as to be able to interchange sentiments or contemplate the soul which yet can contemplate them! The complicated motions of the stars, are as the working of an Omniscient brain-a universal intellect. They measure ages but feel them not. Unchanged by time, they seem as if they had existed from a past eternity, and as if their future career were to be as interminable as the space in which they revolve. But humanity is a nobler emblem of the uncreated glory. Man sees what all this means. Its perception is in his sight. Its interpretation is in his soul. Were there not the rational beings to see and hear; no heavens could declare the glory of God, nor firmament shew forth his handy-work of power and wisdom and benevolence. Their beauty is felt by him, not by themselves! Their laws are investigated by him, not by themselves! In knowing them he is their superior and a better image of God than they are. It is spirit that is most congenial to spirit; so that the grandest wonders of this wonderful world, which are those of heavenly bodies and spaces and motions, are not naturally associated so much with the idea of Divine perfection, and reflecting the glory of the Supreme to the same extent as the constitution and operations of human thought. At present, it is true, we can regard man but as a young untaught pupil in the school at which high orders of intelligence preside. Clogged with flesh and blood, we are incapable of much expansion of intellect or of knowledge relating to much more than to objects sensible and material. Here we are but beginning to be, learning, as it were, the alphabet of the language of the highest powers surrounding the Eternal's throne; and to be able to hold converse with our seniors, and reach the high themes of high understandings, we must be dismissed from a state of sense and material confinement. Meantime, let us cultivate and improve the faculties we enjoy. Their most important employment is of course to be auxiliaries to the dictates of the moral sense. Their most happy state is to be in harmony with conscience. And as a powerful motive to piety, we should draw upon the stores of natural knowledge. Science is a book of facts and principles nearly as express in its intimations of the Divine character and will, as the oracular voice of the Bible. It is rich and replete with all that can gratify curiosity; while it unfolds and elucidates the noble features of Divine wisdom, power and goodness, in all their exuberance of beauty, glory and grandeur, on which the mind may dilate itself in sublime and ineffable satisfaction. And our knowledge shall increase in the dominions of heaven when from the eternal hills of Paradise we may, with angelic telescopes, extend our survey of the complicated movements of the wheels of nature, and be able to tune a harp to the praise of Him who made man at first but a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honour. Here our understanding gropes and wanders in darkness visible. Such is the feebleness of our mental grasp of ineffable truth, that we are sometimes dazzled and confused more than illuminated, by the reflections of uncreated light, even on the pages of heaven's revelation. In another and higher sphere of being, however, "we shall see as we are seen, and know even as we are known." Alnwick. J. S. H. SONG. BY ROBERT GILFILLAN. AWAY to the woodlands, Eliza, my fair! The morning is bright, and the valleys are green; The green earth is budding in summer's array, Away to the woodlands! the summer is near, "Tis the soft tear of gladness, the dew-drop of joy. REMARKS ON HISTORY AND HISTORIANS, ESPECIALLY HUME, ROBERTSON AND GIBBON. From Lectures lately delivered in the Sorbonne. BY M. VILLEMAIN, PROFESSOR OF FRENCH ELOQUENCE, & MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY. In modern times, previous to Voltaire and the historical renovation he has produced and which Hume has followed, three men appear to me to stand prominently forth in their different manners of writing history-Machiavel, de Thou, and Bossuet. These men constitute three widely different types; and not one of them is the type which I think would suit our epoch. Hence we draw this natural conclusion, that history is not subject to any necessary and precise form, that of all kinds of composition its character is the most various and manifold; that it always leaves room for the display of original talent; that according to the writer's point of view, according to the character of his genius, of his epoch, or the special end he proposes, history undergoes correspondent transformations, and appears in all its different forms equally true. Machiavel is at once modern and ancient: herein lies his originality. From antiquity, he borrows that vigour of mind, that energy of expression which engraves rather than paints, and those eloquent dis courses which he puts into the mouth, now of an Albizzi, now of a conspirator of Florence almost transformed into a citizen of