36 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [LOOK II. 



difficulty than dignity ; for it is a work of great labour and 

 judgment, to throw the mind back upon things past, and 

 snore it with antiquity ; diligently to search into, and with 

 fidelity and freedom relate, 1. the commotions of times ; 

 2. the characters of persons j 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 pro 

 per 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 ; 

 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 meD 

 as tine and perfect civil 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. 



