OF THE VARIOUS METHODS OF WRITING HISTORY. of that country. So minute and varied are these representations, that it has been remarked that we are better acquainted with the daily habits, manners and amuse Ancient Egyptian chess players, from the catacombs. ments of the Egyptians who lived three thousand years ago, than with those of the English nation in the time of the Plantagenets- a period of little more than 500 years since. Ancient Mexican picture. In Mexico, Humboldt discovered an ancient picture, which seemed to represent the Bible story of the Fall through the seductions of the serpent, and the murder of Abel by his brother, Cain. The above engraving gives a copy of this curious relic, and though it may not refer to the subject suggested, it still affords an example of the mode in which these memorials may be useful in illustrating historical topics. 15 cient historians, and sometimes furnish the only evidence to be found at the present day respecting very important events. Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy, abound in ancient ruins, which are highly interesting in this relation. In America, wonderful ruins of ancient cities have been discovered, which afford us the only knowledge we now possess of the state of the arts and civil polity among the people who inhabited them: nay, in some cases they reveal the former existence of communities far advanced in civilization, which had risen, flourished, and perished, without the knowledge of mankind, but for these vestiges. Such are the cities of Palenque in Mexico, Uxmal in Yucatan, and Copan in Guatimala. The most celebrated among the professed historians of antiquity are the following: Herodotus, who flourished about 450 B. C.; Thucydides, 430 B. C.; Ctesias, 415 B. C.; Xenophon, 400 B. C. These were all native Greeks, and to them we are chiefly indebted for the history of remote periods. Polybius wrote in Latin, 240 B. C. Diodorus Siculus compiled a general history about 50 B. C., but it is not of high authority. The great Roman historians are Sallust, who wrote about 50 B. C.; Livy, 20 B. C.; and Tacitus, 75 A. D. Besides regular historical treatises from these authors, we have a fund of incidental information, of high authority, and referring to the earliest dates, in the Bible. History drawn from the latter is called sacred, in distinction from other history, which is called profane. Beside these authorities, there are still other ancient writings, which contribute to our stock of historical knowledge. Yet, as will be seen hereafter, these writings often disagree, and thus the early annals of mankind are embarrassed with doubt and difficulty. As we come down to more modern times, authorities multiply, and the resources of history become at last ample and satisfactory. It is obvious, from these considerations, that history, as a science, must be continually progressive, from the addition of new facts, the acquisition of new materials, from the discoveries of learned men, the deciphering of ancient manuscripts and inscriptions hitherto illegible, and the careful sifting of alleged facts by a comparison of dates and authorities. Lastly, among the sources and evidences of history we may include ancient ruins. These often corroborate in a remarkable manner the statements of the an CHAPTER V. Of the various Methods of Writing History. HISTORY may be divided into three classes; the poetical, the philosophical, and the purely historical. The excess of the poetical spirit in a history would lead to mere fable; yet a good historian should possess many of those powers which characterize the poet. In fact, it is only by means of the imagination that we can comprehend any scene or action whatever, of which we are not eye-witnesses; and it is only by appealing to the imagination, that history is rendered amusing. Let us call to mind the passages which have most forcibly struck us in history, and we shall commonly find that if they do not contain long and studied descriptions, yet even a single poetical expression serves to paint the scene, and to show that the author contemplated it in his mind's eye, as passing 16 CHARACTERISTICS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. before him. To great moral truths, in action, belong great force and beauty of description. CHAPTER VI. The philosophical spirit of history is, to a certain Characteristics of Ancient History.-Herodotus. extent, placed in opposition to the poetical spirit. The latter looks chiefly at the visible forms, the for- AMONG the ancients, history was first regarded only mer upon the abstract laws of existence. The one is as the art of weaving an amusing narrative out of the apt to be warmed and transported into the regions common and vulgar recollection of events. From the of mere imagination, the other to fall into the profound research of materials, the early writers were, cold and blank generalities of speculation. In ancient times, the poetical spirit was carried to a faulty extreme; in our days, it is the philosophical part of history which is overcharged. A good history should combine both, in a moderate degree. Philosophy is nothing more than an attempt to trace the relation of cause and effect, to discover in particular actions the operation of general principles, to perceive the one in the many, and thence to foresee the many from the Philosophy is the root, poetry is the flower; one works in darkness and difficulty, the other ex-soon exhausted. pands in beauty, splendor, and light. one. The purely