From the Preface
In the following pages it has been the wish of the author to give the most accurate and satisfactory account of all the proper names which occur in reading the Classics, and by a judicious collection of anecdotes and historical facts to draw a picture of ancient times, not less instructive than entertaining. Such a work, it is hoped, will not be deemed a useless acquisition in the hands of the public; and while the student is initiated in the knowledge of history and mythology, and familiarized with the ancient situation and extent of kingdoms and cities that no longer exist, the man of letters may, perhaps, find it not a contemptible companion, from which he may receive information, and be made, a second time, acquainted with many important particulars which time, or more laborious occupations, inay have erased from his memory.
In the prosecution of his plan, the author has been obliged to tread in the steps of many learned men, whose studies have been directed, and not without success, to facilitate the attainment of classical knowledge, and of the ancient languages. Their compositions have been to him a source of information, and he trusts that their labours have now found new elucidation in his own, and that, by a due consideration of every subject, he has been enabled to imitate their excellences, without copying their faults. Many compositions of the same nature have issued from the press, but they are partial and unsatisfactory. The attempts to be concise, have rendered the labours of one barren and uninstructive, while long and unconnected quotations of passages from Greek and Latin writers, disfigure the page of the other, and render the whole insipid and disgusting. It cannot, therefore, be a discouraging employment now, to endeavour to finish what others have left imperfect, and with the conciseness of Stephens, to add the diffuse researches of Lloyd, Hoffman, Collier, &c. After paying due attention to the ancient poets and historians, from whom the most authentic information can be received, the labours of more modern authors have been consulted, and every composition distinguished for the clearness and perspicuity of historical narration, or geographical descriptions, has been carefully examined.