We are told that in the sixteenth century the great Lords in France piqued themselves upon having able and learned men for their secretaries, and treated them as their friends. The principal business of such secretaries was to keep a journal of the most interesting events; and the masters having witnessed or borne a part in the business of state were well able to inform them of the intrigues and tortuous policy of their own times. From such journals it is that most of those old Memoirs have been formed, in which French literature is so peculiarly rich. They usually include as much general history as is in any way connected with the personage whom the writer served. Boswell, who if ever man went to Heaven for his good works, has gone there for his life of Johnson,—Boswell, I say thought, and Johnson agreed with him, that there ought to be a chronicler kept in every considerable family, to preserve the characters and transactions of successive generations. In like manner Milton's friend, Henry More the Platonist and Poet, would have had the stories of apparitions and witchcraft publicly recorded, as they occurred in every parish, thinking that this course would prove “one of the best antidotes against that earthly and cold disease of Sadducism and Atheism,” which he said, “if not prevented might easily grow upon us, to the hazard of all religion and the best kinds of philosophy.” Our philosopher had more comprehensive notions of what ought to be. He wished not only for such domestic chronicles, but that in every considerable family there should be a compleat set of portraits preserved in every generation, taken in so small a size that it might never be necessary to eject them in order to make room for others. When this had been done for some centuries, it might be seen how long a family likeness remains, whether Nature repeats her own forms at certain times, or after uncertain intervals; or whether she allows them to be continually modified, as families intermarry, till the original type at last may altogether be obliterated. In China there are not only learned men whose business it is to record every thing remarkable that is either said or done by the reigning Emperor, (which is done for his own instruction, as well as for that of his successors,) but the great families, have in like manner their records, and these are considered as the most precious part of the inheritance which descends from sire to son. All who aspire to any high office are required to be well acquainted with the history of their ancestors, and in that history their indispensable qualifications are examined.