compared, in his account of the Persian wars, the Roman emperor to
Achilles, his enemy to Thersites; and if Lucian had lived in the present
day, he would have discovered that the race of such writers was not
extinguished. He might have found ample proofs that the detestable habit
still prevails of interweaving the names of our contemporaries among the
accounts of former centuries, and thus corrupting the history of past
times into a means of abuse and flattery for the present. This is to
degrade history into the worst style of a Treasury pamphlet, or a daily
newspaper. It is a fault almost peculiar to this country.

We are told in one of these works, for instance, that the "tones of Sir
W. Follett's voice are silvery"--a proposition that we do not at all
intend to dispute; nor would it be easy to pronounce any panegyric on
that really great man in which we should not zealously concur; but can
it be necessary to mention this in a history of the eighteenth century?
Or can any thing be more trivial or offensive, or totally without the
shadow of justification, than this forced allusion to the "ignorant
present time," in the midst of what ought to be an unbiassed narrative
of events that affected former generations? We do not know whether the
author of this ingenious allusion borrowed the idea from the
advertisements in which our humbler artists recommend their productions
to vulgar notice; or whether it is the spontaneous growth of his own
happy intellect: but plagiarized or original, and however adapted it may
be to the tone and keeping of his work, its insertion is totally
irreconcilable with the qualities that a man should possess who means to
instruct posterity. When gold is extracted from lead, or silver from
tin, such a writer may become an historian. "Forget," says Lucian, "the
present, look to future ages for your reward; let it be said of you that
you are high-spirited, full of independence, that there is nothing about
you servile or fulsome."