extend no further, than to thofe opinions and cuftoms which cannot be oppofed; or from which we cannot deviate without doing hurt, or giving offence, to fociety. In all these cases, our speculations 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 affistance 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 present in this letter.

THE motives that carry men, to the study of history are different. Some intend, if fuch as they may be faid to study, nothing more than amufe`ment, and read the life of ARISTIDES OF PHOCION, of EPAMINONDAS or SCIPIO, ALEXANDER or CAESAR, juft as they play a game at cards, or as they would read the ftory of the feven champions.

OTHERS there are, whofe motive to this ftudy is nothing better, and who have the further difadvantage of becoming a nuifance very often to fociety, in proportion to the progrefs they make. The former do not improve their reading to any good purpofe: the latter pervert it to a very bad one, and grow in impertinence as they encrease in learning. I think I have known moft 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 to impofe in 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 judgment.

BUT thefe are in the two loweft forms. The next I shall 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 study with greater eafe, and to purposes mere 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 submitted 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 themselves may take up the pick - axe and the fpade; but in the ordinary courfe of things, when that preffing neceffity is over, fuch tools are left in the hands deftined to use them, the hands of common foldiers and peasants. I approve therefore very much the devotion of a ftudious man at ChriftChurch, who was over-heard in his oratory entering into a detail with Gon, as devout perfons are apt to do, and, amongst other particular thankf givings, 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 deserve encouragement, however, whilst they continue to compile, and neither affect wit, nor prefume to reafon.

THERE is a fourth class, of much less use 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 thefe learned lives; for all the researches into antiquity, for all the fyftems of chronology and hiftory, that we owe to the immenfe labours of a SCALIGER, a BOCHART, a PETAVIUS, an USHER, and even a MARSHAM. The fame materials are common to them all; but these materials are few, and there is a moral impoffibility that they should ever have more. They have combined thefe into every form that can be given to them: they have fupposed, they have gueffed, 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 short, that they might leave no liberty untaken, even a wild fantastical fimilitude of founds has ferved to prop up a system. As the materials they have are few, fo are the very best, and such as pass for authentic, extremely precarious; as fome of these learned perfons themselves confess.

JULIUS AFRICANUS, EUSEBIUS, and GEORGE the monk opened the principal fources of all this fcience; but they corrupted the waters. Their point of view was to make profane history and chronology agree with facred; though the latter chronology is very far from being established with the clearness and certainty neceffary to make it a rule. For this purpose, the ancient monuments, that these writers conveyed to pofterity, were digested by them according to the fyftem they were to maintain: and none of these monuments were delivered down in their original form, and genuine purity. The Dynafties of MANETHO, for inftance, are broken to pieces by EUSEBIUS; and fuch fragments of them as fuited his defign, are ftruck into his work. We have, we know, no more of them. The Codex Alexandrinus we owe to GEORGE the monk. We have no other authority for it: and one cannot fee without amazement fuch a man as Sir JOHN MARSHAM undervaluing this authority in one page, and building his fyftem upon it in the next. *feems even by the lightness of his expreffions, if I remember well, for it is long fince I looked into his canon, not to be much concerned what foundation his fyftem had, though he shewed his skill in forming one, and in reducing the immenfe antiquity of the Egyptians within the limits of the Hebraic calculation. In short, my lord, all these systems are so many enchanted caftles; they appear to be fomething, they are nothing but appearances: like them too, diffolve the charm, and they vanish from the fight. To diffolve the charm, we must

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begin at the beginning of them: the expreffion may be odd, but it is fignificant. We must examine fcrupulously and indifferently the foundations on which they lean: and when we find thefe either faintly probable, or grofsly improbable, it would be foolish to expect any thing better in the fuperftructure. This fcience is one of thofe that are 66 a limine falutandae. To do thus much may be neceffary, that grave authority may not impofe on our ignorance: to do more, would be to affift this very authority in impofing falfe fcience upon us. I had rather take the DARIUS whom ALEXANDER conquered, for the fon of HYSTASPES, and make as many anachronisms as a Jewish chronologer, than facrifice half my life to collect all the learned lumber that fills the head of an antiquary.