torical writer. Perhaps he is more accurately
described as a compiler rather than as an historian. His major works
were _The Roman History, from the Building of the City, to the Perfect
Settlement of the Empire by Augustus Caesar_ . . . (1695-98), the
equally comprehensive _A General Ecclesiastical History from the
Nativity of Our Blessed Saviour to the First Establishment of
Christianity_ . . . (1702), his all-inclusive _The History of England
from the first Entrance of Julius Caesar . . . to the Conclusion of the
Reign of King James the Second_ . . . (1707-18), and the more detailed
but equally long work, _The History of the Revolution, and the
Establishment of England in . . . 1688_ (1725).

Echard's career as a publisher's jack-of-all-trades ran concurrently
with his life's work on history, and showed a similar taste for the
voluminously encyclopedic. In 1691 he graduated B.A. at Christ's
College, Cambridge, and published four works under the imprint of Thomas
Salusbury: _A Most Complete Compendium of Geography; General and
Special; Describing all the Empires, Kingdoms, and Dominions in the
Whole World_, _An Exact Description of Ireland . . ._, _A Description of
Flanders . . ._, and the _Duke of Savoy's Dominions most accurately
described_.[2] These were followed in 1692 by _The Gazetteer's or
Newsman's Interpreter: being a Geographical Index_ . . . . Two years
later the translations of Plautus and Terence were published.

All of this work was clearly irrelevant to his main interests: in 1695
he had been urged to undertake his _General Ecclesiastical History_, and
by that time he was already at work upon his _Roman History_
(1695-98).[3] Into the bargain, he was in residence at Cambridge until
1695, for he did not gain his M.A. until that year. Despite the apparent
success of his publisher's enterprises (_A Most Complete Compendium_ was
in its eighth edition by 1713, and _The Gazetteer's or Newsman's
Interpreter_ reached a twelfth in 1724), little of the profit reached
the penurious Echard. In 1717 Archbishop Wake wrote to Addison that "His
circumstances are so much worse than I thought, that if we cannot get
somewhat pretty considerable for Him, I doubt He will sink under the
weight of his debts . . . ."[4]

The sheer quantity of work which Echard accomplished in these early
years is astonishing: it is no wonder that in the Preface to the
_Plautus_ he explained that "business" had prevented him from
translating