman who lived about the year 731 those who were but moderately versed in the more Polite Literature were scarce so many in number as the Gates of Thebes or the Mouthes of the Nile And I will add those that followed in the two next Centuries amongst the Latins were not much more numerous But you will say perhaps then Greece will yet afford us some And therefore let us now proceed and take a view of them SECT XXXVII Nicephorus of Constantinople may follow Simocatus Nicephorus Callistus full of Errours Georgius Cedrenus and the Censures of Scaliger and Vossius on him LEt therefore Nicephorus Patriarch of Constantinople follow Simocatus he lived in the times of Copronymus about the year of Christ DCCL and wrote a Breviary or short History of Affairs from the Murther of Mauritius where Simocatus ended to the year of Christ DCCLXIX which Authour was first published together with a Latin Translation by that famous Man Dionysius Petavius There is indeed another Nicephorus known by the Sirname of Callistus who lived long after the former for he was born MCCC years after Christ and flourished under Andronicus the Greater and Andronicus the Lesser his Nephew This latter Nicephorus begins his History with the beginning of the Christian Religion and continues it to the death of Phocas who succeeded Mauritius that is to the year of Christ DCXXV But all the peculiar errours of the Greeks are to be found in this Authour as Bellarmine saith especially such as are Historical And the Reverend Bishop of Chichester numbers him amongst those Authours who out of foolish superstition were extremely prone to believe and put out or rather obtrude upon the World prodigious and nauseous Fables Georgius Cedrenus the Monk was a little more ancient than Callistus he wrote a Compendium of Histories from the beginning of the World to Isacius Comnenus that is to the year of Christ MLVII in which times he seems to have flourished But then neither is this Authour said to be of any great credit It is apparent by these words of his what the great Scaliger thought of him The whole Work of Cedrenus saith he is a heap of Chaff or a Collection made up of many Pieces some base some noble some good some bad some intire some torn The Judgment of the Learned Vossius concerning him is a little more favourable for thus he represents him He is a little more diligent than Zonaras in the Bizantine affairs but then in those things which fell before the division of the Empire he is less exact than Zonaras Nor is his style equal to his or that of Nicetas or Gregoras or many others and yet in this Rhapsody I had almost called it a Chaff heap it is possible to find some noble pieces And to conclude they both tell us that he transcrib'd to a word Georgius Syncellus and Theophanes who continued him and Gesner tells us the whole History of Cedrenus from the death of Nicephorus the Emperour commonly call'd Botonias to the Reign of Isaac Comnenus a very few things excepted is extant under the name of Johannes Curopalata which is also confirm'd by the most Learned Casaubon so that one of them must of necessity steal out of the other SECT XXXVIII The Third Tome of Zonaras commended to the Reader And at the year 1118. Anna Comnena her Alexiades The high Commendations of that Lady JOhannes Zonaras flourished above Fifty years after Cedrenus about the year of Christ MCXX. he as is observed above amongst the Civil Historians wrote an Universal History which he divided into three Tomes the last of which is thought fit in this place to be recommended to the Reader For in this he laboured to describe more exactly whatever had been done in the East from Constantine the Great and his Successours to the times of this Authour that having been till then attempted by few men A very learned Man observes that in both his two first Tomes there are many things not mention'd by any other Authour but that in his third Tome for the most part he gives account of those Bizantine affairs which are not mentioned by any other Historian besides himself and were it not for him we should have been ignorant of a great part of the Actions of the latter Emperours of the East Besides he interwove the History of the Church of Constantinople and of the Controversies in Religion that were moved in the Eastern Church and continued it down to the death of Alexius Comnenus an Emperour who Reigned in his own times But that is much to be observed which is remarked by the Learned Vossius that in the affairs of his own times he is very careless and contracts the Life of Alexius Comnenes into a very narrow compass But then Anna Comnena the Daughter of this Emperour supplied this defect who wrote several Books on the Life of her Father and call'd them by the name of Alexiada's Zonaras in his third Tome near the end doth much commend the erudition of this Lady where he speaks of the Learning and Power of Bryennius Caesar her husband in these words And he also was given much to study and his Lady did not take less but rather more pains in Learning speaking the Attick Dialect perfectly and having a very sharp wit for the Contemplation of the most abstruse things Nor doth the Historian stop here but goes on and shews how she became so very Learned Having saith he by the benignity of Nature obtained great faculties and improv'd them with industry she spent much time in reading
