Works which is the most winning way of engaging a Reader to undertake that task such Planes being a kind of Pictures or Landsckapes to shew the Reader what pleasing objects he may expect to meet with if he have the courage to proceed And if the Reader please but to peruse the 8th Section of the First Part where he gives an account of Herodotus his History he will then be able to judge for himself without taking my word for it Secondly By informing his Reader where every History begins and where it ends which has been done by few others and by no body with more exactness This too is a great invitation to a Reader to know in what Age of the World he is and how far his Authour will conduct him before he reads one word in him Thirdly He has acquainted his Reader with how much remains now extant and how much is lost of any History which hath not come down perfect and intire to us as very few of the more Ancient have done Fourthly He has told us when each Historian Wrote or Lived of what Countrey and Interest he was which are things of great use as to the advancing or abating the Credit of any Writer Fifthly He has represented the Styles Characters Virtues and Vices of each Historian which are notices of the greatest use and advantage to a Reader that is possible and of the greatest pleasure and delight Lastly He has not given us his own thoughts in all these onely but has taken the pains to search out and transcribe the very Words and Censures of the more ancient and latter Criticks of greatest fame and reputation which was a Work of great labour and difficulty So that upon the whole matter I am very much tempted to alter his Title and to call this Piece The History of the Greek and Latin Historians For so the first part of it does well deserve to be call'd The Addition in the middle of the First Part concerning the Historians of particular Nations and Places is a thing of great use and Learning though not equal to the exact care and diligence of this Authour as any Man that shall please to compare them together will soon find which I suppose was owing rather to the Authour 's great desire to be short than his want of industry or ability In the Latin Copy there is onely the two first Letters of his Name N. H. but I have been informed by a person of great worth who knew him that his Name was Nicholas Horseman and therefore I have put it so that his Memory may be preserved to Posterity The Authour of this Piece has not onely taken great care and pains to direct and encourage his Reader to that noble and usefull study of History by the best Method that ever was proposed in his First Part but he hath also in the Second and Third Parts taken an equal pains to fit and direct him how to reap the utmost advantage from his Readings both as to himself and as to others Which two Parts as he has handled them are not less usefull or delightfull than the First but they being both very short the Reader may much better satisfie himself by a perusal of the whole or of the Contents onely of the Chapters than be here troubled with a long discourse of mine upon them As this Piece was thus drawn with a mighty care and labour so it hath accordingly been valued in the World for besides the first impression of it which preceded this latter Twelve years as he tells us in his Preliminary Oration this has been Printed since the year 1637 three times and if I be not misinformed four times and yet now it is a scarce Book Nor is this any great wonder if we consider that besides the usefulness of the Subject the great Learning Candor Modesty and Industry of the Authour he spent almost two whole years in improving this small Discourse after a whole Impression of it had been sold off For his Preliminary Oration was made the 17th day of October 1635. and his Epistle Dedicatory to the University of Oxford bears date the first of July 1637. I should have been much pleased if I could have given the Reader the Life of this Great Man but that I cannot doe it having never been written by any Man to my knowledge and he being utterly unknown to me any otherwise than by this his Learned Work which I have had a great esteem for ever since I first read it which made me the willinger to run through the labour of Translating it which was no very easie task and also of adding some things to it as necessity required In the History of the University of Oxford p. lib. 2. p. 98. and in other places I find this short account given of him Degoreus Whear was born at Jacobstow in the County of Cornwall He was call'd from Broadgate Hall to Exon College in the same University to be made a Fellow there where he was afterwards examiner of the Lads in the year MDCII at which time he was Master of Arts. About six years after desiring to Travel he took his leave of the College and spending some time beyond the Seas returned into England with the Lord Chandois and lived with him in great esteem that Lord dying he came with his Wife to Oxford and took some Chambers in Glocester Hall which were not then employed for want of Students There he was not long before he became acquainted with one Mr. Thomas Allen By whose Recommendation the famous Mr. Camden designing then to settle a Reader of History in that University chose him the first Reader To this purpose this great Man gave to the University of Oxford out of the Manor of Bexley in the County of Kent One hundred and Forty pounds per Annum And after a certain term of years the Rents of that whole Manor which when it comes it will be worth about Four hundred pounds a year The Charter of this noble Grant bears date the Fifth of March 1621. The 17th of May 1622 this Donation was published in the Convocation-House of that University And the 16th of October of the same year our Learned Authour was declared Reader by the Founder And Brian Twyn a very Learned Man was declared his Successour if he survived him being then a Batchellor of Divinity but he died before Mr. Wheare It was a great Honour to him to be chosen by so great a Man as Mr. Camden and preferred before Brian Twyn And he soon made it appear that he well deserved the Honour that was done him in a very ingenuius Oration which he made in Latin in the Schools when he entered upon his Lectureship which is Printed in the end of this Piece in which he complains much That his long disuse of the Latin Tongue during his Sixteen years absence from the University had rendred him unable or at least very unapt to Discourse or Write that Language
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
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
