If any Motive can induce a Reader to have a tender Regard for a labouring Author ; certainly the Work of Antiquity (relating either to the Rise of States, or Families) demand a favourable Attention. To know what has past info many shining Ages before our glimmering Dawn of Life ; and to consider the Origin and Decay ; the Virtue or Vice of illustrious and unfortunate Persons, long since departed to the eternal Regions of Joy or Misery ; are to a contemplative Mind as differently entertaining, as tho' we were now prophetically to be sensible of what should follow many years after our Bodies were laid in the Mold. Alas ! the Knowledge of the latter, might, in many respects, be a great Addition to our present certain Sorrows of Life : But by Retrospection, we learn to imitate whatever was commendable in our Ancestors ; and to shun the contrary, equal to what Futurity would teach us, by our Successors..
— Thomas Gent, Annales Regioduni Hullini, 1735