CHAP. VI.-VII.] VARIOUS KINDS OF CIVIL HISTORY. 87 



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 com 

 mentary, though Caesar, in modesty mixed with greatness, 

 called the best history in the world a commentary. 



Registers aie 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 public orations, &quot;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, monu 

 ments, coins, names, etymologies, proverbs, traditions, 

 archives, instruments, fragments of public and private 

 history, scattered passages of books no way historical, &amp;lt;fec. ; 

 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 