almost in the same words the Romans having Conquered the Kingdom of Macedonia brought the World under their Dominion yea as the same Polybius acquaints us the Nations submitted in great Numbers to them and made them the Arbitratours of Peace and War betwixt themselves which Florus also confirms for from henceforth saith he the Kings of the World and the Captains People and Nations sought Protection from this City And again Polybius Now it was confess'd by all necessity extorting from them this Declaration that the Romans must for the future be obeyed and their Commands submitted to To conclude Daniel the Prophet States here the beginning of the IVth Monarchy if the Learned Melancthon thinks right whose words are these when Daniel names and depaints the IV th Monarchy he does not begin it onely from Julius Caesar and Augustus but includes the time in which the City of Rome was possess'd of the Empire of the World even before their Civil Wars began And therefore if from hence we compute the time of its duration there is to the time of Julius Caesar 118 years from thence to Constantine the Great 356 years from thence to Augustulus who was forced by Odacrus King of the Heruli to resign the Empire are above 170 years and from thence to Charles the Great 325 years so that from the Conquest of Macedonia to Charles the Great are 978 years and from thence to Charles the V th are 720 years so that from the Overthrow of Perseus to the Reign of Charles the V th there is in all 1688 years SECT V. Why these four were call'd by way of Eminence the Monarchies I Am not Ignorant that many other Dynasties Kingdoms Empires and Commonwealths here and there flourished in the World during the times of the three first Monarchies but especially in the Ages of the first and second as for Example that of the Egyptians Cicyonians Spartans and Aethiopians and others frequent mention of which is made in ancient Historians and we reade that some of them had some times vast Dominions as Sesostris King of Egypt Venit ad occasum mundique extrema Sesostris Et Pharios currus Regum cervicibus egit Who saw the Western Shoars the bound of things And drove his Char'ots o'er the Necks of Kings As Lucan sings and Justin saith Vexoris King of Egypt extended his Empire to Pontus Strabo saith too that Tearchon the Aethiopian led an Army into Europe and Pliny writes that the Aethiopians were great and powerfull to the times of the Trojan Wars and the Reign of Memnon yet that the said IV Monarchies did much excell all these is too well known to need any proof for it is to be observed that we do not call these the IV great Monarchies as if they included all other Regions and Nations but because they were Masters of a great part of the World and had so much power that they could easily Curb and give Laws to all other Princes for therefore did God Erect Monarchies in the World that men might be Governed by Laws Justice and a good Discipline as Melancthon observes SECT VI. How the reading of History is to be begun good Epitomes not to be Condemn'd Synopsis of Histories Chronologers some other Compendiums commended by Name What Authours are principally to be consulted as to Universal History Rawleigh one of the best but the History of the Bible is the most ancient and first of all to be read WHerefore if any man desires to run over with advantage the History of these Monarchies or Empires and in them the History of the World I would advise him to begin with some short Compendium Chronology or Synopsis before he enter that vast Ocean because he may by that means learn at once the series of times and Ages the Successions of Empires and the greatest changes which have happened amongst Mankind and so he may if he please draw in his mind an Exemplar or Idea of the whole body of the Universal History which he may contemplate with ease as it were at once and this too was the advice of Lodovicus Vivis At first saith he choice is to be made of some Authour who begins with the remotest times and brings down from thence the chiefest heads of History in a constant thred to or near our times for although in truth it cannot be denied that Compendiums have some times done much mischief in the World and proved the ruine of some of the best ancient Authours yet we will not therefore despise those Epitomes which are made with reasonable Abreviations if they render the way to an improvement plain and easie For as Infants being led by the hand learn at first to go so I would by all means perswade young men to begin the Study of History with Epitomes and short Histories till the Foundations being well laid in process of time they may approach and try the very Fountains with good advantage It will be therefore usefull to begin with Beurerus his Synopsis or Sleidan's Compendium pendium of the IV great Monarchies which is written as Reineccius expresseth himself concerning it in an Elegant Polite manly Style and which may well be thought to be of the number of those Books which are attended with a long Liv'd Genius or if he please Melancthon's Chronicle which as one Stephanus tells us whoever has not tasted must be a mere Block it being the most Learned and Elegant Epitome of the History of almost the whole World There are other Books of equal worth which may as justly be recommended to the Reader As first Reinerus Reineccius his Syntagma of those Families which in the Monarchies have had the Government A laborious exquisite work by which the Reader being led as it were by the hand into the pleasant Fields of History shall perform his Journey with much the greater Ease Pleasure and Happiness I think also that Jacobus Capellus his Sacred and Exotick History adapted with great diligence to the order of times he being a man of much Learning is by no means to be deprived of its deserved Commendation it being worthy to be read seriously in the very first beginning of the Study of History and which I wish he had brought down to our times for it ends with the Birth of Augustus A. V. C. 696. But Dionysius Petavius a Jesuit has lately writ an excellent piece of the same Nature which he hath styl'd Temporum Rationarium in which the Sacred and Prophane History of all times from the Creation of the World to the year of Christ 1632 is shortly brought down and confirm'd with Chronological Proofs Amongst the more famous Chronologers if the Reader desires to perfect himself in Chronology which will be of Vast Advantage to him besides Capellus and Petavius both which I rank in that order he may reade Funccius Buntingus Helvicus or Sethus Calvitius who in a late Edition
