This is a subject which has been hitherto but imperfectly comprehended
even by some historians themselves; and has too often incurred the
satire, and even the contempt, of those volatile spirits who play about
the superficies of truth, wanting the industry to view it on more than
one side, and those superficial readers who imagine that every tale is
told when it is written.
Secret history is the supplement of history itself, and is its great
corrector; and the combination of secret with public history has in
itself a perfection, which each taken separately has not. The popular
historian composes a plausible rather than an accurate tale; researches
too fully detailed would injure the just proportions, or crowd the bold
design, of the elegant narrative; and facts, presented as they occurred,
would not adapt themselves to those theoretical writers of history who
arrange events not in a natural, but in a systematic order. But in
secret history we are more busied in observing what passes than in being
told of it. We are transformed into the contemporaries of the writers,
while we are standing on the "vantage ground" of their posterity; and
thus what to them appeared ambiguous, to us has become unquestionable;
what was secret to them has been confided to us. They mark the
beginnings, and we the ends. From the fulness of their accounts we
recover much which had been lost to us in the general views of history,
and it is by this more intimate acquaintance with persons and
circumstances that we are enabled to correct the less distinct, and
sometimes the fallacious appearances in the page of the popular
historian. He who _only_ views things in masses will have no distinct
notion of any one particular; he may be a fanciful or a passionate
historian, but he is not the historian who will enlighten while he
charms.
But as secret history appears to deal in minute things, its connexion
with great results is not usually suspected. The circumstantiality of
its story, the changeable shadows of its characters, the redundance of
its conversations, and the many careless superfluities which egotism or
vanity may throw out, seem usually confounded with that small-talk
familiarly termed _gossiping_. But the _gossiping_ of a profound
politician or a vivacious observer, in one of their letters, or in their
memoirs, often, by a spontaneous stroke, reveals the individual, or by a
simple incident unriddles a mysterious event. We may discover the value
of these pictures of human nature, with which secret history abounds, by
an observation which occurred between two statesmen in office. Lord
Raby, our ambassador, apologised to Lord Bolingbroke, then secretary of
state, for troubling him with the minuter circumstances which occurred
in his conferences; in reply, the minister requests the ambassador to
continue the same manner of writing, and alleges an excellent reason:
"Those _minute circumstances_ give very great light to the general scope
and design of the _persons_ negotiated with. And I own that nothing
pleases me more in that valuable collection of the Cardinal D'Ossat's
letters, than the _naive_ descriptions which he gives of the looks,
gestures, and even tones of voice, of the persons he conferred with." I
regret to have to record the opinions of another noble author, who
recently has thrown out some degrading notions of secret history, and
particularly of the historians. I would have silently passed by a vulgar
writer, superficial, prejudiced, and uninformed, but as so many are yet
deficient in correct notions of _secret history_, it is but justice that
their representative should be heard before they are condemned.
His lordship says, that "Of late the appetite for _Remains_ of all kinds
has surprisingly increased. A story repeated by the Duchess of
Portsmouth's waiting-woman to Lord Rochester's valet forms the subject
of investigation for a philosophical historian; and you may hear of an
assembly of scholars and authors discussing the validity of a piece of
scandal invented by a maid of honour more than two centuries ago, and
repeated to an obscure writer by Queen Elizabeth's housekeeper. It is a
matter of the greatest interest to see the _letters_ of every busy
trifler. Yet who does not laugh at such men?" This is the attack! but as
if some half truths, like light through the cranny in a dark room, had
just darted in a stream of atoms over this scoffer at secret history, he
suddenly views his object with a very different appearance--for his
lordship justly concludes that "It must be confessed, however, that
knowledge of this kind is very entertaining; and here and there among
the rubbish we find hints that may give the philosopher a clue to
important facts, and afford to the moralist a better analysis of the
human mind than a whole library of metaphysics!" The philosopher may
well abhor all intercourse with wits! because the faculty of judgment is
usually quiescent with them; and in their orgasm they furiously decry
what in their sober senses they as eagerly laud! Let me inform his
lordship, that "the waiting-woman and the valet" of eminent persons are
sometimes no unimportant personages in history. By the _Memoires de
Mons. de la Porte, premier valet-de-chambre de Louis XIV._, we learn
what before "the valet" wrote had not been known--the shameful arts
which Mazarin allowed to be practised, to give a bad education to the
prince, and to manage him by depraving his tastes. _Madame de
Motteville_, in her Memoirs, "the waiting lady" of our Henrietta, has
preserved for our own English history some facts which have been found
so essential to the narrative, that they are referred to by our
historians. In _Gui Joly_, the humble dependant of Cardinal de Retz, we
discover an unconscious but a useful commentator on the memoirs of his
master; and the most affecting personal anecdotes of Charles the First
have been preserved by _Thomas Herbert_, his gentleman in waiting;
_Clery_, the valet of Louis the Sixteenth, with pathetic faithfulness,
has shown us the man in the monarch whom he served!
