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commonly exaggerated: and in domeftick affairs, if the power to conceal is lefs, the interest to mifreprefent is often greater; and what is fufficiently vexatious, truth feems to fly from curiofity, and as many enquirers produce many narratives, whatever engages the public attention is immediately difguifed by the embellishments of fiction. We pretend to no peculiar power of difentangling contradiction or denuding forgery, we have no fettled correfpondence with the Antipodes, nor maintain any fpies in the cabinets of princes. But as we shall always be confcious that our mistakes are involuntary, we shall watch the gradual discoveries of time, and retract whatever we have haftily and erroneously advanced.

In the narratives of the daily writers every reader perceives fomewhat of neatnefs and purity wanting, which at the first view it seems easy to supply; but it must be confidered, that thofe paffages must be written in hafte, and that there is often no other choice, but that they muft want either novelty or accuracy; and that as life is very uniform, the affairs of one week are fo like those of another, that by any attempt after variety of expreffion, invention would foon be wearied, and language exhausted. Some improvements however we hope to make; and for the reft we think that when we commit only common faults, we fhall not be excluded from common indulgence.

The accounts of prices of corn and ftocks are to most of our Readers of more importance than narratives of greater found; and as exactnefs is here within the reach of diligence, our readers may juftly require

it from us.

Memorials

Memorials of a private and perfonal kind, which relate deaths, marriages, and preferments, must always be imperfect by omiffion, and often erroneous by mifinformation; but even in these there fhall not be wanting care to avoid mistakes, or to rectify them whenever they shall be found.

That part of our work, by which it is distinguished from all others, is the literary journal, or account of the labours and productions of the learned. This was for a long time among the deficiencies of English literature; but as the caprice of man is always ftarting from too little to too much, we have now amongst other difturbers of human quiet, a numerous body of reviewers and remarkers.

Every art is improved by the emulation of competitors; thofe who make no advances towards excellence, may ftand as warnings against faults. We fhall endeavour to avoid that petulance which treats with contempt whatever has hitherto been reputed facred. We fhall reprefs that elation of malignity, which wantons in the cruelties of criticifm, and not only murders reputation, but murders it by torture. Whenever we feel ourfelves ignorant we fhall at least be modeft. Our intention is not to pre-occupy judgment by praise or cenfure, but to gratify curiofity by early intelligence, and to tell rather what our authors have attempted, than what they have performed. The titles of books are neceffarily fhort, and therefore disclose but imperfectly the contents; they are fometimes fraudulent and intended to raise falfe expectations. In our account this brevity will be extended, and thefe frauds whenever they are detected will be expofed; for though we write without intention

tention to injure, we fhall not fuffer ourfelves to be made parties to deceit.

If any author shall tranfmit a fummary of his work, we shall willingly receive it; if any literary anecdote, or curious obfervation, fhall be communicated to us, we will carefully infert it. Many facts are known and forgotten, many obfervations are made and fuppreffed; and entertainment and inftruction are frequently lost, for want of a repofitory in which they may be conveniently preferved.

No man can modeftly promife what he cannot af certain: we hope for the praife of knowledge and difcernment, but we claim only that of diligence and candour.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

WORLD DISPLAYED.

NAV

AVIGATION, like other arts, has been perfected by degrees. It is not easy to conceive that any age or nation was without fome veffel, in which rivers might be paffed by travellers, or lakes frequented by fishermen; but we have no knowledge of any ship that could endure the violence of the ocean before the ark of Noah.

As the tradition of the deluge has been tranfmitted to almost all the nations of the earth; it must be fuppofed that the memory of the means by which Noah and his family were preferved, would be continued long among their descendants, and that the poffibility of paffing the feas could never be doubted.

What men know to be practicable, a thousand motives will incite them to try; and there is reafon to believe, that from the time that the generations of the poft-diluvian race fpread to the fea fhores, there were always navigators that ventured upon the fea, though, perhaps, not willingly beyond the fight of land.

Of the ancient voyages little certain is known, and it is not neceffary to lay before the Reader fuch

A Collection of Voyages and Travels, felected from the writers of all nations, in four finall pocket volumes, and published by Nerobery; to oblige whom, it is conjectured that Johnfon drew up this curious and learned paper.

conjectures

conjectures as learned men have offered to the world. The Romans by conquering Carthage, put a stop to great part of the trade of diftant nations with one another, and because they thought only on war and conqueft, as their empire increafed, commerce was dif couraged; till under the latter emperors, fhips feem to have been of little other ufe than to tranfport foldiers.

Navigation could not be carried to any great degree of certainty without the compass, which was unknown to the ancients. The wonderful quality by which a needle or fmall bar of fteel, touched with a loaditone or magnet, and turning freely by equilibration on a point, always preferves the meridian, and directs its two ends north and fouth, was difcovered according to the common opinion in 1299, by John Gola of Amalfi, a town in Italy.

From this time it is reasonable to fuppofe that navigation made continual, though flow improvements, which the confufion and barbarity of the times, and the want of communication between orders of men fo diftant as failors and monks, hindered from being diftinctly and fucceffively recorded.

It seems, however, that the failors ftill wanted either knowledge or courage, for they continued for two centuries to creep along the coaft, and considered every headland as unpaffable, which ran far into the fea, and against which the waves broke with uncommon agitation.

The first who is known to have formed the defign of new discoveries, or the first who had power to execute his purposes, was Don Henry the fifth, fon of VOL. II.

P

John,

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