of his Chronology has made use of so great an industry that he has not omitted any thing by which the true time of Histories may be exquisitely known But then if after these Chronologers he is pleased to dwell a little longer on the Universal History and to enlarge his prospect JUSTIN may be read who is thought to have flourished under the Antonines about the year of Christ 140. Nor is there any one amongst the Latins who has more Politely and Elegantly contracted the History of so many Empires for he Comprehends the Actions of almost all Nations from Ninus to Augustus Then may Herodotus Diodorus Siculus and Polybius follow of all which we shall have occasion to speak more hereafter and after these some of the Modern Writers may be read amongst which Sir Walter Rawleigh our Countrey-man deserves the first place a man of great Fame and for his great both Valour and prudence worthy of a better Fate He has built up an Universal History from the Creation of the World to the fall of the Macedonian or III Monarchy out of the most approved Authours which is written in English with very great Judgment in a perspicuous method and an Elegant and Masculine style and the incomparable Gerardus Joannes Vossius some years since began an Universal History of all the foregoing Ages and Nations I heartily wish my Hearers that I may once see that Noble work and injoy it with you for what can be expected from so great a Treasure of Antiquity and History but what is most Excellent and above the reach of the Wits not onely of this but of many of the better Ages But however let the History of the Bible lead the way which is incontestably not onely the most ancient but the truest of all Histories and to this tends the grave reprehension of Carolus Sigonius of the common way of instituting or entering upon the Study of Antiquity In laying the Foundations of the knowledge of Ancient times and things as also in the beginning of almost all other Studies I know not how we are carried away with the impetuous torrent of an ill Custome and generally commit a very great Errour by beginning with those Monuments in which the Acute Grecians who were totally ignorant of the truth have comprehended their Traditions of the false Gods and the fictitious Actions of their feigned Heroes which we can neither make any good use of nor improve our selves thereby in the least in Piety when if there were any Sense that I may not say prudence in us we ought rather to begin with what is contain'd in the Holy writings of the Hebrews for if we search for the Origine of things we can begin no higher than the Creation of the World and the formation of man which is there treated of if we seek Truth there is no where so much of it as here where it is proclaimed by the mouth of the Living God if we seek grave things what is more magnificent than these illustrious Monuments in which the Holy Commands of God the saving Promises the certain Oracles and other helps to our Salvation are comprehended from whence can we derive more Excellent Examples of Vertue or sharper detestations of Vices or Actions worthy of memory than from these Monuments of the Hebrews in which onely it is apparently discovered how much mankind has been relieved by the powerfull and present Assistence of God Almighty in the Exercise of true Religion or in the neglect of it have been troden down and ruin'd by his Anger SECT VII From whence the History of the Assyrio-Chaldean Monarchy is to be fetched Of Berosus Ctesias and Megasthenes and their supposititious Writings in the defect of these we must have recourse to Josephus The great loss in Diodorus Siculus to be supplied from elsewhere especially out of Josephus and the prophetick History Diogines Laertius commended BUt now if you are pleased to descend to the several Empires and to prosecute the Histories of them by parts and in their Order we have Berosus Ctesias and Megasthenes who give an account of the Affairs of the Assyrio-Chaldean Monarchy But did I say we have them No which is a very great affliction to the Historians we have them not we have some fragments of Ctesias which perhaps are not spurious but then those concern the Persian Empire onely for whatever he writ concerning the Chaldean is lost We have also some shreds of Megasthenes too and some Adulterated Rhapsodies imposed upon the World by the Viterbian Monk a deceitfull Merchant to which little Credit is to be given in the Opinion of very Learned men for as to Ctesias this is the opinion of Josephus Scaliger a very great Philosopher He is saith he a silly Greek and so he may but contradict Herodotus he cares not what he says he has committed many Errours through Humane Frailty many wilfully out of Envy and this appears clearly in Photius his Parietina Ctesias flourished in the times of Cyrus Junior and being taken by Artaxerxes in a Battel he was afterwards his Physician And Strabo disputes the fidelity of the very genuine History of Megasthenes which he often cites how much more reasonably then may Learned men question the truth of that fictitious piece which is ignorantly call'd by his Name but it is really the work of Annianus He lived under Seleucus Nicanor as we are told by Clemens Alexandrinus and that Impostor Annian And most of the Learned suppose that the Berosus which goes abroad in the World is of the same Stamp Will you please to hear what Lodovicus Vivis thinks of him There is a small Book which is stil'd Berosi Babylonii Antiquitates the Antiquities of Berosus the Babylonian but it is a figment that pleases unlearned idle men very much and of the same sort are Xenophon's Aequivoca and the fragments of Archilochus Cato Sempronius and Fabius Pictor which are patched together in the same Book by Annianus Viterbiensis and by his Additions rendered too much the more ridiculous not but that there are in it some things that are true for otherwise the thing could never have look'd abroad but yet the body of that History is fictitious and none of his whose Name it bears thus far the Learned Vivis and therefore he and other Learned men send us to Josephus Justin the Epitomizer of Trogus and Diodorus Siculus his Antiquities and well we might be turn'd over to him if he were intirely Extant which some of the Ancients call'd simply the LIBRARY and others the Libraries And Diodorus acquaints us himself in the Preface to his History what account he had given of ancient times his words are these Our first six Books give an account of what happened before the Trojan War and what is set forth concerning those Ages in Fables of which the three first contain the Barbarous Story and the three latter the Grecian and in the eleven
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
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
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
