stances, he must have attained. How feemingly inconfiderable particulars in the conduct of princes and great men, have produced ftrange effects in the affairs of mankind, and what momentous confequences to the rest of the world depend upon the behaviour of those who are at the head of it.

ture.

History is the key to the knowledge of Human NaFor in it we see what fort of beings our fellowcreatures are, by reading their genuine characters in their actions. These a perfon, who carefully ftudies history, may trace up to their fource, and purfue and unravel all the wonderful difguifes, doublings, and intricacies of the human heart. Life, as it is generally conducted by perfons of all ftations, but especially of the highest, appears from hiftory in its true colours, as a fcene of craft, of violence, of felfifhnefs, cruelty, folly, and vanity. Hiftory fhews the real worth of the ufual objects of the pursuit of mankind; that there is nothing new under the fun; nothing to be wondered at; that mankind have been from the beginning bewildered and led from their real happinefs, and the end of their being, after a thoufand vifionary vanities, which have deluded and difappointed them from generation to generation, and are likely to do fo to the laft.

What can be more entertaining or inftructive, than in history to trace this world of ours through its various ftates; obferve what fort of inhabitants have poffeffed it, in different periods; how different, and yet how much the fame; how nations, ftates, and kingdoms have rifen, flourished, and funk; the first rife of government, patriarchal, monarchical, republican; what characters have appeared in different ages, eminent for virtue, or infamous for wickedness; to what feemingly flight caufes the most important events have been owing; the arts, by which one man has been able to fubdue millions of his fellow-creatures, and to tread on the neck of mankind; the motives which have put men upon action; and the weakneffes which have been the caufe of the baffling of their fchemes; the force of human paffions, the weakness of reafon, the influence which prejudices and attachments have on the conduct of men, the fur

heights to which virtue has raised fome men, the difficulties conquered, the honours gained, and the lasting fame acquired by a difinterefted love of their country, the madness on which ambition, covetoufnefs, and love of pleasure have driven men; and through the whole, the influence of the unfeen Providence difappointing the counfels of the wife; weakening the power of the mighty; putting down one, and raifing another up; and working out its own great and important ends, by the weakness, the power, the virtue, the wickedness, the wifdom, and the folly of mankind.

History is the great inftructor for all ranks in life, but efpecially the higheft. For thofe who are besieged and blocked up by triple guards of flatterers, (whole chief care and great intereft it is above all things to prevent the approach of truth) in history may fee characters as great, or greater than their own, treated with the utmoft plainnefs. There the haughty tyrant may fee how a Nero was fpoke of behind his back, though deified by the flavish knee of Flattery. Thence he may. judge how he himself will be spoken of by hiftorians, who will no longer dread his menace after his head is laid in the duft. Thence he may judge how his character is perhaps now treated in the antichamber of his own palace, by the very fycophants whofe fervile tongues had, the moment before, been lavishing the fulfome and undiftinguished applaufe on his worst vices, which they had fanctified with the title of princely virtues. History will faithfully lay before him his various and important duty (for the higher the rank, the more extentive the. fphere of duty to be performed), which thofe, who come into his prefence, dare not, or oftener will not, inftruct him in. There he will fee, the original of the inftitution of government, and learn, that power is given into the hands of one for the advantage of the many; not, according to the monftrous doctrine of tyranny and flavery, the many made for one. There he will learn every honeft art of government, and can be engaged in no difficult circumftance, of which he will not find an example, and upon which he may not learn fome ufeful inftruction for governing mankind. For the human fpecies

fpecies have been from the beginning very much the fame, and generally capable, by wife laws, ftrictly executed, by a judicious police univerfally prevailing, and by the powerful example of perfons in high rank, of being governed and managed at the pleasure of able and politic princes. There he will fee the difference between the real glory of a Titus or an Alfred, and the horrible barbarity of a Philip or a Lewis. He may fet his own character and actions at the diftance of a few centuries, and judge in his own mind, whether he will then appear in the light of a devourer of his fellowcreatures, or of the father of his people; of a wife and active monarch, or of a thing of fhreds and patches; of an example to mankind of every fublime virtue, or a general corrupter of manners. Hiftory is the grand tribunal, before which princes themselves are, in the view of all mankind, arraigned, tried, and, often with the greatest freedom as well as impartiality, condemned to everlasting infamy. And though it is the mark of a truly great mind to dare to be virtuous at the expence of reputation; it is a proof of a foul funk to the lowest bafeness of human nature, to bear to think of deferving the contempt or hatred of all mankind, the wife and good, as well as the unthinking and worthless,

