this place, or, perhaps, a victim to the most infamous fsufferings, thou wilt compel thy father to thank God for thy death.

"Thefe few words, joined to the affecting scene before him, made an impreffion upon the young man which time could never efface. Condemned by his profeffion to spend his youth in garrifons, he chofe rather to bear the raillery of his companions than imitate their vices. I was a man, faid he, and have had my foibles; but during my whole life, I never could behold a public proflitute without horror. Tutors! let me advife you to put little confidence in words; but learn to make a proper choice of time, place, and circumftances: let examples be your lectures, and reft affured of their effect.

"During infancy, our employment is inconfiderable; the neglects or mistakes of that age are not without remedy, and the good we imbibe might be communicated at a later period: but it is otherwife with regard to the age when man first begins really to live. This age is always too fhort for the ufe which we ought to make of it, and its importance requires an unwearied attention for this reafon I dwell upon the art of extending it beyond its natural duration. One of the first precepts in the art of cultivation, is, to retard nature as much as poffible, that her progress may be flow but certain. We must not suffer our youth to commence man the moment it is in his power.. Whilft the body is growing, thofe fpirits which give life to the blood, and ftrength to the fibres, are yet unprepared and imperfect. If they be carried into a different channel, and that which was intended to compleat an individual, be employed in the formation of another, they will both remain feeble, and the work of nature will be left imperfect. The operations of the mind are also influenced by this perverfion: the functions of the foul are as languid and fpiritlefs as thofe of the body. Robust limbs, indeed, do not conftitute courage or genius; and I can conceive that strength of mind will never accompany that of body, if the organs of communication between the body and mind are im-, properly difpofed: but how perfe& foever they may be in this refpect, they will always at fecbly, if the blood which gives them motion be exhaufted, impoverished, and devoid of that fubftance which ought to give life and power to every fpring in the machine. I have generally obferved more vigour of mind among thofe people whofe youth are preferved from a premature corruption of manners, than in more civilized communities, where the diforder commences with the power; and, doubtless, this is one of the reasons why a people, whofe manners are uncorrupted, furpass their profligate neighbours in valour and good fenfe. The latter fhine only in certain fubtile qualities which they call wit, fagacity, cunning; but thofe grand and noble functions

functions of wisdom and reafon which, in great actions, diftinguish and honour mankind, are rarely to be found, except among the former."

Having given these precautions, our Preceptor enters on his fyftem of moral relations; with which he now thinks it neceflary to make his Pupil acquainted. He next proceeds to recommend the knowlege of mankind; and as he thinks it dangerous for him as yet, to hazard a perfonal introduction to the world, he enquires into the propriety of inftructing him, by means of hiftory. Our Readers will probably be curious to know fomething of Mr. Rouffeau's fentiments on this fubject. To make my Pupil acquainted with the human heart, I would fhew him mankind at a distance, in other times, and other places; fo that he might be a spectator of the scene, without having it in his power to become an actor. This is the proper time to introduce hiftory: there he will read the heart of man, without the affiftance of philofophical lectures; there he will behold mankind, not as their accomplice or accufer, but as their impartial judge.

"If we would know men, it is neceffary that we should fee them act. Our cotemporaries expofe their words, and conceal their actions; but hiftory lifts the veil, and we found our judgment upon facts. In hiftory, even the words of men serve to afcertain their character; for by comparing them with their actions, we see at once what they really are, and what they would appear to be the more they difguife themselves, the better they are known.

"Unfortunately, the study of history is not without its dangers and inconveniencies of various kinds. It is a very difficult matter to place one's felf in fuch a point of view, as to be able to judge equitably of our fellow-creatures. It is one of the common vices of history, to paint man in a disadvantageous, rather than a favourable, light. Revolutions and fatal catastrophes being moft interefting, fo long as a people have continued to increafe and profper in the calm of a peaceable government, hiftory hath remained filent; it fpeaks of nations only when, growing infupportable to themselves, they begin to interfere with their neighbours, or to fuffer their neighbours to interfere with them: it begins not to make them illuftrious till they are alrçady on the decline: in fhort, all our hiftories begin where they ought to end. We are favoured with very exact accounts of thofe nations which verge towards deftruction; but of those which have been flourishing, we have no history at all: they have been so wife and so happy, as to furnish no events worth recording. Even in our own times, we fee that those govern

ments

ments which are beft conducted, are leaft mentioned. Only bad men are celebrated, whilst the good are forgotten, or turned into ridicule: thus hiftory, as well as philofophy, never ceases to calumniate mankind.

"But the hiftorical relation of facts is, by no means, an accurate delineation of them, as they really happened: they change their afpect in the brain of the Hiftorian, they bend to his intereft, and are tinctured by his prejudices. What Hiftorian ever brought his Reader to the scene of action, and fhewed the event exactly as it happened? Every thing is disguised by ignorance or partiality. How eafy it is, by a different reprefentation of circumftances, to give a thoufand various appearances to the fame facts? Shew an object in different points of view, and we hardly believe it to be the fame, and yet nothing is changed, except the eye of the fpectator. Is it fufficient for the honour of truth, to exhibit a real fact in a falfe light? How often has it happened, that a few trees more or lefs, a hill upon the right or loft, or a fudden cloud of duft, have turned the scale of victory, without the caufe being perceived? neverthelefs the Hiftorian will affign a reafon for the victory or defeat, with as much confidence as if he had been at the fame inftant in every part of the battle. Of what confequence are mere facts, or what am I to learn from a relation of events of whofe caufes I am totally ignorant? The Hiftorian, it is true, affigns caufes, but they are of bis own invention: even criticifin itself, is nothing more than the art of conjecturing; the art of felecting, from a number of lies, that which bears the nearest resemblance to truth.

