VI PEEFACE. 



as analysts next after Newton himself, and above Descartes, 

 Leibnitz, or the Bernouillis ; and in economical science, 

 Hume, Smith, and Quesnai really had no parallel, hardly 

 any forerunner. It would also be vain to deny great poeti- 

 cal and dramatic genius to Goldsmith, Voltaire, Alfieri, 

 Monti, and the German school, how inferior soever to the 

 older masters of song. 



But, above all, it must not be forgotten, that in our 

 times the mighty revolution which has been effected in 

 public affairs, and has placed the rights of the people 

 throughout the civilized world upon a new and a firm 

 foundation, was brought about, immediately indeed by the 

 efforts of statesmen, but prepared, and remotely caused, by 

 the labours of philosophers and men of letters. The 

 diffusion of knowledge among the community at large is 

 the work of our own age, and it has made all the conquests 

 of science both in recent and in older times of incalculably 

 greater value, of incomparably higher importance to the 

 interests of mankind, than they were while scientific study 

 was confined within the narrow circles of the wealthy and 

 the learned. 



Having, therefore, on retiring from ofiice, more time left 

 for literary pursuits than professional and judicial duties 

 had before allowed me, I was not minded to waste, indolent 

 and inactive, or enslaved by lower occupations, that excel- 

 lent leisure : " Non fuit consilium socordia atque desidi 

 bonum otium conterere; neque vero agrum colendo, aut 

 venando, servilibus officiis intentum, setatem agere. Statu- 

 tum res gestas populi nostri carptim, ut quseque memoria 

 digna videbantur, perscribere ; eo magis quod mihi a spe, 

 metu, partibus reipublicse, animus liber erat." * For I 

 conceived that as portrait-painting is true historical painting 



* Sail., Cat., cap. iv. 



