Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1852-03-01


eefeat sifeoia4 history ahould have given no 10.
count OF their author. | did not then know. or
nad not then considered, that poetical writings
hymns, songs, accounts of personal adventures.
IKE those OF Hercules and Jason, were in the
nature of things, earlier than regular b;stor;cal
narratives. Herodotus informs us that Hon,a,
lived four hundred years before his time. There
Is nevertheless. something very wonderful in
the poems of Homer.
In general 1t is true of the languages of ma
tons that, In their earlier ages, they contain the
substantial bone and sinew Characteristic oftheir
ld!om' yet that they are rough, imperfect, and
without polish. Thus Chaucer wrote English,
but it is what we call old English, and it has not
the smoothness and f1uency belonging to the
style OF Pope and Addison. And Spenser
wrote English, but, though rich and gorgeous,
1t has not the precision and accuracy of those
later writer's. 1t would seem that MANY hooks
must be written and read, and a great MANY
tongues and pens employed, before the Ian
guage OF country reaches its highest polish
and perfection. Now, the wonder is how n
language should became so perfect as was the
Greek of Homer, at the time when that Ian
guage could have been very little written-
DouDtless IN succeeding ages the compass of
the 0feek tongue was enlarged as KNOWLEDGE
became more extended, and new things called
tor new words; but within the compass of Gre
clan knowledge, as it existed in the time of
Homer it can scarcely be questioned that the
style of Homer is quite as perfect and polished
as that of any of his successors. The cause of
this apparent anomaly is thatth language had
not only been spoken for many centuries, by
people OF great ingenuity and extraordinary
good taste, but had been carefully cultivated by
the recitation of poetcal compositions on a great
variety of religious and festive occasions.
1t was not until the Legislation of Scion had
laid the foundation offree political institutions,
and these institutions had unfoded free, and
powerful, and active political life in the
Athenian Republic; until the discussion of pub
lie affairs, in the Senate and the popular AS
sembly, had created deliberative eloquence; and
the open administration of justice in the courts,
and under the'aws established by Scion, had APP
piled to the transactions between the citizens
all the resources of refined logic, and drawn
into the sphere of civil rights and obligations the
power OF high forensic oratory-it was not I'M
til these results of the legislative wisdom of
Scion had been attained, that the art of history
rose and f1ourished in Greece. With the de- |
cline OF Grecian liberty began the decline in the
art OF historical composition. Histories were
wri item under the Grecian kings of Egypt, |
and long line of writers fourished under the |
Byzantine emperors; but the high art of histo-
real composition, as perfected in the master
works of Herodotus, Thucydides and Keno
phon, had persisted in the death of political |
freedom.
The origin, progress, and decline of history |
as an art, were nearly the same in Rome. Sal |
lust and Livy fourished at the close of the Re-
public and the commencement of the Empire.
The great works of Tacitus himself are thought
by many to betray the beginning of decline in
the art, and the later writer's exhibit it's fall
The art OF history again revived with the rise
OF the Italian Republics, and since the revival
OF literature, at the close of the middle ages, it
will probably be found that three things natu-
rally rise into importance together, that is to
say civil liberty eloquence, and the art of his
torical writing.
Other foundation is not to be laid for authentic
HISTORY than Northumberland facts; but on
this foundation structures may be raised ofdifer-
ent characteristics, HISTORICAL biographical and
One writer may confne himself
to exact and minute marathon another, true to
the general story, may embellish that story with
more or less OF external ornament, or of eloquence
In description; third, with deeper philosophi-
cal spirit, may look into the causes of events and
trace them with more profound re-
search to their sources, in the elements of human
nature, or consider and solve, with more or less
success, that most important question, how far
the character of individuals has produced public
events, or how far, the other hand, public
events have produced and formed the character
of individuals
Therefore one history of the same period in
human affairs no more renders another history
OF the same period useless OR unadvisabe than
the st'ua ture Of one temple forbids the erection
OF another OF one stature of Hercules, Apollo, or
P9rIctnS oil 9th 1
produce statures of the same persons.
But, gentlemen, | must not dwell longer on
these general topics. We are Americans
We have country all our own; we are linked
10 its ates, and its fortunes it has been the the
ltre OF some of the most important of human
Transactions; and it may we'll become us to re-
lie ct on the topics and the means furnished for
historical composition in our own land. have
abstained on this occasion, gentlemen, from
much comment on the histories composed by
European writers of modern times; and, for OBJ
Vlous reasons | abstain altogether from remarks
upon the writers of our own country.
Works have been written upon the history of
the United States, other works upon the same
subject are in progress, and, no doubt, new
works are contemplated, and will be accom-
plished.
1t need not be doubted that what has been
achieved by the great men who have preceded
our generation will be properly recorded by
heir successors. A country in which highly
events occur is not likely to be desti
ute of scholars and authors fit to transmit
hose events to posterity. For the present,
content myself with few general remarks ON
he subject.
In the history of the United States there are
'hree epochs. The first extends from the origin
and settlement of the colonies, respectively, to
bnxy L, IL.
period, the history of the county is the history
Of separate communities and governments, with
different laws and institutions though all were
Of a common origin; not Identical indeed,
though having strong family resemblance, and
having more or less reference to the constitu-
ton and common law of the parent country.
In all these Governments the principle of pop