"Probably you have read Cleopatra, or Caffandra, or other books of the fame kind. The Author makes choice of a known event, which he accommodates to his defign, adorns with circumftances of his own invention, and perfonages which never exifted, crowding fiction upon fiction, to make his story more entertaining. Now, I fee little difference between thofe romances and our real hiftories, except that the Romance-writer gives a greater fcope to his own imagination, and the Hiftorian accommodates himfelf more to that of other people to which I may add, that the former has a moral object in view, either good or bad, about which the latter gives himself no concern.

"It will be urged, that the veracity of hiftory is of lefs confequence than the truth of manners and characters; provided we have a faithful delineation of the human heart, no matter whether events are truly reported or not; for, after all, what concern have we with facts that happened two thousand years ago? You are quite in the right, if your Hiftorian has painted his manners and characters from nature; but, fince they are

chiefly

chiefly creatures of his own imagination, are we not falling into the very error we endeavoured to avoid, by giving that credit to the Hiftorian which we refused to our Tutor? If my Pupil is to fee nothing but ideal representations, I would chuse to sketch them with my own hand, as, in that cafe, they will probably be better adapted."

As to modern hiftory, our Preceptor entirely rejects it; because its characters too much resemble each other, and the Writ→ ers of it, intent only on difplaying their talents, think of nothing but painting highly-coloured portraits, which frequently bear no refemblance to any thing in nature. The antients, he obferves, abound lefs in portraiture, and fhew lefs wit, tho more good fenfe in their reflections. Thefe, however, being different from each other, he prefers at firft the more fimple to the more profound and judicious. He would neither put Salluft por Polybius in the hands of a boy; and as to Tacitus, he thinks him intelligible only to old men. Thucydides is, in his opinion, the best model for Hiftorians; in that he relates facts without judging of them, and at the fame time omits no circumftance which may ferve to direct the judgment of the Reader.

"Unfortunately, continues he, his conftant fubject is war, and a recital of battles is, of all things, the least instructive. Xenophon's retreat of the ten thoufand, and Cæfar's Commen➡ taries, are remarkable for the fame prudence and the fame defect. Honeft Herodotus, without painting, without maxims, but flowing, fimple, and full of pleafing and interefting particulars, would be perhaps the best Hiftorian, if his details did not frequently degenerate into puerility, more likely to vitiate than improve the taste of youth: it requires difcernment to read Herodotus.-I take no notice of Livy at prefent, except that he is a Politician, a Rhetorician, and every thing that is improper, at this age.

"History is generally defective in recording only those facts which are rendered confpicuous by name, place, or date; but the flow progreffive caufes of thofe facts, not being thus diftinguifhed, remain for ever unknown. How frequently do we find a battle, loft or won, mentioned as the caufe of a revolution, which was become inevitable before the battle was fought? War is generally nothing more than a manifeftation of events already determined by moral caufes, of which Hiftorians are ignorant."

To these reflections our Author adds, " that hiftory is a reprefentation of actions rather than of men, who are fhewn only

at certain intervals, in their veftments of parade: we fee man only in public life, after he has put himself in a proper pofition for being viewed. Hiftory follows him not into his houfe, into his clofet, among his family and friends: it paints him only when he makes his appearance; it exhibits his dress, and not his perfon.

"I should rather chufe to begin the ftudy of the human heart, by reading the lives of particular men; for there it is impoffible for the Hero to conceal himself a moment. The Biographer purfues him into his moft fecret receffes, and expofes him to the piercing eye of the fpectator; he is best known when he believes himself moft concealed. I like, fays Montagne, thofe Biographers who give us the hiftory of councils, rather than events; who fhew us what paffes within, rather than ⚫ without: therefore Plutarch is the Writer after my own heart." Suetonius is another Biographer, the like' of whom, he thinks, we shall never fee.

In fpeaking of the art of drawing characters, Mr. Rouffeau very judiciously obferves, that we ought not to judge of phy-, fognomy by the ftronger lines in the face, nor of the characters of men by their great actions; public tranfactions being either too common, or too much studied and prepared and yet he remarks, that fuch are the only incidents worthy the dignity of modern hiftory. He then relates a little anecdote of the great Marfnal Turenne, which we fhall infert, for the entertainment of the Reader.

-Marshal Turenne was inconteftably one of the greatest men of the laft age. The Writer of his life has had the courage to render it interefting, by relating fome minute particulars which make his Hero known and beloved, but how many was he not obliged to fupprefs, which would have taught us to know and love him ftill more! I fhall inftance only one, which I have from good authority, and which Plutarch would by no means have omitted, but which Ramsay, if he had known it, would not have dared to relate.

"The Marshal happened, one hot day, to be looking out at the window of his anti-chamber, in a white waistcoat and nightcap. A fervant entering the room, deceived by his drefs, miftakes him for one of the under cooks. He comes foftly behind him, and with a hand, which was not of the lightest, gives him a-violent flap on the breech. The Marshal inftantly turns about, and the fellow, frightened out of his wits, beholds the face of his Master: down he drops upon his knees-Oh! My Lord! I thought it was George And fuppofe it had been George, replied

the