Of SECRET HISTORY there are obviously two species; it is positive, or it
is relative. It is _positive_, when the facts are first given to the
world; a sort of knowledge which can only be drawn from our own personal
experience, or from contemporary documents preserved in their manuscript
state in public or in private collections; or it is _relative_, in
proportion to the knowledge of those to whom it is communicated, and
will be more or less valued according to the acquisitions of the reader;
and this inferior species of secret history is drawn from rare and
obscure books and other published authorities, often as scarce as
manuscripts.
Some experience I have had in those literary researches, where
cusiosity, ever wakeful and vigilant, discovers among contemporary
manuscripts new facts; illustrations of old ones; and sometimes detects,
not merely by conjecture, the concealed causes of many events; often
opens a scene in which some well-known personage is exhibited in a new
character; and thus penetrates beyond those generalising representations
which satisfy the superficial, and often cover the page of history with
delusion and fiction.
It is only since the latter institution of national libraries that these
immense collections of manuscripts have been formed; with us they are an
undescribable variety, usually classed under the vague title of
"state-papers."[252] The instructions of ambassadors, but more
particularly their own dispatches; charters and chronicles brown with
antiquity, which preserve a world which had been else lost for us, like
the one before the deluge; series upon series of private correspondence,
among which we discover the most confidential communications, designed
by the writers to have been destroyed by the hand which received them;
memoirs of individuals by themselves or by their friends, such as are
now published by the pomp of vanity, or the faithlessness of their
possessors; and the miscellaneous collections formed by all kinds of
persons, characteristic of all countries and of all eras, materials for
the history of man!--records of the force or of the feebleness of the
human understanding, and still the monuments of their passions.
The original collectors of these dispersed manuscripts were a race of
ingenious men, silent benefactors of mankind, to whom justice has not
yet been fully awarded; but in their fervour of accumulation, everything
in a manuscript state bore its spell; acquisition was the sole point
aimed at by our early collectors, and to this these searching spirits
sacrificed their fortunes, their ease, and their days; but life would
have been too short to have decided on the intrinsic value of the
manuscripts flowing in a stream to the collectors; and suppression, even
of the disjointed reveries of madmen, or the sensible madness of
projectors, might have been indulging a capricious taste, or what has
proved more injurious to historical pursuits, that party-feeling which
has frequently annihilated the memorials of their adversaries.[253]
These manuscript collections now assume a formidable appearance. A
toilsome march over these "Alps rising over Alps!" a voyage in "a sea
without a shore!" has turned away most historians from their severer
duties; those who have grasped at early celebrity have been satisfied to
have given a new form to, rather than contributed to the new matter of
history. The very sight of these masses of history has terrified some
modern historians. When Pere Daniel undertook a history of France, the
learned Boivin, the king's librarian, opened for his inspection an
immense treasure of charters, and another of royal autograph letters,
and another of private correspondence; treasures reposing in fourteen
hundred folios! The modern historian passed two hours impatiently
looking over them, but frightened at another plunge into the gulf, this
Curtius of history would not immolate himself for his country! He wrote
a civil letter to the librarian for his "supernumerary kindness," but
insinuated that he could write a very readable history without any
further aid of such _paperasses_ or "paper-rubbish." Pere Daniel,
therefore, "quietly sat down to his history," copying others--a
compliment which was never returned by any one: but there was this
striking novelty in his "readable history," that according to the
accurate computation of Count Boulainvilliers, Pere Daniel's history of
France contains ten thousand blunders! The same circumstance has been
told me by a living historian of the late Gilbert Stuart; who, on some
manuscript volumes of letters being pointed out to him when composing
his history of Scotland, confessed that "what was already printed was
more than he was able to read!" and thus much for his theoretical
history, written to run counter to another theoretical history, being
Stuart versus Robertson! They equally depend on the simplicity of their
readers, and the charms of style! Another historian, Anquetil, the
author of _L'Esprit de la Ligue_, has described his embarrassment at an
inspection of the contemporary manuscripts of that period. After
thirteen years of researches to glean whatever secret history printed
books afforded, the author, residing in the country, resolved to visit
the royal library at Paris. Monsieur Melot receiving him with that
kindness which is one of the official duties of the public librarian
towards the studious, opened the cabinets in which were deposited the
treasures of French history.--"This is what you require! come here at
all times, and you shall be attended!" said the librarian to the young
historian, who stood by with a sort of shudder, while he opened cabinet
after cabinet. The intrepid investigator repeated his visits, looking
over the mass as chance directed, attacking one side, and then flying to
another. The historian, who had felt no weariness during thirteen years
among printed books, discovered that he was now engaged in a task
apparently always beginning, and never ending! The "Esprit de la Ligue"
was however enriched by labours which at the moment appeared so barren.
