tiades, the son of Conon, with Miltiades, the son of Cypselus and let any one read his lives of Conon and Agesilaus, and afterwards look into Xenophon and Justin, and decide whether to write history or biography in that manner is not equally as useless as writing a

romance.

Rome rises in Livy from a band of criminals, slaves, and debtors; but in the amplifying page of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, she sprang from a colony, with Romulus at the head, peacefully issuing from the gates of Alba. Indeed, so much contrariety is there in the earlier ages of this city, that Niebuhr treats the existence of Romulus and Numa as unreal as that of Hercules, Theseus, and Menu; and there is, to say the least of it, some ingenuity in a supposition which, I believe, was first suggested by Levesque de Pouilly *.

In later times, it seems almost impossible, that such beings as some of the first Cæsars are described by Tacitus and Suetonius should ever have existed †! There is sometimes much flattery of the living in a satire on the dead; and it is well known that many of the emperors had no distaste to having the crimes and vices of their predecessors recorded: since it served to cover or disguise their own. Yet who can refuse to credit these awful pictures, when we find many of the emperors, after the Antonines, quite as detestable as those previous to Trajan. The character of Tiberius, as given by Tacitus, however, appears to me to be an impossible one.

* Histoire de la Republique Romaine; or, Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions. 1722.

I know not,' said the Abbé St. Pierre, whether kings, like 'Caligula and Domitian, are gods; but certain it is they are not men.'

Shall we turn to Paterculus ? His characters of Cicero *, of Antistius †, and of Piso ‡, are admirably drawn; but that of Scipio § is romantic; and those of Tiberius and Sejanus beneath the dignity of contempt.

The account of Regulus's torture by the Carthaginians is said by some to have been made up between the time of Polybius and Cicero. Cicero || says they cut off his eyelids, threw him into a dungeon, and kept him awake in a machine till he died. Florus ¶ says he was tortured and crucified; Appian ** records that he was put into a barrel full of sharp nails; (in which state he is drawn by Salvator Rosa.) Diodorus Siculus ascribes his death to neglect and carelessness ††; but Polybius is entirely silent in respect to the whole. Who could know so well as Polybius? and had he suppressed such a remarkable atrocity, would the Romans have valued his history ‡‡?

Some writers, like Lactantius, may be credited in respect to public occurrences; but not in regard to private ones. Some invent the principal part of their materials; and others, like Varillas §§, quote authors, who never had existence but in their own imaginations. As to Eusebius,-he confesses that, in treating of one

Lib. ii. 134.

† Lib. ii. 153.

Lib. ii. 265.

§ Qui nihil in vitâ nisi laudandum aut fecit, aut dixit, aut sensit. || De Officiis, Lib. iii.

** De Bell. Punico.

Lib. viii. ++ Lib. xxiv.

Can this portion of Polybius be lost? a knowledge of this would settle the question at once.

§§ Anecdotes de Florence; ou, l'Histoire Secrète de la Maison de Medicis. 1685.

persecution, he suppressed all that could throw ignominy on the professors of religion, and related all that might redound to their glory.

Shall we not prefer Arrian's History to that of Quintus Curtius? His accounts are more probable; his authorities are quoted*; his geography is more accu

rate.

Whose accounts shall we select in respect to the Jews? Those of Tacitus, of Justin, or of Josephus ? They agree in nothing.

Some princes have enjoined their reigns not to be recorded at all. 'It is ridiculous,' said Niger, 'to write 'the histories of those of whom we stand either in hope or in fear t.' Some Arabic sultans have even gone so far as to punish historians with death!

Shall we allude to the diversity, which history presents, in respect to individual character? The Cæsar Borgia, whom Machiavel represents as courageous, eloquent, and munificent, and whose crimes and errors he ascribes to estrema malignita di fortunat, is the same person whom Guicciardini stigmatises as being a monster of lust, rapine, injustice, and cruelty §. In respect to the Medici family, who shall decide between the opposed histories of Nerli || and Nardi¶?

* Ptolemy and Aristobulus,

Spartian in Nigro, c. ii. 12.

Del Princ., viii. 15.

§ His true character is emphatically set forth by Paulo Giovio : - Rabidus, barbarus, impotens,

Humani generis pernicies, atque hominum lues.'

|| Commentari.

Carm. Must.; Poet. Ital., v., 433. Le Historie della Città di Fiorenza.

Cor

Italian biography is equally contradictory. reggio, according to some*, was of an obscure family, and died in poverty and want; in the page of others †, his predecessors were illustrious, and he left an inheritance to his children sufficiently ample.

The causes of actions, too, are equally misrepresented, or rendered doubtful by the difference of relation. Thus, though Guicciardini and Rucellai insist, that Pope Alexander VI. excited Charles VIII. of France to the invasion of Naples, it is far from certain; since Comines, who was more likely to be accurately informed, attributes it entirely to the entreaties of Sforza, Duke of Milan. In respect to the fact, whether this pope died of a fever, or of the poison he and his son had prepared for others, who shall determine between those who assert the latter, and Burchardo and Muratori, who insist upon the former ?

In respect to battles; in that fought near Bologna, in which Federigo, Count of Urbino, was general of the Florentines, and Alessandro Sforza, of the Venetians;

-one account states, that three hundred men were

* Vide Vita d' Antonio de Correggio.

Fa. Orlando; Abecedario Pittorico.

This pope is allowed to have possessed virtues as well as inordinate vices; and he is, therefore, one of the few to whom justice has been done, and not by Guicciardini only:

'Fù magnanimo, et generoso, et prudente,' &c.

Monaldeschi; Comm. Istor., 148. Ven. 1634.

'In Alexandro, ut de Annibale Livius

Scribit, æquabant vitia virtutes,' &c.

Raph. Volater; Anthropologia, xxii. 683. Basil, 1559.

killed; a second increases the number to eight hundred; and a third to a thousand; while Machiavel insists that both parties kept the field at the close of the day; and that not a single soldier lost his life!

Nor are German histories much more to be depended upon. In the dispute, for instance, between Huss and the clergy of Prague, in consequence of which a considerable number of Germans retired to Leipsic, one author states the multitude to have consisted of two thousand*, a second insists upon five thousand †, a third swells it to twenty-four thousand ‡, a fourth to thirtysix thousand §, and a fifth to forty-four thousand ||.

6

These discrepancies remind us of Suwarrow. Having desired his secretary to draw up an account of the battle at Persan, the secretary wrote,- The Russians lost two thousand, the Turks three hundred.' 'Very 'well,' said the General; a plain story enough, and not far from the truth. But you do not seem to have ' reflected on the nature of your subject. The Russians, remember, are friends. We must spare them. Write 'down two hundred and fifty killed. But the Turks,— · they, you know, are infidels; and we must, as soon as we can, utterly exterminate them. Write twenty-two 'thousand ¶.' And with this despatch in the Moscow and St. Petersburgh Gazettes, the good people of Russia, as well as those of all Europe, were, for many years, deluded; and, as far as I know, are so still.

* Trithemius.

+ Æneas Sylvius.

‡ Dubravius.

§ Lauda.

Lupatius.

See James's Tour through Germany, vol. i. 440.