times, and drawing the feveral characters of

his age.

The very foul and effence of History, is Truth, without which it can preferve neither its name nor its nature, and with which the moft indifferent circumftances in a barren chronicle are more interesting to a sensible reader, than the greatest events, how copiously or elegantly foever they may be defcribed, in a romance or a legend: yet it is ftrange, that, of fo many Hiftories, ancient or modern, European or Afiatick, there should be fo few, which we can read without asking in almost every page, Is this true?

;

History, in its original state, was probably nothing more than the bare relation of publick events, which were digefted in the form of Annals, like the life of Tully by Fabricius: we are affured that this was the cafe in old Rome * and it feems, indeed, in all ages, to be the wisest, as well as the most useful, method of writing history, unless the facts were more diligently examined and more fairly reprefented, than they appear to be in most productions of this nature. Among the Greeks,

* Omnia ea ex commentariis Regis pontificem maximum, in album relata, proponere in publico jubet. Liv. I. 32.

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Pherecydes, Hellanicus, Epimenides, and among the Latins, Cator, Pictor, Pifo, are faid to have written without affecting any ornament, or aiming at any other merit than that of a nervous brevity. HERODOTUS fent abroad his nine books with the advantage of a more polished dress: there is a noble fimplicity in his diction, to which the open vowels of the Ionick dialect greatly contribute, and many of his narratives are extremely pleasing; but his accounts of the Perfian affairs are at leaft doubtful, if not fabulous; and he followed his Egyptian guides with an implicit confidence, not fcrupling to relate a number of facts, which he could never have verified, if he thought they would improve the manners, or gratify the curiosity, of his own inquifitive nation. THUCYDIDES added stronger nerves to historical compofition; his facts are in general authentick, his obfervations deep and fagacious; but his language is abrupt, obfcure, and fententious, particularly in the speeches, which, though they abound with wife maxims and exalted fentiments, bear all the marks of labour and stiffness, and have not even the air of probability, fince it is impoffible, that many of them could have been comprehended by a popular audience. What Thucydides wanted,

namely, a fimple and graceful ftyle, XENOPHON poffeffed in an eminent degree; nothing can equal the sweetness and delicacy of his language; but that sweetness itself is hardly confiftent with the gravity of his subject, and all his pieces, if we except that on the Expedition of Cyrus, in which he was perfonally engaged, have more liveliness of imagination than depth of judgement, and display more of the scholar and moralift, than of the statesman and orator, The fentiments of Thucydides, expreffed in the style of Xenophon, would have approached very nearly to that idea of perfect Hiftory, which we have juft delineated; but it seems to be wifely ordained by nature, that no single man shall excel all others in every great accomplishment, left he should be tempted to fancy himself a being of a fuperior order, and should exert his talents to the ruin of his fellow-creatures. Of all the Greek Hiftorians, POLYBIUS was, perhaps, the graveft, the wifeft, and the moft faithful; but his language is even harsher than that of Thucydides; and, in the few books which remain of his excellent work, we are at a lofs to difcern the taste and elegance of Scipio and Lælius, by whom he was affifted.

That forced and stiff kind of writing, than which nothing can be more odious in History,

was defignedly adopted by SALLUST, and feems inexcufable in a man of his rank and knowledge, who lived in the very age of Cicero: the fame abruptnefs and obfcurity may well be pardoned in TACITUS, who flourished when the purity of the Roman language had declined with the Roman liberty; but the defect of his ftyle prevents us from confidering him as a confummate Historian, though his wisdom and penetration would otherwise give him a juft claim to that title. It is not easy to conceive what the ancients mean by the lactea ubertas of LIVY: in many parts of his work he shows great candour and judgement; but his language is not remarkable for ease or copiousness, and it was below a writer of his genius to relate all the fuperftitious and incredible fictions, which were invented only to please the people of Rome, by afcribing the foundation and fupport of their City to the interpofition of the Gods.

The writers of Lives, as Plutarch and Nepos, belonging to a different clafs: Diodorus the Sicilian, and Dionyfius of Halicarnassus, were rather scholars and antiquaries, than mafters of political knowledge; and the latter Greek Hiftorians, Appian, Dio, Herodian, and the reft, can hardly be supposed to stand

the teft of Cicero's rules, by which even Thucydides and Polybius have been declared imperfect. It would far exceed the limits of a prefatory difcourfe, if we attempted to examine by these laws the many Hiftorians, who have related the affairs of their respective ftates, in the various dialects of modern Europe, Italian or Spanish, French or English: fome of them are grave and judicious, fome bold and impartial, others polifhed and elegant; but none of them feem to have poffeffed all those qualities, a perfect union of which is required in the character of a finished Hiftorian.

The Hiftory of Florence by MACHIAVELLI, how beautifully foever it may be written, must neceffarily be liable to suspicion from the known principles of its Author; and the work of GUICCIARDINI, who bore an eminent part in the actions which he relates, is not, I believe, confidered by the Italians themfelves as a model of fine writing.

M. DE VOLTAIRE feems to bear away the palm of History among the French: his ftyle is lively and fpirited, his descriptions, animated and ftriking, his remarks, always ingenious, often deep; and, if fome trifling errours are discovered in his writings, we are willing to excufe them, when we reflect, that