globe, who have not contrived, by some means or other, from the rude
monument of shapeless rock to the most perfect alphabetical language,
to communicate with posterity; thus declaring, as with the voice of
Nature herself, that it is desirable and proper that all men should
know as much as possible of the character, actions, and fortunes of
their predecessors on the stage of life.

It is not difficult to discern the end for which this disposition to
preserve for the future and contemplate the past was imparted to us.
If all that we knew were what is taught by our individual experience,
our minds would have but little, comparatively, to exercise and expand
them, and our characters would be the result of the limited influences
embraced within the narrow sphere of our particular and immediate
relations and circumstances. But, as our notice is extended in the
observation of those who have lived before us, our materials for
reflection and sources of instruction are multiplied. The virtues we
admire in our ancestors not only adorn and dignify their names, but
win us to their imitation. Their prosperity and happiness spread
abroad a diffusive light that reaches us, and brightens our condition.
The wisdom that guided their footsteps becomes, at the same time, a
lamp to our path. The observation of the errors of their course, and
of the consequent disappointments and sufferings that befell them,
enables us to pass in safety through rocks and ledges on which they
were shipwrecked; and, while we grieve to see them eating the bitter
fruits of their own ignorance and folly as well as vices and crimes,
we can seize the benefit of their experience without paying the price
at which they purchased it.

In the desire which every man feels to learn the history, and be
instructed by the example, of his predecessors, and in the