a decision is pronounced, a decision that is not likely to be

ultimately wrong.

It is not pretended, that history, if written at the time, can be in all points depended upon; or that truth can become entirely visible till some interval has elapsed, and the various causes, that are always operating to produce the discovery of it, have had full opportunity to act.

And lastly, there are facts and events that have occurred in the world, of which history does not undertake to give any solution and historical writers are certainly not guilty of the folly of professing to explain everything.

:

Were one of these ordinary ministers to be asked what means they always employed in the management of mankind, they would answer, without hesitation, their leading interests and passions; and they would laugh at any of their associates in a cabinet who depended upon the more delicate principles of individual character.

Would it not be strange, then, that such leading interests and passions, as they have made use of, should not be afterwards visible to the eyes of an historian? Are they not themselves, though sitting in a cabinet, collections of men influenced by their own leading interests and passions like their fellow-mortals without? How, are these, in like manner, to remain for ever impenetrable and unintelligible?

Finally, it must be observed that the writers of history are by no means to be considered as excluded from all knowledge of those petty intrigues, on which so much is supposed to depend; private memoirs and the letters of actors in the scene are very often referred to by historians-they are sought for with diligence, they are always thoroughly sifted and examined. In the course of half a century after the events, the public are generally put into possession of such documents as even the objectors to history ought to think sufficient to explain the mysteries of intrigue, and therefore even in their view of the subject, the transactions of the world.

On the whole, therefore, to call history a romance, and to say that it must necessarily be false, is to confound all distinctions of human testimony, criticism, and judgment: sweeping positions of this kind occur in other subjects as well as this of the study of history; and after a little examination may quietly be dismissed, as the offspring of indolence or spleen; or that love of paradox, which may sometimes assist the sagacity, but more often misleads the decisions of the understanding.

One word more in reference to this objection, and I have done. Something may perhaps be conceded to it.

It is always difficult to estimate, with perfect accuracy, the moral characters of men; i. e., to compare exactly the temptation that has been incurred with the resistance that has been made the precise motives of the agent with his actual conduct.

And this, which is so true in private life, may be still more so in public. It may not be always easy to determine, in a minister or a party, what there was of mistake, what of good intention, what of uncontrollable necessity, in their apparent faults.

It may be allowed, therefore, that the moral characters of statesmen may not always be exactly estimated: but it must be observed, at the same time, that in many instances these moral characters are appreciated differently by different historians, and are confessedly a subject of historical difficulty; that here, therefore, no mistake is made; and that mankind, though very likely to praise or censure too vehemently at first, are not likely to be materially inaccurate at last.

Add to this, that statesmen, who perceive that their conduct may hereafter be liable to misrepresentation, have it always in their power, and have in general been induced, to leave documents to their family for the purpose of explaining their views, and justifying their measures; and as they know beforehand the nature of that tribunal of posterity,

which is to determine on their merits, the conclusion is, if they refuse to plead, that they foresee a verdict, against which they have nothing satisfactory to urge, and which is therefore right.

But I must now conclude.

Many years that preceded, and many that followed, the first opening of these lectures, in 1809, were years of such unexampled, afflicting, and awful events, the progress of the French revolution and the power of Buonaparte, that the mind was kept too agitated and too anxious to be properly at leisure for the ordinary sympathies of peaceful study. This effect had been more particularly felt by those who were to read history. Who could be interested about the German constitution, when it was no more about the republics of Holland or of Italy, when they had perished? Who could turn to the muse of history, when she seemed to have lost her proper character; nor fitted, as she once had been, to show us the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them, but rather, like the sibyl, to conduct us to the land of shades, to a world that could no longer be thought our own? I need no longer endeavour to fortify my hearers against the languor and the very distaste for history which circumstances so melancholy were so fitted to produce.

It was this:

may still

But the leading remark which I then made, I retain. That though the more minute peculiarities of history may cease to engage our attention; its graver subjects may have now, more than ever, a claim upon our powers of reflection and inquiry. History may have less of amusement for our leisure, but may offer much more of instruction for our active thoughts. The mere relater of events may be now less fitted to detain us with his details; but to the philosophic historian we shall henceforward be compelled to listen with a new and deeper anxiety. If history be the school of mankind, it must be confessed that its lessons are at length but too complete; and that states and empires may now be

considered in all their positions and relations, from the commencement to the termination of their political existence. We may see what have been the causes of their prosperity; we may trace the steps by which they have descended to degradation and ruin.

The truth is, that these tremendous years have made such studies as we are now to engage in, considered in this point of view, of far more than ordinary importance, and whether we consider the situation of the world, or of our own domestic polity, it is but too plain that neither indolence nor ignorance can be any longer admitted in our young men of education and property; it is but too plain that political mistakes, at all times dangerous, may to us be fatal; it is quite impossible to say how much may not depend on the intelligence and virtue of the rising generation.

NOTE.

THE professorship of modern history and languages was founded by George the First, in 1724, on the recommendation of the Duke of Newcastle.

His Grace has the merit of being one of those very few ministers, since the times of the Reformation, who have endeavoured to amplify the means and extend the usefulness of the literary establishments of this country.

On the death of Dr. Turner, in 1762, the professorship became vacant, and the modesty and pride of Gray at last yielded to the influence of his friends, and he applied to Lord Bute for the situation. It was, however, given to the tutor of Sir James Lowther; and the most distinguished man of letters then in the university, and perhaps the most elegant scholar of the age, was left to his poverty, or to a state that but too much resembled it.

At a subsequent period, while he was still pursuing "the silent tenor of his doom," the professorship was once more vacant. It must ever have been amongst the most pleasing recollections of the Duke of Grafton, that he was the minister whose fortune it was to have directed the rays of royal bounty to their noblest object, and to have cheered, with a parting gleam, the twilight path and closing hours of the poet Gray.

His Grace had a second time the merit of making an honourable choice in the late professor, Dr. Symonds. From him the chair has received a very valuable library. But it is to be lamented that, a little before his death, he destroyed the lectures he had delivered, and all his historical papers.

LECTURE I.

1809.

BARBARIANS AND ROMANS.

Of the ancient world we derive our knowledge from the sacred Scriptures and the writings of Greece and Rome. We have no other sources of information on which we can well

depend; but every such information must be at all times interesting. There is no nation, however removed from us by distance or by time, whose history will not be always a subject of rational curiosity to a reflecting mind: yet the student of ancient history will find his attention irresistibly drawn to three particular nations-the Greeks, the Romans, and the Jews: these are names for ever associated with our best feelings and our first interests: the poets and the orators, the sages and the heroes of Greece and Rome still animate our imaginations and instruct our minds; and the law-giver of Israel led his people from Egypt to give birth to the prophets of our religion, and when the fulness of time. was come, to the SAVIOUR of the world.

Ancient history is not excluded; a knowledge of it is presupposed in the study of modern history; a knowledge, at least, of those events, which can now be ascertained, and of those nations more particularly whose taste, philosophy, and religion are still visible in our own. Ancient history at last conducts us to the exclusive consideration of the Romans. Rome is the only figure left in the foreground of the picture; but in the distance are seen the northern nations, who are now to come forward and to share with the Romans our curiosity and attention.

These nations had already been but too well known to the Roman people. They had destroyed five consular armies—