But, be this as it may, it must be confessed, that we are not always to judge of the value of an action, or the merit of the persons who shared in it, by the importance of the event. It is rather in such sieges and engagements as we find recorded in the history of the Peloponnesian war, that the conduct and abilities of a general are truly conspicuous. Accordingly, it is observed, that it was chiefly at the head of small armies, and in countries of no great extent, that our best generals of the last age displayed their great capacity, and showed themselves not inferior to the most celebrated captains of antiquity. In actions of this sort chance has no share, and does not cover any oversights that are committed. Every thing is conducted and carried on by the prudence of the general. He is truly the soul of the forces, which neither act nor move but by his direction. He sees every thing, and is present every where. Nothing escapes his vigilance and attention. Orders are seasonably given, and seasonably executed. Contrivances, stratagems, false marches, real or feigned attacks, encampments, decampments; in a word, every thing depends upon him alone. On this account, the reading of the Greek historians, such as Thucydides, Xenophon, and Polybius, is of infinite service to young officers; because those historians, who were also excellent commanders, enter into all the particulars of the events which they relate, and lead the readers, as it were by the hand, through all the sieges and battles they describe; showing them, by the example of the greatest generals of antiquity, and by a kind of anticipated experience, in what manner war is to be carried on. Nor is it only with regard to military exploits, that the Grecian history affords us such excellent models. We shall there find celebrated legislators, able politicians, magistrates born for government, men that have excelled in all arts and sciences, philosophers that carried their inquiries as far as was possible in those early ages, and who have left us such maxims of morality, as might put many Christians to the blush.