The first we call chronicles, the second
lives, and the third narrations or relations. Of these, although
the first be the most complete and absolute kind of history, and
hath most estimation and glory, yet the second excelleth it in
profit and use, and the third in verity and sincerity. For history
of times representeth the magnitude of actions, and the public faces
and deportments of persons, and passeth over in silence the smaller
passages and motions of men and matters. But such being the
workmanship of God, as He doth hang the greatest weight upon the
smallest wires, maxima e minimis, suspendens, it comes therefore to
pass, that such histories do rather set forth the pomp of business
than the true and inward resorts thereof. But lives, if they be
well written, propounding to themselves a person to represent, in
whom actions, both greater and smaller, public and private, have a
commixture, must of necessity contain a more true, native, and
lively representation. So again narrations and relations of
actions, as the war of Peloponnesus, the expedition of Cyrus Minor,
the conspiracy of Catiline, cannot but be more purely and exactly
true than histories of times, because they may choose an argument
comprehensible within the notice and instructions of the writer:
whereas he that undertaketh the story of a time, specially of any
length, cannot but meet with many blanks and spaces, which he must
be forced to fill up out of his own wit and conjecture.
Pages:
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148