My long stay in the country gave me leisure to read a good deal; I applied myself to history, particularly that of England; for rightly to understand what a nation is, one should previously learn what it has been. If I complained of the different accounts which are given by the English of themselves in their present circumstances, I have no less reason to complain of their historians: Past transactions are so variously related and with such a mixture of prejudice on both sides, that it is as hard to know truth from their relations, as religion from the comments of the divines.'