disposition and indisposition to different kinds of learning; 13. the accidents of time, whether favourable or destructive to the sciences; 14. the zeal and mixture of religion; 15. the severity and lenity of laws; 16. the remarkable patronage, efforts, and endowments of illustrious men, for the promotion of learning and the like. All which we would have handled, not in the manner of critics, who barely praise and censure; but historically, or in the way of a naked delivery of facts, with but a sparing use of private judgment.

For the manner of writing this history, we particularly advise the materials of it to be drawn, not only from histories and critical works, but also that the principal books of every century be regularly consulted downwards; so far we mean, as that a taste may be had, or a judgment formed, of the subject, style, and method thereof; whence the literary genius of every age may at pleasure be raised, as it were, from the dead.

The use and end of this work is not to derive honour and pomp to learning, nor to gratify an eager curiosity and fondness of knowing and preserving whatever may relate thereto; but chiefly to make learned men wise, in the prudent and sober exercise and administration of learning, and by marking out the virtues and vices of intellectual things, as well as the motions and perturbations of states, to show how the best regulation and government may be thence derived; for as the works of St. Austin or St. Ambrose will not make so wise a divine as a thorough reading off Ecclesiastical History, the same will hold true of learned men with regard to particular books and literary history for whoever is not supported by examples and the remembrance of things, must always be exposed to contingencies and precipitancy.

CHAPTER V.

The Dignity of Civil History and the Obstacles it has to encounter. CIVIL history, particularly so called, is of prime dignity and authority among human writings; as the examples of anti quity, the revolutions of things, the foundations of civil prudence, with the names and reputations of men, are committed to its trust. But it is attended with no less

difficulty than dignity; for it is a work of great labour and judgment, to throw the mind back upon things past, and store it with antiquity; diligently to search into, and with fidelity and freedom relate, 1. the commotions of times ; 2. the characters of persons; 3. the instability of counsels 4. the courses of actions; 5. the bottoms of pretences; 6. the secrets of state; and 7. to set all this to view in proper and suitable language: especially as ancient transactions are uncertain, and late on es exposed to danger. Whence such a civil history is attended with numerous defects; the greater part of historians writing little more than empty and vulgar narrations, and such as are really a disgrace to history; while some hastily draw up particular relations and trivial memoirs, some only run over the general heads of actions; and others descend to the minutest particular, which have no relation to the principal action. These, in compliance with their genius, boldly inven't many of the things they write; whilst those stamp the image of their own affections upon what they deliver; thus preserving fidelity to their party, but not to things themselves. Some are constantly inculcating politics, in which they take most pleasure, and seek all occasions of exhibiting themselves, thus childishly interrupting the thread of their history; whilst others are too tedious, and show but little judgment in the prolixity of their speeches, harangues, and accounts of actions; so that in short, nothing is so seldom found amon the writings of men as true and perfect civili history.

CHAPTER VI.

Division of Civil History into Memoirs, Antiquities, and Perfect History.

THIS civil history is of three kinds, and bears resemblance to three kinds of pictures; viz., the unfinished, the finished, and the defaced: thus civil history, which is the picture of times and things, appears in memoirs, just history, and antiquities; but memoirs are history begun, or the first strokes and materials of it; and antiquities are history defaced, or remnants that have escaped the shipwreck of time.

Memoirs, or memorials, are of two kinds; whereof the one may be termed commentaries, the other registers. In commentaries are set down naked events and actions in sequence, without the motives, designs, counsels, speeches, pretexts, occasions, &c. ; for such is the true nature of a commentary, though Cæsar, in modesty mixed with greatness, called the best history in the world a commentary.

Registers are of two kinds; as either containing the titles of things and persons in order of time, by way of calendars and chronicles, or else after the manner of journals, preserving the edicts of princes, decrees of council, judicial proceedings, declarations, letters of state, and puvuc orations, without continuing the thread of the narration.

Antiquities are the wrecks of history, wherein the memory of things is almost lost; or such particulars as industrious persons, with exact and scrupulous diligence, can any way collect from genealogies, calendars, titles, inscriptions, monuments, coins, names, etymologies, proverbs, traditions, archives, instruments, fragments of public and private history, scattered passages of books no way historical, &c.; by which means something is recovered from the deluge of time. This is a laborious work; yet acceptable to mankind, as carrying with it a kind of reverential awe, and deserves to come in the place of those fabulous and fictitious origins of nations we abound with; though it has the less authority, as but few have examined and exercised a liberty of thought about it.

