THE Chinese Historians, it feems, magnify his Failings, and scarce speak of his great Quali ties and Virtues ; they fay he was a Bigot to the Lama's, and complain, that he invefted the western People with too much Power; while the Tartars applaud him as one of their greatest Kings. He was a Patron to the Learned of every denomination, a Cherisher of the useful Arts; and undertook and went through ftupen-" dous Works for the Convenience of his, Subjects, and did and ordered a great many noble things equal to the Sublimity of his Station and the Fortune of his Arms. He faw himself in the peaceable Poffeffion of China, of Pegu, of Tibet, of one and the other Tartary, of Tur keftân and the Country of Igúr. Siam, Cochinchina, Tonquin and Corea paid him Tribute. The Princes of his Family who reigned in Mofcovy, Affyria, Perfia, Khoraffan and Khowarafm, did nothing without his leave; and in his days Perfia and the Ports on the Coafts of Malabar and Cormandel, drove a great Trade by Sea with Fokian. In fine, he and his Predeceffors lie interred in one of the Mountains be tween the 42°. 30' and 44' of Latitude, and bebetween 10°. 30 or 4° Longitude Welt of Pekin, and then turn off to the North-Weft.

We at firft thought to have given a fummary Abstract of the Life of Jenghiz Khan only, but finding our Subject to fwell under our hands, and remembring what we promife in the Motto to our Journal, and apprehending the whole Series of this remarkable Hiftory would be acceptable even to the most Learned, and raise the Aftonishment of fuch as are but the leaft verfed in the great Events that have hap pened on the extenfive Stage of the World; we could

E

could not stop our hands, but have abridg❜d it all.

We leave our Readers to make their Reflections upon this wonderful, this almoft incredible Piece of Hiftory, and fhall only acquaint the more fcrupuloufly exact, that we have ftudiously avoided the Names of the Perfons and Places the Original abounds with; and that on the other hand we have, perhaps with some lit tle Prefumption, accommodated a few of them to our Pronunciation. If we may be excused this, we will proceed to obferve that among the many good Qualities of the French Writers, they have one confiderable Defect, we mean in forming all exotic Names to the Genius, as they think good to call it, of their Tongue. This must have been obferved by all who have dipped into their Hiftorical Works; and lamentable it is to fee, that even we who are fo very much related to them in Names are cut and flaughtered by them without mercy. Who can bear to hear Father Orleans, in his Preface to the English Revolutions, fay the English Names are fo uncouth, and as it were barbarous, that he has not ftudied to be exact in fpelling them; as if we were fome of the moft unpolifh'd of Mortals, and our Language the moft inelegant; in fhort, as if we were a new discovered Nation in the Moon, who scarce could call each other by 1 articulate Sounds? And again, what fhall we fay to that otherwife excellent Geographical Lexicographer Corneille, who when he touches upon English Ground, often puzzles the English themselves to know whereabouts he is? Who could imagine, for example, when he comes to defcribe Oxford, that even a Student there fhall not know by him when he is come to Christ Church

but

but shall fee it fpelt in fuch a manner, with fuch a number of Confonants and difference of Vowels, that he fhall not be able to unravel it but by its beginning with a C? And now if they are fo fearfully negligent and arbitrary in what concerns the proper Names of a Country, their very next Neighbour, and perhaps the moft generally allied to them of any Nation un der the Sun; what Butchery muft we not expect them no make of the Tartar Names and of the Chinese? Herein fure there can be no relying on them. We must therefore befeech them to confider Foreigners a little for the future, and to use their Names as civilly as they are faid to do their Perfons; and in the mean time to favour us with an Onomafticon Generale, drawn up as they know how; a Work which would be highly acceptable to all Europe, and much wanted at this Inftant in particular; a Work particularly incumbent on them to undertake, as they have been the greatest Offenders in the Sin which makes fo heavy an Atonement neceffary.

ARTICLE VII.

A Continuation of VOL. III. of Rollin's Hiftory, &c.

M

R. Rollin at the Entry of this Volume advertiseth his Reader, that tho' he had promised in it to conduct his History down to the end of the Peloponnefian War, and to add fome Reflexions on the Genius, Cuftoms, Laws, and Government of the People of Greece: The Additions he hath neceffarily been obliged to make No XX. 1732.. I VOL. IV.

in

in the course of the Impreffion, more especially that particular and circumftantial Account he hath given of the Siege of Syracufe, which was the greatest Enterprize that ever the Athenian Republick undertook, and at length proved the chief Cause of their Ruin; have not only put it out of his power to perform his Promise, but hath even fwelled this Volume very near two hundred Pages more than any of the former.

BEFORE he begins the Hiftory itself, Mr. Rollin hath thought proper to make fome preliminary Obfervations, which confist chiefly in enumerating the Advantages that accrue to alf forts of People from the reading of History, and the Judgment that ought to be made of thofe glaring Acts of Virtue, that are so frequently met with in the Heathen History. He then adds an Abridgment of the principal Events of the Lacedemonian History from the first Establishment of the Regal Government among them, to the time of Darius the Son of Hyftafpes, where the Perfian War against the Greeks, in which the Lacedemonians bore fo great a fhare; begins. Here he remarks, that fourscore Years A.M.2900 after the taking of Troy, the Heraclides, or De

fcendants of Hercules, returned into the Peloponnefus, and feized upon Lacedemon, where Eurysthenes and Procles the two Sons of Ariftodemus placed the Seat of their Kingdom, and reign jointly. It is remarkable, that these two Brothers continued all their Life-time at variance one with another, which Difpofition was also inherited by both their Defcendants, for the fpace of nine hundred Years that the Sceptre of Sparta continued in these two Families.

OUR Author by the by gives an Account of the Origine and Condition of the Ilotes, a

Name

Name given to fuch Prifoners of War as the,
Spartans commonly made their Slaves.

AFTER which he gives a fhort History of the War betwixt the Lacedemonians and Argives. When the two Armies were in fight one of another, it was agreed in order to fpare the fhedding of Blood, that their Differences (which were chiefly concerning the Sovereignty of a small Country called Thyrea) fhould be decided by three hundred of each fide, chofen out of the Flower of the Army; and every thing being ready for the Battle, and- both Armies having retired, they fought with fuch Fury, that there were only three remain'd ; two of which were of the Argives fide, the other a Lacedemonian. The Argives believing themfelves fecure of the Victory, return'd to their own Army to give an account of the Succefs of the Day; the Lacedemonian kept the Field of Battle, and when he faw his Enemies gone, ftrip'd the Dead of their Spoils, and tranferr'd them to his own fide of the Ground mark'd out for the Battle: This again involved the two Nations in a fresh Difpute about the Victory, the Argives pleading, that the Number of their fide who escaped being greatest, entitled them to the Victory; the Lacedemonians, that their Man had kept the Field of Battle whilft the two Argives fled. In fine, the Dispute ended in a general Battle, wherein the Argives were entirely routed.

OUR Author alfo takes notice of three different Wars betwixt the Lacedemonians and Meffenians; the firft of these began the second Year of the ninth Olympiad, and continued for the space 4.M.3261 of twenty Years; a Euphaes being then King of

I2

Mellene. a According to the Sentiments of Mr. Boivin, in his learned Differtation on a Fragment of Diodorus Siculus, Vid. Me

meires