THE
AMERICAN ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL,
COMPRISING
ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY:
THE
BIOGRAPHY OF EMINENT MEN
OF EUROPE AND AMERICA,
AND THE
LIVES OF DISTINGUISHED TRAVELERS.
Illustrated with over 100 Engravings.
BY THOMAS H. PRESCOTT, A. M.
COLUMBUS:
PUBLISHED AND SOLD EXCLUSIVELY BY SUBSCRIPTION,
BY J. & H. MILLER.
1857.
Entered According to Act of Congress, in the Year 1855, by the
OHIO STATE JOURNAL COMPANY,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern
District of Ohio.
Printed by Osgood and Pearce.
Bound by H. C Behmer.
COLUMBUS, OHIO.
PREFACE.
One of the most useful directions for facilitating the study ofhistory, is to begin with authors who present a compendium, orgeneral view of the whole subject of history, and, afterwards, toapply to the study of any particular history with which a morethorough acquaintance is desired. The Historical Departmentof this work has been compiled with a view to furnishing such acompendium. It covers the whole ground of Ancient History,including China, India, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, the Phœnicians,Jews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Lydians, Modes and Persians,together with Greece and Rome, down through the dark agesto the dawn of modern civilization. It also embraces the historyof the leading nations of modern Europe, and of the UnitedStates of America.
Wisdom is the great end of history. It is designed to supplythe want of experience; and though it does not enforce its instructionswith the same authority, yet it furnishes a greatervariety of lessons than it is possible for experience to afford inthe longest life. Its object is to enlarge our views of the humancharacter, and to enable us to form a more correct judgment ofhuman affairs. It must not, therefore, be a tale, calculatedmerely to please and addressed to the fancy. Gravity and dignityare essential characteristics of history. Robertson andBancroft may be named as model historians in these particulars.No light ornaments should be employed—no flippancy of style,and no quaintness of wit; but the writer should sustain thecharacter of a wise man, writing for the instruction of posterity;one who has studied to inform himself well, who has ponderedhis subject with care, and addresses himself to our judgmentrather than to our imagination. At the same time, historicalwriting is by no means inconsistent with ornamented and spiritednarration, as witness Macaulay’s popular Hi