cy,
antiquarian research, and presentation of authorities and notes. It must
be a work of art; and art has reference to style and language, to
grouping of details and richness of illustration, to eloquence and
poetry and beauty. A dry history, however learned, will never be read;
it will only be consulted, like a law-book, or Mosheim's "Commentaries."
We require _life_ in history, and it is for their vividness that the
writings of Livy and Tacitus will be perpetuated. Voltaire and Schiller
have no great merit as historians in a technical sense, but the "Life of
Charles XII." and the "Thirty Years' War" are still classics. Neander
has written one of the most searching and recondite histories of modern
times; but it is too dry, too deficient in art, to be cherished, and may
pass away like the voluminous writings of Varro, the most learned of the
Romans. It is the _art_ which is immortal in a book,--not the knowledge,
nor even the thoughts. What keeps alive the "Provincial Letters" of
Pascal? It is the style, the irony, the elegance that characterize them.
The exquisite delineation of character, the moral wisdom, the purity and
force of language, the artistic arrangement, and the lively and
interesting narrative appealing to all minds, like the "Arabian Nights"
or Froissart's "Chronicles," are the elements which give immortality to
the classic authors. We will not let them perish, because they amuse and
interest and inspire us.

A remarkable example is that of Plutarch, who, although born a Greek and
writing in the Greek language, was a contemporary of Tacitus, lived long
in Rome, and was one of the "immortals" of the imperial age. A teacher
of philosophy during his early manhood, he spent his last years as
archon and priest of Apollo in his native town. His most famous work is
his "Parallel Lives" of forty-six historic Greeks and Romans, arranged
in pairs, depicted with marvellous art and all the fascination of
anecdote and social wit, while presenting such clear conceptions of
characters and careers, and the whole so restrained within the bounds of
good taste and harmonious proportion, as to have been even to this day
regarded as forming a model for the ideal biography.

But it is taking a narrow view of history to make all writers after the
same pattern, even as it would be bigoted to make all Christians belong
to the same sect. Some will be remarkable for style, others for
learning, and others again for moral and phil