no common patience
and sagacity to unravel. Therefore it is that the lessons of history,
dearly as they have been purchased, are forgotten and thrown
away--therefore it is that nations sow in folly and reap in
affliction--that thrones are shaken, and empires convulsed, and commerce
fettered by vexatious restrictions, by those who live in one century,
without enabling their descendants to become wiser or richer in the
next. The death of Charles I. did not prevent the exile of James II.,
and, in spite of the disasters of Charles XII., Napoleon tempted fortune
too often and too long. It is not, then, by the mere knowledge of
separate facts that history can contribute to our improvement or our
happiness; it would then exchange the character of philosophy treated by
examples, for that of sophistry misleading by empiricism. The more
systematic the view of human events which it enables us to gain, the
more nearly does it approach its real office, and entitle itself to the
splendid panegyric of the Roman statesman--"Historia, testis temporum,
lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis."

But while we insist upon the certainty of those truths which a calm
examination of history confirms, and the sure operation of those general
laws by which Providence in its wisdom has ordained that the affairs of
this lower world shall be controlled--let it not be supposed that we for
a moment doubt the truth which Demosthenes took such pains to inculcate
upon his countrymen, that fortune in human affairs is for a time
omnipotent. That fortune, which "erring men call chance," is the name
which finite beings must apply to those secret and unknown causes which
no human sagacity can penetrate or comprehend. What depends upon a few
persons, observes Mr Hume, is to be ascribed to chance; what arises from
a great number, may often be accounted for by known and determinate
causes; and he illustrates this position by the instance of a loaded
die, the bias of which, however it may for a short time escape
detection, will certainly in a great number of instances become
predominant. The issue of a battle may be decided by a sunbeam or a
cloud of dust. Had an heir been born to Charles II. of Spain--had the
youthful son of Monsieur De Bouille not fallen asleep when Louis XVI.
entered Varennes--had Napoleon, on his return from Egypt, been stopped
by an English cruizer--how different would have been the face of Europe.
The _poco di piu_ an