ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



lost, or never again reprinted: at least, the heads of such 

 accounts may be thus preserved. But upon mature con 

 sideration, the laws of just history appear so severe as 

 scarcely to be observed in so large a field of matter, 

 whence the bulkiness of history should rather be re 

 trenched than enlarged; otherwise, he who has such 

 variety of matter everywhere to collect, if he preserve 

 not constantly the strictest watch upon his informations, 

 will be apt to take up with rumors and popular reports, 

 and work such -kind of superficial matter into his history. 

 And, then, to retrench the whole, he will be obliged to 

 pass over many things otherwise worthy of relation, and 

 often &quot;to contract and shorten his style; wherein there lies 

 no small danger of frequently cutting off useful narrations, 

 in order to oblige mankind in their favorite way of compen 

 dium; whence such accounts, which might otherwise live of 

 themselves, may come to be utterly lost. 



CHAPTER IX 



Second Division of the History of Times into Annals and Journals 



HISTORY of times is likewise divisible into annals 

 and journals, according to the observation of Tac 

 itus, where, mentioning the magnificence of certain 

 structures, he adds, &quot;It was found suitable to the Roman 

 dignity that illustrious things should be committed to an 

 nals, but such as these to the public journals of the city&quot;; 1 

 thus referring what related to the state of the commonwealth 

 to annals, and smaller matters to journals. And so there 

 should be a kind of heraldry in regulating the dignities of 

 books as well as persons: for as nothing takes more from 

 the dignity of a state than confusion of orders and degrees, 

 so it greatly takes from the authority of history to intermix 



1 Annals, xiii. 31. 