historical spirit ought, doubtless, to predominate in the writing of history, but it is not of itself sufficient to form a historian. Many an old chronicler has recorded, with the most scrupulous fidelity, the occurrences of his age, and has even displayed a zeal in collecting information, and a pride in communicating it, which are in themselves highly laudable. But these works have not merited the name of history, because they have neither been calculated for instruction nor amusement. The love of truth is the first duty of the historian, but it is not his whole duty. In laying before us the occurrences of past times, he must animate and excite our feelings by powerful descriptions, and he must exercise our habits of reflection, by appropriate remarks on the causes and consequences of the events related. To write history in the ordinary manner, that is, to relate events just as they occurred, to abbreviate statepapers, to sketch characters of great men, to indulge in common moral reflections on the changes of human affairs, and to intersperse praise and censure in the narrative, may be a comparatively easy task, and within the range of ordinary abilities. But to be a really great historian is, perhaps, the rarest of intellectual distinctions. Many scientific works are perfect in their kind; many poems are almost faultless; nany rhetorical compositions are so excellent, that no mortal skill appears able to alter them, except for the worse. But a perfect history, or even one which makes a close approach to perfection, the world has never yet seen. no doubt, debarred, because few traces of events in early times were left in writing. But the ancient historians appear to have had little or no conception of the dependence of the events which they relate upon the most remarkable of their causes-upon the state of government, and upon the condition of society among the people to whom the events related. They tell us how one people made war upon another people, and that incidents of such and such a description ensued; but the instruction afforded by these tales is It was not till after many attempts in writing history had been made, that authors learned to give a new value to their narratives, by showing, in their details of political transactions, how nations were guided towards their real interests, and how they were led astray from them; what were the chief circumstances by which they were deceived in the schemes for their own welfare; how they suffered by their mistakes, and how they were led to the knowledge of the true object of government and social institutions. Herodotus has been called the father of history. He formed the plan of his work with an uncommon The cause of this may be easily assigned. The which he wrote. Taking for the basis of his history degree of art and judgment, considering the age in province of literature lies in the domain both of the rea- the wars of the Greeks and Persians, he united with son and the imagination; it is sometimes fiction and it a great variety of incidents, by retracing the power sometimes theory. A perfect historian must possess an of the two belligerent nations from the earliest known imagination sufficiently powerful to make his narra- sources. Thus he successively introduces the history. tive affecting and picturesque, yet he must control it so absolutely, as to content himself with the materials of the Lydians, Medes, Babylonians, Egyptians, Scythians and Hindoos. After this, he returns to his which he finds in existence, and to refrain from sup- main object, and concludes with the glorious victories plying deficiencies by additions of his own. He must obtained by his countrymen at Salamis and Therbe a profound and ingenious reasoner; yet he must mopyla. He is the earliest and best of all the poetical possess sufficient self-command to abstain from wrestor romantic historians. His animation, his simpleing facts to support a hypothesis. The union of these hearted tenderness, his wonderful talent for description two powers cannot often be found in any individual and dialogue, and the pure, sweet flow of his language, combined with the other qualifications necessary to place him at the head of narrators. form a historian. Yet the work of Herodotus cannot be called a good history, in the more rigid sense of the word. The THUCYDIDES-XENOPHON-POLYBIUS-LIVY-SALLUST. CHAPTER VII. 17 author is rather an inventor than a historian. Incomparable as his book is, considered merely in the light of an amusing narrative, it lacks authenticity. There Thucydides - Xenophon - Polybius - Livyare not only gross fictions in it, but the whole narrative has a romantic and fictitious coloring, which leaves the most sagacious reader in doubt what to totally distinct in style and plan. His history differs HERODOTUS was followed by Thucydides, a writer believe and what to reject. There are very long pas- from that of his predecessor, as a portrait differs from sages in Herodotus, where everything is told, almost as an imaginary scene, on canvass. He was a sagacious dramatically as the events in the historical plays of Shakspeare. The great occurrences are, no doubt, and reflecting man, who never gave the reins to his faithfully related; so, probably, are many of the imagination. His history exhibits all the appearance slighter circumstances, but which of them, it is imof the strictest fidelity, and the most punctual adherpossible to determine. The faults of Herodotus are his reflections are acute and discriminating. He