PREFACE. IN the following pages I have endeavoured to tell in our English tongue a story that was told well-nigh three thousand years ago in a language, which has long ceased to be a living language on the earth. It is the story of the kingdom of All-Israel, as the Hebrew empire was called in its most flourishing days. Small though that kingdom was, its annals have always been regarded as a heritage of mankind, fraught with welfare to the whole world. The writings which contain this history are frequently described as not altogether worthy of credit. While they contain much that is undeniably ancient, they are also believed to contain much that is comparatively recent. The original books are said to have been curtailed of parts which are now lost beyond recovery; and parts are alleged to have been added which can only be ascertained by skilful inquirers and the application of most delicate tests. Evidently, then, it is the duty of a historian either to vindicate the reality of the history, or to separate the wheat of truth from the chaff of romance. The proofs of authenticity are so numerous and so convincing, that I have accepted the history, as it is read in the Hebrew, notwithstanding undoubted difficulties in the narrative. Of the skill and industry shown by several authors, who, after careful inquiry into words and things, have undertaken to distinguish the true from the false in the history, no one can speak without respect. But the value of their researches is to be measured, less by the theories they have proposed, than by the necessity, under which they have laid those who differ from them, of examining every difficulty that had formerly been passed by or lightly esteemed. The rules of historical research, on which I have worked, are those which have been applied in verifying the literature of Greece and Rome. Two of them were first stated in a |