18 that Dictionary has merely cited a German writer of the seventeenth century, under the idea of citing a Roman of the Augustan age. Volumes might be composed out of all the celebrated events which have been generally admitted, but which may be more fairly doubted. But the limits allowed for this article will not permit us to enlarge. Whether Temples, Festivals, Annual Ceremonies, and even Medals, are Historic { Proofs? The famous feast of the Lupercals was instituted in honour of the she-wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus. What was the origin of the feast of Orion, which was observed on the fifth of the ides of May? It was neither more nor less than the following adventure. Hyreus once entertained at his house the gods Jupiter, Neptune, and Mercury, and when his high and mighty guests were about to depart, the worthy host, who had no wife, and was very desirous of having a son, lamented his unfortunate We might be naturally led to imagine fate, and expressed his anxious desire to that a monument raised by any nation in the three divinities. We dare not exactly celebration of a particular event, would detail what they did to the hide of an ox attest the certainty of that event: if how-which Hyreus had killed for their enterever, these monuments were not erected tainment; however, they afterwards coby contemporaries, or if they celebrate vered the well-soaked hide with a little events that carry with them but little earth; and hence, at the end of nine probability, they may often be regarded months, was born Orion. as proving nothing more than a wish to consecrate a popular opinion. Almost all the Roman, Syrian, Grecian, and Egyptian festivals, were founded on similar legends, as well as the temples statues of ancient heroes. They were monuments consecrated by credu One of our most ancient monuments is the statue of St. Dennis carrying his head in his arms. The rostral column, erected in Rome by the contemporaries of Duillius, is unand doubtedly a proof of the naval victory obtained by Duillius; but does the statue {lity to error. of the augur Nævius, who is said to have divided a large flint with a razor, prove Even a medal, and a contemporary that Nævius in reality performed that prodigy? Were the statues of Ceres and Triptolemus, at Athens, decisive evi- medal, is sometimes no proof. How dences that Ceres came down from I many medals has flattery struck in celeknow not what particular planet, to in-bration of battles very indecisive in themstruct the Athenians in agriculture? Or selves, but thus exalted into victories; does the famous Laocoon, which subsists and of enterprises, in fact, baffled and perfect to the present day, furnish incon-abortive, and completed only in the in testable evidence of the truth of the story of the Trojan horse? Ceremonies and annual festivals observed universally throughout any nation, are, in like manner, no better proofs of the reality of the events to which they are attributed. The festival of Orion, carried on the back of a dolphin, was celebrated among the Romans as well as the Greeks. That of Faunus was in celebration of his adventure with Hercules and Omphale, when that god, being enamoured of Omphale, mistook the bed of Hercules for that of his mistress. scription on the metal? Finally, during the war in 1740, between the Spaniards and the English, was there not a medal struck, attesting the capture of Carthagena by Admiral Vernon, although that Medals are then unexceptionable tesadmiral was obliged to raise the siege? timonies only when the event they celebrate is attested by contemporary authors; these evidences thus corroborating each other, verify the event described. Should a Historian ascribe fictitious Of Cicero's Maxim concerning History, that an Historian should never dare to relate a Falsehood or to conceal a Truth. The first part of this precept is incontestable; we must stop for a moment to examine the other. If a particular truth may be of any service to the state, your silence is censurable. But I will suppose you to write the history of a prince who had reposed in you a secret,―ought you to reveal that secret? Ought you to say to all posterity what you would be criminal in disclosing to a single indi If on any particular occasion a commander of an army, or a public minister, has spoken in a powerful and impressive manner, characteristic of his genius and his age, his discourse should unquestionably be given with the most literal exactness. Speeches of this description are perhaps the most valuable part of history. But for what purpose represent a man as saying what he never did say? It would be just as correct to attribute to him acts which he never performed. It is avidual? Should the duty of a historian fiction imitated from Homer; but that which is fiction in a poem, in strict language, is a lie in the historian. Many of the ancients adopted the method in question, which merely proves that many of the ancients were fond of parading their eloquence at the expense of truth. Of Historical Portraiture. prevail over the higher and more imperative duty of a man? I will suppose again, that you have witnessed a failing or weakness which has not had the slightest influence on public affairs-ought you to publish such weakness? In such a case history becomes satire. It must be allowed, indeed, that the greater part of anecdote writers are more indiscreet than they are useful. But what opinion must we entertain of those impudent compilers who appear to glory scattering about them calumny and slander, and print and sell scandals as La Voisin sold poisons? Portraits, also, frequently manifest a stronger desire for display, than to communicate information. Contemporaries are justifiable in drawing the portraits of statesmen with whom they have negoci-in ated, or of generals under whom they have fought. But how much is it to be apprehended that the pencil will in many cases be guided by the feelings? The portraits given by Lord Clarendon appear to be drawn with more impartiality, gravity, and judgment, than those which we peruse with so much delight in Cardinal Retz. Of