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IIISPALIS, in ancient geography, a town of Baitica, in Ilispa-!nia Ultra, now called Seville . _ |

HISPAN1A, in ancient geography, a country or kingdom of;Europe, now called Spain ; called Ilesperia Ultima, by Horace,because the western-most part of Europe; also Iberia, from the riverIberus . Its name Hispania, or tizcaia, is of Phoenician original,from its great number of rabbits. See Spain .

HISPANIOLA, or ST. DOMINGO, the largest of the An-tilles or Caribbee islands, in the West Indies . It lies between 17°b')' and 20° of N. lat. and between <17° 35' and 74° 15' W. Ion.Jt is 00 miles N. W. by W. of Porto Rico, 66 S. K. of Cuba , 135E. N. F.. of Jamaica , and 3,500 from the Land’s End of England.'Phe climate is hot, but not reckoned unwholesome ; and some ofthe inhabitants are said to arrive at the age of 120. It is some-times refreshed by breezes and rains; and its salubrity is likewisein a great measure owing to the beautiful variety of hills .and val-levs, woods and rivers, which every where present themselves. Itis’indeed reckoned by far the finest and most pleasant island of theAntilles , as being the best accommodated to all tile purposes oflife when duly cultivated. Us extent is estimated at 420 miles inlength from E. to W. and 140 in breadth, where broadest, fromN. to S. This island was discovered by Christopher Columbus ,on the 9th of December 1497. It then formed five kingdoms, calledMaqua, Marien, lliguav, Maguana, and Xaraguay, each govern-ed by sovereigns called caciques. The Spaniards had possessionof the whole of it for 120 years. This island, famous for beingtheir earliest settlement in the world, was the first in high estima-tion for the quantity of gold it supplied. This wealth diminishedwith the inhabitants of the country, whom they obliged to dig itout of the bowels of the earth ; arid the source of it was entirelydried up, when they were exterminated, which was quickly done,by aieries of the most shocking barbarities that ever disgraced (liehistory of any nation. Benzoin relates, that of two millions of in-habitants, contained in the island when discovered by Columbusill 1492, scarcely 153 were alive in 1545. Forjvnany years thisisland was possessed by the Spaniards and French jointly. It wasafterwards ceded entirely to the French , but is now erected intoan independent republic.

HfSSAR, a district of Ilindoostan, in Delhi : with its capi-tal. The latter lies near the Surfooly, 112 miles W, N. W. ofDelhi.

111STER, in entomology, a genus of the coleoptera order ofinsects. Antenna: clavate, the club solid ; the last joiiit com-pressed, decurved ; head retractile within the body ; mouth fof-cipated; shells shorter than the body, truncate ; fore-shanks tooth-ed, hind-shanks spinous. There are twenty-four species. Themost common in Europe is II. unir.olor, which is of a glossy coalblack colour, and of a slightly flattened shape. It is often seen inthe gardens, but its larva is unknown.

II1STO KIOG R A I’ll ER, and yjatu.’,] a professed his-;

torian, or writer of history. An historian, of all authors, spreadsthe most ample theatre; fie erecis the greatest tribunal on earth ;for it is his office to sit supreme judge of all lli.it passes in theworld, to pronounce the destiny of the great ones of the earth, amifix their character with posterity ; to do justice to virtue andworth, in bestowing eternity upon great and good actions, and fix-ing an everlasting mark of infamy on bad ones ; to instruct all peo-ple and nations, and direct the conduct of ages; he thereforeought to be endowed with many great and uncommon qualifica-tions. lie must tie a person of consummate knowledge of menand tilings, of sound judgement, uncommon sagacity and penetra-tion, experienced in matters of slate and war, of great integrity,firmness of mind, freedom of sentiment, and master of a pure, clear,nervous, and exalted style. An historian whose province it is torpeak to kings and princes, to the great men of all ages and coun-tries, and to be the common master and instructor of mankind,must not only write with purity, simplicity, and manly sense, butwith dignity and elegance: lie must reject all that is vulgar andlow in style, make the majesty and sublimity of his expressioncomport with the dignity of ’the subject; must bv an exact choiceand propriety of words, a natural disposition of phrases, and a pru-dent moderate use of figures, give weight to his thoughts, force toliis language, and imprint a character of greatness on all that hesays. lie must at the same time represent things with an air ofgravity and prudence, and not give a loose to the heat of imagina-VOL. II.—no. 104.

