vrages. L'hiftoire Litteraire ancienne & moderne en fournit plufieurs exemples. Quelque talent qu'on ait, il eft impoffible de réuffir dans un ouvrage d'une certaine entendue, fans beaucoup de tems & d'application. Cette perfection qui immortalise un bon ouvrage, ne peut être le fruit que de la réunion du talent & du travail.

Effais fur divers fujets de Litterat. &c. tom. iv. p. 4.

SECT.

SECT. III.

Of HISTORY.

TH

HERE is no fpecies of writing in which the ancients excelled us more than in hiftory. With them, it was not a dry detail of events, but a moft elegant and entertaining compofition. The Greek and Roman poets did not embellish their fictions more than their hiftorians endeavoured to infuse a fpirit of nervous elegance into their manner of defcribing events. When hiftory thus became the work of the greatest geniufes, it flourished in the utmost perfection; and, fince the time of the Romans, there has never been one hiftorian

who can be compared to many of the antients.

Hiftorians, in general, imagine that they perform all that is expected of them, if they give a true account of the actions they defcribe; but herein they mistake much. Every thing is either useful or hurtful to mankind in its effects; hiftory partakes of either quality in proportion to the degree of genius and morality in the hiftorian. He who commends the bad actions of vicious princes, who paints a wicked character in amiable colours, not by falfifying facts, but by his reflections, confounds the defign of hiftory, and deftroys the very end of it, which is to make mankind better and wifer, by fetting pretended characters in their true light.

Ang

An historian ought to demand of himfelf at every touch, whether that reflection will affift in promoting the knowledge, virtue, and happiness of human nature he ought to reject whatever does not carry that end in view *. It may perhaps be faid, that 'tis the hiftorian's bufinefs to reprefent facts only as they happened. This may be; but the best writers of hiftory have added many reflections to every event of importance they defcribe. Now, it is not the event itfelf, fo much as the reflections which attend it, that can have the above good effect. The recital of a wicked action, if fet in a proper light, may be as edifying as that of the most amiable one. In fhort, no fpecies of compofition is worth the cultivating, unless it is of

* Vide Reflexions fur l'Histoire, par Mehegan.

M 3

fome

fome ufe to the morals of mankind. The Rambler has a remark on this fubject which is worthy of being remembered. Hiftorians, fays he, are certainly chargeable with the depravation of mankind, when they relate, without cenfure, thofe ftratagems of war by which the virtues of an enemy are engaged to his deftruction. A fhip comes before a port, weather beaten and fhattered, and the crew implore the liberty of repairing their breaches, fupplying themfelves with neceffaries, or burying their dead. The humanity of the inhabitants inclines them to confent; the ftrangers enter the town with weapons concealed, fall fuddenly on their benefactors, deftroy thofe that make refiftance, and become masters of the place. They return home rich with

plunder,