to me necessary to be observed in
the study of history. They were very different from those which
writers on the same subject have recommended, and which are commonly
practised. But I confess to your lordship that this neither gave me
then, nor has given me since, any distrust of them. I do not affect
singularity. On the contrary, I think that a due deference is to be
paid to received opinions, and that a due compliance with received
customs is to be held; tho both the one and the other should be, what
they often are, absurd or ridiculous. But this servitude is outward
only, and abridges in no sort the liberty of private judgment. The
obligations of submitting to it likewise, even outwardly, extend no
further than to those opinions and customs which can not be opposed;
or from which we can not deviate without doing hurt, or giving
offense, to society. In all these cases, our speculations ought to be
free; in all other cases, our practise may be so. Without any regard,
therefore, to the opinion and practise even of the learned world, I am
very willing to tell you mine. But as it is hard to recover a thread
of thought long ago laid aside, and impossible to prove some things
and explain others, without the assistance of many books which I have
not here, your lordship must be content with such an imperfect sketch
as I am able to send you in this letter.

The motives that carry men to the study of history are different. Some
intend, if such as they may be said to study, nothing more than
amusement, and read the life of Aristides or Phocion, of Epaminondas
or Scipio, Alexander or Caesar, just as they play a game at cards, or
as they would read the story of the seven champions.

Others there are whose motive to this study is nothing better, and who
have the further disadvantage of becoming a nuisance very often to
society, in proportion to the progress they make. The former do not
improve their reading to any good purpose; the latter pervert it to a
very bad one, and grow in impertinence as they increase in learning. I
think I have known most of the first kind in England, and most of the
last in France. The persons I mean are those who read to talk, to
shine in conversation, and to impose in company; who, having few ideas
to vend of their own growth, store their minds with crude unruminated
facts and sentences, and hope to supply by bare memory the want of
imagination and judgment.

But these are in the two lowest forms. T