Rome. But he possesses, at the same time, that penetrating sagacity and that accurateness which are the gift of modern times. By the necessity of his subject, he is led to that rapid view of the past, to those vast and philosophical summaries which unite in one coup d'œil all the distinctive characters of a nation or an epoch. Nothing can be finer, in this respect, than the first book of the History of Florence.' There, all the barbarity of the middle ages is condensed, so to speak, into a few pages, yet without sacrificing graphic description to profound reflection. After him, de Thou stands conspicuous by eminent qualities, which I would call entirely modern; for the conscientious impartiality, the calm of reason and justice which characterize him, were merits almost quite unknown to the ancients, and almost unattainable by them. The passions of the ancient republics, those quarrels so violent between the little states of Greece, and between the parties which formed as many states in each democracy, seemed to exclude that integrity and independence to which philosophy exalts de Thou, in a time of fanaticism and fury. After this great and upright man arises Bossuet, elevated by genius. What the experience of the world,-what a practical and contemptuous knowledge of common life had contributed to Machiavel's character, the grand truths of Christianity contribute, under a different form, to the manner of Bossuet. On his high episcopal chair, rather than at the historian's desk, he collects and sums up the histories of all nations, he makes the human race pass before him, he urges them on, he bids them march, march,' according to the eloquent allusion of one of his most ingenious panegyrists. He precipitates them towards the abyss, and seems to have predicted what he relates. There is something lofty and solemn in this manner of a prophet: it is not the vocation of the historian, but the power, and, if you will, the charm of the orator. How very different are these three forms, and yet how far are they from having exhausted the infinite variety of historical genius! I believe, Gentlemen, were we to select and enumerate the moral and intellectual qualities of the historian, we would almost be afraid to think on all that is requisite. Cicero strove hard to form his ideal orator; he has imposed on him many onerous conditions of knowledge, facility and genius; he has required of him at the same time much study and great talents. I consider the duty of the historian to be not less vast, not less difficult of performance. Thus, in respect of his moral qualities, I would demand the love of truth, that is, the zeal of accuracy and a patience carried to scrupulosity. Under the love of truth I comprehend not only the necessity of knowing the cold and lifeless truth, buried in diplomatic papers, but the power of discovering, of feeling,-of restoring local and contemporary truth, of designing anew the physiognomies of personages, of setting them in motion, by rendering to them, without any trace of the writer's own period or personalities, their genuine passions and costumes. Here then is a moral quality which becomes, in the historian, a mental endowment. I would next require of him the love of humanity or of liberty. You see, my exactions are not immoderate; for I can conceive that, according to the diversity of the times and the countries, there are certain subjects in which the love of liberty, too openly manifested in the historian, would be a sort of anachronism and impertinence in the midst of the personages and facts he was describing. I demand then, in a historian, the love of humanity or of liberty. His impartial justice ought not to be cold and impassable. He must, on the contrary, have an interest,-a passion; he must wish, hope, love, suffer or rejoice in what he relates. Look at Tacitus;-he is the greatest of historians, because while he is the most upright, he is, I am bold to say, the most impassioned; because he discerns as a judge, and deposes as a witness who is still full of emotion and of anger at what he has seen. Lastly, I exact of the historian, on certain occasions at least, the love of country. I do not agree with Lucian in thinking that he should be a stranger without a native land,-without altars; nor with a writer of the eighteenth century, that he should be attached to no country, no party, no religion. Surely such a demand is most foolish! -You ought to believe the historian; but how shall you believe him who himself believes nothing? The historian must have a real faith; he will not impose it on you, but he will gain your confidence, because he shews himself to be in earnest and to have a belief; and if in the midst of the peculiar opinions which he confesses, you discover a sound and elevated judgment which recognizes and discovers the truth, then the historian effectually enlightens and persuades you. Such are the moral qualities of the historian! As to the intellectual qualities, they