ith a number of books for the most
part open: this variety of authors bred no confusion; they all assisted
to throw light on the same topic; he was not disgusted by frequently
seeing the same thing in different writers; their opinions were so many
new strokes, which completed the ideas which he had conceived. The
celebrated Father Paul studied in the same manner. He never passed over
an interesting subject till he had confronted a variety of authors. In
historical researches he never would advance, till he had fixed, once
for all, the places, time, and opinions--a mode of study which appears
very dilatory, but in the end will make a great saving of time, and
labour of mind: those who have not pursued this method are all their
lives at a loss to settle their opinions and their belief, from the want
of having once brought them to such a test.

I shall now offer a plan of Historical Study, and a calculation of the
necessary time it will occupy, without specifying the authors; as I only
propose to animate a young student, who feels he has not to number the
days of a patriarch, that he should not be alarmed at the vast labyrinth
historical researches present to his eye. If we look into public
libraries, more than thirty thousand volumes of history may be found.

Lenglet du Fresnoy, one of the greatest readers, calculated that he
could not read, with satisfaction, more than ten hours a day, and ten
pages in folio an hour; which makes one hundred pages every day.
Supposing each volume to contain one thousand pages, every month would
amount to three volumes, which make thirty-six volumes in folio in the
year. In fifty years a student could only read eighteen hundred volumes
in folio. All this, too, supposing uninterrupted health, and an
intelligence as rapid as the eyes of the laborious researcher. A man can
hardly study to advantage till past twenty, and at fifty his eyes will
be dimmed, and his head stuffed with much reading that should never be
read. His fifty years for eighteen hundred volumes are reduced to thirty
years, and one thousand volumes! And, after all, the universal historian
must resolutely face thirty thousand volumes!

But to cheer the historiographer, he shows, that a public library is
only necessary to be consulted; it is in our private closet where should
be found those few writers who direct us to their rivals, without
jealousy, and mark, in the vast career of time, those who are worthy to
instruct poste