!] tion, or vivacity of wit ; but discreetly suppress every thing that|| shall seem idle, languid, and unprofitable, and give every thingj that just figure and proportion which is consistent with proprietyand decorum, lie must endeavour at a noble simplicity ofthought, language, design, and ordinance, and carefully avoid ailprofuseness of false conceit, strained expression, and affectedpompousness so inconsistent with the gravity, dignity, and noblecharacter, of history, hi a word, lie must write so as to be intelli-gible to the ignorant, and yet charm the wise ; form and expresssucli ideas as are great, and yet shall appear very common, and in-termix no other ornament with his narration than what the modes-ty of truth can bear. He should be above the reach and powerof hopes and fears, and ail kinds of interest, that lie may alwaysdare to speak the truth, and write of all without prejudice ; religi-ously observing never to abuse the public faith, nor to advanceany tiling upon common fame, which is always uncertain, but uponundoubted memoirs and faithful relations of such persons as havehad a hand in affairs. He must always be upon his guard againsttiir bias and affections of those who supply him with matter, andmust not credulously give his assent (o the historians that went be-fore him, without enquiring narrowly into their clianleter, andwhat imiuence thexj^niay have been under when they wrote, inorder to make a just estimate of their weight and credit. All his-torian, as to ilia matter, should choose subjects great in themselvesand such as are worthy of public fame ami remembrance ; andshould make himself so far master of his matter, as to be able tocast it into what form lie please^, and to strike upon all his subjectsthe colours they are naturally disposed to bear, in order to makehis lessons profitable to posterity, by regulating (lie heart and spi-rits of men, animating them to great and virtuous actions by illus-trious examples, and cautioning them against 'ice, folly,cruelty, and injustice, by laying open the fatal consequences re-sulting from them. The course of his narration must proceed inthe order of time in which the facts happened, in a pure, grave,uninterrupted series, such as may not improperly he compared toa great river flowing with composed majesty and stately smooth-ness ; and when it falls in his way to introduce little occurrences,they must be so artfully interwoven with the great, in the threadof the narration, as to offer ft seasonable entertainment and relict tothe reader from the fatigue that too sedulous an attention to thegreat requiretli. lie must also observe great judgement in theordinance and disposition of events and their circumstances, so a?to interest the'reader, and let him into all ids thoughts and views,by making his persons act as their character and temper inclinedthem; discovering their maimers, sentiments, designs, motives,and operations, as they really stand in a necessary dependence up-on each other, and with so natural a connection, as to shew nothingout of its place. His transitions, in which consists tiie great art ofnarration, and one of its principal beauties, must be natural and; easy, arising from the difference of subject rather Ilian expression.He must make a wise and judicious choice of circumstances, suchas are proper to enlarge ami improve the ideas of tilings, and tostrike that light and colour upon them which most easily attractsbelief, and engages the mind ; and must for that purpose alwavsobserve a due mixture of great and little circumstances, neither ofwhich must lie carried beyond nature, or be so minute, low, orfrivolous, as to debase his subject. He must not only recite thebare events and actions of men, but also lay open the motives andprinciples from which they took their rise, and upon which theyproceeded to their final issues. He must lay open the hearts ofthe actors, let his reader into the most important secrets of theircouncils and designs, and oblige him with a sight of those secretsprings which move them to enterprizes, and of the causes of theirsuccess or miscarriage. He must be very sparing and cautious intiie use of descriptions, which are to lie introduced so far only asthey serve to illustrate things that are essential to the main subject,and to enliven tiie narration ; and even in that ease they, must liesuccinct and elegant. The frequent use of harangues are disap-proved of bv many judicious persons ; for these long formal ha-rangues of generals to their soldiers, when in the presence of theenemy, and ready to enter upon action, which we find in manyhistorians, are undoubtedly not only unnatural and improbable,but contrary to the truth of history. Nevertheless, a short speechsuited to tiie subject, made by a person of eminent character, hasits proper beauty, and animates a narration. A judicious historian8 X ought

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