The study of these _paperasses_ is not perhaps so disgusting as the
impatient Pere Daniel imagined; there is a literary fascination in
looking over the same papers which the great characters of history once
held and wrote on; catching from themselves their secret sentiments; and
often detecting so many of their unrecorded actions! By habit the toil
becomes light; and with a keen inquisitive spirit even delightful! For
what is more delightful to the curious than to make fresh discoveries
every day? Addison has a true and pleasing observation on such pursuits.
"Our employments are converted into amusements, so that even in those
objects which were indifferent, or even displeasing to us, the mind not
only gradually loses its aversion, but conceives a certain fondness and
affection for them." Addison illustrates this case by one of the
greatest geniuses of the age, who by habit took incredible pleasure in
searching into rolls and records, till he preferred them to Virgil and
Cicero! The faculty of curiosity is as fervid, and even as refined in
its search after truth, as that of taste in the objects of imagination;
and the more it is indulged, the more exquisitely it is enjoyed!
The popular historians of England and of France have, in truth, made
little use of manuscript researches. Life is very short for long
histories; and those who rage with an avidity of fame or profit will
gladly taste the fruit which they cannot mature. Researches too remotely
sought after, or too slowly acquired, or too fully detailed, would be so
many obstructions in the smooth texture of a narrative. Our theoretical
historians write from some particular and preconceived result; unlike
Livy, and De Thou, and Machiavel, who describe events in their natural
order, these cluster them together by the fanciful threads of some
political or moral theory, by which facts are distorted, displaced, and
sometimes altogether omitted! One single original document has sometimes
shaken into dust their Palladian edifice of history. At the moment Hume
was sending some sheets of his history to press, Murdin's State Papers
appeared. And we are highly amused and instructed by a letter of our
historian to his rival, Robertson, who probably found himself often in
the same forlorn situation. Our historian discovered in that collection
what compelled him to retract his preconceived system--he hurries to
stop the press, and paints his confusion and his anxiety with all the
ingenuous simplicity of his nature. "We are all in the wrong!" he
exclaims. Of Hume I have heard that certain manuscripts at the State
Paper Office had been prepared for his inspection during a fortnight,
but he never could muster courage to pay his promised visit. Satisfied
with the common accounts, and the most obvious sources of history, when
librarian at the Advocates' Library, where yet may be examined the books
he used, marked by his hand, he spread the volumes about the sofa, from
which he rarely rose to pursue obscure inquiries, or delay by fresh
difficulties the page which every day was growing under his charming
pen. A striking proof of his careless happiness I discovered in his
never referring to the perfect edition of "Whitelocke's Memorials" of
1732, but to the old truncated and faithless one of 1682.
