HISTORIOGRAPHER. 



the wise ; form and express such ideas as 

 are great, and yet- shall appear very com- 

 roon, and intermix no other ornament 

 with his narration than what the modesty 

 of truth can bear. He should be above 

 the reach and power of hopes and fears, 

 and all kinds of interest, that he may al- 

 ways dare to speak the truth, and write 

 of all without prejudice ; religiously ob- 

 serving never to abuse the public faith, 

 nor to advance any thing upon common 

 fame, which is always uncertain, but up- 

 on undoubted memoirs and faithful rela- 

 tions of such persons as have had a hand 

 in affairs. He must always be upon his 

 guard against the bias and affections of 

 those who supply him with matter, and 

 must not credulously give his assent to 

 the historians that went before him, with- 

 out inquiring narrowly into their charac- 

 ter, and what influence they may have 

 been under when they wrote, in order 

 to make a just estimate of their weight 

 and credit. 



An historian, as to his matter, should 

 choose subjects great in themselves, and 

 such as are worthy of public fame and re- 

 membrance ; and should make himself so 

 far master of his matter, as to be able to 

 cast it into what form he pleases* and to 

 strike upon all his subjects the colours 

 they are naturally disposed to bear, in or- 

 der to make his lessons profitable to pos- 

 terity, by regulating the heart and spirits 

 of men, animating them to great and vir- 

 tuous actions by illustrious examples, and 

 cautioning them against vice, folly, cru- 

 elty, and injustice, by laying open the 

 fatal consequences resulting from them, 

 The course of his narration must pro- 

 ceed in the order of time in which the 

 facts happened, in a pure, grave, unin- 

 terrupted series, such as may not impro- 

 perly be compared to a great river flow- 

 ing with composed majesty and stately 

 smoothness; and when it falls in his 

 way to introduce little occurrences, they 

 must be so artfully interwoven with the 

 great, in the thread of the narration, 

 as to offer a seasonable entertainment and 

 relief to the reader, from the fatigue that 

 too sedulous 'an attention to the great 

 requireth. He must also observe great 

 judgment in the ordinance and disposition 

 of events and their circumstances, so as 

 to interest the reader, and let him into all 

 his thoughts and views, by making his 

 persons act as their character and temper 

 inclined them ; discovering their man- 

 ners, sentiments, designs, motives, and 

 operations, as they really stand in a ne- 

 nessary dependence upon each other, 

 and with so natural a connection, as to 



show nothing out of its place. His tran- 

 sitions, in which consists the great ar of 

 narration, and one of its principal beau- 

 ties, must be natural and easy, arising 

 from the difference of subject ratherthan 

 expression. He must make a wise and 

 judicious choice of circumstances, such as 

 are proper to enlarge and improve the 

 ideas of things, and to strike that light 

 and colour upon them, which most easily 

 attracts belief and engages the mind ; 

 and must for that purpose always observe 

 a due mixture of great and little circum- 

 stances, neither of which must be carried 

 beyond nature, or be so minute, low, or 

 frivolous, as to debase his subject. He 

 must not only recite the bare events and 

 actions of men, but also lay open the mo- 

 tives and principles from which they took 

 their rise, and upon which they proceed- 

 ed to their final issues. He must lay open 

 the hearts of the actors, let his reader into, 

 the most important secrets of their coun- 

 cils and designs, and oblige him with a 

 sight of those secret springs which mov- 

 ed them to enterprises, and of the causes 

 of their success or miscarriage. He must 

 be very sparing and cautious in the use of, 

 descriptions, which are to be introduced 

 so far only as they serve to illustrate 

 things that are essential to the main sub- 

 ject, and to enliven the narration : and 

 even in that case they must be succinct 

 and elegant. The frequent use of ha- 

 rangues are disapproved of by many judi- 

 cious persons ; for these long formal ha- 

 rangues of generals to their soldiers, 

 when in the presence of the enemy, and 

 ready to enter upon action, which we find 

 in many historians, are undoubtedly not 

 only unnatural and improbable, but con- 

 trary to the truth of history. Neverthe- 

 less, a short speech, suited to the subject, 

 made by a person of eminent character, 

 has its proper beauty, and animates a nar- 

 ration. A judicious historian ought not 

 to admit any portraits into his work but 

 those of the greatest persons, and such as 

 are principally interested, and have the 

 chief hand in affairs; and these must be 

 real, natural, and truly resembling their 

 originals ; expressive of their genius, the 

 qualities of the head and heart, rather 

 than descriptive of the external form of 

 his personages. When such are finished 

 with a masterly hand, with true judgment 

 and success, they are not only great orna- 

 ments and embellishments in history, but 

 of use to strip the hearts of men of their 

 disguises, to lay open all their secret folds, 

 and disclose the real springs of actions. 

 It is a great fault in an historiographer to 

 abound too much in reflections of his own; 



