ABEL BOYER
Upon History (1702)
Some writers barely relate the actions of men, without speaking of their motives, and, like gazeteers, are contented to acquaint us with matter of fact, without tracing it to its spring and cause; others, on the contrary, are so full of politicks and finesse, that they find cunning and design in the most natural and innocent actions. Some, to make their court to the powerful, debase the dignity of history, by cringing and adulation; whilst others, to serve a party, or faction, or merely to gratify their ill-nature, rake up all the scandal of men's lives, give a malicious turn to every thing, and libel every body, even without respecting the sacred Majesty of Princes. Another sort moralize upon every petty accident, and seem to set up for philosophers, instead of historians. And lastly, others are peremptory in their decisions, and impose on the world their conjectures for real truths.
These faults I have endeavoured to avoid. When I relate matters of fact, I deduce them, as far as my informations permit me, from their true causes, without making men more politick, or subtle, than nature has made them. I commend what, in conscience I believe, deserves to be commended, without any prospect of favour, or private interest; and I censure what I think deserves to be blam'd, with the liberty that becomes a faithful unprejudic'd historian, tho' with due regard to persons, whose birth, dignity and character command the respect, even of those who disapprove their actions. I am sparing of reflections, unless it be upon those remarkable events from which they naturally result; and I never biass the reader's judgment by any conjectural impositions of my own.
Yet after all these precautions, I am not so vain as to expect to please all: for how were it possible to gain the general approbation, when people differ so much in opinion about the Prince, whose history I have attempted to write?
(The History of King William the Third, London, 1702, Preface.)
[Born in Castres in 1664, Boyer lived in Switzerland and Holland before settling in England, where he became a journalist and party-writer. He edited a French-English and English-French Dictionary which was long a classic. Swift honoured him once with the appellation of "French dog.">[