I Chantelou in Touraine, Nov. 6.1735. HAVE confidered formerly, with a good deal of attention, the fubject on which you command me to communicate my thoughts to you And I practifed in thofe days, as much as bufinefs and pleasure allowed me time to do, the rules that feemed to me neceffary, to be observed in the ftudy of hiftory. They were very different from those which writers on the fame fubject have recommended, and which are commonly practifed. But I confess to your Lordship, that this neither gave me then, nor has given me fince, any diftrust of them. I do not affect fingularity. On the contrary, I think that a due deference is to be paid to received opinions, and that a due compliance with received cuftoms is to be held; though both the one and the other fhould be, what they often are, abfurd or ridiculous. But this fervitude is outward only, and abridges in no fort the liberty of private VOL. I. judgement. A judgement. The obligations of fubmitting to it likewife, even outwardly, extend no further than to thofe opinions and cuftoms which cannot be oppofed, or from which we cannot deviate without deng hurt, or giving offence, to fociety. In all thefe cafes, our fpeculations ought to be free: In all other cafes, our practice may be fo. Without any regard therefore to the opinion and practice even of the learned world, I am very willing to tell you mine. But, as it is hard to recover a thread of thought long ago laid afide, and impoffible to prove fome things, and explain others, without the affiftance of many books which I have not here; your Lordship must be content with fuch an imperfect sketch, as I am able to fend you at prefent in this letter. The motives that carry men to the study of hif tory are different. Some intend, if fuch as they may be faid to study, nothing more than amusement, and read the life of ARISTIDES or PHOCION, of EPAMINONDAS or SCIPIO, ALEXANDER OF CAESAR, just as they play a game at cards, or as they would read the ftory of the Seven Champions. Others there are, whofe motive to this study is nothing better, and who have the further difadvantage of becoming a nufance very often to fociety, in proportion to the progrefs they make. The former do not improve their reading to any good purpose: The latter pervert it to a very bad one, and grow in impertinence as they increase in learning. I think I have known most of the first kind in England, and moft of the laft in France. The perfons I mean are those who read to talk, to shine in converfation, and and to impofe on company: Who having few ideas to vend of their own growth, ftore their minds with crude unruminated facts and fentences; and hope to fupply, by bare memory, the want of imagination and judgement. But these are in the two loweft forms. The next I fhall mention are in one a little higher; in the form of those who grow neither wifer nor better by study themselves, but who enable others to ftudy with greater eafe, and to purpofes more ufeful; who make fair copies of foul manufcripts, give the fignification of hard words, and take a great deal of other grammatical pains. The obligation to these men would be great indeed, if they were in general able to do any thing better, and fubmitted to this drudgery for the fake of the public; as fome of them, it must be owned with gratitude, have done, but not later, I think, than about the time of the refurrection of letters. When works of importance are preffing, generals themfelves may take up the pick ax and the spade; but in the ordinary course of things, when that preffing neceffity is over, fuch tools are left in the hands destined to use them, the heads of common foldiers and peafants. I approve therefore very much the devotion of a studious man at Chrift-Church, who was overheard in his oratory entering into a detail with God, as devout perfons are apt to do, and, amongst other particular thankgivings, acknowledging the Divine Goodnefs in furnishing the world with makers of Dictionaries! These men court fame, as well as their betters, by fuch means as God has given them to acquire it: And Littleton exerted all the genius he had, when he made a dictionary, though Stephens did not. They deferve encouragement, however, whilft they continue to compile, and neither affect wit, nor prefume to reafon. There is a fourth clafs, of much lefs ufe than thefe, but of much greater name. Men of the first rank in learning, and to whom the whole tribe of fcholars bow with reverence. A man must be as indifferent as I am to common cenfure or approbation, to avow a thorough contempt for the whole bufinefs of these learned lives; for all the researches into antiquity, for all the fystems of chronology and history, that we owe to the immenfe labours of a Scaliger, a Bochart, a Petavius, an Ufher, and even a Marfham. The fame materials are common to them: all; but thefe materials are few, and there is a mo ral impoffibility that they fhould ever have more. They have combined thefe into every form that can be given to them: They have fuppofed, they have guessed, they have joined disjointed paffages of different authors, and broken traditions of uncertain originals, of various people, and of centuries remote from one another as well as from ours. In fhort, that they might leave no liberty untaken, even a wild fantastical fimilitude of founds has ferved to prop up a fyftem. As the materials they have are few, fo are the very beft, and fuch as pafs for authentic, extremely precarious; as fome of thefe learned perfons themselves confefs. Julius Africanus, Eufebius, and George the Monk, opened the principal fources of all this fcience; but they corrupted the waters. Their point chronolo of view was to make profane history and gy |