72 UNIVERSAL ERUDITION. 



will be his judge ; and that the only method of 

 obtaining a favourable fentence, is, by perform- 

 ing worthy adions : that true glory is never to 

 be found but in real merit : that hiftory flatters 

 not : that it treats the wicked even with an in- 

 exorable feverity ; and that it pays no refpect 

 to fceptres or diadems* 



IV. Hiftory likewife forms, fo to fay, a courfe 

 of experimental morality and politics, where the 

 caufes and effects of human actions are expofed 

 to our fight. It is a fcene where the characters 

 and precepts of Theophraftus, la Bruyere, and 

 Shaftefbury, are put in action. Here all takes 

 a body, a mind, a foul. Experience, which cods 

 mankind fo much time, and fo many errors, is 

 here acquired at once, or, at leaft, by a fmgle 

 ftudy. Princes efpecially, and they whom Pro- 

 vidence has called to the government of a people, 

 or to the dictating of laws, fhould never be ig- 

 norant of this fcience : for, though they ought 

 not to draw their maxims of government, or 

 their laws, from hiftory itfelf, feeing that would 

 render them pitiful imitators, by chance, of the 

 wifdom, but much more frequently of the folly 

 and depravity of paft ages, hiftory, neverthelefs, 

 will warn them of numberlefs rocks that are but 

 juft covered by the vaft ocean of politics, and 

 againft which they would be in continual danger 

 of rufhing, if they were not directed by this Ikil- 

 ful chart. 



. We 



