that an attempt was made to reduce to writing some of the customs of France. The art was still more uncommon among the Spaniards, and hence it arises that their history is so dry and doubtful till the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. We perceive, from what has been said, with what facility the very small number of persons who possessed the art of writing might impose by means of it, and how easy it has been to produce a belief of the most enormous absurdities.

There have been nations who have subjugated a considerable part of the world, and who yet have not been acquainted with the use of characters. We know that Gengis-khan conquered a part of Asia in the beginning of the thirteenth century but it is not from him, nor from the Tartars, that we have derived that knowledge. Their history, written by the Chinese, and translated by father Gaubil, states that these Tartars were, at that time, unacquainted with the art of writing.

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It is difficult to ascribe to the oldest of the pyramids, an antiquity of less than four thousand years, and, it is necessary to consider, that those ostentatious piles, erected by monarchs, could not have been commenced till long after the establishment of cities. But, in order to build cities in a country every year inundated, it must always be recollected, that it would have been previously necessary in this land of slime and mud, to lay the foundation upon piles, that they might thus be inaccessible to the inun{dation; it would have been necessary, even before taking this indispensable measure of precaution, and before the inhabitants could be in a state to engage in such important and even dangerous labours, that the people should have contrived retreats, during the swelling of the Nile, between the two chains of rocks which exist on the right and left banks of the river. It would have been necessary that these collected multitudes should have instruments of tillage, and This art was, unquestionably, not of architecture, a knowledge of architeclikely to be less unknown to the Scythian ture and surveying, regular laws, and an Ogus-kan, called by the Persians and active police. All these things require a Greeks Madies, who conquered a part space of time absolutely prodigious. We of Europe and Asia long before the reign see, every day, by the long details which of Cyrus. It is almost a certainty, that relate even to those of our undertakings, at that time, out of a hundred nations, which are most necessary and most dithere were only two or three that em- minutive, how difficult it is to execute ployed characters. It is undoubtedly works of magnitude, and that they not possible, that in an ancient world de-only require unwearied perseverence, stroyed, mankind were acquainted with but many generations animated by the the art of writing and the other arts, but same spirit. in our world they are all of recent date. However, whether we admit that one There remain monuments of another or two of those immense masses were kind, which serve to prove merely the erected by Menes, or Thaut, or Cheops, remote antiquity of certain nations, an or Rameses, we shall not, in consequence, antiquity preceding all known epochs, have the slightest farther insight into the and all books: these are the prodigies of ancient history of Egypt. The language architecture, such as the pyramids and of that people is lost; and all we know palaces of Egypt, which have resisted in reference to the subject is, that before and wearied the power of time. Hero- the most ancient historians existed, there dotus, who lived two thousand two hun-existed materials for writing ancient hisdred years ago, and who had seen them, tory.

was unable to learn from the Egyptian priests, at what periods these structures were raised.

SECTION II.

As we already possess, I had almost

said, twenty thousand works, the greater number of them extending to many volumes on the subject, exclusively, of the history of France; and as, even a studious man, were he to live a hundred years, would find it impossible to read them, I think it a good thing to know where to stop. We are obliged to connect with the knowledge of our own country, the history of our neighbours. We are still less permitted to remain ignorant of the Greeks and Romans, and their laws which are become ours; but, if to this laborious study we should resolve to add that of more remote antiquity, we should resemble the man who deserted Tacitus and Livy to study seriously the Thousand and One Nights. All the origins of nations are evidently fables. The reason is, that men must have lived long in society, and have learnt to make bread and clothing, (which would be matters of some difficulty) before they acquired the art of transmitting all their thoughts to posterity (a matter of greater difficulty still). The art of writing is certainly not more than six thousand years old, even among the Chinese; and, whatever may be the boast of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, it appears not at all likely that they were able to read and write sooner.

The history, therefore, of preceding periods, could not be transmitted only by memory; and we well know how the memory of past events changes from one generation to another. The first histories were written only from the imagination. Not only did every people invent its own origin, but it invented also the origin of the whole world.

If we may believe Sanchoniathon, the origin of things was a thick air, which was rarified by the wind; hence sprang desire and love, and from the union of desire and love were formed animals. The stars were later productions, and intended merely to adorn the heavens, and to rejoice the sight of the animals upon earth.

Hesiod, and other writers who lived so long before, would have been very far from expressing themselves with this elegant sublimity. But, from the interesting moment of man's formation down to the era of the Olympiads, everything is plunged in profound obscurity.

Herodotus is present at the Olympic games, and, like an old woman to children, recites his narratives, or rather tales, to the assembled Greeks. He begins by saying, that the Phenicians sailed from the Red Sea into the Mediterra→ nean; which, if true, must necessarily imply, that they had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and made the circuit of Africa.

