298 ROBERTSON. 



to others of a like kind, without exalting, at the expense 

 of public virtue, the merits of wicked men? But 

 if it be said that the quieting a great republic, or dis- 

 covering a new hemisphere, are acts of such interest as 

 lend themselves to the historian's pen, and are easily 

 made to rivet our attention, surely the same pen which 

 described them can represent even the wars that deso- 

 late the earth, and the crimes that disgrace humanity, in 

 such colours as shall at once make us see the things per- 

 petrated, and yet lament the wretchedness of the events, 

 and execrate the cruelties or scorn the perfidies of the 

 criminals, instead of making us, with a preposterous 

 joy and a guilty admiration, exult in the occurrence of 

 the one, and revere the memory of the other. Refer- 

 ence has been made already to the Plantagenet Prince 

 and the Tudor Princess, so much the theme of admir- 

 ation with historians for great capacity, crowned with 

 dazzling success. But why could not the diction of 

 Hume and of Robertson have been employed for the 

 far more worthy purpose of causing men to despise the 

 intrigues and execrate the wars of such rulers ? The 

 same events had then studded their page, the same 

 picturesque details given it striking effect, the same 

 graphic colours added life to it, and yet the right 

 feelings of the reader would have been exerted and 

 cherished ; nor would the historians have made them- 

 selves accomplices with the vulgar in the criminal 

 award of applause and of fame, by which the wicked 

 actions of past times are rewarded, and the repeti- 

 tion of the same offences encouraged. 



Historians, too, are capricious and uncertain in their 

 panegyrics. Some princes of undoubted genius, of great 



