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history of Nadir Shah, p. 145, 165. The public must lament that Mr. Jones has suspended the pursuit of Oriental learning. Note: Ferdusi is yet imperfectly known to European readers. An abstract of the whole poem has been published by Goerres in German, under the title "das Heldenbuch des Iran." In English, an abstract with poetical translations, by Mr. Atkinson, has appeared, under the auspices of the Oriental Fund. But to translate a poet a man must be a poet. The best account of the poem is in an article by Von Hammer in the Vienna Jahrbucher, 1820: or perhaps in a masterly article in Cochrane's Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 1, 1835. A splendid and critical edition of the whole work has been published by a very learned English Orientalist, Captain Macan, at the expense of the king of Oude. As to the number of 60,000 couplets, Captain Macan (Preface, p. 39) states that he never saw a MS. containing more than 56,685, including doubtful and spurious passages and episodes. - M.

Note: The later studies of Sir W. Jones were more in unison with the wishes of the public, thus expressed by Gibbon. - M.]

[Footnote 21: The Caspian Sea, with its rivers and adjacent tribes, are laboriously illustrated in the Examen Critique des Historiens d'Alexandre, which compares the true geography, and the errors produced by the vanity or ignorance of the Greeks.]

[Footnote 22: The original seat of the nation appears to have been in the Northwest of China, in the provinces of Chensi and Chansi. Under the two first dynasties, the principal town was still a movable camp; the villages were thinly scattered; more land was employed in pasture than in tillage; the exercise of hunting was ordained to clear the country from wild beasts; Petcheli (where Pekin stands) was a desert, and the Southern provinces were peopled with Indian savages. The dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) gave the empire its actual form and extent.]

[Footnote 23: The aera of the Chinese monarchy has been variously fixed from 2952 to 2132 years before Christ; and the year 2637 has been chosen for the lawful epoch, by the authority of the present emperor. The difference arises from the uncertain duration of the two first dynasties; and the vacant space that lies beyond them, as far as the real, or fabulous, times of Fohi, or Hoangti. Sematsien dates his authentic chronology from the year 841; the thirty-six eclipses of Confucius (thirty- one of which have been verified) were observed between the years 722 and 480 before Christ. The historical period of China does not ascend above the Greek Olympiads.]

[Footnote 24: After several ages of anarchy and despotism, the dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) was the aera of the revival of learning. The fragments of ancient literature were restored; the characters were improved and fixed; and the future preservation of books was secured by the useful inventions of ink, paper, and the art of printing. Ninety-seven years before Christ, Sematsien published the first history of China. His labors were illustrated, and continued, by a series of one hundred and eighty historians. The substance of their works is still extant; and the most considerable of them are now deposited in the king of France's library.]

[Footnote 25: China has been illustrated by the labors of the French; of the missionaries at Pekin, and Messrs. Freret and De Guignes at Paris. The substance of the three preceding notes is extracted from the Chou-king, with the preface and notes of M. de Guignes, Paris, 1770. The Tong-Kien- Kang-Mou, translated by P. de Mailla, under the name of Hist. Generale de la Chine, tom. i. p. xlix. - cc.; the Memoires sur la Chine, Paris, 1776, &c., tom. i. p. 1 - 323; tom. ii. p. 5 - 364; the Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p. 4 - 131, tom. v. p. 345 - 362; and the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 377 - 402; tom. xv. p. 495 - 564; tom. xviii. p. 178 - 295; xxxvi. p. 164 - 238.]

[Footnote 26: See the Histoire Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii., and the Genealogical History, vol. ii. p. 620 - 664.]