appear to me almost overwhelming and infinite. It seems a thing unjust that to have talents is more difficult than to have virtues; yet such is the truth. Thus, Gentlemen, for our modern times especially, loaded with so many facts, and with so much science,-for this Europe that comprehends so many great States, each a world in itself, and that moves in a Universe which it touches and influences at all points; in the midst of this infinite multiplicity of political and civil laws, of institutions more or less perfect; in this complication of war,-marine,-finances, --and social biography, (if I may use the expression) I sink beneath the thought of those immense stores of acquired knowledge, and that singularly intelligent and docile mind requisite in a historian. For universal intelligence, so to speak, the knowledge of every thing and of every detail in every thing, seems to me almost an indispensable quality. How then is the appearance of so many histories to be accounted for? It is because the writers, like me, never reflect on all these necessary qualifications. But farther, supposing the historian to be endowed with those moral qualities which I consider as the soul of his talent; supposing him to have acquired that universal knowledge, just described; and to have that pliancy, that ardour and that facility of intellect, ever prompt in conceiving and apprehending, still all this is not sufficient; he must be a master of composition; he must possess the art of distributing and blending together these treasures of knowledge and of ideas; he must be able to render his narration interesting and pro VOL. I. 2 K gressive. I know well that it is commonly allowed-not, as pretends Cicero, that history amuses, in whatever manner it may be written, but, that history enjoys the privilege of being tiresome, without any one having a right to complain. Look only at the innumerable histories written during the eighteenth century. Take Mezerai,-the servile and fanatical Daniel,— the learned, but cold and diffuse Rapin de Thoiras. Whatever may be the grandeur of the events related, excepting certain moments where the reality has been stronger than the historian, you are tired and repelled; and yet what else is history than a picture of life? and what is more animated-more interesting-more worthy of human contemplation than the spectacle of life? Why are we, unceas ingly, so curious and passionate spectators of contemporary events? and why are these same events, buried in a book of history, so often for our own country as well as for others, tedious and revolting? The fault undoubtedly lies with the historians: bat in order to escape from this fault, I am almost afraid to think of the necessary talent. This talent, I reduce, I sum up in one word—the art of composition; that is to say, the art of disposing reality, as imagination disposes its fictions-the art of laying out a territory whose situation is fixed, just as oriental poetry arranges those fabulous countries which she delights to create in the ærial vacuity. Human life is a process, whose details interest contemporaries, but which must be abridged for futurity. The historian ought to select from the infinite number of facts what is worthy of surviving,-what is durable, that is, in an eternal relation to human nature, and illustrative of that nature as it is exhibited at particular epochs. The style yet remains to be considered; but we have often said that style should not be regarded as a separate thing which can in a manner be taken off or restored, and is independent of the ideas. In the fourth century Christian writers fancied for a time that, in order to destroy Paganism, it was only necessary to carry off the style of Homer and Menander, and employ it upon Christian subjects. In our days a dexterous industry detaches from the domes and walls of temples the chefs d'œuvre of painting, and deposes them on canvass, to secure their preservation. But in things intellectual this superficies of style is nothing. The artificial works which the early Chris tians thus composed in imitation of Pagan productions proved tiresome to those for whom they were made. When, on the contrary, they separated not their style from their thoughts, nor their thoughts from their entire existence; when they made discourses merely to exhort these to martyrdom-those to repentance, they were sublime, and they invented a style which could no longer be stripped off from the ideas, but was intimately united with them as the soul is with the body. Such, Gentlemen, is my manner of regarding style. I will not speak of it as isolated; it will flow from all those qualities of mind and soul which we have indicated. Thus from strict integrity, from a zeal for truth in all its details, from an imagination, fond of all that complete for it the image of what is true, will spring up ardour of expression and warmth of colouring. From the learned and happy distribution of the various parts of his |