The appointment of Nelson to the Agamemnon, a name which he did nearly as much to immortalize as Homer, is the great epoch of his professional life. But though his letters, which now rise to the rank of despatches, become more interesting to those who watch his progress as an officer, there are comparatively fewer which let us into the character of the man. Besides this, the incidents of his career after this time are so well known, that little new can be expected. What novelty, however, there was to be obtained has not escaped the research of the editor, from whom (till we meet him in another volume, when Nelson will again become interesting in his individual capacity, as his secret and confidential letters in the Carraccioli and Lady Hamilton's period, come to be laid before us) we part with feelings of gratitude and respect. GUIZOT. Machiavel was the first historian who seems to have formed a conception of the philosophy of history. Before his time, the narrative of human events was little more than a series of biographies, imperfectly connected together by a few slight sketches of the empires on which the actions of their heroes were exerted. In this style of history, the ancient writers were, and to the end of time probably will continue to be, altogether inimitable. Their skill in narrating a story, in developing the events of a life, in tracing the fortunes of a city or a state, as they were raised by a succession of illustrious patriots, or sunk by a series of oppressive tyrants, has never been approached in modern times. The histories of Xenophon and Thucydides, of Livy and Sallust, of Cæsar and Tacitus, are all more or less formed on this model; and the more extended view of history, as embracing an account of the countries the transactions of which were narrated, originally formed, and to a great part executed, by the father of history, Herodotus, appears to have been, in an unaccountable manner, lost by his successors.