Dr. Birch was a writer with no genius for composition, but one to whom
British history stands more indebted than to any superior author; his
incredible love of labour, in transcribing with his own hand a large
library of manuscripts from originals dispersed in public and in private
repositories, has enriched the British Museum by thousands of the most
authentic documents of genuine secret history. He once projected a
collection of original historical letters, for which he had prepared a
preface, where I find the following passage:--"It is a more important
service to the public to contribute _something not before known_ to the
general fund of history, than to give new form and colour to what we are
already possessed of, by superadding refinement and ornament, which too
often tend _to disguise the real state of the facts_; a fault not to be
atoned for by the pomp of _style_, or even the fine _eloquence_ of the
historian." This was an oblique stroke aimed at Robertson, to whom Birch
had generously opened the stores of history, for the Scotch historian
had needed all his charity; but Robertson's attractive inventions and
highly-finished composition seduce the public taste; and we may forgive
the latent spark of envy in the honest feelings of the man, who was
profoundly skilled in delving in the native beds of ore, but not in
fashioning it; and whose own neglected historical works, constructed on
the true principles of secret history, we may often turn over to correct
the erroneous, the prejudiced, and the artful accounts of those who have
covered their faults by "the pomp of style, and the eloquence of the
historian."
The large manuscript collections of original documents, from whence may
be drawn what I have called _positive secret history_, are, as I
observed, comparatively of modern existence. Formerly they were widely
dispersed in private hands; and the nature of such sources of historic
discovery but rarely occurred to our writers. Even had they sought them,
their access must have been partial and accidental. Lord Hardwicke has
observed, that there are still many untouched manuscript collections
within these kingdoms, which, through the ignorance or inattention of
their owners, are condemned to dust and obscurity; but how valuable and
essential they may be to the interests of authentic history and of
sacred truth, cannot be more strikingly demonstrated than in the recent
publications of the Marlborough and the Shrewsbury Papers by Archdeacon
Coxe.[254] The editor was fully authorised to observe, "It is singular
that those transactions should either have been passed over in silence,
or imperfectly represented by most of our national historians." Our
modern history would have been a mere political romance, without the
astonishing picture of William and his ministers, exhibited in those
unquestionable documents. Burnet was among the first of our modern
historians who showed the world the preciousness of such materials, in
his "History of the Reformation," which he largely drew from the
Cottonian collection. Our early historians only repeated a tale ten
times told. Milton, who wanted not for literary diligence, had no fresh
stores to open for his "History of England;" while Hume despatches,
comparatively in a few pages, a subject which has afforded to the
fervent diligence of my learned friend Sharon Turner volumes precious to
the antiquary, the lawyer, and the philosopher.
To illustrate my idea of the usefulness and of the absolute necessity of
SECRET HISTORY, I fix first on _a public event_, and secondly on _a
public character_; both remarkable in our own modern history, and both
serving to expose the fallacious appearances of popular history by
authorities indisputably genuine. The _event_ is the Restoration of
Charles the Second; and the _character_ is that of Mary, the queen of
William the Third.
In history the Restoration of Charles appears in all its splendour--the
king is joyfully received at Dover, and the shore is covered by his
subjects on their knees--crowds of the great hurry to Canterbury--the
army is drawn up, in number and with a splendour that had never been
equalled--his enthusiastic reception is on his birthday, for that was
the lucky day fixed on for his entrance into the metropolis--in a word,
all that is told in history describes a monarch the most powerful and
the most happy. One of the tracts of the day, entitled "England's
Triumph," in the mean quaintness of the style of the times, tells us
that "The soldiery, who had hitherto made _clubs_ trump, resolve now to
enthrone the _king of hearts_." Turn to the faithful memorialist, who so
well knew the secrets of the king's heart, and who was himself an actor
behind the curtain; turn to Clarendon, in his own Life, and we shall
find that the power of the king was then as dubious as when he was an
exile; and his feelings were so much racked, that he had nearly resolved
on a last flight.
Clarendon, in noticing the temper and spirit of that time, observes,
"Whoever reflects upon all this composition of contradictory wishes and
expectations, must confess that the king was not yet the master of the
kingdom, nor his _authority_ and _security_ such as _the general noise
and acclamation, the bells and the bonfires, proclaimed it to
be_."--"The first mortification the king met with as soon as he arrived
at Canterbury, within three hours after he landed at Dover." Clarendon
then relates how many the king found there, who, while they waited with
joy to kiss his hand, also came with importunate solicitations for
themselves; forced him to give them present audience, in which they
reckoned up the insupportable losses undergone by themselves or their
fathers; demanding some grant, or promise of such or such offices; some
even for more! "pressing for two or three with such confidence and
importunity, and with such tedious discourses, that the king was
extremely nauseated with their suits, though his modesty knew not how to
break from them; that he no sooner got into his chamber, which for some
hours he was not able to do, than _he lamented the condition to which he
found he must be subject_; and did, in truth, from that minute, contract
such a prejudice against some of those persons." But a greater
mortification was to follow, and one which had nearly thrown the king
into despair.