Keckerman and others who are of a contrary judgment but if you please you may hear both first Keckerman and then Vossius Seeing saith Keckerman Histories contain nothing but Examples of Precepts and Precepts are generally delivered in a Method but examples without any Method Except that which is methodically taught precede it is a common and a very mischievous errour and mistake for youth which is led onely by the pleasure and delight of History to begin professedly to read Histories before it is acquainted with those Sciences and Precepts which are delivered in Order and Method and with the common places to which all Histories ought to be reduced Now that this is very preposterous may be easily understood by thus comparing it with other Sciences as for example with Grammar Logick c. For as it were absurd for a Man to desire to know and observe the examples of Grammar Logick or Rhetorick before he hath learned the Rules of those Sciences so it must needs be more absurd for one to desire to read seriously and professedly and to observe Histories which are nothing but examples of Morality and Politicks before he has Learned the Rules and Method of Morality and Policy c. Thus far Keckerman And now if you please you may hear Vossius There is saith he nothing of absurdity as Keckerman pretends if one should choose to learn Examples before Precepts for it is very well known that Languages may be very well learn'd without Grammar Rules and then saith he those who are of Keckerman's opinion commit no small errour by not distinguishing between Reading and Writing an History to which no Man should apply himself if he be not well acquainted with Civil Philosophy Lastly he saith That they confound the naked and simple History of things with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Historical Perfection which inquireth curiously into the circumstances and causes of events In the last place he confirms his opinion by the Authority of Quintilian a Great Master in the Art of Breeding youth who commands Oratours to begin with Histories and Orations And at the same time doubts not to prefer Livy before Salust not onely because he is more Candid and more like Cicero than Salust but also because he is the Authour of a larger and more perfect History now he would never have written thus if he had not thought the most General Histories best for youth Thus Writes the most Learned Vossius SECT II. The Opinion of Keckerman defended That Tongues are hardly to be well-learned without Rules That there is a vast difference betwixt Languages and Actions That Practick Philosophy is necessary not onely to the Writer but Reader also of History Ubertus Folietta Sebastianus Foxius and Viperanus do all seem to be of this opinion And the most Learned Vossius himself affords us no infirm arguments to support it BUt may we have the liberty of this Great Man whose judgment is every where else of the greatest Authority with us and whom in the things relating to History we especially value and venerate to dissent and in some sort to defend the part Keckerman hath taken It seems therefore to me that Keckerman may thus Reply In the first place it is not impossible to learn Languages without Rules but that they may be as well Learned without Rules is denied We learn to Articulate words and to form compound and speak them by Hearing Use and Discourse without Precepts or Rules But then to Adorn our Speech and artificially form an Oration is scarce or rather not at all possible without the assistance of Rules and Precepts And besides although one may learn to speak of what Language soever he were without Rules yet he will never be able to judge of the exactness and propriety of Speech and to give the reason of it without them nor indeed to speak well or elegantly But then those things are best learned of which we have a perfect knowledge where we can give an account of the Reason of them as Aristotle our Master teacheth us And besides all this there is another judgment to be made upon Languages than there is upon Actions whether we are to imitate them or to compare them in our mind by Contemplation Use directs and corrects our Speech but it is the Rule and Precepts of Living well which are to govern our Actions The Custome of the place which is never fix'd governs our Language But then we know our Actions are to be temper'd with respect to Honesty and Turpitude and to be examin'd by the Precepts of Law Secondly Neither is the opinion of Vossius altogether to be approved in that he holds that Practick Philosophy is necessary for a Writer but not for a Reader of History For why not Do we not affirm that the same end is common to both of them the design of the one being that he may from examples learn the way of Living well the other's that he may also by Examples teach that way Is it not the scope of the one that by describing the Accidents that have attended the Lives of others he may insinuate wisedom into Men And is it not the scope of the other that by reading and observing those events he may attain to prudence It seems to be exactly thus to me at least and not to me onely but to many others and those not unlearned men If you please let us hear one or two of them Moral Philosophy and History saith Ubertus Folietta are