praises of Polybius, which I have given you before
in gross; and the first of them (following the
method of Casaubon,) is his wonderful skill in
political affairs. I had read him in English, with
the pleasure of a boy, before I was ten years of
age; and yet, even then, had some dark notions
of the prudence with which he conducted his
design, particularly in making me know, and
almost see, the places where such and such actions
were performed. This was the first distinction
which I was then capable of making betwixt him
and other historians which I read early. But
when being of a riper age, I took him again into
car that I have profited

Le principal is

de montrer la preuve de faire voir, qu ras que me un si bean si comme de mala Tout plein d

hand. It was on the consideration of Brutus,
and the veneration which he paid him, that Con-
stantine the Great took so great a pleasure in
reading our author, and collecting the several
treaties of his embassies; of which, though many
are now lost, yet those which remain are a suf-
ficient testimony of his abilities; and I congratu-
late my country that a prince of our extraction
(as was Constantine,) has the honour of obliging
the Christian world by these remainders of our
great historian.

It is now time to enter into the particular

et le plus important, c'est l'usage, la raison et a de ses preceptes, it de que ceux qui ne fächent. hehe date corriger sur module sont ustiment. lades qui auroierit unction

ramedus pour a mank

praises of Polybius, which I have given you before in gross; and the first of them (following the method of Casaubon,) is his wonderful skill in political affairs. I had read him in English, with the pleasure of a boy, before I was ten years of age; and yet, even then, had some dark notions of the prudence with which he conducted his design, particularly in making me know, and almost see, the places where such and such actions were performed. This was the first distinction which I was then capable of making betwixt him and other historians which I read early. But when being of a riper age, I took him again into my hands, I must needs say that I have profited more by reading him than by Thucydides, Appian, Dion Cassius, and all the rest of the Greek historians together; and amongst all the Romans, none have reached him in this particular but Tacitus, who is equal with him.

It is wonderful to consider with how much care and application he instructs, counsels, warns, admonishes, and advises, whensoever he can find a fit occasion. He performs all these sometimes in the nature of a common parent of mankind; and sometimes also limits his instructions to particular nations, by a friendly reproach of those failings and errours to which they were most obnoxious. In this last manner he gives instructions to the Mantinæans, the Elæans, and several other provinces of Greece, by informing them of such things as were conducing to their welfare. Thus he likevarns the Romans of their obstinacy and

wilfulness, vices which have often brought them to the brink of ruin. And thus he frequently exhorts the Greeks in general not to depart from their dependence on the Romans, nor to take false measures by embroiling themselves in wars with that victorious people, in whose fate it was to be masters of the universe. But as his peculiar concernment was for the safety of his own countrymen, the Achaians, he more than once insinuates to them the care of their preservation, which consisted in submitting to the yoke of the Roman people, which they could not possibly avoid; and to make it easy to them, by a cheerful compliance with their commands, rather than unprofitably to oppose them with the hazard of those remaining privileges which the clemency of the conquerors had left them. For this reason, in the whole course of his history he makes it his chiefest business to persuade the Grecians in general, that the growing greatness and fortune of the Roman empire was not owing to mere chance, but to the conduct and invincible courage of that people, to whom their own virtue gave the dominion of the world. And yet this counsellor of patience and submission, as long as there was any probability of hope remaining to withstand the progress of the Roman fortune, was not wanting to the utmost of his power to resist them, at least to defer the bondage of his country, which he had long foreseen. But the fates inevitably drawing all things into subjection to Rome, this well-deserving citizen

4

was commanded to appear in that city, where he suffered the imprisonment of many years; yet even then his virtue was beneficial to him, the knowlege of his learning and his wisdom procuring him the friendship of the most potent in the senate; so that it may be said with Casaubon, that the same virtue which had brought him into distress, was the very means of his relief, and of his exaltation to greater dignities than those which he lost; for by the intercession of Cato the Censor, Scipio Emilianus, who afterwards destroyed Carthage, and some other principal noblemen, our Polybius was restored to liberty. After which, having set it down as a maxim that the welfare of the Achaians consisted, as I have said, in breaking their own stubborn inclinations, and yielding up that freedom which they no longer could maintain, he made it the utmost aim of his endeavours to bring over his countrymen to that persuasion; in which, though to their misfortunes, his counsels were not prevalent, yet thereby he not only proved himself a good patriot, but also made his fortunes with the Romans. For his countrymen, by their own unpardonable fault, not long afterwards drew on themselves their own destruction; for when

4 After the conquest of Macedonia, the Achaians were compelled by their haughty conquerors to send one thou-. sand persons to Rome, either as a punishment for the perseverance with which they had defended their country, or under a pretence that they had formed a conspiracy to shake off the yoke of bondage. Among these went Polybius, in the year of Rome 586.