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make the subject of that part of his work, it is impossible to clear him from being deeply tinctured with the spirit of party.

A great spirit of vir

He maintains all the indeed, are often too

Among the older English historians, the most considerable is Lord Clarendon. Though he writes as the professed apologist of one side, yet there appears more impartiality in his relation of facts, than might at first be expected. tue and probity runs through his work. dignity of an historian. His sentences, long, and his general manner is prolix, but his style, on the whole, is manly; and his merit, as an historian, is much beyond mediocrity. Bishop Burnet is lively and perspicuous; but he has hardly any other historical merit. His style is too careless and familiar for history: his characters are, indeed, marked with a bold and strong hand, but they are generally light and satirical; and he abounds so much in little stories concerning himself, that he resembles more a writer of memoirs than of history. During a long period, English historical authors seemed to aim at nothing higher than an exact relation of facts; till of late the distinguished names of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, have raised the British character, in this species of writing, to high reputation and dignity.

I observed, in the preceding lecture, that annals, memoirs, and lives, are the inferior kinds of historical composition. It will be proper, before dismissing this subject, to make a few observations upon them. Annals are commonly understood to signify a collection of facts, digested according to chronological order; rather serving for the materials of history, than aspiring to the name of history themselves. All that is required, therefore, in a writer of such annals, is to be faithful, distinct, and complete.

Memoirs denote a sort of composition, in which an author does not pretend to give full information of all the facts respecting the period of which he writes, but only to relate what he himself had access to know, or what he was concerned in, or what illustrates the conduct of some person, or the circumstances of some transaction which he chooses for his subject. From a writer of memoirs, therefore, is not expected the same profound research or enlarged information, as from a writer of history. He is not subject to the same laws of unvarying dignity and gravity. He may talk freely of himself; he may descend into the most familiar anecdotes. What is chiefly required of Lim is, that he be sprightly and interesting; and especially

that he inform us of things that are useful and curious; that he convey to us some sort of knowledge worth the acquiring. This is a species of writing very bewitching to such as love to write concerning themselves, and conceive every transaction, in which they had a share, to be of singular importance. There is no wonder, therefore, that a nation so sprightly as the French, should, for two centuries past, have been pouring forth a whole flood of memoirs; the greatest part of which are little more than agreeable trifles.

Some, however, must be excepted from this general character; two in particular; the Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz, and those of the Duke of Sully. From Retz's memoirs, besides the pleasure of agreeable and lively narration, we may derive also much instruction, and much knowledge of human nature. Though his politics be often too fine-spun, yet the memoirs of a professed factious leader, such as the cardinal was, wherein he draws both his own character, and that of several great personages of his time, so fully, cannot be read by any person of good sense without benefit. The Memoirs of the Duke of Sully, in the state in which they are now given to the public, have great merit, and deserve to be mentioned with particular praise. No memoirs approach more nearly to the usefulness, and the dignity of a full legitimate history. They have this peculiar advantage, of giving us a beautiful display of two of the most illustrious characters which history presents; Sully himself, one of the ablest and most incorrupt ministers, and Henry IV., one of the greatest and most amiable princes of modern times. I know few books more full of virtue, and of good sense, than Sully's Memoirs; few therefore, more proper to form both the heads and the hearts of such as are designed for public business, and action, in the world.

Biography, or the writing of lives, is a very useful kind of composition; less formal and stately than history; but to the bulk of readers, perhaps, no less instructive, as it affords them the opportunity of seeing the characters and tempers, the virtues and failings of eminent men fully displayed: and admits them into a more thorough and intimate acquaintance with such persons, than history generally allows. For a writer of lives may descend, with propriety, to minute circumstances, and familiar incidents. It is expected of him, that he is to give the private, as well as the public life, of the person whose actions he records, nay, it is from private life, from familiar, domestic, and seemingly trivial occurrences, that we often receive most light into the real character. In this species of writing, Plutarch has

no small merit; and to him we stand indebted for much of the knowledge that we possess, concerning several of the most eminent personages of antiquity. His matter is, indeed, better than his manner; as he cannot lay claim to any peculiar beauty or elegance. His judgment too, and his accuracy, have sometimes been taxed: but whatever defects of this kind he may be liable to, his Lives of Eminent Men will always be considered as a valuable treasure of instruction. He is remarkable for being one of the most humane writers of all antiquity; less dazzled than many of them are, with the exploits of valour and ambition; and fond of displaying his great men to us, in the more gentle lights of retirement and private life.

