being my vice,) but
from my real sentiments and opinion. As you have enriched me with your
fine presents, which I know how incapable I am of repaying either in the
same or in any other kind of learning, I was willing to testify my
gratitude and affection for you, and at least to make you some small,
though exceedingly unequal, return.

Go on, most learned and venerable Sir, to deserve well of sound
literature, which now lies universally neglected and despised. Go on, in
forming the youth of France (since you will have their utility to be your
sole view) upon the best precepts and examples.

Which that you may effect, may it please God to add many years to your
life, and during the course of them to preserve you in health and safety.
This is the earnest wish and prayer of

Your most obedient Servant,
FRANCIS ROFFEN.

P.S.--Our friend, your neighbour, tells me you intend to dine with me after
the holidays. When you have fixed upon the day, be pleased to let him know
it. Whenever you come, you will be sure to find one so weak with age and
ills as I am, at home.

_December 26, 1731._

PREFACE.

The Usefulness of Profane History, especially with regard to Religion.

The study of profane history would little deserve to have a serious
attention, and a considerable length of time bestowed upon it, if it were
confined to the bare knowledge of ancient transactions, and an
uninteresting inquiry into the aeras when each of them happened. It little
concerns us to know, that there were once such men as Alexander, Caesar,
Aristides, or Cato, and that they lived in this or that period; that the
empire of the Assyrians made way for that of the Babylonians, and the
latter for the empire of the Medes and Persians, who were themselves
subjected by the Macedonians, as these were afterwards by the Romans.

But it highly concerns us to know, by what methods those empires were
founded; by what steps they rose to that exalted pitch of grandeur which
we so much admire; what it was that constituted their true glory and
felicity; and what were the causes of their declension and fall.

It is of no less importance to study attentively the manners of different
nations; their genius, laws, and customs; and especially to acquaint
ourselves with the character and disposition, the talents, virtues, and
even vices of those by whom they were governed; and whose good or bad
qualities contributed to the grandeur or decay of the st