PREFACE

AN attempt is made in this publication to trace, in a plainand concise manner, the Origin and Progress of the variousArts and Sciences, and of those Discoveries and Institutionswhich have contributed to the improvement or civilization ofmankind, or are intimately connected with the history ofthis country: by which the acquirements of the Ancientsare brought into competition with those of the Moderns,and the introduction and cultivation of the liberal and me-chanical arts in England, compared with the advancement ofthem in other countries.

It may, however, be necessary to premise, that most ofthe arts requisite to the subsistence, or conducive to theimmediate comfort of mankind, are nearly co-eval with thehuman race, or have sprung up at different periods, and invarious countries, so remote, as to preclude any satisfactoryinformation with respect to their origin ; and the history ofmany others which tend to the embellishments and luxuriesof life, has been transmitted to us either by written docu-ments, which, during the lapse of ages, must have beengreatly mutilated and corrupted, or, by the still less satis-factory channel of tradition, intermixed with fabulous andromantic conceits.