ANNUAL REGISTER, OR GENERAL REPOSITORY OF HISTORY, AND LITERATURE, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, A SHORT REVIEW of the STATE of KNOWLEDGE, LONDON, MDCCLXXXVI. PREFACE. T HE farther we proceed in our Undertaking, the greater reafon do we find to express our gratitude for the eminent fuccefs with which our endeavours to please the Public have been honoured. An encouragement fo flattering holds out to us the ftrongest motive for continuing our folicitude to merit the general approbation; and it is hoped that the purchasers of the Sixth Volume of the New Annual Register will have no reason to complain that we have failed of our accustomed affiduity and diligence. We trust that the different departments of the work will speak for themselves, and juftify our expectation of enjoying the fame favourable reception which we have hitherto experienced. In tracing the progrefs of Knowledge, Literature, and Tafte, in Great Britain, we have been obliged, fo far as we have already gone, to travel through a comparatively barren country, which afforded only a few few fpots that were fruitful and pleasant. That part of our course is now completed. The next Volume will conduct us to the revival of learning, and will gradually lead us on to prospects highly rich, various, and delightful. While Europe continues at peace, our attention must principally be directed to the parliamentary and domeftic history of thefe kingdoms. We have not, however, been neglectful of foreign affairs, which are fufficiently interefting to deferve a ferious contemplation. There are circumftances in the ftate of things abroad, which might ferve to exercise the fagacity, and to excite the conjectures, of the politician and the philofopher with regard to their confequences. But it is not fo much our business to af fume the character of prophets, as to be faithful and intelligent narrators of subsisting facts, and explainers, as far as we are able, of the principles and causes from which they proceed. The miscellaneous department of our work is more copious than ever; and perhaps we have, in this refpect, been guilty of an excefs. But fuch a number of valuable papers called for admittance, that we knew not how to reject them; and yet we have omitted many that were highly deserving of being inferted. Such has been the merit of the productions of the year. The diversified extracts with which our Volumes abound, do not only render them more inftructive structive and entertaining, but, in conjunction with our annual accounts of Domeftic Literature, will af certain, from time to time, the ftate of genius, knowledge, and learning, in this country; a fubject on which affertions are frequently made that are by no. means the refult of an accurate and candid inveftigation. Though we have reafon to congratulate ourselves on the comparative early appearance of the present Volume, we acknowledge that it is one month later than was agreeable to our intentions and wishes. This defect it is our purpose to remedy on future oc cafions. 1785. A CON |