of but a short space of time yet it gives a great light to the most intricate part of that History and is of great credit as being Written by a Person of great fidelity who was an Eye-witness of all those Transactions and a very Elegant Writer Zosimus Writ the declension of the Empire in VI. Books beginning with Octavianus Caesar and ending in the taking of Rome by the Goths under Alaricus In the first Book he runs through all the first Emperours to Dioclesian with great brevity but in the other V. Books he gives a larger and fuller account He lived in the time of Theodosius the younger who began his Reign Anno Christi 407. and ended it Anno 449. his Style is short and clear pure and sweet as Photius represents it He was a Pagan and therefore reflects very often upon the Christian Princes and yet Leunclavius a Learned German doth not think it is fit for all that to call his fidelity too easily in question and he adds moreover That if any Man Reade him without prejudice he will find that his History which is almost totally made up of those things that were passed by and not taken notice of by the rest of the Historians is very pleasant and usefull to all Men who are employed in State Affairs Henry Stephens was of opinion That he industriously sought into the truth of Conceal'd things and carefully discover'd it This History is for the most part of it an Epitome of Eunapius who Wrote an History of the Caesars beginning where Herodian ends and continuing it to his own times he lived under Valentinian Valens and Gratian about the year of Christ 370. His History though said to be extant at Venice was never Printed But Photius saith Zosimus did almost Transcribe Eunapius as differing from him onely in this that he doth not reproach Stilicon as Eunapius did and that his style is shorter and more easie and that he rarely makes use of any Rhetorical Figures but Zosimus begins his History much Higher and continues it down much Lower Johannes Zonaras Wrote a General History from the beginning of the World to the death of the Emperour Alexius Comnenus Anno Christi 1118. in whose time he lived he divided it into Three Tomes in the First Tome he briefly Writes the History of the World from the Creation to the destruction of Jerusalem In the Second Tome he Writes the Roman History from the building of Rome to Constantine the Great but with great brevity The Third Tome gives an account of the Actions of all the Christian Emperours from Constantine the Great to the death of Alexius Comnenus From some or all of these therefore the History of the foresaid Emperours may be made more full and clear especially if to those things which are related by Zosimus as done by the Goths under Gallienus and the succeeding Emperours of Rome Jornandes may be called in as a Witness who will assure us That all which Zosimus hath related is true For as Leunclavius assures us What both these Historians have Written concerning the Goths do most exactly agree nor is there any other difference betwixt them but this that Jornandes is a little more full as not omitting the circumstances of things nor is it to be wondred at that these were not so well known to Zosimus as they were to Jornandes for the latter was a Goth or an Alan which Nation was nearly related to the Goths and understood the affairs of the Goths who were his own Countreymen much better than the Grecians did and joined the Gothick Historians with the Greek and Latin Writers as he himself confesseth Jornandes flourished about the year of Christ 540. and here let the Reader proceed immediately to the reading of Ammianus Marcellinus a Man of a clear Fidelity and Judgment in the esteem of the most rigid Censors By his own confession his Language is Military and Unpolished he was very famous about the year of Christ 375. He diligently prosecutes as a Souldier the account of Military Affairs and doth often digress in Relations and doth not seldom intermix Sentences as Justus Lipsius acquaints us And Balduinus goes on thus He is indeed a Souldier but a very Learned Souldier and so studious of Antiquities that there is scarce any thing which he hath not searched out To speak in one word he is a most diligent Writer his Latin indeed is rough for he was a Constantinopolitan but he is full of Learning and has included in his History a various manifold and uncommon Literature and has largely Wrote an History of those times that are not so well Written by any other thus and much more Balduinus relates of him Marcellinus Wrote XXXI Books from the beginning of Nerva to the death of Valens in whose Court he lived but of these the first XIII have perished in the common Shipwreck in those which are extant he begins with Gallus Caesar about the year of Christ 353. and largely describes the Actions and Lives of Constantius Caesar Julian Jovian Valentinian and Valens an Eye-witness of a great part of which things he was and he will bring down the Reader to the year of Rome 1128. which is the 378th year of Christ. His History was Translated into English by one Philemon Holland a Dr. of Physick and Printed at London in Folio in 1609. who before had Translated Livy Suetonius and L. Florus but this Authour was not then so well understood as he is now by the indefatigable industry of Henry and Hadrian Valesius and therefore 't is fit there should be a second and a more pleasant Version made of this excellent Authour SECT XXIV Paulus Diaconus his Miscellan History Jornandes his History of the Goths and Agathias may be here read or if the Reader please the III. Tome of Zonaras whom Nicetas Choniates follows and after him Nicephorus Gregoras or if this seems too long then the Reader may immediately after Zosimus begin Blondus Fortiniensis or after Vopiscus Carolus Sigonius his History of the Western Empire and from thence pass on to the VIIth or VIIIth Book of the first Decade of Blondus IF after Ammianus the Reader proceeds to Paulus Diaconus his Miscellan History and joins as companion with him Jornandes whom I just now mention'd his History of the Succession of Kingdoms and Times and also his History of the Goths he will observe from these not onely the Declining of the Roman Empire which Zosimus undertook to shew him but also the intire Ruine and Destruction of it And lest the repetition of what he was well acquainted with before should prove tedious and troublesome to him he may if he please begin with the XIIth Book and so go thorough with the rest in which he shall have a perfect History from Valentinian to the Deposition of Michael Curopolates that is to the year of Christ 812. and may also take in Jornandes when the times
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