General Monk had from the beginning to this instant acted very
mysteriously, never corresponding with nor answering a letter of the
king's, so that his majesty was frequently doubtful whether the general
designed to act for himself or for the king: an ambiguous conduct which
I attribute to the power his wife had over him, who was in the opposite
interest. The general, in his rough way, presented him a large paper,
with about seventy names for his privy council, of which not more than
two were acceptable. "The king," says Clarendon, "was _in more than
ordinary confusion_, for he knew not well what to think of the general,
in whose absolute power he was--so that at this moment his majesty was
almost alarmed at the demand and appearance of things." The general
afterwards undid this unfavourable appearance, by acknowledging that the
list was drawn up by his wife, who had made him promise to present it;
but he permitted his majesty to act as he thought proper. At that moment
General Monk was more king than Charles.
We have not yet concluded. When Charles met the army at Blackheath,
50,000 strong, "he knew well the ill constitution of the army, the
distemper and murmuring that was in it, and how many diseases and
convulsions their infant loyalty was subject to; that _how united soever
their inclinations and acclamations seemed to be at Blackheath_, their
_affections_ were not the _same_--and _the very countenances_ there of
many _officers_, as well as _soldiers_, did sufficiently manifest that
they were drawn thither to a service they were not delighted in. The
_old soldiers_ had little regard for their _new officers_; and it
quickly appeared, by the select and affected mixtures of sullen and
melancholic parties of officers and soldiers."--And then the chancellor
of human nature adds, "And in this _melancholic and perplexed condition_
the king and all his hopes stood, _when he appeared most gay and
exalted, and wore a pleasantness in his face_ that became him, and
looked like as full an assurance of his security as was possible to put
on." It is imagined that Louis the Eighteenth would be the ablest
commentator on this piece of secret history, and add another _twin_ to
Pierre de Saint Julien's "Gemelles ou Pareiles," an old French treatise
of histories which resemble one another: a volume so scarce, that I have
never met with it.
Burnet informs us, that when Queen Mary held the administration of
government during the absence of William, it was imagined by some, that
as "every woman of sense loved to be meddling, they concluded that she
had but a small portion of it, because she lived so abstracted from all
affairs." He praises her exemplary behaviour; "regular in her devotions,
much in her closet, read a great deal, was often busy at work, and
seemed to employ her time and thoughts in anything rather than matters
of state. Her conversation was lively and obliging; everything in her
was easy and natural. The king told the Earl of Shrewsbury, that though
he could not hit on the right way of pleasing England, he was confident
she would, and that we should all be very happy under her." Such is the
miniature of the queen which Burnet offers; we see nothing but her
tranquillity, her simplicity, and her carelessness, amidst the important
transactions passing under her eye; but I lift the curtain from a larger
picture. The distracted state amidst which the queen lived, the
vexations, the secret sorrows, the agonies and the despair of Mary in
the absence of William, nowhere appear in history! and as we see,
escaped the ken of the Scotch bishop! They were reserved for the
curiosity and instruction of posterity; and were found by Dalrymple, in
the letters of Mary to her husband, in King William's cabinet. It will
be well to place under the eye of the reader the suppressed cries of
this afflicted queen at the time when "everything in her was so easy and
natural, employing her time and thoughts in anything rather than matters
of state--often busy at work!"
I shall not dwell on the pangs of the queen for the fate of William--or
her deadly suspicions that many were unfaithful about her; a battle lost
might have been fatal; a conspiracy might have undone what even a
victory had obtained; the continual terrors she endured were such, that
we might be at a loss to determine who suffered most, those who had been
expelled from, or those who had ascended the throne.
