Ellesmere. I am sure, Dunsford, you are already convinced: you seldom want more than a slight pretext for going over to the charitable side of things. You are only afraid of not dealing stoutly enough with bad things and people. Do not be afraid though. As long as you have me to abuse, you will say many unjust things against me, you know, so that you may waste yourself in good thoughts about the rest of the world, past and present. Do you know the lawyer’s story I had in my mind then? “Many times when I have had a good case,” he said, “I have failed; but then I have often succeeded with bad cases. And so justice is done.”
Milverton. To return to the subject. It is not a sort of equalising want of thought about men that I desire; only not to be rash in a matter that requires all our care and prudence.
Dunsford. Well, I believe I am won over. But now to another point. I think, Milverton, that you have said hardly anything about the use of history as an incentive to good deeds and a discouragement to evil ones.
Milverton. I ought to have done so. Bolingbroke gives in his “Letters on History,” talking of this point, a passage from Tacitus, “Præcipuum munus annalium,”—can you go on with it, Dunsford?
Dunsford. Yes, I think I can. It is a passage I have often seen quoted. “Præcipuum munus annalium, reor, ne virtutes sileantur; utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamiâ metus sit.”
Ellesmere. Well done; Dunsford may have invented it, though, for aught that we know, Milverton, and be passing himself off upon us for Tacitus.
Milverton. Then Bolingbroke goes on to say (I wish I could give you his own flowing words), that the great duty of history is to form a tribunal like that amongst the Egyptians which Diodorus tells of, where both common men and princes were tried after their deaths, and received appropriate honour or disgrace. The sentence was pronounced, he says, too late to correct or to recompense; but it was pronounced in time to render examples of general instruction to mankind. Now, what I was going to remark upon this is, that Bolingbroke understates his case. History well written is a present correction, and a foretaste of recompense, to the man who is now struggling with difficulties and temptations, now overcast by calumny and cloudy misrepresentation.
Ellesmere. Yes; many a man makes an appeal to posterity which will never come before the court; but if there were no such court of appeal—
Milverton. A man’s conviction that justice will be done to him in history is a secondary motive, and not one which, of itself, will compel him to do just and great things; but, at any rate, it forms one of the benefits that flow from history, and it becomes stronger as histories are better written. Much may be said against care for fame; much also against care for present repute. There is a diviner impulse than either at the doing of any actions that are much worth doing. As a correction, however, this anticipation of the judgment of history may really be very powerful. It is a great enlightenment of conscience to read the opinions of men on deeds similar to those we are engaged in or meditating.
Dunsford. I think Bolingbroke’s idea, which I imagine was more general than yours, is more important: namely, that this judicial proceeding, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, gave significant lessons to all people, not merely to those who had any chance of having their names in history.