CLARENDON.

In historiography as well as in other things each age has its own characteristics. The seventeenth century is distinguished by the fact, that some of the leading statesmen have themselves taken up the pen and given a detailed account of their own conduct in its bearings on the history of their time and of their country. So in France Sully and Cardinal Richelieu; in a somewhat lighter style Cardinal De Retz. Never were memoirs more thorough and more instructive than during this epoch. In the description of personages the ladies enter into competition with the men, as Mme de Motteville, for example, with La Rochefoucauld. In Italy endeavours were made to enliven the original material with general views, or to open the way for these by means of detailed narrative, as by Davila, and as in the rival histories of Sarpi and Pallavicini. For Germany, Khe-venhiller's compilation, which, though shapeless, is partly based on original documents, will always be worth consulting; in contrast to which stands Chemnitz, who works from the original materials of Oxenstierna. Still earlier Van Reyd in like manner had incorporated with his history the personal information, which naturally came to him in his confidential position near the Stadtholder of Friesland. And how much of this kind of literature has remained unprinted; in Vienna the life of an influential minister, in Rome the detailed biographies of such important Popes as Urban VIII and Alexander VI.