wrote ence to truth. His style is compact and forcible, and those of a simple and imaginative mind. He wrote the history of his own time, and of the events in which as it was natural that he should write. His work was he was personally engaged. He borrowed from Hedesigned for a nation susceptible, curious, lively, and rodotus the practice of putting speeches of his own insatiably desirous of novelty and excitement; for a into the mouths of the chief personages of the narranation in which the fine arts had attained a high de- tive; but he honestly tells us, that some of these disgree of excellence, but in which philosophy was still in its infancy. courses are purely fictitious. Although he gives us a literal record of facts, yet he produces an effect on the without indulging in the license of invention. imagination, by skilful selection and arrangement, Sallust-Tacitus. The Greeks, in the time of Herodotus, had but re cently begun to cultivate prose composition; public transactions had been generally recorded in verse. The first historians might, therefore, indulge, without fear of censure, in the license allowed to poets. The inquisitive and credulous countrymen of Herodotus were easily moved by religious awe or patriotic enthusiasm. They were the very men to hear with delight of strange beasts, and birds, and trees; of dwarfs, giants and cannibals; of gods whose very name it was impiety to utter; of ancient dynasties which had left behind them monuments surpassing all the works of later times; of stupendous cities and walls and temples and pyramids; of predictions accomplished; of dreams and omens, and warnings from the dead; and of infants strangely preserved from the dagger of the assassin to fulfil high destinies. The history of Herodotus abounds in marvels of this sort, and as the narrative approached the time when it was written, its interest became still more absorbing. It comprised the story of that great conflict between the Persians and the Greeks, from which Europe dates its intellectual and political supremacy, Xenophon is commonly placed in the same rank with a story which, even at this distance of time, is the Herodotus and Thucydides. His manner and plan most marvellous and the most touching in the annals form a medium between the loose and slightly conof the human race. This portion of Grecian history nected excursions of the former, and the extreme critiabounds in all that is wild and wonderful, in all cal regularity of the latter. He resembles both in the that is pathetic and animating; in the gigantic ca- purity and sweetness of his style; he was evidently prices of infinite wealth and despotic power, and a man of elegant taste and amiable disposition, and in the mightier miracles of wisdom, virtue, and an extensive intercourse with the world. His works, courage. Herodotus told his countrymen of rivers however, indicate no great power of mind. drank up in a day by invading hosts, of provinces famished for a meal, of passages for ships hewn through mountains, of roads for armies spread upon the waves, of monarchies and commonwealths swept away; of anxiety, and terror, and confusion and despair; of proud and stubborn hearts tried in the extremity of evil, of lives dearly sold, of signal deliverance and unsparing revenge. Whatever gave a strong air of reality to a narrative so well calculated to inflame the passions, and flatter national pride, was certain to be favorably received; and hence we easily discover the source of these characteristics in the most ancient of Greek histories, to which we have alluded. Polybius is a historian of great fidelity. The pains he took to inform himself on the subjects respecting which he wrote are the best guarantee for his veracity. He crossed the Alps, and traversed a great part of Gaul, to obtain correct information of Hannibal's march into Italy. Fearing that he might omit some small circumstance of Scipio's actions, he travelled over the whole of Spain, to make inquiries, and study the topography of the country. He even made use of Scipio's authority to procure vessels to sail upon the Atlantic ocean, in the prosecution of his researches. He was a Greek by birth, but he studied the Latin tongue, and gained a perfect knowledge of the Roman laws, customs and antiquities. Having obtained permission from the senate to search the capitol, he diligently examined the records, and translated such as suited his purpose into Greek. k of mere amusement, but his object some cases, contradicts his own statements. ents back to their causes, and deduce il precepts for the benefit of the reader. mat popularity, and looked with cone refined affectation of the rhetorical ay. Sallust falls short of the majesty of Livy, but he is remarkably happy in a peculiar conciseness, clearness and energy of expression. His great merit is im partiality, at a time when prejudice and party spiri must have been very common and very powerful in at the head of the Latin historians. Rome. The harangues introduced into his histories magnificent monument to the glory of are extremely elaborate, but much too long for the but he displays no critical regard for narratives; they have, indeed, every appearance of betinting of his narrative is unrivalled for ing purposely introduced to show the eloquence of the grace, and nothing can be conceived writer, rather than to illustrate the subjects. que than his descriptions. The abunesting sentiments and splendid imagery is pages, is almost miraculous. Granence, and picturesqueness of