XVII. The worst is, that those who do not think with the vulgar, talk
like the vulgar. This proceeds, from what we call national passion
or prejudice, the legitimate child of vanity, and emulation. Vanity
teaches us, that we are interested in our nation being esteemed
superior to all others, because every individual looks upon himself
as a partaker in the pre-eminence; and emulation causes us to view
strangers, especially those who are nearest us, with a jealous eye, and
also inclines us to wish their abasement for our own security. From
both these motives, people attribute to their own country, a thousand
feigned excellencies, although at the time they mention them, they know
they are fictitious.
XVIII. This abuse, has filled the world with lyes, and has corrupted
the faith of almost all histories. When the glory of his own nation
influences him, you will hardly find an historian competently
sincere. Plutarch was one of the most impartial writers of antiquity;
notwithstanding which, the love of his country, in matters that
related to it, made him deviate not a little from his candour; for,
as the illustrious Cano remarks, he aggrandizes the events and things
appertaining to Greece, beyond their just proportion. And John Bodin
observes, that upon examining his lives, you will find, although his
comparisons between Greek heroes and Greek heroes, and between Roman
and Roman ones, were rightly and fairly made; that when he came to draw
the parallel between Greeks and Romans, he warped in favour of his own
countrymen.
XIX. I have always admired Titus Livius, not only for his eminent
discretion, method, and judgment, but also for his veracity. He
does not conceal or dissemble the failings of the Romans, when in
the course of his history they come in the way of his pen; but on
the contrary he lays them open and exposes them; and what is more,
at the hazard of offending Augustus, he highly extolled Pompey, and
blazoned his character as preferrable to Cæsar’s, which in those times
amounted to the same thing, as declaring himself a zealous republican.
Notwithstanding this, I observe a fault in this prince of historians,
which if it did not proceed from want of his adverting to, or being
aware of it, we must confess to be the effect of his passion for the
marvellous. In the two first ages of their republic, he gives an
account of as many battles gained, and as many cities taken by the
Romans, as would be sufficient to compleat the conquest of a vast
empire; but at the end of this time, we see that republic confined
within such narrow bounds, that few less states are at this day to be
found in all Italy, which is a proof that the antecedent victories,
were not so many nor so great in the original, as they are represented
to be in the copy.
XX. There is scarce one of the modern historians I have read, in whom I
have not observed the same inconsistency. If they relate the events of
a long war, they paint them so favourably to their own side, that the
reader from those premises, is induced to promise himself, that it will
end in an advantageous peace, in which his nation will give the law
to the enemy; but as the premises are false, the conclusion does not
follow, and in the end, he finds things turn out quite contrary to what
he expected.
XXI. I am not insensible, that during a war, such sort of lies may be
politically necessary; therefore in all countries, they print Gazettes
with privilege; I don’t say of lying, but of colouring events, so that
they should not dishearten, but seem encouraging to the people; and in
their description of things, they imitate the artifice of Apelles, who
painted Antigonus in profile, to conceal his being blind of one eye; I
mean, that they display the favourable side of events, and cover the
adverse one by a deception. I say, that policy requires this should be
done in Gazettes, to prevent the subjects being dismayed by the adverse
strokes of fortune; but in books that are written many years after the
transactions, what danger is there in speaking the truth?
XXII. The case is, that although none could happen to the public by
it, the writer himself who should make the attempt, would be exposed
to a great deal. The poor historians, scarce dare to do otherwise than
disguise such truths, as are not advantageous to their countrymen.
They must either flatter their own nation, or lay down the pen; for
if they fail to do this, they will be branded with the epithet of
being disaffected to their country. I lament most heartily the lot of
father Mariana; this very learned Jesuit, over and above possessing the
other talents necessary for an historian, was exceedingly sincere and
ingenuous; but this illustrious quality, which aggrandized his glory
with found critics, diminished it among the vulgar of Spain; they said
he had not a Spanish heart, and that his affections and his pen were
inimical to his country; and as heretofore, the extreme rigour of
Septimus Severus to the Romans, was attributed to his being of African
extraction by his father’s side, they imputed to father Mariana, a
certain kind of pique against the Spaniards, and assigned as the cause
of it, I don’t know whether with truth or not, his being of French
descent on the side of his mother. They would have had him relate
events, not as they happened, but in such a way as should seem most
pleasing to them; and by such as are fond of adulation, the man who
is not a flatterer is regarded as an enemy. But the same thing which
made this great man ill looked upon in Spain, gained him the highest
eulogiums from the most eminent personages in Europe: the following,
bestowed on him by the great Cardinal Baronius, is sufficient to
establish his honour and his fame: _Father John Mariana, a scrupulous
lover of the truth, an excellent pattern and sectary of virtue, a
worthy professor among the society of Jesus, and a Spaniard by birth,
but void of all national passion or prejudice, in a learned and elegant
stile, wrote a most perfect and faithful history of Spain._ (Baron. ad
ann. Christi 688.)
XXIII. It is not only in Spain, that they would have their historians
panegyrists, for the same thing happens in other countries. The King
of England, sent for the famous Gregory Leti, to write the history of
that kingdom; but he having protested he would not take pen in hand,
unless he was allowed to speak the truth; the King, to encourage him
to engage in the undertaking, assured him, that he should be permitted
to comply with this indispensable obligation, upon which, he set to
work, and compiled his history from the best authorities, and the most
faithful monuments and records he could discover; but the natives
having found reason to be dissatisfied with many of the facts laid
open in it, the King repented of the permission he had given him, the
copies were all called in by the procurement of administration, and the
historian obliged to leave England, but ill recompensed for his trouble.
XXIV. We Spaniards, complain much of the French authors, alledging,
that from their hatred to us, they disfigure transactions which are
glorious to our nation, and aggrandize in proportion, such as are
favourable to their own. This complaint is reciprocal, and I believe
well founded on both sides. When there have been frequent wars between
two nations, you will always observe, that from the jealousies and
animosities these have produced, the wars are constantly kept up in the
writings of the authors of both kingdoms; for united as in the arrow,
the feather follows the impetus of the steel.
XXV. But as a tribute due to truth and justice, I can’t avoid taking
notice in this place, of an unjust accusation, which has been
fulminated by our countrymen against the authors of that nation. They
say, that in relating the events of that kingdom in the reign of
Francis the first, they are either silent, or deny the imprisonment
of that King at the battle of Pavia. This complaint has not the least
foundation, for I have read accounts of this advantage of our arms in
various French authors, and even in one of them, I saw celebrated the
piquant answer of a French lady to King Francis, on the event of his
imprisonment. The King in a satyrical manner, that insinuated Time had
robbed her of her charms, said to her, _Madam, how long is it since
you came from the land of Beauty?_ To which the lady readily answered,
_Ever since you came from the country of Pavia_.
XXVI. Where I find the most reason for the Spaniards to be angry
with the French authors, is in their denying the coming of St. James
to Spain, and in their refusing to acknowledge that his sacred body
is deposited there; but these pretensions are more the offspring of
criticism than national jealousy, and never were material objects of
emulation between the two nations. It is on the subject of the justice
of wars, and the advantages gained in the prosecution of them, that
the pens engage with the most acrimony.