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RHETORIC.

genius and eloquence of the writer. To effect this essential,lie, the historian, must steer clear between a rapid recitaland prolix detail; he should know when to be concise, andwhen to enlarge, and where to make his selection of propercircumstances.

In those qualities, the ancients far excel the moderns;likewise in affording a variety*: from their introducing thespeeches, orations, &c. of their eminent historical persons inthe body of their work. Thucydides first introduced thispractice : this improvement affords a great insight into an-cient manners; also, it presented admirable political andmoral instruction. Tacitus excelled in it. In this respect,the moderns may claim, perhaps, .superior chastity ; by de-livering, in the person of the historian, those reasonings andsentiments of their historical personages.

The most splendid feature in history, and that which bestinforms us of the ability of the historian, is the delineationof character. These being considered as specimens of fine■writing, universally proclaim the merit of an author, pro-portionate to their truth and justice. An accomplished his-torian disdains to dazzle by the too frequent use of rheto-rical figures; equally removed from meanness and affectation,he is only solicitous to be natural, and to observe the line oftruth.

Voltaire introduced a most legitimate feature of historicalcomposition, in furnishing a correct detail of the effects ofpolitical and moral causes.

Another species of historical composition are Lives andMemoirs ; but Annals are more particularly of this genera.Lives, or Biographical writing, are a species less stately thanhistory, hut perhaps more instructive: as histories chieflyrelate to kingdoms, great events, or very eminent personages,whereas biography applies to individual concerns in everystation, and serves to direct private judgment in all affairs ofconsequence, and their general vital management. Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos are the most eminent Biographers ofAntiquity.

Memoirs are compositions which do not pretend to holdout a complete and regular detail of any certain period, norto be constant to that to which it refers, but only recountscircumstances relative to any person or transaction whichcame within the author’s own knowledge, or which hadbeen specifically detailed to him. It is required of anauthor of this class, that he be lively and interesting. TheFrench are famous for this species of writing; and theMemoirs of Cardinal de Retz, and of the Duke of Sully ,are considered to be excellent of the kind, as, joined to the