information which books afford, opened and illuftrated by her preceptor. Though her perfonal obfervation must be limited, her advantages from historical fources may be large and various,

If history for a time, especially during the reign of the prince whofe actions are recorded, fometimes mifreprefent characters, the dead, even the royal dead, are feldom flattered; unless, which indeed too frequently, happens, the writer is deficient in that juft conception of moral excellence, which teaches to diftinguifh what is fplendid from what is folid. But, fooner or later, hiftory does justice, She fnatches from oblivion, or reproach, the fame of thofe virtuous men, whom corrupt princes, not contented with having facrificed them to their unjust jealoufy, would rob alfo of their fair renown. When Arulenus Rufticus was condemned by Domitian, for having written, with its deferved eulogium, the life of that excellent citizen, Thrafea Poetus; when Senecio was put to death by

1

the fame emperor, for having rendered the like noble justice to Helvidius Prifcus

when the hiftorians themselves, like the patriots whom they celebrated, were fentenced to death, their books alfo being condemned to the flames; when Fannia, the incomparable wife of Helvidius, was banished, having the courage to carry into exile that book which had been the caufe of it; a book of which her conjugal piety had furnished the materials." In the fire which confumed these books," fays the autor of the life of Agricola, "the tyrants imagined that they had ftifled the very utterance of the Roman people, abolished the lawful power of the fenate, and forced mankind to doubt of the very evidence of their fenfes. Having expelled philofophy, and exiled science, they flattered themselves that nothing, which bore the ftamp of virtue, would exist *.”—But history has vindicated the noble sufferers. Potus and Helvidius

will ever be ranked among the most ho

Beginning of Tacitus's Life of Agricola.

nourable

nourable patriots; while the emperor, who, in deftroying their lives could not injure their reputation, is configned to eternal infamy.

The examples which hiftory records, furnish faithful admonitions to fucceeding princes, refpecting the means by which empires are erected and overturned. They fhew by what arts of wisdom, or by what neglect of thofe arts, little ftates become great, or great ftates fall into ruin; with - what equity or injuftice wars have been undertaken; with what ability or incapacity they have been conducted; with what fagacity or fhort-fightedness treaties have been formed. How national faith has been maintained, or forfeited. How confederacies have been made, or violated. Hiftory, which is the amusement of other men, is the fchool of princes, They are not to read it merely as the rational occupation of a vacant hour, but to confult it, as a storehouse of materials for the art of government.

There is a fplendour in heroic actions, which fires the imagination, and forcibly lays

F 4

lays hold on the paffions. Hence, the poets were the first, and, in the rude ages of antiquity, the only historians. They seized on whatever was dazzling in character, or fhining in action; exaggerated heroic qualities, immortalized patriotism, and deified courage. But, inftead of making their heroes patterns to men, they leffened the utility of their examples, by elevating them into gods,

Hence however arofe the firft idea of history; of fnatching the deeds of illuftrious men from the delufions of fable; of bringing down extravagant powers, and preternatural faculties, within the limits of human nature and poffibility; and reducing overcharged characters to the fize and fhape of real life; giving proportion, order, and arrangement to the wideft scheme of action, and to the most extended duration of time,

CHAP.

CHAP. VI. ·

Laws-Egypt-Perfia.

BUT however the fictions of poetry might have given being to hiftory; it was fage political inftitutions, good governments, and wife laws, which formed both its folid bafis, and its valuable fuperftructure, And it is from the labours of ancient legiflators, the establishment of ftates, the foundation of governments, and the progrefs of civil fociety, that we are to look for more real greatness, and more useful inftruction, than from all the extravagant exploits, recorded in the fabulous ages of antiquity.

So deep is the reverential awe which mankind have uniformly blended with the idea of laws, that almost all civilized nations have affected to wrap up the origin of them in the obfcurity of a devout mystery, and to intimate that they fsprang from a divine fource, This has arisen partly from a love of the

mare