[Footnote: De la vicissitude ou variete des choses en l'univers, 1577, 2nd ed.

(which I have used), 1584.] It contains a survey of great periods in which particular peoples attained an exceptional state of dominion and prosperity, and it anticipates later histories of civilisation by dwelling but slightly on political events and bringing into prominence human achievements in science, philosophy, and the arts.

Beginning with the advance of man from primitive rudeness to ordered society--a sketch based on the conjectures of Plato in the Protagoras--Le Roy reviews the history, and estimates the merits, of the Egyptians, Assyrians and Persians, the Greeks, Romans and Saracens, and finally of the modern age.

The facts, he thinks, establish the proposition that the art of warfare, eloquence, philosophy, mathematics, and the fine arts, generally flourish and decline together.
But they do decline.

Human things are not perpetual; all pass through the same cycle--beginning, progress, perfection, corruption, end.