"Conversations on Natural Philosophy," in one volume, by a lady, is nearly as simple and clear as the "Scientific Dialogues;" it will serve usefully as a successor to them. It is a great assistance to the memory to read a different work on the same subject while the first is still fresh in your mind. The sameness of the facts gives the additional force of a double impression; and the variation in the mode of stating them, always more striking when the books are the respective works of a man and of a woman, adds the force of a trebled impression, stronger than the two others, because there is in it more of the exercise of the intellect, that is, on the supposition that, in accordance with the foregoing rules, you should think over each respective statement until you have reconciled them together by ascertaining the cause of the variation.
I shall now proceed to those lighter branches of literature which are equally necessary with the preceding, and which will supply you with the current coin of the day,—very necessary for ordinary intercourse, though, in point of real value, far inferior to the bank-stock of philosophic and scientific knowledge which it is to be your chief object to acquire. History is the branch of lighter literature to which your attention should be specially directed; it provides you with illustrations for all philosophy, with excitements to heroism and elevation of character, stronger perhaps than any mere theory can ever afford. The simplest story, the most objective style of narrative, will be that best fitted to answer these purposes. Your own philosophic deductions will be much more beneficial to your intellect than any one else's, supposing always that you are willing to make, history a really intellectual study.
Tytler's "Elements of History" is a most valuable book, and not an unnecessary word throughout the whole. If you do not find getting by heart an insuperable difficulty, you will do well to commit every line to memory. Half a page a day of the small edition would soon lay up for you such an extent of historic learning as would serve for a foundation to all future attainments in this branch of study. Such outlines of history are a great assistance in forming the comprehensive views which are necessary on the subject of contemporaneous history: a glance at a chart of history, or at La Voisne's invaluable Atlas, may be allowed from time to time; but the principal arrangement ought to take place within your own mind, for the sake of both your memory and your intellect. Such outlines of history will, however, be very deficient in the interest and excitement this study ought to afford you, unless you combine with them minute details of particular periods, first, perhaps, of particular countries.
Thus I would have Rollings Ancient History succeed the cold and dry outlines of Tytler. Hume's History of England will serve the same purpose relatively to the modern portion; and for the History of France, that of Eyre Evans Crowe imparts a brilliancy to perhaps the most uninteresting of all historic records. If that is not within your reach, Millet's History of France, in four volumes, though dull enough, is a safe and useful school-room book, and may be read with profit afterwards: this, too, would possess the advantage of helping you on at the same time, or at least keeping up your knowledge of the French language.
It is desirable that all books from which you only want to acquire objective information should be read in a foreign language: you thus insensibly render yourself more permanently, and as it were habitually, acquainted with the language in question, and carry on two studies at the same time. If, however, you are not sufficiently acquainted with the language to prevent any danger of a division of attention by your being obliged to puzzle over the mere words instead of applying yourself to the meaning of the author, you must not venture upon the attempt of deriving a double species of knowledge from the same subject-matter: the effect of the history as a story or picture impressed on the mind or memory would be lost by any confusion with another object.
Sir Walter Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather" are the best history of Scotland you could read: Robertson's may come afterwards, when you have time.
Of Ireland and Wales you will learn enough from their constant connection with the affairs of England. Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics, in the Cabinet Cyclopedia, the History of the Ottoman Empire, in Constable's Miscellany, the rapid sketches of the histories of Germany, Austria, and Prussia, in Voltaire's Universal History, will be perhaps quite sufficient for this second class of histories.
The third must enter into more particular details, and thus confer a still livelier interest upon bygone days. For instance, with reference to ancient history, you should read some of the more remarkable of Plutarch's Lives, those of Alexander, Cæsar, Theseus, Themistocles, &c.; the Travels of Anacharsis, the worthy results of thirty years' hard labour of an eminent scholar:[80] the Travels of Cyrus, Telemachus, Belisarius, and Numa Pompilius, are also, though in very different degrees, useful and interesting. The plays of Corneille and Racine, Alfieri, and Metastasio, on historical subjects, will make a double impression on your memory by the excitement of your imagination. All ought to be read about the same time that you are studying those periods of history to which they refer. This is of much importance.
The same plan is to be pursued with reference to modern history. The brilliant detached histories of Voltaire, Louis XIV. and XV., Charles XII., and Peter the Great, ought to be read while the outlines of the general history of the same period are freshly impressed on your memory. The vivid historical pictures of De Barante are to be made the same use of: he stands perhaps unrivalled as an objective historian.
Shakspeare's historical plays are the best accompaniment to Hume's History of England. Our modern novels, too, will supply you with rich and varied information, as to the manners and characters of former times. They are a very important part of our literature, and ought to be considered essential to the completion of your circle of study. That they also may be rendered as useful as possible, they should be read at the same time with the entirely true history of the period to which they refer.