_In part_ we say, because in part also the characteristic differences of these works depend upon the particular mode of the narrative. For narration itself, as applied to history, admits of a triple arrangement--dogmatic, sceptical, and critical; dogmatic, which adopts the current records without examination; sceptical, as Horace Walpole's Richard III., Laing's Dissertation on Perkin Warbeck, or on the Gowrie Conspiracy, which expressly undertakes to probe and try the unsound parts of the story; and critical, which, after an examination of this nature, selects from the whole body of materials such as are coherent. There is besides another ground of difference in the quality of historical narratives, viz. between those which move by means of great public events, and those which (like the Caesars of Suetonius, and the French Memoirs), referring to such events as are already known, and keeping them in the background, crowd their foreground with those personal and domestic notices which we call anecdotes. NOTE 2. Leibnitz, (who was _twice_ in England,) when walking in Kensington Gardens with the Princess of Wales, whose admiration oscillated between this great countryman of her own, and Sir Isaac Newton, the corresponding idol of her adopted country, took occasion, from the beautiful scene about them, to explain in a lively way, and at the same time to illustrate and verify this favorite thesis: Turning to a gentleman in attendance upon her Royal Highness, he challenged him to produce two leaves from any tree or shrub, which should be exact duplicates or facsimiles of each other in those lines which variegate the surface. The challenge was accepted; but the result justified Leibnitz. It is in fact upon this infinite variety in the superficial lines of the human palm, that Palmistry is grounded, (or the science of divination by the hieroglyphics written on each man's hand,) and has its _prima facie_ justification. Were it otherwise, this mode of divination would not have even a _plausible_ sanction; for, without the inexhaustible varieties which are actually found in the combinations of these lines, and which give to each separate individual his own separate type, the same identical fortunes must be often repeated; and there would be no foundation for assigning to each his peculiar and characteristic destiny. NOTE 3. According to the general estimate of philosophical history, the _tenth_ century (or perhaps the tenth and the eleventh conjointly) must be regarded as the meridian, or the perfect midnight, of the dark ages. NOTE 4.