In these kinds of imperfect history, no deficiency need be noted, they being of their own nature imperfect but epitomes of history are the corruption and moths that have fretted and corroded many sound and excellent bodies of history, and reduced them to base and unprofitable dregs; whence all men of sound judgment declare the use of them ought to be banished.

CHAPTER VII.

Division of History into Chronicles, Biographies, and Perfect Relations.
The Development of their parts.

JUST history is of three kinds, with regard to the three objects it designs to represent; which are either a portion

of time, a memorable person, or an illustrious action. The first kind we call writing annals or chronicles; the second, lives; and the third, narratives or relations. Chronicles share the greatest esteem and reputation, but lives excel in advantage and use, as relations do in truth and sincerity. For chronicles represent only grand public actions, and external shows and appearances to the people, and drop the smaller passages and motions of men and things. But, as the divine artificer hangs the greatest weight upon the smailest strings, so such histories rather show the pomp of affairs, than their true and inward springs. And though it intersperses counsel, yet delighting in grandeur, it attributes more gravity and prudence to human actions, than really appears in them; so that satire might be a truer picture of human life, than certain histories of this kind: whereas lives, if wrote with care and judgment, proposing to represent a person, in whom actions, both great and small, public and private, are blended together, must of necessity give a more genuine, native, and lively representation, and such as is fitter for imitation.

Particular relations of actions, as of the Teloponnesian war, and the expedition of Cyrus, may likewise be made with greater truth and exactness than histories of times; as their subject is more level to the inquiry and capacity of the writer, whilst they who undertake the history of any large portion of time must need meet with blanka and empty spaces, which they generally fill up out of their own invention. This exception, however, must be made to the sincerity of relations, that, if they be wrote near the times of the actions themselves, they are, in that case, to be greatly suspected of partiality or prejudice. But as it is usual for opposite parties to publish relations of the same transactions, they, by this means, open the way to truth, which lies betwixt the two extremes so that, after the heat of contention is allayed, a good and wise historian may hence be furnished with matter for a more perfect history.

As to the deficiencies in these three kinds of history, doubtless many particular transactions have been left unreorded, to the great prejudice, in point of honour and glory, of those kingdoms and states wherein they passed. But to omit other nations, we have particular reason to complain to

CHAP VII.] INTERESTING CHARACTER OF ENGLISH HISTORY. 89

your Majesty of the imperfection of the present history of England, in the main continuance of it, and the partiality and obliquity of that of Scotland, in the most copious and recent account that has been left us. As this island of Great Britain will now, as one united monarchy, descend to future ages, we cannot but deem it a work alike honourable to your Majesty, and grateful to posterity, that exploits were collected in one history, in the style of the ancient Testament, which hands down the story of the ten tribes and the two tribes as twins together. If the greatness of the undertaking, however, should prove any obstacle to its perfect execution, a shorter period of time, fraught with the greatest interest, occurs from the junction of the roses to the union of the two kingdoms-a space of time which to me appears to contain a crowd of more memorable events than ever occurred in any hereditary monarchy of similar duration. For it commences with the conjoint adoption of a crown by arms, and title, an entry by battle, and a marriage settlement. The times which follow, partaking of the nature of such beginnings, like waters after a tempest, full of workings and swellings, though without boisterous storms, being well navigated by the wisdom of the pilot,a one of the most able of his predecessors. Then succeeded the reign of a king, whose policy, though rather actuated by passion than counsel, exercised great influence upon the courts of Europe, balancing and variably inclining their various interests; in whose time, also, began that great change of religion, an action seldom brought on the stage. Then the reign of a minor. Then an attempt at usurpation, though it was but as a "febris ephemera:" then the reign of a queen, matched with a foreigner : then the reign of a queen, solitary and unmarried. And now, as a close, the glorious and auspicious event of the union of an island, divided from the rest of the world: so that we may say the old oracle which gave rest to Æneas, "antiquam exquirite matrem,"b is fulfilled in the union of England and Scotland under one sceptre. Thus as massive bodies, drawn aside from their course, experience certain waverings and trepidations before they fix and settle, so this monarchy, before it was to settle in your Majesty and your

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