Then comes the rape of Iö; then the fable of Gyges and Candaules; then the wondrous stories of banditti, and that of the daughter of Cheops, King of Egypt, having required a hewn stone from each of her many lovers, and obtained, in consequence, a number large enough to build one of the pyramids.

To this, add the oracles, prodigies, and frauds of priests, and you have the history of the human race.

The first periods of the Roman history. The Knef of the Egyptians, their Os-appear to have been written by Herodo

money-brokers and usurers among the Greeks at Alexandria; but the Greeks never went to sell old clothes at Jerusalem. It is evident that no people imitated the Jews, and also that the Jews

tus; our conquerors and legislators knew no other way of counting their years as they passed away, than by driving nails into a wall by the hand of the sacred pontiff. The great Romulus, the king of a vil-iinitated or adopted many things from the lage, is the son of the god Mars, and a Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the recluse, who was proceeding to a well to Greeks. draw water in a pitcher. He has a god All Jewish antiquities are sacred in for his father, a woman of loose manners our estimation, notwithstanding the hafor his mother, and a she-wolf for his tred and contempt in which we hold that nurse. A buckler falls from heaven ex- people. We cannot, indeed, believe pressly for Numa. The invaluable books them by reason, but we bring ourselves of the Sibyls are found by accident. An under subjection to the Jews by faith. augur, by divine permission, divides a There are about fourscore systems in exlarge flint-stone with a razor. A vestal,istence on the subject of their chronowith her mere girdle, draws into the wa-logy, and a far greater number of ways ter a large vessel that has been stranded. of explaining the events recorded in their Castor and Pollux come down to fight histories; we know not which is the true for the Romans, and the marks of their one, but we reserve our faith for it in horses' feet are imprinted on the stones.store against the time when that true one The transalpine Gauls advanced to pil- shall be discovered. lage Rome; some relate that they were We have so many things to believe in driven away by geese, others, that they this sensible and magnanimous people, carried away with them much gold that all our faith is exhausted by them, and silver; but it is probable that, at that and we have none left for the prodigies time, in Italy, geese were far more abun-{with which the other nations abound. dant than silver. We have imitated the first Roman historians, at least in their taste for fables. We have our oriflamme, our great standard brought from heaven by an angel, and the holy phial by a pi-narrated of the justice of those ancient geon; and, when to these, we add the mantle of St. Martin, we feel not a little formidable.

What would constitute useful history? That which should teach us our duties and our rights, without appearing to teach them.

Rollin may go on repeating to us the oracles of Apollo, and the miraculous achievements of Semiramis; he may continue to transcribe all that has been

Scythians who so frequently pillaged Africa, and occasionally ate men for their breakfast; yet sensible and well-educated people will still feel and express some degree of incredulity.

What I most admire in our modern compilers is, the judgment and zeal with which they prove to us, that whatever happened in former ages, in the most extensive and powerful empires of the

It is often asked, Whether the fable of the sacrifice of Iphigenea is taken from the history of Jephtha? Whether the deluge of Deucaleon is invented in imi-world, took place solely for the instructation of that of Noah? Whether the adventure of Philemon and Baucis is copied from that of Lot and his wife? The Jews admit that they had no communication with strangers, that their books were unknown to the Greeks, till the translation made by the order of Ptolemy. The Jews were, long before that period,

tion of the inhabitants of Palestine. If the kings of Babylon, in the course of their conquests, overrun the territories of the Hebrew people, it is only to correct that people for their sins. If the monarch, who has been commonly named Cyrus, becomes master of Babylon, it is that he may grant permission to some

sassination of Gallus, Julian's brother. The cruelty which he thus displayed to his own family, he extended to the empire at large; but he was a man of prayer, and, even at the decisive battle with Maxentius, he was praying to God in a neighbouring church, during the whole time in which the armies were engaged. Such was the man who was eulogized by Gregory; and, if such is the way in which the saints bring us acquainted with the truth, what may we not expect

captive Jews to return home. If Alex-, ander conquers Darius, it is for the settlement of some Jew old-clothes-men at Alexandria. When the Romans join Syria to their vast dominions, and round their empire with the little district of Judea, this is still with a view to teach a moral lesson to the Jews. The Arabs and the Turks appear upon the stage of the world solely for the correction of this amiable people. We must acknowledge that they have had an excellent education; never had any pupil so many pre-from the profane, particularly when they ceptors. Such is the utility of history.

are ignorant, superstitious, and irritable?

