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HE Proprietors of this Work think them felves obliged, on the Clofing of their great Undertaking, to return their humble Acknowlegements to the Public, for the great Encouragement and kind Reception it has met with: Which has enabled them (in order to fhew their grateful Sense of its Favour) to augment the Bulk of the feveral Volumes, without inhancing the Price. And accordingly, as they early found, that the Work, with the propofed ADDITIONS to it, large as the Page, and close as the Print was, would extend to Twenty-two Volumes, they not only still further inlarged the Page, but increased the Number of Sheets, in each Volume; so that several of the Volumes will be found to contain upwards of Forty Sheets, and this last particularly, Fifty.

The Account of the Difperfion of the Jews, which was intended to be inferted in the Antient Hiftory, is referred to the Modern; to which it more properly belongs.

Bookbinders are defired to prefix the General Preface, the Contents, the Lift of Subfcribers, &c. (delivered out in the Twentieth) to the First Volume.

THE

Modern HISTORY

(Which, as near as can be computed, will be comprised in

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GENTLEMEN, who are disposed to encourage the
Work, are defired to Send in their NAMES
to the Proprietors, that the Number to be
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TO THOMAS OSBORNE, in Gray's-Inn.
To A. MILLAR, in the Strand; and
TO JOHN OSBORN, in Pater-nofter-Row.

ΑΝ

Universal History,

FROM THE

Earliest Account of Time.

VOL. XX.

BOOK IV.

The Hiftory of the TURKS, TARTARS, and MOGULS.

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The Antiquity, Power, Government, Laws, Religion, Cuftoms, Language, Learning, and Difpofition, of the antient Turks, Tartars, and Moguls.

T

HE Tartars were at firft called Tatars, a name they The Tardeduced from their great ancestor Tatar Khân, of tars dewhom we fhall foon have occafion to fpeak. The duced the Moguls received their denomination from Mogul, Mogol, or, name of according to fome, Mung'l, brother to Tatar Khân. Thefe Tatars princes founded two puiffant empires in the Eaft, which after-from Tawards uniting, became a terror to all their neighbours. It tar Khân. has been obferved, that the Tartars fettled both in Europe and Afia ftill retain, as they have always done, among the neighbouring nations, their original appellation of Tatars a.

2 ABU'L GHAZI BAHADUR KHân's genealogic. hift. of the Tatars, par. I. c. 3. & par. II. c. 1. MIRKHOND, D'HERBEL. biblioth. orient. p. 597. 875. See alfo the tranflator's preface, prefixed to ABU'L GHAZI BAHADUR KHân's genealogic. hift. of the Tartars, p. 25.

VOL. XX.

B

As

The Mo

guls and

As the progenitors of the prefent Tartars and Moguls agreed in most points with the antient Scythians, if they were not in all refpects the fame people with them, we fhall not here enter very minutely upon the geography of their country. Nor fhall we be prolix upon their government, laws, religion, cuftoms, arts, and learning; these all having been largely difcuffed and expatiated upon in our hiftory of the antient Scythians. However, fome things that had efcaped us there, will naturally occur in this place; and we fhall, befides, have an opportunity of obliging our readers with the hiftorical account the Tartars give of themfelves, from the remoteft ages to the time of their great conqueror Jenghiz Khân. This, we doubt not, will be acceptable to the curious; fince every nation must, in many refpects, be the best qualified to write their own hiftory. For, however fuperior to them in genius, learning, and politenefs, fome foreigners may be; yet it is natural to fuppofe, that none can be fo thoroughly verfed in traditions relating to the firft plantation of any country, feveral of which are undoubtedly founded on truth, or be fo well acquainted with the antient ftate of it, as the natives themselves. Befides, the Greek and Roman writers had very inadequate ideas of the nation we are here confidering. As for the Perfian and Arab hiftorians, they have committed feveral grofs miftakes in relation to the Tartarian affairs. Nor can fome of these be corrected by any writer, however learned, judicious, and impartial, he may be, but a Mogul or Tartar hiftorian b.

THAT the Moguls and Tartars were the defcendents of Japhet, the eldeft fon of Noah, is almoft univerfally agreed. Tartars The moft learned and judicious writers of all nations, who have defcended had a tafte for Oriental literature, have affented to this (A) from Ja- notion; and the Tartars themselves are fully perfuaded of the

phet.

truth

The tranflator's pref. prefixed to ABU'L GHAZI BAHADUR KHAN's genealogic. hift. of the Tat. p. 5.

(A) M. Bayer conjectures the earliest ancestors of the Scythians to have moved first out of Armenia, into some tract to the fouth of that country; from whence, according to him, they gradually advanced, first in an eastern, and afterwards a northern direction, to the eastern bank of the Volga.

But, admitting this to be true, which yet we cannot eafily do, and that the Scythians were originally a colony of Armenians, yet ftill we must allow them to have been the defcendents of Japhet. For this appears from Herodotus in conjunction with Scripture, and likewise from what we have

already

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