As to those who hire themselves out at Paris to some bookseller in the Rue de St. Jacques, and at so much per job, and who are ordered to write a history of Japan, Canada, or the Canaries, as the case requires and opportunity suggests, from the memoirs of a few Capuchin friars--to such I have nothing to say. It is sufficient, if it be clearly understood, that the method which would be proper in writing a history of our own country is not suitable in describing the discoveries of the new world; that we should not write on a small city as on a great empire; and that the private history of a prince should be composed in a very different manner from the history of France and England. If you have nothing to tell us, but that on the banks of the Oxus and the Jaxartes, one barbarian has been succeeded by another barbarian, in what respect do you benefit the public? These rules are well known; but the art of writing history well will always be very uncommon. It obviously requires a style grave, pure, varied, and smooth. But we may say with respect to rules for writing history, as in reference to those for all the intellectual arts--there are many precepts, but few masters. SECTION V. _History of the Jewish Kings, and of the "Paralipomena."_ Every nation, as soon as it was able to write, has written its own history, and the Jews have accordingly written theirs. Before they had kings, they lived under a theocracy; it was their destiny to be governed by God himself. When the Jews were desirous of having a king, like the adjoining nations, the prophet Samuel, who was exceedingly interested in preventing it, declared to them, on the part of God, that they were rejecting God himself. Thus the Jewish theocracy ceased when the monarchy commenced. We may therefore remark, without the imputation of blasphemy, that the history of the Jewish kings was written like that of other nations, and that God did not take the pains Himself to dictate the history of a people whom He no longer governed. We advance this opinion with the greatest diffidence. What may perhaps be considered as confirming it, is, that the "Paralipomena" very frequently contradict the Book of Kings, both with respect to chronology and facts, just as profane historians sometimes contradict one another. Moreover, if God always wrote the history of the Jews, it seems only consistent and natural to think that He writes it still; for the Jews are always His cherished people. They are on some future day to be converted, and it seems that whenever that event happens, they will have as complete a right to consider the history of their dispersion as sacred, as they have now to say, that God wrote the history of their kings.