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
memory fail'd him whilst instead of Theodoret he Wrote Sozomen for the words he mentions are Theodoret ' s and Cardinal Baronius supplies us with another Answer by saying That Sozomen the Commender of Theodorus Mopsuestia is not received by the See of Rome as to that particular But in all the rest he speaking the truth how could he be rejected and besides it is apparent that Sozomen was not rejected by Gelasius the Pope whom no man can in the opinion of the Cardinal disown such was his Authority and Learning but rather esteem'd to be of more credit than Eusebius of Caesarea and his History is accordingly more valued by Phocius than that of Socrates And Canus farther answereth That the Testimony of Sozomen was made use of and approved in the Council of Florence in which the Emperour Palaologus was present However we may think candidly of him not onely by reason of the sincerity and veracity which he pretends to in his first Chapter and promiseth throughout for when he was to relate the contentions quarrels and perfidy of many Orthodox Men and many other foul actions done by them he deprecates the opinion of a malevolent humour as is observed by the Learned Casaubon For he saith he does not write these things out of any pleasure he takes in them but whether he would or no because what was done could not be undone but on the other side to be silent as to those things which were done was to betray the truth and break the Laws of a good History 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is fit to take care of truth in order to the preservation of the sincerity of History and again An Historian should esteem truth above all other things But also for the sake of that Judgment Euagrius has given of him whose words are these Eusebius Sozomen Theodoret and Socrates have accurately committed to Writing the coming of our most Mercifull Saviour into the World his Ascension into Heaven the Acts of the holy Apostles the Martyrdoms of the holy Martyrs and whatever else has been done worthy of commendation or blame to the Reign of Theodosius and somewhat farther this I say is the judgment of Euagrius Scholasticus a very famous Historian of those times and the first Orthodox Church Historian that wrote if we will believe Baronius or at least his Epitomizer And here Euagrius himself follows the Writers of the Tripertite History and begins his Story where Socrates and Theodoret end theirs that is from the calling of the Council at Ephesus by the authority of Theodosius the younger about the year of Christ CCCCXXXI in which Nestorius was condemn'd and he continues his History to the XII th year of the Reign of Mauritius which is the DXCVII year of Christ and he flourished mostly under this Emperour and his Successour Tiberius the Second This History of Euagrius consists of VI. Books in the first of which he comprehends the times of Theodosius the younger in the IId those of Martian and Leo the Thracian as he is commonly call'd in the IIId those of Zeno and Anastasius in the IVth those of Justin and Justinian in the Vth those of Justin the Second and Tiberius the Second in the VIth he goes on to the XIIth year of Mauritius who was Son-in-Law to Tiberius the Second and is by some call'd the Cappadocian And this was the year of Christ 597 as I have said above And with the same times that Euagrius hath thus written concur the Histories of Procopius Agathias and Jornandes of the affairs of the Goths and the Miscellane History of Diaconus from the XIIth to the XVIIIth Book and to conclude a great part of C. Sigonius his History of the Western Empire which I thought fit to tell the Reader here that he might know where to find an enlargement of the Histories of those times Theophilactus Simocatus was famous about the year of Christ DCXII. and is a delicate Writer amongst those of the latter Greek Historians he wrote VIII Books of the Actions of Mauritius which the Reader is to begin when he has read Euagrius Nor is it possible he should repent of this small Labour because he brings the History to the year of Christ DCI. to the very Murther of Mauritius and that not perfunctorily but accurately and elaborately so that others have deduced their borrowed streams from him as from a River as Pontanus the Jesuite saith His temper is soft and exceeding honest and his Writings discover and testifie a learning above the ordinary pitch And now if the Reader please let us take a stand a while and look back and see how much of our designed Journey is expedited and let us consider how and by what means we are arrived at the end of the VIth Century after Christ. Eusebius comprehends in his History somewhat above CCC years Socrates Theodoret and Sozomen have added to this CXL years more and then the History is brought down about CXL years farther by Euagrius and Simocatus makes up the rest of the time as is said above to the Six hundred and first year after Christ in which year Mauritius the Emperour with his Wife and Children was Murthered by Phocas who succeeded him in the Empire ADDITION All these Church Historians were a few years since put out in Greek and Latin by Valesius a Frenchman with excellent Notes and a new Version of his own in three Volumes in Folio which were soon after translated into English and put out in one Folio And they are very exactly translated and indeed somewhat the less delightfull to the Reader for being so nicely true and curious SECT XXXVI In the VII th Century and two or three which follow it those Writers of Church History who could treat it as it deserved were very rare The Legends of the Saints Oceans of Miracles and Wonders The times of Rotomantados and Ignorance THe Authours above recited have brought us to the VII th Century which if any Man search diligently with two or three which follow it I believe he will hardly find any one Authour who has handled the History of the Catholick Church according to its dignity There were indeed in those ages some who wrote the Lives and Legends of some of the Saints and the Acts and Passions of the Martyrs but then they swarm with fables and obtrude upon credulous and superstitious Men whole bed-rolls of Miracles And as Bellarmine himself saith of Simeon Metaphrastes who flourished Anno 859. they add many things of their own invention and write them not as they were but as they might have been done in the times of Damascen and German the Constantinopolitan amongst the Greeks saith our Reverend Bishop and in the times of George the Dialogist and the other George of Tours and in the times of our venerable Bede the Ocean of Miracles and Wonders burst in upon the
