Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third | Page 2

the reign of George the Second, to be
calculated two thousand years hence by eclipses, lest the conquest of
Canada should be ascribed to James the First.
At the very moment that the Roman empire was resettled, nay, when a
new metropolis was erected, in an age of science and arts, while letters
still held up their heads in Greece; consequently, when the great
outlines of truth, I mean events, might be expected to be established; at
that very period a new deluge of error burst upon the world. Cristian
monks and saints laid truth waste; and a mock sun rose at Rome, when
the Roman sun sunk at Constantinople. Virtues and vices were rated by
the standard of bigotry; and the militia of the church became the only
historians. The best princes were represented as monsters; the worst, at
least the most useless, were deified, according as they depressed or
exalted turbulent and enthusiastic prelates and friars. Nay, these men
were so destitute of temper and common sense, that they dared to
suppose that common sense would never revisit the earth: and
accordingly wrote with so little judgment, and committed such palpable
forgeries, that if we cannot discover what really happened in those ages,
we can at least he very sure what did not. How many general
persecutions does the church record, of which there is not the smallest
trace? What donations and charters were forged, for which those holy
persons would lose their ears, if they were in this age to present them in
the most common court of judicature? Yet how long were these
impostors the only persons who attempted to write history!
But let us lay aside their interested lies, and consider how far they were
qualified in other respects to transmit faithful memoirs to posterity. In
the ages I speak of, the barbarous monkish ages, the shadow of learning
that existed was confined to the clergy: they generally wrote in Latin,
or in verse, and their compositions in both were truly barbarous. The
difficulties of rhime, and the want of correspondent terms in Latin,
were no small impediments to the severe nvarch of truth. But there
were worse obstacles to encounter. Europe was in a continual state of
warfare. Little princes and great lords were constantly skirmishing and

struggling for trifling additions of territory, or wasting each others
borders. Geography was very imperfect; no police existed; roads, such
as they were, were dangerous; and posts were not established. Events
were only known by rumour, from pilgrims, or by letters carried In
couriers to the parties interested: the public did not enjoy even those
fallible vehicles of intelligence, newspapers. In this situation did monks,
at twenty, fifty, an hundred, nay, a thousand miles distance (and under
the circumstances I have mentioned even twenty miles were
considerable) undertake to write history--and they wrote it accordingly.
If we take a survey of our own history, and examine it with any
attention, what an unsatisfactory picture does it present to us! How dry,
how superficial, how void of information! How little is recorded
besides battles, plagues, and religious foundations! That this should be
the case, before the Conquest, is not surprizing. Our empire was but
forming itself, or re-collecting its divided members into one mass,
which, from the desertion of the Romans, had split into petty kingdoms.
The invasions of nations as barbarous as ourselves, interfered with
every plan of policy and order that might have been formed to settle the
emerging state; and swarms of foreign monks were turned loose upon
us with their new faith and mysteries, to bewilder and confound the
plain good sense of our ancestors. It was too much to have Danes,
Saxons, and Popes, to combat at once! Our language suffered as much
as our government; and not having acquired much from our Roman
masters, was miserably disfigured by the subsequent invaders. The
unconquered parts of the island retained some purity and some
precision. The Welsh and Erse tongues wanted not harmony: but never
did exist a more barbarous jargon than the dialect, still venerated by
antiquaries, and called Saxon. It was so uncouth, so inflexible to all
composition, that the monks, retaining the idiom, were reduced to write
in what they took or meant for Latin.
The Norman tyranny succeeded, and gave this Babel of savage sounds
a wrench towards their own language. Such a mixture necessarily
required ages to bring it to some standard: and, consequently, whatever
compositions were formed during its progress, were sure of growing
obsolete. However, the authors of those days were not likely to make

these obvious reflections; and indeed seem to have aimed at no one
perfection. From the Conquest to the reign of Henry the Eighth it is
difficult to discover any one beauty in our writers,