two faculties which respect the common Good and Utility of Men and which direct them in the way to a blessed life and fit them for the preserving and improving Civil Society And therefore these two faculties have divided this work between them so that the first forms the Minds and Manners of Men by Disputes and Precepts and the latter by usefull Examples and salutary Admonitions teaching and advising them what to follow and what to flee in the course of their lives by whose Examples Men should govern and form their Actions and Counsels and sets before them the ends and events which usually wait upon good and evil Counsels by the knowledge of which Men may be engaged in the love of Vertue or call'd off from Lewd and Wicked courses Sebastian Fox also a Man of a celebrated judgment and eloquence in his time doth manifestly dissent from the great Vossius in this point For he in his Book de Institutione Historiae writes thus How shall you ever be able to know or judge of the Art or Elegance not onely of an History but of any other thing that is well written if you know not what that art is or what is rightly and well done those things you inquire of are not to be understood but by Learned and well-instructed Men for he that would accurately read a History must first know how it ought to be wrote c. and presently after he subjoins the reason Because Artificers and
it yet as to the gaining any true and solid Learning it is of No use at all In the next place we approve our Reader so much the more if he has had a taste of Practick Philosophy or Morality the necessity of which qualification may be easily apprehended by what is said above In the next place if he has some degree at least of knowledge in Chronology that is the Successions of Times and Ages So that he is acquainted with the Series and Order of them and can inclose as it were in certain Limits the Empires Wars and Events he meets with in History That great Man Josephus Scaliger calls this the Soul of History without which it cannot breathe or live by others it is call'd the Right Eye of History by others the North Star which governs and directs the Reader whilst he Sails on the vast Ocean of History that he may the more certainly and quickly and with the greater delight and improvement arrive at the Port he designs by his Reading for he that without the Order of times thinks he may understand Histories will find himself in the end as much disappointed as if he should attempt to pass the Windings of a great Labyrinth without a Thread or Conductor But we attribute to History a left Eye too that is Geography or Topography with which if the Reader be not in some degree acquainted he must of necessity lose much of the pleasure yea and of the advantage or utility of his Reading and will scarce be able to attain a clear and perfect knowledge of the things related For who is so ignorant in History as not to understand how much light is given to the Reader by the circumstances of the place in which any thing is done Let him therefore be Master of the Common Divisions of the Globe of the Earth and let him know how to distinguish the Parts of the World and how they lye Let him also know the Provinces or Kingdoms in each part and at least the Principal Rivers Mountains and Towns for as to the more exact knowledge of small things we hardly judge it necessary to our Reader Lastly If he be in some degree also acquainted with other Arts and has some experience of things we shall then say that he is indeed a competent and well-prepared Reader of History And these things are sufficient to be spoken concerning the second Part of our Method OF THE ORDER and METHOD OF Reading Histories Part the Third Viz. Of the Manner of Collecting the Fruits of History Or of the Use of the Reading Histories SECT I. The last Head of what is to be handled proposed The Council of Ludovicus Vivis concerning those things that are to be Noted in the Reading of Histories The Custome of Augustus Caesar in his Reading Histories What things are found in Histories worth Noting and of what Use they are THE third Head yet remains which in the beginning we resolved to treat of in the last place and that was what in our Readings we should elect and how And this I might easily pass over if I did onely propose the Rules Ludovicus Vivis has given to be observed by all For he teacheth us what is to be observed in the Reading Histories in these words In Reading Histories saith he the first thing to be observed is the Order of times and in the next place all Words and Actions which will afford any example for the imitating what is good or the avoiding what is evil Wars and Fights are not so accurately to be considered as teaching us nothing but the arts and ways by which we may hurt one another it is also lightly to be regarded who took Arms who were the Generals where they fought who was beaten and what was done to them nor are these things to be read or written in any other style than that of Great ROBBERIES as indeed for the most part they are no better excepting onely those Wars which are begun against Thieves which I wish were more usually done amongst Christians it will therefore be better and much more fruitfull to fix our minds upon the affairs of the Gown and to Note what things are famously and wisely done in relation to