126 Oil modern and anciejit wnting. yam i^^ 



ftxttj thing is great and beautiful ; but the modern 

 historian gives us a truer, though lefs delightful pic- 

 ture of human affairs ; he can willingly lose sight of 

 the generous and amiable hero, and all the brilliant 

 scenes of the battle and the siege, and enter into the 

 more dry, though more useful detail, of political oeco- 

 nomy ; he rather wiflies to exhibit political strength 

 than external splendour ; the financier and politician 

 are his lieroes. He unfolds the secret wheels of go- 

 vernment, the intrigues of courts, the artifices of 

 treaties, and all those complications of interest, which 

 arise from a rivalship, and a desire to supplant the 

 neighbouring nations in comrrterce and manufac- 

 tures. The views of the actors do not so much a- 

 rise from their personal character, as the nature or 

 the government under which they live, and the po- 

 litical theories which they embrace. But ancient 

 history displays a quite different scene ; we there see 

 human nature undisguised by theory, led by its simpls 

 biases, and guided by the natural genius of the hero. 

 In the one a political code predominates and new moulds 

 nature, in the other again, nature predominates, and 

 in some measure forms the political code. To suc- 

 ceed in modern history, the most difficult, the mo- 

 dern historian must pofsefs equally the light of ge- 

 nius and a greater variety of learning ; to a know- 

 ledge of human characters, he must superadd a know- 

 ledge of national characters ; he must sometimes ab- 

 stract from a political, and sometimes from a natural 

 i:haracter, — he must have the enthusiasm of nature,, 

 and the cool discernment of art. The ancient histo- 

 rian adclrefied himself cliicfly to t]\e man of gerdi^ 



