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LETTER II.

be ready to allow, to the ftudy of hiftory ; yet Iwould not willingly even feem to fall into theridicule of afcribing to it fuch extravagant effe&s ,as feveral have done, from Tully down to Ca-saubon , La Mothe le Vayer , and other modernpedants. When Tully informs us, in the fecondbook of his Tufculan deputations, that the firffcSciPlO Aericanus had always in his hands theworks of Xenophon , he advances nothing butwhat is probable and reafonable. To fay nothingof the retreat of the ten thoufand , nor of otherparts of Xenophon ’s writings ; the images of virtuereprefetited in that admirable picture the Cyroptedia,were proper to entertain a foul that was fraughtwith virtue, and Cyrus was worthy to be imitatedby Scipio . So Selim emulated Caesar, wholeCommentaries were tranllated for his ufe againffcthe cuftoms of the Turks: fo Caesar emulatedAlexander; and Alexander, Achilles. Thereis nothing ridiculous here, except the ufe that is madeof this paffage by thofe who quote it. But whatthe fame Tully fays, in the fourth book of hisacademical deputations, concerning LlicULLUS,feems to me very extraordinary. “ In Afiam fact us“ imperator venit; cum elfet Roma profe&us rei“ militaris rudis ; ” ( one would be ready to afcribefo fudden a change, and fo vaft an improvement,to nothing lefs than knowledge infufed by infpira-tion, if we were not allured in the fame place thatthey were effected by very natural means, by fuchas it is in every man’s power to employ) « partimpercontando a peritis, partim in rebus geftis legendis.”