Next to your own country, _France_ will be the most interesting object of your inquiries; our ancient possessions in that country, and the frequent contests we have been engaged in with its inhabitants, connect their history with our own. The extent of their dominion and influence--their supposed superiority in elegance and politeness--their eminence in the Arts and Sciences--and that intercourse of thought, if so I may call it, which subsists between us, by the mutual communication of literary productions--make them peculiarly interesting to us; and we cannot but find our curiosity excited to know their story, and to be intimately acquainted with the character, genius, and sentiments of this nation. I do not know of any general history of France, that will answer your purpose, except that of _Mezerai_, which even in the abridgment is a pretty large work: there is a very modern one by _Velly and others_, which perhaps may be more lively, but is still more voluminous, and not yet completed. From Mezerai you may proceed with Voltaire to the end of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth. In considering the rest of Europe, your curiosity may be confined within narrower limits. Modern history is, from the nature of it, much more minute and laborious than the ancient; and to pursue that of so many various kingdoms and governments, would be a task unequal to your leisure and abilities, at least for several years to come; at the same time, it must be owned, that the present system of politics and commerce has formed such a relation between the different powers of Europe, that they are in a manner members of one great body, and a total ignorance of any considerable state would throw an obscurity even upon the affairs of your own country[33]; an acquaintance however with the most remarkable circumstances that distinguish the principal governments, will sufficiently enlighten you, and will enable you to comprehend whatever relates to them, in the histories with which you are more familiar. Instead of referring you for this purpose to dull and uninteresting abridgments, I choose rather to point out to you a few small Tracts, which exhibit striking and lively pictures, not easily effaced from the memory, of the constitutions and the most remarkable transactions of several of these nations. Such are Sir William Temple's Essay on the United Provinces. His Essay on Heroic Virtue, which contains some account of the Saracen Empire. Vertot's Revolutions de Suede. Vertot's Revolutions de Portugal. Voltaire's Charles XII. de Suede. Voltaire's Pierre le Grand. Puffendorf's Account of the Popes, in his Introduction to Modern History. Some part of the History of Germany and Spain, you will see more in detail in Robertson's History of Charles the Vth, which I have already recommended to you in another view.