s it
easy to determine which has been thought most worthy of curiosity.

Of France, not only the general histories and ancient chronicles, the
accounts of celebrated reigns, and narratives of remarkable events, but
even the memorials of single families, the lives of private men, the
antiquities of particular cities, churches, and monasteries, the
topography of provinces, and the accounts of laws, customs, and
prescriptions, are here to be found.

The several states of Italy have, in this treasury, their particular
historians, whose accounts are, perhaps, generally more exact, by being
less extensive; and more interesting, by being more particular.

Nor has less regard been paid to the different nations of the Germanick
empire, of which neither the Bohemians, nor Hungarians, nor Austrians,
nor Bavarians, have been neglected; nor have their antiquities, however
generally disregarded, been less studiously searched, than their present
state.

The northern nations have supplied this collection, not only with
history, but poetry, with Gothick antiquities and Runick inscriptions;
which, at least, have this claim to veneration, above the remains of the
Roman magnificence, that they are the works of those heroes by whom the
Roman empire was destroyed; and which may plead, at least in this
nation, that they ought not to be neglected by those that owe to the men
whose memories they preserve, their constitution, their properties, and
their liberties.

The curiosity of these collectors extended equally to all parts of the
world; nor did they forget to add to the northern the southern writers,
or to adorn their collection with chronicles of Spain, and the conquest
of Mexico.

Even of those nations with which we have less intercourse, whose customs
are less accurately known, and whose history is less distinctly
recounted, there are in this library reposited such accounts as the
Europeans have been hitherto able to obtain; nor are the Mogul, the
Tartar, the Turk, and the Saracen, without their historians.

That persons, so inquisitive with regard to the transactions of other
nations, should inquire yet more ardently after the history of their
own, may be naturally expected; and, indeed, this part of the library is
no common instance of diligence and accuracy. Here are to be found, with
the ancient chronicles, and larger histories of Britain, the narratives
of single reigns, and the accounts of remarkable revolutions, the
topog