A Manual of Ancient History

It is to the patient industry of the historians of Germany, that we are indebted for the first production of Manuals of history, and for those synchronistic tables which have so much facilitated the systematic study of ancient history; and among the various and profound treatises of this class which enrich and adorn their literature, the works of Heeren are distinguished by their extended range of enquiry, as well as by the minute accuracy of their details.

The work before us embodies the result of his laborious researches during the long period in which he has been engaged as public lecturer and professor of history in the university of Goettingen; and if it be any recommendation of a work to know that its writer has had ample time, ability, and opportunity to collect and elaborate his materials, it may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that the author of the present work possessed all these advantages in an eminent degree. He has spent the greater portion of his life in lecturing upon the subjects of which it treats, and has in every case gone for his information immediately to the fountain head. It forms, too, an important feature of his work, that a list of the original sources, whence his own knowledge has been drawn, is placed at the head of each section; another is added of the principal writers who have touched upon or illustrated the particular portion of history under notice; both being generally accompanied with a few words of judicious criticism, in which the value of the writer's authority is estimated, and his sources, circumstances, and prejudices, briefly, but fairly set forth. Besides this advantage, the work possesses the merit of combining the convenience of the Manuals with the synchronistic method of instruction; as the geography, chronology, and biography of the countries and states of the ancient world are brought at once under the eye of the reader; and so lucid is the arrangement, that the darkest and most entangled portions of history are seen in a clear and perspicuous light. Professor Heeren seems, moreover, to possess in a more eminent degree than any other writer, the power of forcing, by a very few words, the attention of the reader upon the most important facts of history; and of conjuring up in his thoughts a train of reflections calculated at once to instruct and enlarge the mind. His work is not only admirably adapted to become a text-book in the study of history, but will be found equally serviceable as a book of reference--it will guide the student in his untried and intricate course, and enable the more advanced scholar to methodize his collected stores. Perhaps in no work has so much important information been condensed into so small a compass.

The estimation in which this Manual is held on the continent, may be gathered from the fact of its having passed through six large editions in German, and two in French, and from its having been translated into almost every language of Europe.

The rapidity with which the first edition, as well as the other writings of professor Heeren, have sold in this country, is a proof that they only required to be known here in order to be appreciated. The favour with which these translations have been received, both by the venerable author himself and by the British public, has been a source of the highest gratification to the publisher. The encouragement, so kindly bestowed, has urged him to new exertions, the fruits of which, he trusts, will be observable in the present volume. The Manual has not only been revised and corrected throughout, but has also been diligently compared with the German, and has received such ameliorations as the original text or the English style seemed to demand. When it is added to this that a very numerous body of corrections and improvements have been sent to the publisher by professor Heeren himself, who has patiently examined the translation expressly for this edition, he trusts that the public will be satisfied that it is as faithful a copy of the original work as the nature of things will allow.