form ourselves to the reafon of them; but we must not affect to tranflate fervilely into our conduct, if your lordship will allow me the expreffion, the particular conduct of thofe good and great men, whose images history sets before us. CODRUS and the DECII devoted themselves to death: one, because an oracle had foretold that the army whose general was killed would be victorious; the others in compliance with a fuperftition that bore great analogy to a ceremony practifed in the old Egyptian church, and added afterwards, as many others of the fame origin were, to the ritual of the Ifraelites. These are examples of great magnanimity, to be fure, and of magnanimity employed in the moft worthy caufe. In the early days of the Athenian and Roman government, when the credit of oracles and all kinds of fuperftition prevailed, when heaven was piously thought to delight in blood and even human blood was shed under wild notions of atonement, propitiation, purgation, expiation, and fatisfaction; they who fet fuch examples as these, acted an heroical and a rational part too. But if a general fhould act the fame part now, and, in order to fecure his victory, get killed as fast as he could; he might pass for an hero, but, I am fure, he would pass for a mad

madman. Even these examples, however, are of ufe: they excite us at least to venture our lives freely in the fervice of our country, by propofing to our imitation men who devoted themselves to certain death in the fervice of theirs. They fhew us what a turn of imagination can operate, and how the greatest trifle, nay the greatest absurdity, dreffed up in the folemn airs of religion, can carry ardor and confidence, or the contrary fentiments, into the breasts of thousands.

THERE are certain general principles, and rules of life and conduct, which always. must be true, because they are conformable to the invariable nature of things. He who studies history as he would study philofophy, will foon distinguish and collect them, and by doing fo will foon form to himself a general fyftem of ethics and politics on the fureft foundations, on the trial of these principles and rules in all ages, and on the confirmation of them by univerfal experience. I faid he will diftinguish them; for once more I must say, that as to particular modes of actions, and measures of conduct, which the customs of different countries, the manners of different ages, and the circumftances of different conjunctures, have appropriated, as it were; it

is always ridiculous, or imprudent and dangerous, to employ them. But this is not all. By contemplating the vast variety of particular characters and events; by examining the ftrange combinations of caufes, different, remote and feemingly oppofite, that often concur in producing one effect; and the surprising fertility of one fingle and uniform cause in the producing of a multitude of effects as different, as remote, and feemingly as oppofite; by tracing carefully, as carefully as if the subject he confiders were of perfonal and immediate concern to him, all the minute and fometimes fcarceperceivable circumstances, either in the characters of actors, or in the course of actions, that hiftory enables him to trace, and according to which the success of affairs, even the greateft, is moftly determined; by these, and fuch methods as thefe, for I might defcend into a much greater detail, a man of parts may improve the study of history to it's proper and principal ufe; he may sharpen the penetration, fix the attention of his mind, and ftrengthen his judgment; he may acquire the faculty and the habit of difcerning quicker, and looking farther; and of exerting that flexibility, and steadiness, which are neceffary to be joined in the conduct of all affairs that depend

depend on the concurrence or oppofition of other men.

Mr. LOCKE, I think, recommends the study of geometry even to those who have no defign of being geometricians: and he gives a reafon for it, that may be applied to the prefent cafe. Such perfons may: forget every problem that has been propofed, and every folution that they or others. have given; but the habit of pursuing long trains of ideas will remain with them, and they will pierce through the mazes of fophism, and discover a latent truth, where perfons who have not this habit will never find it.

In this manner the study of history will prepare us for action and observation. History is the ancient author: experience is the modern language. We form our taste on the first; we translate the sense and reason, we transfuse the spirit and force; but we imitate only the particular graces of the original; we imitate them according to the idiom of our own tongue, that is, we fubftitute often equivalents in the lieu of them, and are far from affecting to copy them fervilely. To conclude, as experience is converfant about the prefent, and the present D 4 enables

is always ridiculous, or imprud, hiftory dangerous, to employ them. by knownot all. By contemplating of particular characters a mining the ftrange co different, remote a that often concur

and the surprif uniform cauf

tude of eff seeming1

as care

were

hi

Jord,

we become the things that

which I make the

pal ufe of the study of hifiled on by those who have ning the method to be followed dy: and fince we propofe differmuft of course take different Few of their treatises have fallen

to my

hands:

one,

the method of Bodin,

have red. I took it up with much expeca man famous in his time, I remember to tation many years ago; I went through it, might have given almoft any other title to and remained extremely disappointed. He his book as properly as that which stands before it. There are not many pages in it that relate any more to his fubject than a tedious fifth chapter, wherein he accounts for the characters of nations according to their pofitions on the globe, and according to the influence of the ftars; and affures his reader that nothing can be more neceffary than fuch a difquifition, " ad univer"fam hiftoriarum cognitionem, et incor

ruptum earum judicium." In his me

thod,