The American encyclopedia of history biography and travel comprising ancient and modern history the biography of the eminent men of Europe and America and the lives of distinguished travelers

One of the most useful directions for facilitating the study of history is to begin with authors who present a compendium or general view of the whole subject of history and afterwards to apply to the study of any particular history with which a more thorough acquaintance is desired. The Historical Department of this work has been compiled with a view to furnishing such a compendium. It covers the whole ground of Ancient History including China India Egypt Arabia Syria the Phœnicians Jews Assyrians Babylonians Lydians Modes and Persians together with Greece and Rome down through the dark ages to the dawn of modern civilization. It also embraces the history of the leading nations of modern Europe and of the United States of America. Wisdom is the great end of history. It is designed to supply the want of experience; and though it does not enforce its instructions with the same authority yet it furnishes a greater variety of lessons than it is possible for experience to afford in the longest life. Its object is to enlarge our views of the human character and to enable us to form a more correct judgment of human affairs. It must not therefore be a tale calculated merely to please and addressed to the fancy. Gravity and dignity are essential characteristics of history. Robertson and Bancroft may be named as model historians in these particulars. No light ornaments should be employed—no flippancy of style and no quaintness of wit; but the writer should sustain the character of a wise man writing for the instruction of posterity; one who has studied to inform himself well who has pondered his subject with care and addresses himself to our judgment rather than to our imagination. At the same time historical writing is by no means inconsistent with ornamented and spirited narration as witness Macaulay’s popular History of England. On the contrary it admits of much high ornament and elegance; but the ornaments must be consistent with dignity. Industry is also a very essential quality in an accurate historian. As history is conversant with great and memorable actions a historian should always keep posterity in view and relate nothing but what may be of some account to future ages. Those who descend to trivial matters beneath the dignity of history should be deemed journalists rather than historians. As it is the province of a historian to acquaint us with facts he should give a narration or description not only of the facts or actions themselves but likewise of such things as are necessarily connected with them; such as the characters of persons the circumstances of time and place the views and designs of the principal actors and the issue and event of the actions which he describes. The drawing of characters is one of the most splendid as it is one of the most difficult ornaments of historical composition; for characters are generally considered as professed exhibitions of fine writing; and a historian who seeks to shine in them is often in danger of carrying refinement to excess from a desire of appearing very profound and penetrating. Among the improvements that have of late years been introduced into historical composition is the attention that is now given to laws customs commerce religion literature and every thing else that tends to exhibit the genius and spirit of nations. Historians are now expected to exhibit manners as well as facts and events. Voltaire was the first to introduce this improvement and Allison Macaulay and others have adopted it.