But, when you come to the Grecian and Roman[30] stories, I expect to find you deeply interested and highly entertained; and, of consequence, eager to treasure up in your memory those heroic actions and exalted characters by which a young mind is naturally so much animated and impressed. As Greece and Rome were distinguished as much for genius as valour, and were the theatres, not only of the greatest military actions, the noblest efforts of liberty and patriotism, but of the highest perfection of arts and sciences, their immortal fame is a subject of wonder and emulation, even to these distant ages; and it is thought a shameful degree of ignorance, even in our sex, to be unacquainted with the nature and revolutions of their governments, and with the characters and stories of their most illustrious heroes. Perhaps, when you are told that the government and the national character of your own countrymen have been compared with those of the Romans, it may not be an useless amusement, in reading the Roman history, to carry this observation in your mind, and to examine how far the parallel holds good. The French have been thought to resemble the Athenians in their genius, though not in their love of liberty. These little hints sometimes serve to awaken reflection and attention in young readers--I leave you to make what use of them you please. When you have got through Rollin, if you add _Vertot's Revolutions Romaines_--a short and very entertaining work--you may be said to have read as much as is _absolutely necessary_ of ancient history. Plutarch's lives of famous Greeks and Romans--a book deservedly of the highest reputation--can never be read to so much advantage as immediately after the histories of Greece and Rome: I should even prefer reading each life in Plutarch, immediately after the history of each particular hero, as you meet with them in Rollin or in Vertot. If hereafter you should choose to enlarge your plan, and should wish to know more of any particular people or period than you find in Rollin, the sources from which he drew may be open to you; for there are, I believe, French or English translations of all the original historians, from whom he extracted his materials.