ing upon his strength, seldom perceives his wants till he finds his deception past a cure.

Your labors in history have hitherto been rather confined to the words, than the facts, of your historical guides. You have read Xenophon or Livy, rather with a view of learning the dead languages in which they are written, than of profiting by the instructions which they afford. The time is now come for discontinuing the study of words for things; for exercising your judgment, and giving more room to reason than to fancy.

Above all things, I would advise you to consult the original. historians in every relation. Abridgers, compilers, commentators, and critics, are in general only fit to fill the mind with unnecessary anecdotes, or lead its researches astray. In the immensity of various relations, your care must be to select such as deserve to be known, because they serve to instruct; the end of your labor should not be to know in what year fools or savages committed their extravagancies, but by what methods they emerged from barbarity. The same necessity there is for knowing the actions of the worthy part of princes, also compels us to endeavor to forget those of the ignorant and vulgar herd of kings, who seem only to slumber in a seat they were accidentally called to fill. In short, not the history of kings, but of men, should be your principal concern; and such a history is only to be acquired by consulting those originals who painted the times they lived in. Their successors, who pretended to methodize their histories, have almost universally deprived them of all their spirit, and given us rather a dry catalogue of names than an improving detail of events. In reality, history is precious or insignificant, not from the brilliancy of the events, the singularity of the adventures, or the greatness of the personages concerned, but from the skill, penetration, and judgment of the observer. Tacitus frequently complains of his want of materials, of the littleness of

his incidents, of the weakness and villainy of his actors; yet even from such indifferent subjects, he has wrought out the most pleasing and the most instructive history that ever was written: it will therefore be entirely the work of your own judgment to convert the generality of historians to your benefit; they are, at present, but rude materials, and require a fine discernment to separate the useful from the unnecessary, and analyze their different principles.

Yet, mistake me not: I would not have history to consist of dry speculations upon facts, told with phlegm, and pursued without interest and passion; nor would I have your reason fatigued continually in critical researches: all I require is, that the historian would give as much exercise to the judgment as the imagination. It is as much his duty to act the philosopher, or politician, in his narratives, as to collect materials for narration. Without a philosophical skill in discerning, his very narrative must be frequently false, fabulous, and contradictory; without political sagacity, his characters must be ill drawn, and vice and virtue be distributed without discernment or candor.

What historian can render virtue so amiable as Xenophon? Who can interest the reader so much as Livy? Sallust is an instance of the most delicate exactness, and Tacitus of the most solid reflection: from a perfect acquaintance with these, the youthful student can acquire more knowledge of mankind, a more perfect acquaintance with antiquity, and a more just manner of thinking and expressing, than, perhaps, from any others of any age or country. Other ancient historians may be read to advance the study of ancient learning, but these should be the groundwork of all your researches. Without a previous acquaintance with these, you enter upon other writers improperly prepared; until these have placed you in a proper train of moraliz ing the incidents, other historians may. perhaps, injure, but will

not improve you. Let me, therefore, at present, my dear Charles, entreat you to bestow the proper care upon those treasures of antiquity; and by your letters, every post, communicate to your father, and your friend, the result of your reflections upon them. I am at a loss whether I shall find more satisfaction in hearing your remarks, or communicating my own? However, in whichsoever of them I shall be employed, it will make my highest amusement. Amusement is all that I can now expect in life, for ambition has long forsaken me; and perhaps, my child, after what your noble ancestor has observed is most true:-When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.

all,

I entirely acquiesce in your sentiments, that universal history is a subject too extensive for human comprehension, and that he who would really reap the advantages of history must be contented to bound his views. Satisfied with being superficially acquainted with the transactions of many countries, the learner should place his principal attention only on a few.

Your remarks on the Greek and Roman republics far surpass my expectations; you have justly characterized them as the finest instances of political society that could be founded on the basis of a false religion. Where religion is imperfect, political society, and all laws enacted for its improvement, must be imperfect also. Religion is but philosophy refined; and no man could ever boast an excellence in politics, whose mind had not been previously opened and enlarged by the institutions of theology, an error in religion ever producing defects in legislation.

Forgive me, dear Charles, if I once more congratulate myself

*[This sentiment occurs in the " Enquiry into Polite Learning;" see p 465, and is also put into the mouth of Croaker in the "Goodnatured Man, act i. scene iv.]

upon the pleasure I expect from your future eminence. You are now tinctured with universal history, and are thoroughly conversant with that of Greece and Rome; but there is another department of history still remaining, and that much more important than any I have yet mentioned: I mean the history of England. The history of this country is the proper study of an Englishman; however, it peculiarly concerns those who may, like you, one day have such an important character to support in its administration, and whose own name, perhaps, may find a place in the historic page. All who are enamored of the liberty and the happiness which they peculiarly enjoy in this happy region, must surely be desirous of knowing the methods by which such advantages were acquired; the progressive steps from barbarity to social refinement, from society to the highest pitch of well constituted freedom. All Europe stands in astonishment at the wisdom of our constitution, and it would argue the highest degree of insensibility in a native of this country, and one, too, who from his birth enjoys peculiar privileges, to be ignorant of what others so much admire.

I shall not insist upon a principal use to which some apply the English history, I mean that of making it the topic of common conversation; yet, even from such a motive, though in itself trifling, no well-bred man can plead ignorance. Its greatest advantage, however, is, that a knowledge of the past enables the attentive mind to understand the present: our laws and customs, our liberties and abuse of liberty, can scarcely be understood without tracing them to their source, and history is the only channel by which we can arrive at what we so eagerly pursue.

But, were I to compare the history of our own country, in point of amusement, with that of others, I know of none, either ancient or modern, that can vie with it in this respect. In other histories, remote and extensive connections interrupt the reader's

interest, and destroy the simplicity of the plan. The history of Greece may be easily divided into seven histories, and into so many it has actually been divided: the history of Rome, from the time it begins to be authentic, is little else than an account of the then known world; but, in England, separated by its situation, from the continent, the reader may consider the whole narrative, with all its vicissitudes, in one point of view; it unites the philosopher's definition of beauty, by being variously uniform.

The simplicity in a history of our own country is therefore excellent; but I can direct to few who have improved the materials it affords with a proper degree of assiduity or skill. The historians who have treated of this subject have in general written for a party; many with an open avowal of their abuse. Some, who have had talents for this undertaking, were unable to afford themselves sufficient leisure to polish their work into the degree of requisite perfection; while others, who have labored with sufficient assiduity, have been wofully deficient in point of sagacity, or proper skill in the choice of those facts they thought proper to relate. Whatever has been known, and not what was worth knowing, has been faithfully transcribed; so that the present accounts of the country resemble the ancient face of the soil: here an uncultivated forest, there a desolate wild; and in a very few places, a spot of earth adorned by art, and smiling with all the luxuriance of nature. To make history, like the soil, truly useful, the obstacles to improvement must be torn away, new assistances must be acquired from art; nor can the work be deemed properly finished, till the whole puts on simplicity, uniformity, and elegance. As the case is at present, we must read a library to acquire a knowledge of English history, and, after all, be contented to forget more than we remember.

* Hutcheson.