ing and arts flourished, in what ages, and what parts of the world; 2, their antiquities, progress, and travels on the globe; 3, their decline, disappearance, and restoration. In each art should be observed, 4, its origin and occasion of invention; 5, the manner and form of its delivery; and 6, the means of its introduction, exercise, and establishment. Add to these, 7, the most famous sects. and controversies of learned men; 8, the calumnies they suffered, and the praises and honors they received; 9, all along let the best authors and books be noted; with 10, the schools, successions, academies, societies, colleges, orders, and whatever regards the state of learning: but 11, principally let events be throughout coupled with their causes (which is the soul, as it were, of civil history), in relating the nature of countries and people, and 12, their disposition and indisposition to different kinds of learning; 13, the accidents of time, whether favorable 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 downward; 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 honor 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 pru

dent 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 of 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

C

IVIL history, particularly so called, is of prime dignity and authority among human writings; as the examples of antiquity, 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 labor 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 ones 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 invent many of the things they write; while 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; while 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 among the writings of men as true and perfect civil history.

CHAPTER VI

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

TH

HIS 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, etc.; 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, pre

serving the edicts of princes, decrees of council, judicial proceedings, declarations, letters of state, and public 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, etc.; 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

J

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

tion 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 smallest 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 Peloponnesian 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, while they who undertake the history of any large portion of time must need meet with blanks 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 between 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 unrecorded, to the great prejudice, in point of honor and glory, of those kingdoms and states wherein they passed. But to omit other nations, we have particular reason to complain to your Majesty of the imperfection of the present history