But what is still more instructive is, At the present day, the study of histhe exact justice which the clergy have tory is occasionally applied to a purpose dealt out to all those sovereigns with somewhat whimsical and absurd. Cerwhom they were dissatisfied. Observe tain charters of the time of Dagobert are with what impartial candour St. Gregory discovered and brought forward, the of Nazianzen judges the Emperor Julian, greater part of them of a somewhat susthe philosopher. He declares that that picious character in point of genuineprince, who did not believe in the exist-ness, and ill-understood; and from these ence of the devil, held secret communi- it is inferred, that customs, rights, and cation with that personage, and that, on prerogatives, which subsisted then, should a particular occasion, when the demons be revived now. I would recommend appeared to him under the most hideous it to those who adopt this method of forms, and in the midst of the most rag-study and reasoning, to say to the ocean, ing flames, he drove them away by mak-You formerly extended to Aigues-Mortes, ing inadvertently the sign of the cross. Frejus, Ravenna, and Ferrara, return to He denominates him madman and {them immediately. wretch; he asserts, that Julian immolated young men and women every night in caves. Such is the description he gives of the most candid and clement of men, and who never exercised the slightest revenge against this same Gregory, notwithstanding the abuse and invectives with which he pursued him throughout his reign.

SECTION III.

Of the Certainty of History.

All certainty which does not consist in mathematical demonstration, is nothing more than the highest probability; there is no other historical certainty.

When Marcus Paulo described the To apologize for the guilty, is a happy greatness and population of China, being way of justifying calumny against the in- the first, and for a time the only writer nocent. Compensation is thus affected; who had described them, he could not and such compensation was amply af- obtain credit. The Portuguese, who for forded by St. Gregory. The Emperor ages afterwards had communication and Constantius, Julian's uncle and prede-commerce with that vast empire, began cessor, upon his accession to the throne, to render the description probable. It had massacred Julius, his mother's bro- is now a matter of absolute certainty; of ther, and his two sons, all three of whom that certainty which arises from the unahad been declared august; this was a nimous deposition of a thousand witsystem which he had adopted from hisnesses or different nations, unopposed father. He afterwards procured the as- by the testimony of a single individual.

If merely two or three historians had Let it be recollected, that the Roman described the adventure of King Charles republic was five hundred years without XII. when he persisted in remaining in historians; that Livy himself deplores the territories of his benefactor the Sultan, the loss of various public monuments or in opposition to the orders of that mo- records, as almost all, he says, were de→ narch, and absolutely fought, with the stroyed in the burning of Rome: "Plefew domestics that attended his person, raque interiere." Let it be considered against an army of Janissaries and Tar- that, in the three hundred first years, the tars, I should have suspended my judg- art of writing was very uncommon; ment about its truth; but, having spoken "Raræ per eadem tempora literæ." Reato many who actually witnessed the fact, son will be then seen for entertaining and having never heard it called in ques-doubt on all those events which do not tion, I cannot possibly do otherwise correspond with the usual order of human than believe it; because, after all, al- affairs. though such conduct is neither wise nor common, there is nothing in it contradictory to the laws of nature, or the character of the hero.

That which is in opposition to the ordinary course of nature ought not to be believed, unless it is attested by persons evidently inspired by the divine mind, and whose inspiration, indeed, it is impossible to doubt. Hence we are justified in considering as a paradox the assertion made under the article "Certainty," in the great Encyclopedia, that we are as much bound to believe in the resuscitation of a dead man, if all Paris were even to affirm it, as to believe all Paris when it states that we gained the battle of Fontenoy. It is clear that the evidence of all Paris, to a thing improbable, can never be equal to that evidence in favour of a probable one. These are the first principles of genuine logic. Such a dictionary as the one in question should be consecrated only to truth.

Uncertainty of History.

Can it be considered very likely that Romulus, the grandson of the King of the Sabines, was compelled to carry off the Sabine women, in order to obtain for his people wives? Is the history of Lucretia highly probable; Can we easily believe, on the credit of Livy, that the King Porsenna betook himself to flight, full of admiration for the Romans, because a fanatic had pledged himself, to assassinate him? Should we not rather be inclined to rely upon Polybius, who was two hundred years earlier than Livy? Polybius informs us that Porsenna subjugated the Romans. This is far more probable than the adventure of Scevola's burning off his hand for failing in the attempt to assassinate him. I would have defied Poltrot to do as much.

Does the adventure of Regulus, inclosed within a hogshead or tub, stuck round with iron spikes, deserve belief? Would not Polybius, a contemporary, have recorded it, had it been true? He says not a single word upon the subject. Is not this a striking presumption that the story was trumped up long afterwards, to gratify the popular hatred against the Carthaginians?

Periods of time are distinguished into fabulous and historical. But even in the historical times themselves, it is necessary to distinguish truths from fables. I Open Moreri's Dictionary, at the aram not here speaking of fables, now uni- ticle "Regulus." He informs you that versally admitted to be such. There is the torments inflicted on that Roman are no question, for example, respecting the recorded in Livy. The particular deprodigies with which Livy has embel-cade, however, in which Livy would have lished, or rather defaced his history. But with respect to events generally admitted, how many reasons exist for doubt!

VOL. II.-63

recorded it, if at all, is lost; and in lieu of it, we have only the supplement of Freinsheim; and thus it appears that

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