in question, these men proclaim the maxims adopted by their countrymen
and formative of their own character; they record their views of their
political relations and of their moral and spiritual nature, and publish
the principles of their designs and conduct. What the historian puts
into their mouths is no supposititious system of ideas, but an
uncorrupted transcript of their intellectual and moral habitudes.

Of these historians whom we must make thoroughly our own, with whom we
must linger long if we would live with their respective nations and
enter deeply into their spirit--of these historians to whose pages we
may turn, not for the purposes of erudition merely, but with a view to
deep and genuine enjoyment, there are fewer than might be imagined.
Herodotus, the Father, namely the Founder, of History, and Thucydides
have been already mentioned. Xenophon's _Retreat of the Ten Thousand_ is
a work equally original. Cæsar's _Commentaries_ are the simple
masterpiece of a mighty spirit; among the ancients these annalists were
necessarily great captains and statesmen. In the Middle Ages, if we
except the bishops, who were placed in the very centre of the political
world, the monks monopolize this category as naïve chroniclers who were
as decidedly isolated from active life as those elder annalists had been
connected with it. In modern times the relations are entirely altered.
Our culture is essentially comprehensive, and immediately changes all
events into historical representations. Belonging to the class in
question, we have vivid, simple, clear narrations--especially of
military transactions--which might fairly take their place with those of
Cæsar. In richness of matter and fulness of detail as regards strategic
appliances and attendant circumstances, they are even more instructive.
The French "Memoirs" also fall under this category. In many cases these
are written by men of mark, though relating to affairs of little note;
they not unfrequently contain such a large amount of anecdotal matter