any vertue what is basely and cruelly done as to vices what event followed how happy the ends of good Actions proved how sad and calamitous those of leud Actions Then the Speeches and Replies of men of great Sense Experience and Wisedom and especially those which according to the Greek word are call'd Apophthegms Counsels also and the Causes why any thing was undertaken done or spoken and especially the Counsels of such men as have excell'd others in Honesty Wisedom and Learning as for example the Philosophers and the best of Men the Saints of our Religion that we may not onely know what has proceeded from great agitations of minds but what hath come calmly from the force of the mind and judgment for indeed it is an unworthy thing to commit to writing the Operations of our affections and not those of our Reason and Counsels These Prescriptions are given us by that Learned Spaniard It would be a shorter work yet if I should onely propose to our Student in History the Example of Augustus the Emperour for his imitation of whom Suetonius writes thus In perusing the Greek and Latine Histories he did not pursue any thing so much as the Collecting those Precepts or Examples which were salutary and usefull to the Publick or to private men which transcribing word for word he very often sent to his Domesticks or to the Governours of Provinces or Armies or to the Magistrates of the City as any of them had need of an Admonition But we shall make the Use of Histories a little larger and yet shall not be over prolix neither For as we have observed above frequently and truly History is a treasury of very many and different good things For in History you will find some things which tend to the increase of Learning others of Prudence other things you may observe which tend to the improvement of the Language and which do contribute to the perfecting the Faculty of speaking well and lastly other things which tend to the well forming the Life and to the polishing the Manners SECT II. Two sorts of Learning to be gathered Philology and Philosophy under either of these there are several Species contain'd in what Order these are to be disposed and of what use they are That many have written concerning the Forms of Common place-Place-books THerefore we say there are two sorts of Excerpts in the whole which are especially to be observed by the Reader Philological and Philosophical Under the Philological we rank not onely all those Observations which concern the Elegance of Speech the Politeness of the Language and Style and the Propriety of Words but also the ancient Customs all their Rites Ceremonies and Solemnities of what sort soever they are and their
here omnis doctrinae Auctor An Improver of all sorts of Learning For saith he this is too great a Commendation for Scipio and therefore I would write onely Fautor A favourer for that better befits a Great and a Military Man to which I reply O Lipsius there is no need of a change here For it was well deserved by him because he with a very few others is reported to have first brought all sorts of Learning into the City of Rome And why may we not conjecture that Polybius wrote his History and Panaetius his Books of Offices at the instigation of Scipio Will any Man say that this conjecture is absurd when Vellejus himself writes they were his perpetual Companions and when also the writings of Terence are ascribed to Scipio as Fabius testifieth and when Donatus saith there is a strong report that Terence was assisted by Laelius and Scipio to which may be added what Vellejus subjoins here Whenever he obtain'd any respit from the Affairs of the State and Camp he exercised his mind in Learning for from this very passage that Praise of Scipio's is made more probable and indeed is not to be thought too great as Lipsius thinketh Nor is this Elogy too great neither for a great or a Military Man For you see what Cornelius Nepos or Aemilius Prâ—â—us say of Hannibal This Great Man saith that Authour though he were distracted with such great Wars spent some part of his time in Learning for there are some Books extant which he wrote in Greek and in those to the Rhodians he writes the History of the Actions of Cn. Manlius Vulso in Asia And In the last place the Philologer will observe the Elegance and Propriety of his words his ingenious Allusions and his apt and clear Translations as in these words Neque enim quisquam hoc Scipione Elegantius intervalla negotiorum dispunxit For whether he alluded to that of Cato in the beginning of his Origins where he affirms That there ought to be an account given not onely of the Actions of Famous and very Great Men but also how they spent their times of leisure and repose or whether he reflects upon that expression of Scipio's when he said Se nunquam minus otiosum esse quam cum otiosus neque minus solum quam cum solus esset That he was never less idle than when he seemed to be so nor less alone than when he was so Now Vellejus seems to me to have here very elegantly taken in and expressed both these Elogies Which that it may more clearly appear the Philologer will observe that there is a two-fold leisure opposed to business and labour one of which is perfect sloth and idleness without any action the other is very active And this place saith Scipio was ever for the latter sort for