more rational mode of education, it may better deserve the name of a book-repofitory than of a library. You justly acknowledge that all thefe helps to learning fhould be affociated with a tafte for literature, and with diligence in the cultivation. Take care that I may never have occafion to blame you for deviating from that opinion. And this you will readily avoid if you will diligently obey the weighty and friendly precepts of the accomplished Henry Oldenburg, your affociate and friend. Adieu, my dearest Richard, and let me incite you like another Timothy to the practice of virtue and of piety, by the example of your mother who is the beft of women, Westminster. XXIII. To the illuftrious Lord HENRY De Bras. I SEE my Lord that you, unlike most of our modern youth who pafs through foreign countries, wifely travel, like the ancient philofophers, for the fake of compleating your juvenile ftudies, and of picking up knowledge wherever it is to be found. Though as often as I confider the excellence of what you write you appear to me to have gone among foreigners not fo much for the fake of procuring erudition yourself, as of imparting it to others, and rather to exchange than to purchase a ftock of literature. I wish it were as eafy for me in every way to promote the increase of your knowledge and the improvement of your intellect, as it is pleafing and flattering to me to have that affiftance requested by talents and genius like yours. I have never attempted, and I fhould never dare to attempt, to folve those difficulties as you requeft, which feem to have caft a cloud over the writers of history for so many ages. Of Salluft I will peak as you defire without any hefitation or re- VOL. I. d ferve. ferve. I prefer him to any of the Latin hiftorians; which was alfo the general opinion of the ancients. Your favorite Tacitus deferves his meed of praise; but his highest praife, in my opinion, confifts in his having imitated Salluft with all his might. By my conversation with you on this fubject I feem, as far as I can guess from your letter, to have infpired you with fentiments very fimilar to my own, concerning that moft energetic and animated writer. As he in the beginning of his Catilinarian war afferted that there was the greatest difficulty in hiftorical compofition. because the style fhould correfpond with the nature of the narrative, you ask me how a writer of hiftory may beft attain that excellence. My opinion is, that he who would describe actions and events in a way suited to their dignity and importance, ought to write with a mind endued with a spirit, and enlarged by an experience as extensive as the actors in the scene, that he may have a capacity properly to comprehend and to estimate the most momentous affairs and to relate them, when comprehended, with energy and diftinctnefs, with purity and perfpicuity of diction. The decorations of ftyle I do not greatly heed; for I require an historian and not a rhetorician. I do not want frequent interfperfions of fentiment, or prolix differtations on transactions, which interrupt the series of events, and caufe the hiftorian to entrench on the office of the politician, who if in explaining counfels, and explaining facts, he follows truth rather than his own partialities and conje&ures, excites the difguft or the averfion of his party. I will add a remark of Salluft, and which was one of the excellencies which he himself commended in Cato, that he should be able to fay much in a few words; a perfection which I think that no one can attain without the most difcriminating judgment and a peculiar degree of moderation. There are many in whom you have not to regret either elegance of diction or copiousness of narrative, who have yet united copioufnefs with brevity. And among these Salluft is in my opinion the chief of the Latin writers. Such are the virtues which I think that every hiftorian ought to poffefs who would proportion his ftyle to the facts which he records. But why do I mention this to you? When fuch is your genius that you need not my advice, and when fuch is your proficiency that if it goes on increafing you will foon not be able to confult any one more learned than yourself. To the increase of that proficiency, though no exhortations can be neceffary to ftimulate your exertions, yet that I may not seem entirely to fruftrate your expectations, I will befeech you with all my affection, all my authority, and all my zeal, to let nothing relax your diligence, or chill the ardour of your purfuit. Adieu! and may you ever fuccessfully labour in the path of wifdom and of virtue. Weftminster, July 15, 1657. XXIV. To HENRY OLDENBURG. I REJOICE to hear of your fafe arrival at Saumur, which is, I believe, the place of your deftination. You cannot doubt of the pleasure which this intelligence has given me, when you confider how much I love your virtues and approve the object of your journey. I had much rather that fome other person had heard in the boat of Charon than you on the waters of the Charent, that fo infamous a priest was called in to inftruct fo illuftrious a church. For I much fear that he will experience the most bitter disappointment who thinks ever to get to Heaven under the aufpices of fo profligate a guide. Alas! for that church where the ministers endeavour to please only the ear; minifters whom the church, if it defires a real reformation, ought rather to expel than to choose. You have done right, and not only according to my opinion but that of Horace, by not communicating my writings to any but to those who expreffed a defire to see them. Do not my works, importunately rude, A learned friend of mine who past the last summer at Saumur, informed me that that book was in great requeft in thofe parts. I fent him only one copy; he wrote back that the perufal of it had afforded the highest fatisfaction to fome of the learned there. If I had not thought that I fhould oblige them I should have spared this trouble to you and this expence to myself.. If my books chance to prove a weary load, Rather than bear them further leave them on the road. I have as you defired me, presented your kind wifhes to our friend Lawrence. There is nothing that I wish more than that you and your pupil may have your health and return to us foon as poffible after having effected the object of your wishes. Westminster, Aug. 1, 1657. XXV. To the noble Youth RICHARD JONES. I REJOICE to hear that you accomplished fo long a journey with fo little inconvenience, and what redounds to much to your credit that, defpifing the luxuries of Paris, you haftened with fo much celerity where you might enjoy the pleafures of literature and the converfation of the learned. As long as you please you will there be in a haven of fecurity; in other places you will have to guard against the thoals of treachery and the fyrens' fongs. I would not with you to thirst too much after the vintage of Saumur, but refolve to dilute the Bacchanalian fiream with more than a fifth part of the Chryftal liquor of the Parnaffian fount. But in this respect, without my injunctions, you have an excellent preceptor whom you cannot do better than obey; and by obeying whom you will give the highest fatisfaction fatisfaction to your excellent mother, and daily increase in her regard and love. That you may have power to do this you should daily ask help from above. Adieu, and endeavour to return as much improved as poffible, both in virtue and erudition. This will give me more than ordinary pleasure. Weftminster, Aug. 1, 1657. XXVI. To the illuftrious Lord HENRY DE BRAS. SOME engagements, moft noble Lord, have prevented me from anfwering your letter fo foon as I could with. I wished to have done it the fooner because I saw that your letter, fo full of erudition, left me less occafion for fending you my advice (which I believe that you defire more out of compliment to me than of any benefit to yourself) than my congratulations. First, I congratulate myself on having been fo fortunate in characterifing the merits of Salluft as to have excited you to the affiduous perusal of that author, who is fo full of wisdom, and who may be read with so much advantage. Of him I will venture to affert what Quintilian faid of Cicero, that he who loves Salluft is no mean proficient in historical compofition. That precept of Ariftotle in the third book of his rhetoric, which you wish me to explain, relates to the morality of the reflections and the fidelity of the narrative. It appears to me to need little comment, except that it fhould be appropriated not ta the compofitions of rhetoric but of hiftory. For the offices of a rhetorician and an hiftorian are as different as the arts which they profefs. Polybius, Halicarnaffus, Diodorus, Cicero, Lucian, and many others, whose works are interspersed with precepts on the subject, will better teach you what are the duties of an hiftorian. I wish you every fuccefs in your travels and pursuits. Adieu. |