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PREFACE
I NOW difcharge my promife, and complete my defign, of writing the Hiftory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, both in the Weft and the Eaft. The whole period extends from the age of Trajan and the Antonines, to the taking of Conftantinople by Mahomet the fecond; and includes a review of the Crufades and the ftate of Rome during the middle ages. Since the publication of the firft volume, twelve years have elapfed; twelve years, according to my wish, "of health, of "leifure, and of perfeverance." I may now congratulate my deliverance from a long and laborious fervice, and my fatisfaction will be pure and perfect, if the public favour should be extended to the conclufion of my work.
It was my firft intention to have collected under one view, the numerous authors, of every age and language, a
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from whom I have derived the materials of this hiftory; and I am ftill convinced that the apparent oftentation would be more the compenfated by real ufe. If I have renounced this idea; if I have declined an undertaking which had obtained the approbation of a mafter-artift *, my excufe may be found in the extreme difficulty of affigning a proper meafure to fuch a catalogue. A naked lift of names and editions would not be fatisfactory either to myfelf or my readers: the characters of the principal Authors of the Roman and Byzantine Hiftory, have been occafionally connected with the events which they defcribe; a more copious and critical enquiry might indeed deferve, but it would demand, an elaborate volume which might fwell by degrees into a general library of hiftorical writers. For the prefent I shall content myfelf with renewing my ferious proteftation, that I have always endeavoured
*See Dr. Robertfon's Preface to his Hiftory of America.
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to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiofity, as well as a fenfe of duty, has always urged me to ftudy the originals; and that, if they have fomethimes eluded my fearch, I have carefully marked the fecondary evidence, on whofe faith a paffage or a fact were reduced to depend.
I shall foon revifit the banks of the lake of Laufanne, a country which I have known and loved from my early youth. Under a mild government; amidft a beauteous landskip, in a life of leifure and independence, and maong a people of eafy and elegant manners; I have enjoyed, and may again hope to enjoy, the varied pleafures of retirement and fociety. But I shall ever glory in the name and character of an Englishman: I am proud of my birth in a free and enlightened country; and the approbation of that country is the beft and moft honourable reward of my labours. Were I ambitious of any other a2