XXVIII. Who is ignorant, says Cicero, that the first law of history enjoins the historian not to have the audacity to write any kind of lie, or to want courage to speak the truth in all things, be the danger of doing it what it may; and that, as far as he is able, he should avoid the suspicion of being influenced, either by love or hatred? And Polybius, long before Cicero’s time, had said, that the historian who suppresses truths, is not less a liar than him who writes fables. _The great Sincerity of some Historians._ XXIX. Polybius conforms very exactly to his own maxim, which we have just repeated. This author’s mode of proceeding in his history, is so distant from all dissimulation, that he comments upon the errors committed by his own father Lycortas. Thucydides omits nothing that could reflect honour on Cleon and Barcidas, by whose management he had been banished from Athens. XXX. Titus Livius makes honourable mention of Brutus and Cassius, although they were the enemies of Augustus, in whose reign, and under whose auspices, he wrote his history, and delivered down to posterity the murderers of Cæsar, with the characters of virtuous citizens. Grotius gave a striking instance of his sincerity in his history of the Low Countries, by always speaking of prince Maurice of Nassau, with as much moderation and indifference as if he had never been persecuted by him. XXXI. We are given to understand by a passage in Plutarch, that in old times, authors did not think themselves sufficiently qualified to write a history, till they had travelled through the countries which were the theatres of the events they were to treat of. Polybius prepared himself for writing his history, by travelling through all the world which was known in his time. Sallust passed the sea, in order to see with his own eyes the theatre of the Jugurthan war. John Chartier assures us, that by order of Charles the Seventh, he attended the most important expeditions of that prince, to the end that he might be a witness of the facts he was to relate. XXXII. In Ethiopia, in Egypt, in Chaldea, in Persia, and in Syria, the writing of history, and the custody of annals, was confided to none but the priests. Numa recommended it to the pontiffs of Rome, to write the history of the country in the public registers; but when the Gauls took the city, these registers were for the most part burnt. In China, the superintendance of history is given to the magistrates; notwithstanding which, all their public registers are full of impostures, calculated either to establish the worship of false deities, to flatter their princes, or to indulge the taste and vanity of the nation. _Histories filled with Fables._