Satirical History. If Plutarch censured Herodotus for not having sufficiently extolled the fame of some of the Grecian cities, and for omitting many known facts worthy of being recorded, how much more censurable But to attempt to paint the ancients; are certain of our modern writers, who, to elaborate in this way the development without any of the merits of Herodotus, of their minds; to regard events as cha-impute both to princes and to nations racters in which we may accurately read the most sacred feelings and intents of their hearts,—this is an undertaking of no ordinary difficulty and discrimination, although as frequently conducted, both childish, and trifling. acts of the most odious character, without the slightest proof or evidence? The history of the war in 1741 has been written in England; and it relates," that at the battle of Fontenoy the French fired at the English balls and pieces of glass which had been prepared with poison; and that the Duke of Cumberland sent to the King of France a boxfull of those alleged poisonous articles, which had been found in the bodies of the wounded English." The same author adds, that the French having lost in that battle forty thousand men, the parliament issued an order to prevent people from talking on the subject under pain of corporal punishment. The fraudulent memoirs published not long since under the name of Madame de Maintenon, abound with similar absurdities. We are told in them, that at the siege of Lille the allies threw placards into the city, containing these words: "Frenchmen, be comforted,―Maintenon shall never be your queen.” Almost every page is polluted by false statements and abuse of the royal family and other leading families in the kingdom, without the author's making out the smallest probability to give a colour to his calumnies. This is not writing history; it is writing slanders which deserve the pillory. A vast number of works have been printed in Holland, under the name of history, of which the style is as vulgar and coarse as the abuse, and the facts as false as they are ill narrated. This, it has been observed, is a bad fruit of the noble tree of liberty. But if the contemptible authors of this trash have the liberty thus to deceive their readers, it becomes us here to take the liberty to undeceive them. whom he abuses in the most unmeasured terms, and calls a traitor to his grandfather and his country. He pours out upon the Duke of Orleans, the regent, calumnies at once the most horrible and the most absurd; no person of consequence is spared, and yet no person of consequence did he ever know. He retails against the Marshals Villars and Villeroi, against ministers, and even against ladies, all the petty, dirty, and scandalous tales that could be collected from the lowest taverns and wine-houses; and he speaks of the greatest princes as if they were amenable to himself, and under his own personal jurisdiction. He expresses himself, indeed, as if he were a formal and authorised judge of kings:"Give me," says he, "a Stuart, and I will make him king of England." This most ridiculous and abominable conduct, proceeding from an author obscure and unknown, has incurred no prosecution; it would have been severely punished in a man whose words would have carried any weight. But we must here observe, that these works of darkness frequently circulate through all Europe; they are sold at the fairs of Frankfort and Leipsic, and the whole of the north is overrun with them. reigners, who are not well informed, derive from books of this description their knowledge of modern history. German authors are not always sufficiently on their guard against memoirs of this cha Fo which has been the case with the memoirs of Pontis, Montbrun, Rochefort, and Pordac; with all the pretended political testaments of ministers of state, which have proceeded from the pen of forgery; with the "Royal Tenth" of Boisguillebert, impudently published under the name of Marshal Vauban; and with innumerable compilations of anas and anecdotes. A thirst for despicable gain, and the insolence of vulgar and grovelling man-racter, but employ them as materials; ners, were the only motives which led that protestant refugee from Languedoc, of the name of Langlevieux, but commonly called La Beaumelle, to attempt the most infamous trick that ever disgraced literature. He sold to Eslinger, the bookseller of Frankfort, in 1751, for seventeen louis-d'or, the History of the Age of Louis XIV. which is not his; and, either to make it believed that he was the proprietor, or to earn his money, he loaded it with abusive and abominable notes against Louis XIV., his son, and his grandson the Duke of Burgundy, History is sometimes even still more shamefully abused in England. As there are always two parties in furious hostility against each other, until some common With regard to memoirs actually written by agents in the events recorded, as those of Clarendon, Ludlow, and Burnet in England, and de La Rochefoucauld and de Retz in France, if they agree, they are true; if they contradict each other, doubt them. is with mathematics and natural philoso phy; the field of it is immensely enlarged. The more easy it is to compile newspapers, the more difficult it is at the present day to write history. danger for a season unites them, the writers of one faction condemn everything that the others approve. The same individual is represented as a Cato and a Catiline. How is truth to be extricated from this adulation and satire? Perhaps Daniel thought himself a historian, there is only one rule to be depended because he transcribed dates and narraupon, which is, to believe all the good tives of battles, of which I can understand which the historian of a party ventures to nothing. He should have informed me allow to the leaders of the opposite fac-of the rights of the nation, the rights of tion; and all the ills which he ventures the chief corporate establishments in it; to impute to the chiefs of his own-aits laws, usages, manners, with the alrule, of which neither party can severely terations by which they have been af complain. fected in the