66 deal?" Magno impendio temporum, magna alienarum aurium moleftia, laudatio "haec conftat, O hominem literatum! "Simus hoc titulo rufticiore contenti, O "virum bonum!" We may add, and SɛNECA might have added in his own style, and according to the manners and characters of his own age, another title as ruftic, and as little in fashion, “O virum sapien"tia fua fimplicem, et fimplicitate fua fa pientem! O virum utilem fibi, fuis, rei"publicae, et humano generi!" I have faid perhaps already, but no matter, it cannot be repeated too often, that the drift of all philofophy, and of all political speculations, ought to be the making us better men, and better citizens, Thofe ftudies, which have no intention towards improving our moral characters, have no pretence to be styled philofophical. "Quis eft enim," fays TULLY in his Offices, " qui nullis officii praeceptis "tradendis, philofophum fe audeat dicere?" Whatever political fpeculations, instead of preparing us to be useful to fociety and to promote the happiness of mankind, are only fyftems for gratifying private ambition, and promoting private interefts at the public expence; all fuch, I fay, deserve to be burnt, and the authors of them to starve, like MACHIAVEL, in a jail. H 3 LET LETTER V. I. The great ufe of hiftory, properly fo called, as distinguished from the writings of mere annalists and antiquaries. II. Greek and Roman hiftorians. III. Some idea of a complete hiftory. IV. Further cautions to be observed in this ftudy, and the regulation of it according to the different profeffions, and fituations of men: above all, the ufe to be made of it (1) by divines, and (2) by those who are called to the fervice of their country. REMEMBER my last letter ended abruptly, and a long interval has fince paffed: fo that the thread I had then spun has flipt from me. I will try to recover it, and to pursue the task your lordship has obliged me to continue, Befides the pleafure of obeying your orders, it is likewife of. fome advantage to myself, to recollect my thoughts, and resume a study in which I was converfant formerly. For nothing can be more true than that faying of SOLON reported by PLATO, tho cenfured by him, impertinently enough in one of his wild books of laws-- Affidue addifcens, ad fenium ve"nio." The truth is, the moft knowing man, in the course of the longest life, will have always much to learn, and the wifeft and best much to improve. This rule will hold in the knowledge and improvement to be acquired by the study of hiftory: and therefore even he who has gone to this school in his youth, fhould not neglect it in his age. "I read in Livy," fays MONTAGNE, "what another man does not: and PLU"TARCH red there what I do not." Juft fo the fame man may read at fifty what he did not read in the fame book at five and twenty: at least I have found it so, by my own experience, on many occafions. By comparing, in this study, the expe. rience of other men and other ages with our own, we improve both: we analyfe, as it were, philofophy. We reduce all the abftract fpeculations of ethics, and all the general rules of human policy, to their firft, principles. With thefe advantages every man may, tho fèw men do, advance daily towards thofe ideas, thofe increated effen ces ces a Platonift would fay, which no human creature can reach in practice, but in the neareft approaches to which the perfection of our nature confifts; because every approach of this kind renders a man better, and wifer for himself, for his family, for the little community of his own country, and for the great community of the world. Be not furprised, my Lord, at the order in which I place thefe objects. Whatever order divines and moralists, who contemplate the duties belonging to these objects, may place them in, this is the order they hold in nature: and I have always thought that we might lead ourselves and others to private virtue, more effectually by a due obfervation of this order, than by any of thofe fublime refinements that pervert it. Self-Love but ferves the virtuous mind to wake; So fings our friend Pop, my lord, and fo I believe. So I fhall prove too, if I miftake not, in an epiftle I am about to write. to him, in order to complete a fet that were writ fome years ago. A MAN |