There is not indeed a leffon in the whole compass of morals, that is not, in the most advantageous and plea, fing way, to be learned in history and biography, taking in ancient and modern, facred and profane. There the madnefs of ambition appears in a friking light. The dreadful ravages produced by that wide-wafting fury, whenever he has poffeffed the frantic brain of a hero, and fent him, like a devouring fire, or an overflowing inundation, fpreading deftruction over the face of the earth; the numbers of the innocent and helplefs, who have, in the different ages of the world, been spoiled and maffacred, to make one fellow-worm great; the human hecatombs, which have been offered to this infernal demon; the anxious hours of life, and the violent. deaths, to which unthinking men have brought themfelves, by the egregious folly of flying from happiness in purfuit of the phantom of a name; the extenfive and

endlessly-various views, which history exhibits, of the fatal confequences of this vice, ought to teach the most inconfiderate the wifdom of contentment, and the happinefs of retirement.

In hiftory we see the moft illuftrious characters, for that worth, which alone is real, the internal excellence of the mind, rifing fuperior to the mean purfuit of riches, dignifying and fanctifying poverty by voluntarily embracing it. From thence we cannot help learning this important leffon; That the external advantages of wealth, titles, buildings, drefs, equipage, and the like, are no more to the man, than the proud trappings to the horfe, which add not to his value, and which we even remove, before we can examine his foundnefs, and which may be put upon the stupid afs, as well as the generous fteed.

The contrafts we find in hiftory between those nations and particular perfons, who ftudied temperance and abftinence, and those whofe beaftly luxury renders them infamous to pofterity, ought in all reafon to convince the readers of hiftory of the advantage of living agreeably to the dignity of Human Nature. The spontaneous and voluntary approbation, which the heart im-mediately gives to virtue, where paffion and prejudice are out of the way (as is the cafe where we confider the character of thofe who have been buried a thoufand years ago), feems to be the voice of God within the mind, calling it to the ftudy and practice of whatever is truly laudable. Why does not every prince judge of himself with the fame impartiality as he does of the Cæfars? Why does a private perfon indulge himfelf in vices, which all mankind, and even himself, abhor in a Sardanapalus, or Heliogabalus?

It would be easy to write a book, as large as this whole work, upon the moral advantages of the ftudy of history. But to proceed :

The writers of ecclefiaftical hiftory may be as properly mentioned here, as any where else, viz, viz. Eusebius, Socrates, &c.; Cave's Lives of the Fathers; Dupin's Ecclefiaftical Hiftory; Hiftories of the Councils; Bower's Hiftory of the Popes; Chandler's of the Inquifition;

Sleidan's

Sleidan's Hiftory of the Reformation in Germany; Brandt's in the Low-Countries; Ruchat's in Switzerland; and Burnet's in England To which add, Whifton's Sacred Hiftory; Jortin's Remarks on Ecclefiaftical Hiftory; and Mofheim's lately-published work.

Biography is a fpecies of Hiftory, with this peculiarity, that it exhibits more minutely the characters, and fets forth to view fome which are too private for hiftory, but which are not on that account lefs worthy of being known, but perhaps more fo than thofe which, being more expofed, were more disguised and affected, and confequently more remote from Nature, the knowledge of which ought to be the object in view. There is no fort of reading more profitable than that of the lives and characters of wife and good men. To find that great lengths have been actually gone in learning and virtue, that high degrees of perfection have been actually attained by men like ourselves, intangled among the infirmities, the temptations, the oppofition from wicked men, and the other various evils of life; how does this fhew us to ourselves as utterly inexcufable, if we do not endeavour to emulate the heights we know have been reached by others of our fellow-creatures. Biography, in fhort, brings us to the most intimate acquaintance with the real characters of the illuftrious dead; fhews us what they have been, and confequently what we ourselves may be; fets before us the whole character of a person who has made himfelf eminent either by his virtues or vices; fhews us how he came first to take a right or wrong turn; how he afterwards proceeded greater and greater lengths; the profpects which invited him to afpire to higher degrees of glory, or the delufions which mifled him from his virtue and his peace; the circumftances which raifed him to true. greatnefs, or the rocks on which he split and funk to infamy. And how can we more effectually, or in a more entertaining manner, learn the important leffon, What we ought to purfue, and what to avoid.

Befides Plutarch, Cornelius Nepos, Suctonius, and the reft of the ancient biographers, the moderns are to be confulted. The General Dictionary, continued by the

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writers