in Literature, is the reduction of a book into a smaller compass; the book so reduced is sometimes called also an epitome, or compendium. To condense a work, without detriment to the symmetry and connection of the whole, demands the exercise of both judgment and skill, and not unfrequently of taste; to the absence of which requisites must be imputed the frequent imperfection of this class of works. The advantage of epitomes or abridgments, when ably executed, can scarcely be too highly estimated, for, by the enormous increase of literature, they are yearly growing more important, and will eventually become a matter of necessity. "The universal progress of science during the last two centuries," says Robertson, "the art of printing, and other obvious causes, have filled Europe with such a multiplicity of histories, and with such vast collections of historical materials, that the term of human life is too short for the study or even the perusal of them."—Charles V.; preface to edit. 1796. The Reviews and periodicals of the day may be said in a manner to have commenced the great era of abridgment; but whether this system may not tend to superficialness, remains to be seen.

The art of abridgment, though practised before, first came into general use among the Romans about the fifth century; and posterity owes a debt of gratitude to those authors who thus preserved, among less important materials, many valuable fragments of antiquity which otherwise had been lost. Among these abridgments and collections may be noticed the histories of Lactius A. Florus, and of C. Vell. Patriculus; the Epitome de Caesaribus of S. Aur. Abrogation Victor; the Breviarium of S. Ruf. Festus; that of Eutropius; and the Chronicon of Mag. Aur. Cassiodorus. As examples of excellence in the art of abridgment, may be cited—Mézeray's Abrégé Chronologique de l'Histoire de France, by the author; Hennault's Nouvel Abrégé Chronologique de l'Histoire de la France; Nouvel Abrégé Chronologique de l'Histoire d'Allemagne, by Pfaffel; Hazlitt's Abridgment of Tucker's Light of Nature; and the Epitome Historiarum of Tursellinus.