TREASURY OF HISTORY: COMPRISING A GENERAL INTRODUCTORY OUTLINE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY, ANCIENT AND MODERN AND A SERIES OF SEPARATE HISTORIES OF EVERY PRINCIPAL NATION. BY SAMUEL MAUNDER, AUTHOR OF THE 'TREASURY OF KNOWLEDGE,' 'BIOGRAPHICAL TREASURY,' Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat historicus.' NEW EDITION, CAREFULLY REVISED AND BROUGHT DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME. LONDON: LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN. PREFACE. In the present edition some alterations have been made in the order of the separate Histories, while the Introductory Remarks and the Ancient History of Greece and Rome, with some other portions, have been either wholly or in part rewritten. To give in the compass of a single volume a detailed history of every nation and country which may render any further study superfluous, is a manifest impossibility; but the Historical Treasury may serve a good purpose without attributing to it a design which was never intended. There are many who are unable to enter on courses of historical study, but yet do not wish to remain ignorant of the general character of that history which lays before us the progress of the human mind from the earliest times to the present. For such readers it is very important to define clearly the laws of historical evidence, and to put the subject before them in such a manner that they may be able to judge for themselves of the truth or the incorrectness of what has been said. In history, more perhaps than in any other subject, it is of the greatest importance that our knowledge should be derived as much as possible from original sources. We are not justified in receiving the statements of historians on their own undisputed authority. Hence the value of a historical work without references is greatly impaired. In such a case the reader cannot satisfy himself whether he is right or wrong in accepting or rejecting any statement; and this remark applies especially to those times of which confessedly we have no authentic contemporary records. But in a work like this, a multiplicity of references would be out of place; in the present edition, therefore, the references are chiefly to the works of standard English writers which will furnish any further guidance which the reader may require and to such works the Historical Treasury must be regarded as strictly subordinate. If no richer field for the exercise of the human intellect can be found than that of history, it is not less certain that it will not yield its harvest without abundant toil; and in history especially it is true that no one can be said to have a real knowledge of any part until he has patiently bestowed on it all the labour that it requires, until he has surveyed it in its relations to other parts with which it may be connected, and until he has resorted to the best, that is to say, to the original sources of information. This, if the reader pleases, the references now given will in some degree enable him to do; and the writers to whom he is guided will at once supply his further wants. Not less important are the tests by which genuine history may be distinguished from that which is uncertain or false. These tests are laid down in the Introductory Remarks; and what is there said may enable the reader to form some idea of the recent progress and the present state of historical criticism, as applied especially to the histories of Greece and Rome, and of the great empires of Assyria, Persia, and Egypt. These tests are of course of universal application: if they could not be so applied they would be worthless. Their use must at once remove the reader from the region of vague conjecture to a ground where he may be sure of his footing. Nothing but confusion of ideas can follow, if from a string of legends, such for instance as those of the Trojan wars or the Roman kings, we take a few facts not intrinsically incredible and set up these as a real |