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Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

D. APPLETON & COMPANY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern

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PREFACE.

THE great body of this volume is the work of Prof. Thomas Dew, late President of the College of William and Mary. It was prepared originally in the shape of Lectures, in the Historical Department, over which he presided, and, during his lifetime, was printed for the use of his class, but never published. Its publication was prevented by his death.

The work is, what its title declares, a Digest of History, Ancient and Modern. It makes no pretensions to originality; but, as an Historical Manual, it is believed to possess decided advantages over all those compendiums of history now in use in our schools and colleges. Indeed, it was the imperfection of these compilations, and the necessity which the author felt for some proper text-book to be placed in the hands of the student, as an accompaniment to his historical lectures, that led to the preparation of this work. On examination, it will be found that more than ordinary labor has been expended upon it; and that the author has proceeded upon higher principles, and has had higher aims in view than compilers ordinarily propose to themselves. Instead of being, like most historical compendiums, a mere catalogue of events, chronologically arranged, it is a careful, laborious, and instructive digest of the laws, customs, manners, institutions, and civilization of the ancient and modern nations. The department of modern history particularly, in which such works are generally most deficient, has been pre

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