representahave been his chief aim, next to the - Livy was a writer peculiarly Roman, citizen of a commonwealth which had, me substance of liberty, but which still ved its forms; in reality, the subject of rince, but, in his own estimation, one s of the world, with a hundred kings d only the gods above him. ts are unanimous in giving the most my to the noble and generous impartiriter, who, though he lived in the reign had the courage to do justice to the Pompey, Cicero, Brutus, and Cassius. o add to the solemnity of his history, y opportunity of inserting accounts of digies. These are not to be considered Tacitus is regarded as the most profound of histori. he writer's credulity, but as necessary ans. In the delineation of character he is unrivalled. esigned to indicate the manners and We seem to know the personages described in his f the age. history as well as if we had lived with them. He we accord these merits to this great justly deserves the name of a philosophical historian. st state that his work lacks authenticity; His insight into human nature, especially into the Lesirous to produce an imposing than an sources and workings of the bad passions, is deer ry, and exercised his power rather in and penetrating. He is faithful, grave, and severe. ay and in sounding the praises of Rome, The subject of his history exhibits the most shock. t research after truth. He made little ing spectacle of vice to be found in the annals criptions and public documents within of mankind; in which case, truth must necessarily was content to follow the beaten track have all the keenness of satire. The style of Tacitus ho had preceded him. When he finds however, is not only faulty in itself, but it is, in some CHAPTER VIII. Of Modern History - Hume. those of antiquity. Th Modern historians, however, have their faults. best of them have been seduced from truth, their imagination, but by their reason. excel their predecessors in the art of deducing principles from facts; but, unhappily, they fallen into the error of distorting facts to suit principles. They frame a theory from look philosophy of history, the moderns have very some of the phenomena, and the remaining pl ssed the ancients. Experimental sciences ena they strain or curtail to support the theory ally in a state of progression, and the science In every human character and transaction ment being one of these, is better understood a mixture of good and evil. By a little exagge esent day than it was in ancient times. The a little suppression, a little ambiguity of style, nting, also, has not only diffused knowledge scepticism with regard to the evidence on on ely, but it has introduced into reasoning a and clearness unknown to the ancient comin which information was, for the most part, orally. The spirit, moreover, of the two Tons of antiquity was remarkably exclusive. reeks and Romans admired only themselves mother. They looked for nothing out of es; they borrowed nothing, they copied nothtranslated nothing. Their literary men vay in proud disgust from modes of thought ession which differed from what they had stomed to admire. The effect was, narrowsameness of thought. The ancients made observations on man as he was found in a state of society, and on government as it ed in a particular corner of the world. But s man, or government as government, they e, and speculated less. Philosophy remained and a little credulity on the other, a totally fals ing may be given to a transaction, without com the historian to state a literal and absolute fal This species of misrepresentation may be found most celebrated works of modern historians. . e victory of Christianity over Paganism at stroyed the old system of morals, and with of the old system of metaphysics. It fure orator with new topics of declamation, the with new points of controversy; and it introw principles of action into every part of ciety. The overthrow of the Roman empire still greater changes. The second civilizaHume's history of England is thought, by mankind commenced under circumstances judges, entitled to the first rank in this departm orded a strong security that it would never literature. The merits and demerits of the w , and never pause. Europe became a great well known. It is written in a very easy an ommunity. The numerous states were mated as well as thoughtful and philosophic the ties of international law and a common but it is disfigured by glaring partiality, Their institutions, their languages, their resentation, and want of accuracy. The their tastes in literature, were widely differ- was too indolent to undertake the labor of r their connection was close enough to allow into original documents, and he had not su observation, and to prevent, while it was knowledge of the subject to indicate the st se as to destroy, the idioms of national opin- which the English constitution was gradually He was strongly imbued with Tory principles dislike of the Puritans. Whenever these s are concerned, he is not to be trusted. His t of it has been illuminated with light re- account of the reign of Charles I., and of the I m every other part. The number of experi- Commonwealth, is an elaborate falsification. moral science which the historian has an such is the skill of his narrative, and the ch y of witnessing, has been increased beyond his style, -easy without being feeble, and sim tion. Society and human nature, instead elegant and flowing, - that Hume will alw een in a single point of view, are presented popular, in spite of his known faults. |