CHAP. VI.-VII.] VARIOUS KINDS OF CIVIL HlfPTORT. ^7 



Memoii*s, or memor-ials, are of two kinds ; whereof the 

 one may be termed commentaries, the other registers. lu 

 commentaries are set . down naked events and actions in 

 sequence, without tlie motives, designs, counsels, speeches, 

 pretexts, occasions, (fee. ; 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 pei-sons in order of time, by way of calendai-a 

 and chronicles, or else after the manner of journals, preserving 

 the edicts of princes, decrees of council, judicial proceedings, 

 declarations, letters of state, and puulic orations, without 

 <:ontinuing 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 scinipulous diligence, can any way 

 collect from genealogies, calendai-s, titles, inscriptions, monu- 

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

 archives, instruments, fragments of public and private 

 history, scattered passages of books no way historical, &c.; 

 by which means something is recovered from the deluge ol 

 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 impeifect history, no deficiency need be 

 noted, they being of their own nature imperfect : but 

 epitomes of history are the corruj^tion 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 YII. 



Division of History into Chronicles, Biographies, and Perfect Relationa, 

 The Development ol their parts. " 



Just history is of three kinds, with regard to the three 

 objects it designs to represent j which are either a portion 



