History. 133 



much a knowledge of one is frequently fitted to 

 elucidate the other. 



The author to whom we are probably more in- 

 debted than to any other individual, for introducing 

 and recommending this improvement in civil his- 

 tory, is M. Voltaire. His Age of Louis XIV. 

 was one of the first specimens or a work upon this 

 plan. The attention and admiration which it ex- 

 cited, and the degree in which it has been imitated 

 and surpassed, by many succeeding historians, are 

 generally known. 



The best historians of the eighteenth century 

 differ from those of the same class in ancient times, 

 in excluding speeches and other extraneous matter 

 from the body of their works. This practice it is 

 well known was much in vogue among the ancients, 

 and was an important part of the poetical and even 

 dramatic structure at which they appear to have 

 aimed in their historical compositions/ The ex- 

 clusion of every thing of this kind from the best 

 models of history which the last age produced, de- 

 serves to be mentioned as a modern improvement. 

 Connected with this circumstance is the practice, 

 also recently introduced, of subjoining to historical 

 works, in the form of appendices, those speeches, 

 state-papers, and other documents, for the support 

 or illustration of their narratives, which would have 

 encumbered or disfigured the text $ but which, at 

 the same time, lay open to the reader the sources 

 of information, and augment the sum of instruc- 

 tion and amusement. 



Another point of difference between the most 

 respectable historians of the eighteenth century 

 and their predecessors, consists in the superior ex- 



t Lord Mo n bod do pronounces that no man can write history as it 

 ought to be written without the introduction of speeches ; and that ex- 

 cluding them is one of the numerous symptoms of literary degeneracy which 

 characterize modern times. 



