of above half
of the world, for want of a record, stir not from their place, and vanish
without duration. If I had unknown events in my possession, I should
think with great ease to out-do those that are recorded, in all sorts of
examples. Is it not strange that even of the Greeks and Romans, with so
many writers and witnesses, and so many rare and noble exploits, so few
are arrived at our knowledge:

"Ad nos vix tenuis famx perlabitur aura."

["An obscure rumour scarce is hither come."--AEneid, vii. 646.]

It will be much if, a hundred years hence, it be remembered in general
that in our times there were civil wars in France. The Lacedaemonians,
entering into battle, sacrificed to the Muses, to the end that their
actions might be well and worthily written, looking upon it as a divine
and no common favour, that brave acts should find witnesses that could
give them life and memory. Do we expect that at every musket-shot we
receive, and at every hazard we run, there must be a register ready to
record it? and, besides, a hundred registers may enrol them whose
commentaries will not last above three days, and will never come to the
sight of any one. We have not the thousandth part of ancient writings;
'tis fortune that gives them a shorter or longer life, according to her
favour; and 'tis permissible to doubt whether those we have be not the
worst, not having seen the rest. Men do not write histories of things of
so little moment: a man must have been general in the conquest of an
empire or a kingdom; he must have won two-and-fifty set battles, and
always the weaker in number, as Caesar did: ten thousand brave fellows
and many great captains lost their lives valiantly in his service, whose
names lasted no longer than their wives and children lived:

"Quos fama obscura recondit."

["Whom an obscure reputation conceals."--AEneid, v. 302.]

Even those whom we see behave themselves well, three months or three
years after they have departed hence, are no more mentioned than if they
had never been. Whoever will justly consider, and with due proportion,
of what kind of men and of what sort of actions the glory sustains itself
in the records of history, will find that there are very few actions and
very few persons of our times who can there pretend any right. How many
worthy men have we known to survive their own reputation, who have seen
and suffered the honour and glory