raphical histories of counties, the pedigrees of families, the
antiquities of churches and cities, the proceedings of parliaments, the
records of monasteries, and the lives of particular men, whether eminent
in the church or the state, or remarkable in private life; whether
exemplary for their virtues, or detestable for their crimes; whether
persecuted for religion, or executed for rebellion.

That memorable period of the English history, which begins with the
reign of king Charles the first, and ends with the Restoration, will
almost furnish a library alone; such is the number of volumes, pamphlets
and papers, which were published by either party; and such is the care
with which they have been preserved.

Nor is history without the necessary preparatives and attendants,
geography and chronology: of geography, the best writers and delineators
have been procured, and pomp and accuracy have been both regarded; the
student of chronology may here find, likewise, those authors who
searched the records of time, and fixed the periods of history.

With the historians and geographers may be ranked the writers of voyages
and travels, which may be read here in the Latin, English, Dutch,
German, French, Italian, and Spanish languages.

The laws of different countries, as they are in themselves equally
worthy of curiosity with their history, have, in this collection, been
justly regarded; and the rules by which the various communities of the
world are governed, may be here examined and compared. Here are the
ancient editions of the papal decretals, and the commentators on the
civil law, the edicts of Spain, and the statutes of Venice.

But with particular industry have the various writers on the laws of our
own country been collected, from the most ancient to the present time,
from the bodies of the statutes to the minutest treatise; not only the
reports, precedents, and readings of our own courts, but even the laws
of our West-Indian colonies, will be exhibited in our catalogue.

But neither history nor law have been so far able to engross this
library, as to exclude physick, philosophy, or criticism. Those have
been thought, with justice, worthy of a place, who have examined the
different species of animals, delineated their forms, or described their
properties and instincts; or who have penetrated the bowels of the
earth, treated on its different strata, and analyzed its metals; or who
have amused themselves with less labori