and his Nation He begins his History from Ottoman the Son of Orthogulis who began to Reign about the year of Christ MCCC which he has compos'd in X. Books and in it he has comprised the Story of the Eastern Church and Empire And he continues it not onely to the year MCCCCLIII in which Constantinople was taken by Mahomet but also as Vossius assures us to the year 1463. in which this Mahomet the IId stoutly defended himself against Matthias King of Hungary and the Venetians who invaded his Kingdom And Vossius saith also Blasius Vigenerius of Bourbon put out this History in French with Notes which was Printed at Paris in the year 1620. SECT XL. Blondus Foroliviensis may supply the want of the Greek Writers as to the Church History with some others Sigebertus Gemblacensis The opinion of Cardinal Bellarmine concerning him Robertus the Abbat continues Sigebert to the year 1210. The Hirshavan Chronicle to the year 1370. and the Additions to that Chronicle to the last Century The Cosmodromus of Gobelinus Person where to be Read its commendation In the stead of it may be read Albertus Crantzius his Metropolis into which many things are transcribed out of the Cosmodromus and the History brought down from the times of Charles the Great to the year 1504. Nauclerus also may supply this defect And that the Reader may avoid Repetitions he may begin with the middle generations of the Second Tome Johannes Sleidanus wrote Ecclesiastical Commentaries from the year 1517. to the year 1556. which are continued to the year 1609. by Caspar Lundorp THe Authours I have given account of in the three last Sections have written altogether of the Eastern affairs and do scarcely at all touch the state of the Western Church This defect may be supplied out of Blondus Foroliviensis who will serve in stead of many who has as is above observed comprehended in his Decads an intire and continued series of affairs from the declension of the Empire and the year of Christ CCCCVII to the year MCCCC and what he wants the following Authours will make good And in the first place I shall begin with Sigebert a Monk of Gemblours a celebrated Abbey in Brabant who was famous about the year of Christ MXCIV. he begins his Chronicle in the year CCCLXXXI that is a little before the end of the Tripartite History and continues it to the year M. C. XIII Bellarmine accuseth him of bearing ill-will to Gregory the VII th Pope of Rome out of a great affection to Henry the IV th Emperour of Germany and perhaps he might favour the Emperour the Cardinal goes higher and reproacheth him for Lying in his account of the death of that Pope but how truely let the Cardinal Answer for himself Robertus Abbat of Mons continued Sigebertus his Chronicle to the year MCCX and the Hirshavan Chronicle of Trithemius to the year MCCCLXX and to conclude the Paraleipomena or Additions of the Abbat of Ursperg brought down this Story to our Age almost Or if these do not please the Reader we can furnish him with other which deserve as well to be read as these And the first in this set shall be Gobelinus Person an Authour not to be despised in the opinion of Learned Men who wrote an Universal Chronicle which he call'd the Cosmodromus in which he has given an account both of the Civil and Sacred or Church History from the Creation of the World to the year of Christ 1418. in which time Sigismund the Son of Charles the IV th was Emperour He divided his whole Work into six Ages and it appears in every one of them that according to the capacity of the times in which he liv'd he was a person of no vulgar either learning or diligence and study in the searching out of what pertains to History But if the Reader be not willing to give himself the trouble of a repetition of what passed before the Birth of Christ when he comes to this Authour he may begin with the VI th Age which takes its Rise at the Nativity of our Lord. And if he is not at all pleased with this Authour he may then pass on to Albertus Crantzius who wrote an History which he stiles the Metropolis or an Ecclesiastical History of the Churches built or restor'd in the times of Charles the Great In the Writing of which History he made great use of Gobelinus his Cosmodromus and transcribd sometime intire Pages out of it into his own work which was afterwards done by many others as the Learned Vossius bears witness Crantzius begins at the times of Charles the Great and goes on to the year MDIV. Johannes Nauclerus also a Noble Schwaben wrote a Chronicle in two Tomes from the beginning of the World to the year MD. the first Volume contains LXIII Generations that is all the Generations of the Old Testament the second Volume with the Appendixes comprehends in LII Generations all those of the New Testament And before this Work was published Philip Melancthon partly by new Methodizing and partly by encreasing and changing it made it much the more desired and the more usefull and delightfull also when it came out And here too the Reader may begin with the second Volume or from the Middle Generations of the second Volume if he be desirous to avoid the repetition of those things which he had before read in other Authours Johannes Sleidanus also in the memory of our Fathers wrote Commentaries concerning the state of Religion from the year MDXVII to the year MDLVI wherein is the History of the Rise of the Reformation throughout all Christendom which is continued in III. Volumes by Caspar Lundorpius to the year MDCIX SECT XLI Venerable Bede and Usuardus are by no means to be neglected nor the Writers of the Lives of the Popes of Rome as Anastasius Bibliothecarius and Bartholomaeus Platina their great Elogies Onuphrius corrected and continued Platina to the year 1566. Sigonius interwove the affairs of the Church with his Civil Histories and so deserves to be esteem'd a Church Historian the Elogies of Sigonius and Onuphrius BEsides these there are extant not a few other Historians which are not less to be valued than those we have mention'd Amongst which in the first place I reckon Venerable Bede our Countrey-man who wrote Annals from the beginning of the World to the Reign of Leo Iconomachus in whose times he flourished Anno 730. when this diligent and pious Writer comes near his times he gives a larger account of affairs than in the former Ages Usuardus a Monk of Fuld in Germany but a Frenchman by birth and the Scholar of Allwin our Countreyman by the command of Charles the Great put out a Martyrologie in which he described the Lives of the Confessours and other Saints in few words and this is now extant to the no small advantage of