I cannot conclude the subject of history, without taking notice of a very great improvement which has, of late years, begun to be introduced into historical composition; I mean a more particular attention than was formerly given to laws, customs, commerce, religion, literature, and every other thing that tends to show the spirit and genius of nations. It is now understood to be the business of an able historian to exhibit manners, as well as facts and events; and assuredly, whatever displays the state and life of mankind, in different periods, and illustrates the progress of the human mind, is more useful and interesting than the detail of sieges and battles. The person to whom we are most indebted for the introduction of this improvement into history, is the celebrated M. Voltaire, whose genius has shone with such surprising lustre, in so many different parts of literature. His Age of Louis XIV. was one of the first great productions in this taste; and soon drew throughout all Europe, that general attention, and received that high approbation, which so ingenious and eloquent a production merited. His Essay on the general history of Europe, since the days of Charlemagne, is not to be considered either as a history, or the proper plan of an historical work; but only as a series of observations on the chief events that have happened throughout several centuries, and on the changes that successively took place in the spirit and manners of different nations. Though, in some dates and facts, it may, perhaps, be inaccurate, and is tinged with those particularities which unhappily distinguish Voltaire's manner of thinking on religious subjects, yet it contains so many enlarged and instructive views, as justly to merit the attention of all who either read or write the history of those ages

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LECTURE XXXVII.

PHILOSOPHICAL WRITING-DIALOGUE-EPISTOLARY WRITING— FICTITIOUS HISTORY.

As history is both a very dignificd species of composition and, by the regular form which it assumes, falls directly under the laws of criticism, I discoursed of it fully in the two preceding lectures. The remaining species of composition, in prose, afford less room for critical observation.

Philosophical writing, for instance, will not lead us into any long discussion. As the professed object of philosophy is to convey instruction, and as they who study it are supposed to do so for instruction, not for entertainment, the style, the form, and dress of such writings, are less material objects. They are objects, however, that must not be wholly neglected. He who attempts to instruct mankind, without studying, at the same time, to engage their attention, and to interest them in his subject by his manner of exhibiting it, is not likely to prove successful. The same truths and reasonings, delivered in a dry and cold manner, or with a proper measure of elegance and beauty, will make very different impressions on the minds of

men.

It is manifest that every philosophical writer must study the utmost perspicuity: and, by reflecting on what was formerly delivered on the subject of perspicuity, with respect both to single words, and the construction of sentences, we may be convinced that this is a study which demands considerable attention to the rules of style, and good writing. Beyond mere perspicuity, strict accuracy and precision are required in a philosophical writer. He must employ no word of uncertain meaning, no loose nor indeterminate expressions; and should avoid using words which are seemingly synonymous, without carefully attending to the variation which they make upon the idea.

To be clear then, and precisc, is one requisite which we have a title to demand from every philosophical writer. He may possess this quality, and be at the same time a very dry writer. He should therefore study some degree of embellishment, in order to render his composition pleasing and graceful. One of the most agreeable, and one of the most useful embellishments which a philosopher can employ, consists in illustrations taken from historical facts, and the characters of men.

All

moral and political subjects naturally afford scope for these, and wherever there is room for employing them, they seldom fail of producing a happy effect. They diversify the composition; they relieve the mind from the fatigue of mere reasoning, and at the same time raise more full conviction than any reasonfings produce; for they take philosophy out of the abstract, and give weight to speculation, by showing its connexion with real life, and the actions of mankind.

Philosophical writing admits hesides of a polished, a neat, and elegant style. It admits of metaphors, comparisons, and all the calm figures of speech, by which an author may convey his sense to the understanding with clearness and force, at the same time that he entertains the imagination. He must take great care, however, that all his ornaments be of the chastest kind, never partaking of the florid or the tumid; which is so unpardonable in a professed philosopher, that it is much better for him to err on the side of naked simplicity, than on that of too much ornament. Some of the ancients, as Plato and Cicero, have left us philosophical treatises composed with much clegance and beauty. Seneca has been long and justly censured for the affectation that appears in his style. He is too fond of a certain brilliant and sparkling manner; of antitheses and quaint sentences. It cannot be denied, at the same time, that he often expresses himself with much liveliness and force; though his style, upon the whole, is far from deserving imitation. In English, Mr. Locke's celebrated Treatise on Human Understanding, may be pointed out as a model, on the one hand, of the greatest clearness and distinctness of philosophical style, with very little approach to ornament: Lord Shaftesbury's writings, on the other hand, exhibit philosophy dressed up with all the ornament which it can admit; perhaps with more than is perfectly suited to it.

Philosophical composition sometimes assumes a form, under which it mingles more with works of taste, when carried on in the way of dialogue and conversation. Under this form the ancients have given us some of their chief philosophical works; and several of the moderns have endeavoured to imitate them. Dialogue writing may be executed in two ways, either as direct conversation, where none but the speakers appear, which is the method that Plato uses; or as the recital of a conversation, where the author himself appears, and gives an account of what passed in discourse; which is the method that Cicero generally follows. But though those different methods make some varia

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