to rummage their old-fashioned ward-robes, to explain the uses of
their ponderous furniture, these parts of the duty which properly
belongs to the historian have been appropriated by the historical
novelist. On the other hand, to extract the philosophy of
history, to direct on judgment of events and men, to trace the
connection of cause and effects, and to draw from the occurrences
of former time general lessons of moral and political wisdom, has
become the business of a distinct class of writers.

Of the two kinds of composition into which history has been thus
divided, the one may be compared to a map, the other to a painted
landscape. The picture, though it places the country before us,
does not enable us to ascertain with accuracy the dimensions, the
distances, and the angles. The map is not a work of imitative
art. It presents no scene to the imagination; but it gives us
exact information as to the bearings of the various points, and
is a more useful companion to the traveller or the general than
the painted landscape could be, though it were the grandest that
ever Rosa peopled with outlaws, or the sweetest over which Claude
ever poured the mellow effulgence of a setting sun.

It is remarkable that the practice of separating the two
ingredients of which history is composed has become prevalent on
the Continent as well as in this country. Italy has already
produced a historical novel, of high merit and of still higher
promise. In France, the practice has been carried to a length
somewhat whimsical. M. Sismondi publishes a grave and stately
history of the Merovingian Kings, very valuable, and a little
tedious. He then sends forth as a companion to it a novel, in
which he attempts to give a lively representation of characters