began in the year 1545. continued to the year 1563. the History of which Council written by Pietro Soave Polano a Venetian of the Order of the Servi a Man of admired Learning of an exquisite Judgment of an Indefatigable Industry and of a modesty and integrity that is scarce to be equall'd is in truth of more value than any Gold I think I may say then any Jewels and like to out-live the most lasting Monuments Which commendation is given deservedly to this Historian by that worthy and learned Person who faithfully translated this History into English who also was the first person who brought this pretious Jewel into these Western parts and to the great good of the Church first published it and in the preliminary Epistle has thus represented the Authour's Character and that not without good cause for he having had a Learned Intercourse with him and for some time conversed familiarly with him knew him throughly Yea the work it self confirms the truth of all this which was extracted out of the Memoires and Commentaries of Ambassadours out of the Letters of Princes and Commonwealths and from the Writings of the Prelates Divines and of the very Legates who were present in the Council which Writings had till then been carefully kept and out of them this History was extracted with so much labour accuracy study and fidelity as the said most learned and famous Knight has there observed that it may equal the best of all the ancient or Modern Histories of that Nature Neither are you my Hearers to conceive that this is the testimony of one single Person concerning either the Work or the Authour Be pleased then to accept a second and like testimony concerning both from the Latin Translatour also a person of the same degree with the former and for his great Ingenuity and Erudition of a flourishing Name Who writes thus of that Authour Nor doth he stand in any need of my Commendation his Work speaking him a person of an happy Ingenuity and of a great and right judgment liberally endowed with all sorts of Learning and abundantly adorn'd both with Divine and Humane Knowledge and that as well Moral as Political or Civil whereby he has attain'd a high degree both of Probity and Sweetness of Mind And of the Work it self he speaks thus As to what concerns the structure of this History whether you consider the things themselves or his Language and in the things if you observe the order of times the Counsels the things done the events and in the management of affairs if you desire not onely what was done or said should be discoursed but also in what manner and that when the event is told at the same time all the causes should be unfolded and all the accidents which sprung from wisedom or folly All these and a multitude of other such like things which the great Masters of History require in a good Historian he has performed so fully and exactly that in forming the History of one Council he hath represented all the Perfections of History and upon this account deserves to be numbered amongst the most noble Historians Jacobus Augustus Thuanus a Man of Noble Birth of great Learning and Dignity and worthy of the principal place amongst the Historians of this Age as we have observed above wrote the affairs of this Century as well Ecclesiastical as Civil from the year 1546 to the year 1608 with great exactness which History we have lately continued to the year 1618. Besides all these which I have named the Books of the Learned and Famous Gerardus Johannes Vossius concerning the Greek and Latin Historians will supply the Reader with the Names of a vast number of other both Civil and Ecclesiastical Historians out of which any Man that is not pleased with the choice I have made may choose out others at his pleasure But thus I think and that I have spoken enough concerning the First Part of my Method THE METHOD and ORDER OF Reading Histories Part the Second Concerning a Competent Reader SECT I. A young Man is as well to be thought an unqualified or incompetent Reader of History as of Moral Philosophy What things are required to both The end and scope of Reading The disagreeing opinions of the most Learned Vossius and Keckerman concerning this Question WE have finished the First Part in which we have represented the Authours both of the CIVIL and ECCLESIASTICAL History And we have made choice of those which we esteem'd the best of both sorts and have also shewn in what order they are to be Read And now in the Second Place we must inquire who is a competent Reader of them And we shall doe this with as much brevity as is possible Aristotle disputing in the first Book and third Chapter of his Ethicks concerning the competent and well-qualified hearer of those Doctrines he was to deliver there concludes thus A young Man is not a well-qualified hearer of Civil Knowledge or Morality because he is not experienced in the Actions which concern this life Because youth being ignorant in judging doth easily despise good advices and imbrace bad Counsels by which it is deluded and deceived But now if our Master has given a right sentence in this case what reason can be given why we may not pass the same sentence in our disquisition concerning a fit and competent Reader of Histories Seeing Wise Men have observed that History is nothing but Moral Philosophy cloathed in Examples In the Hearer of Ethicks or Politicks there is required in the first place judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he may judge well concerning the Rules of Actions And in the next place is required a well-disposed Mind that he may with dexterity endeavour to bring into use the Precepts he hath received And in the self-same manner it is necessary for the Reader of Histories to have the faculty of Apprehending whatever Examples he Reads and judging well of them And then that he should have an inclination and propensity of Mind to follow what is Good and to shun and avoid what is Evil and of turning all he meets with to his use and advantage For the principal end of History is Practice and not Knowledge or Contemplation And therefore we must learn not onely that we may know but that we may doe well and live honestly And therefore there are some Men of very great Learning who assert there is hardly any sort of study which seems to require more Sagacity Judgment Experience and Prudence than in reading History which is the best Mistress of Civil Conversation And therefore I have ever wondered that Gerardus Johannes Vossius who deserves to be numbred amongst the Princes of Learning in this Age should in his Elegant Book de Arte Historica of the Historick Art stifly maintain that this sort of study is fit for young Men and reject the opinions and confute and take off the arguments of Bartolomaeus