So far was the queen from not "employing her thoughts" on "matters of
state," that every letter, usually written towards evening, chronicles
the conflicts of the day; she records not only events, but even
dialogues and personal characteristics; hints her suspicions, and
multiplies her fears; her attention was incessant--"I never write but
what I think others do not;" and her terrors were as ceaseless,--"I pray
God send you back quickly, for I see all breaking out into flames." The
queen's difficulties were not eased by a single confidential
intercourse. On one occasion she observes, "As I do not know what I
ought to speak, and when not, I am as silent as can be." "I ever fear
not doing well, and trust to what nobody says but you. It seems to me
that every one is afraid of themselves.--I am very uneasy in one thing,
which is want of somebody to speak my mind freely to, for it's a great
constraint to think and be silent; and there is so much matter, that I
am one of Solomon's fools, who am ready to burst. I must tell you again
how Lord Monmouth endeavours to frighten me, and indeed things have but
a melancholy prospect." She had indeed reasons to fear Lord Monmouth,
who, it appears, divulged all the secrets of the royal councils to Major
Wildman, who was one of our old republicans; and, to spread alarm in the
privy council, conveyed in lemon-juice all their secrets to France,
often on the very day they had passed in council! They discovered the
fact, and every one suspected the other as the traitor! Lord Lincoln
even once assured her, that "the Lord President and all in general, who
are in trust, were rogues." Her council was composed of factions, and
the queen's suspicions were rather general than particular: for she
observes on them, "Till now I thought you had given me wrong characters
of men; but now I see they answer my expectation of being as little of a
mind as of a body."--For a final extract, take this full picture of
royal misery--"I must see company on my set days; I must play twice a
week; nay, I must laugh and talk, though never so much against my will:
I believe I dissemble very ill to those who know me; at least, it is a
great constraint to myself, yet I must endure it. All my motions are so
watched, and all I do so observed, that if I eat less, or speak less, or
look more grave, all is lost in the opinion of the world; so that I have
this misery added to that of your absence, that I must grin when my
heart is ready to break, and talk when my heart is so oppressed that I
can scarce breathe. I go to Kensington as often as I can for air; but
then I never can be quite alone, neither can I complain--that would be
some ease; but I have nobody whose humour and circumstances agree with
mine enough to speak my mind freely to. Besides, I must hear of
business, which being a thing I am so new in, and so unfit for, does but
break my brains the more, and not ease my heart."
Thus different from the representation of Burnet was the actual state of
Queen Mary: and I suspect that our warm and vehement bishop had but
little personal knowledge of her majesty, notwithstanding the elaborate
character of the queen which he has given in her funeral eulogium. He
must have known that she did not always sympathise with his
party-feelings: for the queen writes, "The Bishop of Salisbury has made
a long thundering sermon this morning, which he has been with me to
desire to print; which I could not refuse, though I should not have
ordered it, for reasons which I told him." Burnet (whom I am very far
from calling what an inveterate Tory, Edward Earl of Oxford, does in one
of his manuscript notes, "that lying Scot") unquestionably has told many
truths in his garrulous page; but the cause in which he stood so deeply
engaged, coupled to his warm sanguine temper, may have sometimes dimmed
his sagacity, so as to have caused him to have mistaken, as in the
present case, a mask for a face, particularly at a time when almost
every individual appears to have worn one!
Both these cases of Charles the Second and Queen Mary show the absolute
necessity of researches into secret history, to correct the appearances
and the fallacies which so often deceive us in public history.
"The appetite for Remains," as the noble author whom I have already
alluded to calls it, may then be a very wholesome one, if it provide the
only materials by which our popular histories can be corrected, and
since it often infuses a freshness into a story which, after having been
copied from book to book, inspires another to tell it for the tenth
time! Thus are the _sources of_ secret history unsuspected by the idler
and the superficial, among those masses of untouched manuscripts--that
subterraneous history!--which indeed may terrify the indolent, bewilder
the inexperienced, and confound the injudicious, if they have not
acquired the knowledge which not only decides on facts and opinions, but
on the authorities which have furnished them. Popular historians have
written to their readers; each with different views, but all alike form
the open documents of history; like feed advocates, they declaim, or
like special pleaders, they keep only on one side of their case: they
are seldom zealous to push on their cross-examination; for they come to
gain their cause, and not to hazard it!
Time will make the present age as obsolete as the last, for our sons
will cast a new light over the ambiguous scenes which distract their
fathers; they will know how some things happened for which we cannot
account; they will bear witness to how many characters we have mistaken;
they will be told many of those secrets which our contemporaries hide
from us; they will pause at the ends of our beginnings; they will read
the perfect story of man, which can never be told while it is
proceeding. All this is the possession of posterity, because they will
judge without our passions; and all this we ourselves have been enabled
to possess by the secret history _of the last two ages_![255]