circumstances they coincide with the writers of Greece and Rome; this ftrengthens hiftory: there are many upon which they are filent; this naturally leads to doubt and enquiry there are numbers in which the oppofition is pointed whom are we to believe? the natives, or the native enemies of a country? those who might have had access to genuine records, or those who probably never could? &

d

Ir may undoubtedly be objected to the principal historians of Perfia, now known in Europe, that they are all fubfequent to the Mohammedan era: that Perfian literature was almost entirely annihilated in the confequences of the Arabian conqueft: that the Grecians wrote nearer to the events which they have recorded; and therefore, though foreigners, have a fuperior claim to our credence than the natives of after-ages, who must have compiled their annals under many circumstances of discouraging obscurity. These confiderations are undoubtedly of weight; and, in all relations where confiftency is not hurt, we should certainly allow them every degree of force. It is error alone we should wish to reprobate it is the path of truth we should with to clear.

THE chief object of History is to improve

the great system of focial life, by instructing mankind in the experience of former ages. To answer this important end, it is by no means neceffary that every fact we read should be ftrictly true in all its parts. The Cyropædia of Xenophon, or the Telemaque of Fenelon, may convey leffons, on a variety of points, with an efficacy not inferior to the most unquestioned truths. Where no probability is therefore destroyed; no chronology obviously injured; no fuperior authority evidently opposed: where the great lines are confiftent with the situation of the principal agents; and the confequences arise naturally from the events: fuch facts are entitled to our belief: and to question them must only difplay a very unneceffary, and a very unproprofitable scepticism. But, where the annals of one nation are tortured into co-incidence with the imaginary eras of another; where mighty details are given, the traces of which cannot be discovered in the countries most eminently interested; where fober truth and rational evidence are facrificed to vanity, fiction, or exaggeration; fuch narrations should acquire no authority, because transmitted by the most celebrated of the ancient writers, and copied by compilers of modern times. We hould look upon them as fables of mere

amufement; and proportion our admiration to their fecondary merits alone; elegance of tafte, ingenuity of invention, and excellence of stile.

WHEN we reflect on the uncertainty of almost every thing merely human: when we obferve the obfcurity with which all history is involved in its beginnings: when we confider how few writers record the facts of their own obfervation; and the fufpicious mediums thro' which they derive their knowledge: when we view the partiality of mankind for their country, their party, their opinions; with the neceffity, which even the most enlightened, and the most unbiaffed minds, have found of fwimming with the ftream of popular prejudice; we must candidly confefs, that no particular clafs of hiftorians have any folid claim to poffefs themselves exclufively of our belief; in oppofition to others, whose narratives, tho' rational, are repugnant to those which we have been accustomed to receive. Audi alteram partem is an old and an excellent maxim; and impartiality ought ever to impress it on our minds, where opportunity furnishes the means. With channels of information, to which the ancients were completely ftrangers, how difficult is it even now to arrive at the true hiftory of the fimpleft fact? and how wide of all refemblance does not the fame

tale appear, as told by the people under the oppofite impreffions of vanity, prejudice, or intereft ? How justly may we therefore fufpect the historians of every darker age, whofe materials were defective, and whofe imaginations were strong: who lived at periods when impofition was gainful, and credulity unbounded: where the neceffary measures to secure the adoration of the Million to a Calf, a Cat, or a Beetle, furnished Priests (the great fources of Egyptian and other ancient annals), with fuch powerful incentives to the invention of the wildest and the most improbable of fictions.

TAKE many points of modern history, and all the information we receive is merely what each nation or party has written relative to public affairs whilft the events themselves. are still surrounded with obscurity and doubt. Read the Proteftant Writers of France, and every circumftance of horror marks the Maffacre of St. Bartholomew's day but turn to the Catholic page, and it becomes a neceffary, a prudent, and a lawful act; the mere preventive of a fimilar tragedy, meditated by the Admiral de Chatillon against the adherents of the House of Guife. Take two foreign writers of our English hiftory, over whom country and party prejudices ought to have had no influence; and how different is the

colouring of the fame tale? With Rapin, the Caligulas and the Neros fall fhort of the inhuman James, on the fuppreffion of Monmouth's infurrection: whilft the mild, the juft, the forgiving prince is the portrait of the Pere d'Orleans. Contraft the Memoires de Sully with the Libels of the League against Henry IV. or the Siecle de Louis Quatorze with the Invectives of the Proteftant Refugees; and the Glorious Monarch, or the Savage Tyrant appear before you in fucceffive review. To enlarge upon the various opinions of our own writers, on the great events of English hiftory, would be endless and unneceffary: the circumftances I have mentioned being merely intended to inculcate this simple pofition, That few facts, either of ancient or modern times, are fo fully authenticated as to render farther enquiry improper.

h

THE Romans have read us many a lesson on Punic faith: had we Punic writers, Mercilefs Jealousy, and Perfidious Ambition, might, and perhaps with justice, have been retorted on the Romans. The Grecians have told us many a surprising tale of Eastern nations; it cannot be improperto listen to what those nations say. '