progress of time. This nation might not improperly address him in some such language as the following :—I want from you my own history rather than that of Louis le Gros and Louis Hutin; you tell me, copying from some old, unauthenticated, and carelessly written chronicle, that when Louis VIII. was attacked by a mortal disease, and lay extenuated, languishing, and powerless, the physicians ordered the more than half-dead monarch to take to his bed a blooming damsel, who might cherish the few sparks of remaining life; holy advice with indignation. Alas! and that the pious king rejected the unDaniel, you are unacquainted, it seems, We have said so much on this sub-with the Italian proverb-" Donna igject, that we must here say very little. nuda manda l'uomo sotto la terra." You It is sufficiently known and fully ad- ought to possess a little stronger tincture mitted, that the method and style of of political and natural history. Livy-his gravity, and instructive eloquence, are suitable to the majesty of the Roman republic; that Tacitus is more calculated to pourtray tyrants, Polybius to give lessons on war, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus to investigate antiquities. With respect to anas and anecdotes, there may perhaps be one in a hundred of them that contains some shadow of truth. SECTION IV. Of the Method or Manner of writing But, while he forms himself on the general model of these great masters, a weighty responsibility is attached to the modern historian from which they were exempt. He is required to give more minute details, facts more completely authenticated, correct dates, precise authorities, more attention to customs, laws, manners, commerce, finance, agriculture, and population. It is with history, as it The history of a foreign country should be formed on a different model to that of our own. If we compose a history of France, we are under no necessity to describe the course of the Seine and the Loire ; but if we publish a history of the conquests of the Portuguese in Asia, a topographical description of the recently explored country is required. It is desirable that we should, as it were, conduct the reader by the hand round Africa, and along the coasts of Persia and India; and it is expected that we should treat with information and judgment, of manners, laws, and customs so new to Europe. We have a great variety of histories of the establishment of the Portuguese in { These rules are well known; but the India, written by our countrymen, but not one of them has brought us acquainted with the different governments of that country, with its religious antiquities, Bramins, disciples of St. John, Guebres, and Banians. Some letters of Xavier and his successors have, it is true, been preserved to us. We have had histories of the Indies composed at Paris, from the accounts of those missionaries who art of writing history well will always be very uncommon. It obviously requires a style grave, pure, varied, and smooth. But we may say with respect to rules for writing history, as in reference to those for all the intellectual arts,-there are many precepts, but few masters. SECTION V. "Paralipomena." Every nation, as soon as it was able to write, has written its own history, and the Jews have accordingly written theirs. Before they had kings, they lived under a theocracy; it was their destiny to be governed by God himself. were unacquainted with the language of History of the Jewish Kings, and of the the Bramins. We have it repeated, in a hundred works, that the Indians worship the devil. The chaplains of a company of merchants quit our country under these impressions, and, as soon as they perceive on the coast some symbolical figures, they fail not to write home that they are the portraits and likenesses of the devil, that they are in the devil's empire, and that they are going to engage in battle with him. They do not reflect that we are the real worshippers of the devil Mammon, and that we travel six thousand leagues from our native land to offer our vows at his shrine, and to obtain the grant of some portion of his treasures. a When the Jews were desirous of having king, like the adjoining nations, the prophet Samuel, who was exceedingly interested in preventing it, declared to them, on the part of God, that they were rejecting God himself. Thus the Jewish theocracy ceased when the monarchy commenced. We may therefore remark, without the imputation of blasphemy, that the history of the Jewish kings was written like that of other nations, and that God did not take the pains himself to dictate the history of a people whom he no longer governed. As to those who hire themselves out at Paris to some bookseller in the rue de St. Jacques, and at so much per job, and who are ordered to write a history of Japan, Canada, or the Canaries, as the case requires and opportunity suggests, from the memoirs of a few capuchin friars-to such I have nothing to say. We advance this opinion with the It is sufficient, if it be clearly under-greatest diffidence. What may perhaps stood, that the method which would be be considered as confirming it, is, that proper in writing a history of our own the "Paralipomena" very frequently concountry is not suitable in describing the tradict the book of Kings, both with rediscoveries of the new world; that we spect to chronology and facts, just as should not write on a small city as on a profane historians sometimes contradict great empire; and that the private his- one another. Moreover, if God always tory of a prince should be composed in wrote the history of the Jews, it seems a very different manner from the history only consistent and natural to think that of France and England. he writes it still; for the Jews are always his cherished people. They are on some future day to be converted, and it seems that whenever that event happens, they will have as complete a right to consider the history of their dispersion as If you have nothing to tell us, but that on the banks of the Oxus and the Jaxartes, one barbarian has been succeeded by another barbarian, in what respect do ou benefit the public? |