Historical societies are auxiliary to historical compositions. They collect the materials from which the great narrative of events is, in due time, to be framed. The transactions of public bodies, local histories, memoirs of all kinds, statistics, laws ordinances, public debates and discussions, works of periodical literature, and the public journals, whether of political events, or commerce, literature, or the arts, all find their places in the collections of historical societies.
History is a higher name, and imports literary productions of the first order.
Well written history must always be the result of genius and taste, as well as of research and study. It stands next topic poetry, among the productions of the human mind. If it requires less of invention than that, it is not behind it in dignity and importance. Epic poetry and the drama are but narratives, the former partly and the latter wholly, in the form of a dialogue, but their characters and personages are usually, in part at least, the creations of the imagination. Severe history sometimes assumes the dialogue, or dramatic form, and, without departing from truth, is embellished by supposed colloquies or speeches, as in the productions of that great master, Titus Livius, or that greater master still, Thucydides.