Hurd, the vigorous sense of
Mallet and Robertson, and the impartial philosophy of Hume? Could I even
surmount these obstacles, I should shrink with terror from the modern
history of England, where every character is a problem, and every reader
a friend or an enemy; where a writer is supposed to hoist a flag of
party, and is devoted to damnation by the adverse faction. Such would
be my reception at home: and abroad, the historian of Raleigh must
encounter an indifference far more bitter than censure or reproach. The
events of his life are interesting: but his character is ambiguous, his
actions are obscure, his writings are English, and his fame is confined
to the narrow limits of our language and our island. I must embrace a
safer and more extensive theme.

"There is one which I should prefer to all others, The History of the
Liberty of the Swiss, of that independence which a brave people rescued
from the House of Austria, defended against a Dauphin of France, and
finally sealed with the blood of Charles of Burgundy. From such a theme,
so full of public spirit, of military glory, of examples of virtue, of
lessons of government, the dullest stranger would catch fire; what might
not I hope, whose talents, whatsoever they may be, would be inflamed
with the zeal of patriotism. But the materials of this history are
inaccessible to me, fast locked in the obscurity of an old barbarous
German dialect, of which I am totally ignorant, and which I cannot
resolve to learn for this sole and peculiar purpose.

"I have another subject in view, which is the contrast of the former
history: the one a poor, warlike, virtuous republic, which emerges into
glory and freedom; the other a commonwealth, soft, opulent, and corrupt;
which, by just degrees, is precipitated from the abuse to the loss of
her liberty: both lessons are, perhaps, equally instructive. This second
subject is, The History of the Republic of Florence under the House
of Medicis: a period of one hundred and fifty years, which rises or
descends from the dregs of the Florentine democracy, to the title and
dominion of Cosmo de Medicis in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. I might
deduce a chain of revolutions not unworthy of the pen of Vertot;
singular men, and singular events; the Medicis four times expelled, and
as often recalled; and the Genius of Freedom reluctantly yielding to the
arms of Charles V. and the policy of Cosmo. The character and fate
of Savanerola, and the revival