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THE

LITERARY MISCELLANY,

INCLUDING

DISSERTATIONS AND ESSAYS ON SUBJECTS OF LITERA-
TURE, SCIENCE, AND MORALS; BIOGRAPHICAL
AND HISTORICAL SKETCHES; CRITICAL RE-
MARKS ON LANGUAGE; WITH
OCCASIONAL REVIEWS.

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY.

VOL. I.

CAMBRIDGE.

WILLIAM HILLIARD

1805.

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THE publication of the LITERARY MISCELLANY was

projected by a few friends, who agreed to contribute fuch reflections and remarks, as were the result of their studies, with a wish to rouse a mutual emulation in literary pursuits, and to excite in others a taste for scientific investigations.

They think it best to mention some of the subjects, to which their views are directed, both to exhibit the characteristic lineaments of the projected publication, and to suggest to their remote associates those topics, on which communications are solicited.

Ancient and Modern HISTORY has been presented to the public, by writers of eminence, in voluminous detail; but there are some particulars, which yet remain obscure and perplexed, and others, which undoubtedly have been misrepresented. Many Historians have been influenced by local par tialities, restrained by party prejudices, or determined by political and interested views; and thus have coloured their representations to suit their own bias, and drawn their deductions to accommodate their own purposes. More have written with few and imperfect documents, and at a period when the causes of those events, which they narrated, were but indistinctly known. Circumstances, which afterwards took place, brought forward new information, and developed motives, which were a long time concealed. Truth, which in the one case was disguised, and in the other not clearly seen, it is the province of the candid, the sagacious, and the better informed to discover and display; and truth is all-important in History.

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