and the conversation of Learned Men which she heard diligently But many have a great suspicion that this Royal and Learned Lady out of her great Love for her Father is a little too partial in this her History SECT XXXIX Nicetas Acomiatus follows immediately after Zonaras after Nicetas Gregoras Lipsius his Judgment of both these Writers The fidelity of Gregoras call'd in question Johannes Cantacuzenus is in this place commended to the Reader by the Learned Vossius after the former follows Laonicus Calcochondylas AFter Zonaras Nicetas Acomiatus or Choniates immediately follows in order and subjoins his History For where Zonaras ends there Nicetas begins and prosecutes the Story somewhat largely and freely for LXXXV years to the taking of Constantinople by Baldwin the Flandrian and the year of Christ 1203. He was born at Chonis a Town of Phrygia from whence he took his Sir-name The Chronicle of Gregoras Logothetes may here also have its place he has the History of the taking of Constantinople and of the events that followed for almost LX. years that is from Baldwin the Flandrian to Baldwin the last Emperour Both Zonaras and Choniates had great employments in the Constantinopolitan Empire which made them the fitter to write their Histories the first was the great Drungar and prime Secretary and the Latter was the great Logothetes and Lord Chamberlain of the Sacred or Presence Chamber After Nicetas follows also Nicephorus Gregoras who wrote an History of CXLV years to wit from Theodorus Lascares the First to his own times or to the death of Andronicus Palaeologus the latter which falls in the year of Christ 1341. We must confess these two last did not make it so much their business to describe the History of the Church as that of the Empire or Civil State yet because they sometimes intermix things belonging to the Church briefly as occasion serves and are therefore reckon'd by others amongst the Ecclesiastical Writers and also because Choniates connects his Narrative to the History of Zonaras and Nicephorus makes it his business to supply or fill up what haniates had omitted as if he had designed to perfect the body of the History therefore I could not omit them and that the rather because amongst the latter Greeks there are no Authours of better note than these for the inforcing which last reason to the Lovers of History and that we may with the greater facility induce them to the Reading of these Authours I will here paint out the judgment of Justus Lipsius upon them I confess saith he that Nicetas is not yet publickly and commonly much taken notice of but he is worthy to be more known being of a pure and right judgment if there were any such in that Age his style is laboured and tastes of Homer and the Poets very often but then the subject and relation it self is distinct clear without vanity or trifles as short as is fit and faithfull there is in him frequent and seasonable reflexions or advices his Judgments of things are not onely free but sound In short I wish all Statesmen would reade him and then I shall not question but some of them will pay me their thanks for this judgment of him at least I am sure they will owe me thanks Thus much of Choniates and of Gregoras he gives this judgment Nicephorus Gregoras takes up the History where Nicetas ends it and brings down the thread of his Narrative but he doth not deserve the same commendations for though he wrote the History of affairs from the taking of the City of Constantinople to the death of Palaeologus the latter yet he did it not with the same correctness or industry and has more of the faults of his Age than the former he is redundant and wandering and indecently and sometimes imprudently mixeth his own onceits and Harangues Yet his Judgments are thick sown and for the most part right the causes of events are curiously inquired into and represented Piety is inculcated and many things are seasonably assigned and turn'd over to the first cause that is to God In truth no Writer has more asserted PROVIDENCE and FATE He is to be read for this cause and also for another that is that the greatest part of his History represents a state of affairs not much unlike our own times for you will find in him Contentions and Quarrels concerning Religion not much unlike those in our days Thus far goes Justus Lipsius in his Accounts of this Authour But then there are some Men of great skill in History who have some scruples concerning the fidelity of this Nicephorus especially in the affairs of Andronicus Palaeologus where he ends as I have said above And therefore if the Reader please he may there take in Johannes Cantacuzenus who of an Emperour became a Monk and wrote an excellent History under the Title of Christodulus of the Reigns of Andronicus the younger and his own The Learned Vossius commends this History on many accounts to those that are conversant in the study of History This History saith he ought to be the more esteemed because it was written by a Person who had not always led an obscure private life but who was first a great Officer in the Family and Court of Andronicus Junior and after his death had the tutelage of his Children and afterwards the Senate desiring and the affairs of the Empire requiring it he was elected Emperour and behaved himself prudently and valiantly in that Royal station To this may be added that he did not write of things which were scarce known to him but of such transactions as he was present at and had the chief conduct of and in truth I think there is hardly any one amongst the Modern Greeks who ought to be preferr'd before him This Royal Historian flourished about the year of Christ 1350. this History consists of VI. Books as Vossius there saith whereof the two first treat of the Reign of Andronicus the remaining IV of his own Reign and what he did after the death of Andronicus He was made a Monk in the year of Christ 1360. when he took the Name of Josaaphus Thus far the Learned Vossius And that our Historian may not here be at a loss or interrupt the thread of his Reading till he have seen the last period of the Eastern Empire And the deplored state of the Church there upon that revolution he may be pleased to subjoin to the former the History of Laonicus Chalcocondylas the Athenian For he will diligently shew what followed and how at last that August or Royal City which was not content to be the second City of the World but greatly emulated Rome the Sovereign of the Earth fell into the Power of that Potent Tyrant the Turk the bitter Enemy of our Faith and of the most Sacred Cross. And he doth also most excellently describe the Rise Encrease and Progress of this Tyrant