XVII. But let us have done with the stile, and relieve the historian
from his care on this head; but when he is freed from this anxiety,
how many shoals and dangers will still remain for him to encounter in
his navigation of this sea? What strength of judgment does it require
to separate the useful from the frivolous? If he relates every minute
particular, he will fatigue the eyes and memories of his readers with
superfluities. If he selects, he will run the hazard of rejecting with
the superfluous part of the important; and prolixity, and excessive
curtailing, are two extremes which he should equally avoid. If he leans
to the first of these two sides, he will be censured as tiresome; if to
the last, for having left the narrative confused; and but few men are
capable of fixing on the just medium. Digressions are an ornament to
history, and a relief to the reader; but, if they are too frequent, very
long, impertinent, or injudiciously introduced, they convert the ornament
into a deformity. It is a nice matter, and requires great penetration and
judgment, to avoid inserting too much, or leaving out something material;
and it is more difficult for an historian to hit upon a right method
of proceeding, than any other author. If he is very attentive about
preserving the series of dates and time, he will be apt to interrupt
the thread of his relation; and, if he endeavours to keep his narration
of these things connected, he will be liable to lose the æras and dates
when they happened. It is a most arduous and difficult task to weave the
threads of history and chronology together in such a manner, as that
neither of them shall interrupt or obscure each other. Sometimes it also
happens, that events croud in upon, and embarras one another, because
it may fall out, that when you come to the middle of a narration, which
till then had gone on smooth and uninterrupted, you find it necessary
to postpone the remainder, and insert some other distinct account, the
circumstances of which happened posterior to the beginning, and prior to
the end, of the first relation. The worst is, that it is not possible
to give rules for surmounting these difficulties; for this is a matter
which must be left intirely to the perspicuity and discretion of the
writer. On these depend the choice where to place things, and the manner
of inserting them. If genius is wanting to effect this, the author must
have recourse to the method fallen upon by many others of these times,
which is composing a history after the manner of a news paper, where all
the relations are promiscuously thrown together, in the same way that
ingredients are mixed for making minced pyes.
XVIII. _For the purpose of preserving nice order in a history_ (says the
before-quoted Archbishop of Cambray), _it would be necessary that the
writer, before he takes pen in hand, should have the whole scope of the
undertaking collected together in his imagination; that he should be able
to discern the whole extension of it at a glance; and that he should
turn it over and over in his mind, till he can fix on the just point of
view in which to exhibit it. All this, to the end that he may preserve
its unity, and derive, as from one source only, all the principal events
of which it is composed._ And a little lower he says: _A historian of
genius, out of twenty stations, will chuse the most opportune wherein
to introduce a fact, so that by being placed in that situation, it will
throw a light upon many others. Sometimes, by anticipating the relation
of an event, you will facilitate the understanding of others, which
preceded it in point of date; and at other times, another will appear to
better advantage, by the account of it being postponed._ This is all very
well observed, and all tends to shew the great difficulties there are in
writing a history with propriety.