LETTER VI.

From what period modern hiftory is peculiarly useful to the fervice of our country, viz.

From the end of the fifteenth century to the prefent.

The divifion of this into three particular periods:

In order to a sketch of the history and state of Europe from that time.

INCE then you are, my lord, by

SING

your birth, by the nature of our government, and by the talents God has given you, attached for life to the fervice of your country; fince genius alone cannot enable you to go through this service with honor to yourself and advantage to your country, whether you support or whether you oppose the administrations that arife; fince a great ftock of knowledge, acquired betimes and continually

improved, is neceffary to this end; and fince one part of this stock must be collected from the study of hiftory, as the other part is to be gained by obfervation and experience, I come now to speak to your lordship of such history as has an immediate relation to the great duty and bufinefs of your life, and of the method to be observed in this study. The notes I have by me, which were of fome little use thus far, serve me no farther, and I have no books to confult. No matter; I fhall be able to explain my thoughts without their affiftance, and lefs liable to be tedious. I hope to be as full and as exact on memory alone, as the manner in which I fhall treat the fubject requires me to be.

I SAY then, that however clofely affairs are linked together in the progreffion of governments, and how much foever events that follow are dependant on thofe that precede, the whole connexion

diminishes to fight as the chain lengthens; till at last it seems to be broken, and the links that are continued from that point bear no proportion nor any fimilitude to the former. I would not be understood to fpeak only of those great changes, that are wrought by a concur rence of extraordinary events; for inftance the expulfion of one nation, the deftruction of one government, and the establishment of another: but even of those that are wrought in the fame governments and among the fame people, flowly and almost imperceptibly, by the neceffary effects of time, and flux condition of human affairs. When fuch changes as these happen in several states about the fame time, and confequently affect other ftates by their vicinity, and by many different relations which they frequently bear to one another; then is one of thofe periods formed, at which the chain spoken of is fo broken as to have little or no real or visible connexion with that which we

fee continue. A new fituation, different from the former, begets new interests in the fame proportion of difference; not in this or that particular state alone, but in all those that are concerned by vicinity or other relations, as I faid juft now, in one general system of policy. New interefts beget new maxims of government, and new methods of conduct. Thefe, in their turns, beget new manners, new habits, new cuftoms. The longer this new conftitution of affairs continues, the more will this difference increase and altho fome analogy may remain long between what preceded and what fucceeds fuch a period, yet will this analogy foon become an object of mere curiofity, not of profitable enquiry. Such a period therefore is, in the true fense of the words, an epocha or an aera, a point of time at which you ftop, or from which you reckon forward. I fay forward; because we are not to study in the prefent cafe, as chronologers com

pute,

pute, backward. Should we persist to carry our researches much higher, and to push them even to some other period of the fame kind, we should misemploy our time: the causes then laid having spent themselves, the series of effects derived from them being over, and our concern in both confequently at an end. But a new system of caufes and effects, that fubfifts in our time, and whereof our conduct is to be a part, arifing at the last period, and all that paffes in our time being dependant on what has paffed fince that period, or being immediately relative to it, we are extremely concerned to be well informed about all those paffages. To be entirely ignorant about the ages that precede this aera would be shameful. Nay fome indulgence may be had to a temperate curiofity in the review of them. But to be learned about them is a ridiculous affectation in any man who means to be useful to the present age. Down to this aera let us read history:

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