in his leisure and times of rest he was never careless of the Publick Affairs nor gave himself up to idleness but either thought of his business or entertained himself with Books or the conversations of wise Men. For this is the meaning of that phrase Intervalla negotiorum otio dispungere The last word of which is borrowed from the usage of Men concerned in pecuniary affairs and accountants as the Philologer will presently observe And signifies the balancing or comparing what is received with what is paid for so saith Ulpian Or as the common expression is to examine the account Percontandas atque examinand as rationes dispungendas atque discutiendas saith Ulpian The Account is to be inquired into and examined and to be crossed out or reviewed and therefore it seems to me that Vellejus is here to be understood as if he had thus expressed himself No man did ever balance his Publick Employments more exactly with his private studies comparing them each with the other with the same care as an Accomptant would do the sum received with that which was paid For you must know that what was approved or allowed on both sides in giving their Votes or in calling over their Souldiers or Officers was usually marked with pricks that so they might proceed to examine the remainder And these things were said to be dispuncta pricked or crossed out And on the contrary what were passed by or rejected and to be refused were said to be expuncta marked or branded and so discarded Souldiers were styl'd expuncti In short the Authour seems to speak as if he would have said No Man ever took more care that both his employments and retirements should be alike usefull and salutary And let thus much suffice concerning what may be observed upon the XIII th Chapter of the first Book of Vellejus Paterculus I promised another Example on this Head of Philologie and I will be as good as my word but then I have resolved to be as short in this second as I have been long in the first Cornelius Tacitus in the IIId Book of his Annals and 65 th Chapter shall be the Subject of it Where describing the corruption of the times under Tiberius thus he delivers it Those times saith he were so infected and corrupted with Flattery that not onely the Principal Men of the City whose greatness was to be protected or covered by submissions but all these who had been Consuls or Pretors and also Pedarii Senatores the Foot Senatours arose in great numbers and made base and excessive low and flattering Votes Thus far Tacitus From which passage the Philologers and Grammarians will observe that those are here call'd Primores civitatis the Principal Men of the City which Capitolinus calls the Optimates the Great Men and Aurelius Victor Nobilium optimos the best of the Nobility And which Tacitus himself calleth very often Proceres the Nobless And in some others they are styl'd Principes Civitatis or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Princes or Prime Men of the City In the next place that the Consulares here are the same with those who are elsewhere call'd Ex Consules or those who had passed the Consulship and Ex Praetorii those who had been Praetors and all the other Magistratus Curules Chair Magistrates who had a right of coming to the Senate and Voting And from this place also the Philologer will observe in the last place the several distinctions or degrees of Senatours that some of them were Patricians or No lemen by Birth others Conscripti or Chosen Men And lastly that others were Pedarii Foot-Senatours The first of these Orders were the descendants of those Hundred Fathers which the Builder of the City elected to be Senatours the second sort were those who were Elected by the decrees of their Kings Consuls or Censors The third sort were call'd Foot-Senatours because whereas the rest were carried into the Senate in a Chair of State these went thither on foot as some think or because they were to follow the Opinion or Vote of others by passing from side to side as it was order'd to shew
the ways of living the Actions of our Ancestours will afford us but he almost always shews us how we are to reap the advantage of them SECT VI. That Christians may receive usefull instructions from the Examples of the Heathens and thereby improve themselves not onely in Moral Vertues but also in the Acts of Piety and a Holy life The same thing taught by St. Augustine St. Hierome and others The Precepts of such imitations fulfilled by the Heathens which St. Ambrose elegantly expressed BUT we are not to think that the Prophane Histories are onely of use as to the Civil Conversation but also as to the Christian Life which the Holy Fathers of the Church have at large taught and by many Examples proved Be but pleased to consult St. Augustine in his V th Book de Civitate Dei and you will find there what he saith of Brutus Scaevola Curtius Decius and others whom the Learned Casaubon from Dionys. Halic calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heroas God-like Heroes who Acted Prodigies and Wonders of Vertue as Florus saith onely that they might obtain Liberty for their Countrey Empire for their City and Glory for themselves by which they obtained their End and received their so much desired recompence At last St. Augustine concludes thus And therefore the Roman Empire was dilated and