Chapter XII

The Appendix of History embraces the Words of Men, as the Body of History includes their Exploits. Its Division into Speeches, Letters, and Apothegms

AND not only the actions of mankind, but also their sayings, ought to be preserved, and may doubtless be sometimes inserted in history, so far as they decently serve to illustrate the narration of facts; but books of orations, epistles, and apothegms, are the proper repositories of human discourse. The speeches of wise men upon matter of business, weighty causes, or difficult points, are of great use, not only for eloquence, but for the knowledge of things themselves. But the letters of wise men upon serious affairs are yet more serviceable in points of civil prudence, as of all human speech nothing is more solid or excellent than such epistles, for they contain more of natural sense than orations, and more ripeness than occasional discourses: so letters of state affairs, written in the order of time by those that manage them, with their answers, afford the best materials for civil history.

Nor do apothegms only serve for ornament and delight, but also for action and civil use, as being the edge-tools of speech—

“Secures aut mucrones verborum,”

which cut and penetrate the knots of business and affairs; for occasions have their revolutions, and what has once been advantageously used may be so again, either as an old thing or a new one. Nor can the usefulness of these sayings in civil affairs be questioned, when Cæsar himself wrote a book upon the subject, which we wish were extant; for all those we have yet seen of the kind appear to be collected with little choice and judgment.