enlarged by God to their great glory not onely that a sutable reward might be given to such brave Men but also that the Citizens of that Eternal City as long as they are Pilgrims here below might diligently and soberly consider those Examples and might from thence learn what great Love is due to their Countrey above for Eternal life when this Countrey below was so greatly loved for Humane glory by these Heathen Heroes The same Father also in the 18th Chapter of the same Book and in other places endeavoureth to Confirm men in Christian Constancy from Prophane Examples As in his first Book of this Work Chapter the XXIV where speaking of M. Attilius Regulus he subjoins this Reflexion If these most valiant and famous men saith he the defenders of their Earthly Countrey who though they were Worshippers of false Gods yet were not false to them but were also most exact observers of their Oaths who according to the Laws of War might slay their Conquered Enemies yet if these men I say when they were overcome and taken by their Enemies would not destroy themselves and though they did not in the least fear death yet would rather bear their victorious Masters than by their own hands slay themselves How much more should Christians who worship the true God and breathe after an heavenly Countrey abstain from so great a Villany if the Divine Providence hath for their Tryal or Amendment put them for some time under the power of their Enemies After the same manner St. Hierome in his Consolation to Julian very elegantly thus expresseth himself Do you Sir despise Gold saith he why many Philosophers did it too One of them cast the price of many Possessions into the Sea saying Get you into the Deep ye wretched desires I will sink you that you may not drown me A Philosopher the mere Animal of Glory and the base slave of Popular Applause threw away thus at once his whole treasure and do you think you have attain'd to the top of vertue onely by offering up a part of that whole God requires that you should present your self a living and an acceptable sacrifice to him your self I say and not what you have And again I pass by Heliodorus the Maximo's Cato's Gallo's Pison's Bruto's and Scaevola's c. whose fortitude was not less conspicuous in bearing Grief than in War c. Lest I should seem rather to seek foreign Examples than domestick though these may be used to the reproach of us Christians if our Faith will not carry us as far as their Infidelity did them But that I may reduce this into a Compendium I will shew you how David Chytraeus a man who has deserved well of History in his Preface to Cornelius Nepos or Aemilius Probus excellently teacheth us in good Verse how we Christians should follow this Rule in the observing and applying to our uses the Examples of the Heathens His words are these Christiades simul Historias ac Perlegit Ardens Ruminat haec animo secum si Phocio nummos Respuit oblatos dono Si Scipio sponsam Noluit alterius contingere Maluit exul Attilius si sponte mori quam foed a probando Et laudi Patriae Latinae nocuisse juventae Consilio Exemplóque suo mihi quid faciendum A Christo nomen qui habeo Num sordidus auri Servus ero Faciámve jubet quaecunque libido Num vitam pluris faciam quam nomen Alethes Invictum Num postponam mandata Jehovae Insanis hominum placitis jussÃsque cruentis Sic sanè Historiae laudanda exempla vetustae Cum fructu quà m quis credat majore leguntur Christiades Reading th' Ancient Story And deeply thinking on th' Heathen Glory Thus school'd himself Shall Phocion despise The Royal Bribe Shall Scipio turn his Eyes From the fair Captive cause a Wife and shall One chuse in Torture and Exile to fall Rather than by a breach of Faith to live And ill Example to his Countrey give And shall I then who wear Christs sacred Name My Faith by Lust or Avarice defame Shall I by selling deathless Truth redeem A life that will not last Shall I esteem The brutish bloudy Wills of Men above The sacred Laws of the Almighty Jove Thus may the rare Examples wrote of old Become more usefull than can well be told These very Precepts for imitating good Examples are also to be found amongst Heathens who observed them both in their words and actions and did not disdain in contemplating and trying to follow the manners and affections of their Ancestours to reform their own or to direct and moderate other mens That great Man Cato the Censor of whom something has been spoken already would frequently go to the Cottage of M. Curius which was not far from his own Estate and having deeply considered the smallness and meanness of his habitation was wont to think thus with himself This Man was the greatest of the Romans who having Conquered many War-like Nations and driven Pyrrhus out of Italy after three Triumphs digged this Field with his own hands and dwelt in this poor Cottage Here too when the Ambassadours came and found him by the fires side eating a few Rape-roots out of a Wooden dish for his supper and offered him a great quantity of Gold he sent them away with this short Answer That he had no need of much Gold who was contented with that Supper and that he had rather Conquer them who had Gold than possess it When Cato had thus considered all these things he went away and comparing his own Fields or Estate Servants and way of living with the other he