HESTER, a genus of insects of the or der Coleoptera. Antennae clavate, the club solid; the last joint compressed, decur yed ; head retractile within the body ; mouth forcipated ; shells shorter than the body, truncate ; fore-shanks toothed, hind-shanks spinous. There are twenty four species, usually found in putrescent animal substances, or under the bark of decaying trees. The most common Eu ropean species of the hister genus is H. unicolor, which is of a glossy coal-black colour, and of a slightly flattened shape. It is often seen in the gardens, but its lar va is unknown.
HISTORIOGRAPHER,a professed his torian, or writer of history. An histori an, of all authors, spreads the most am ple theatre ; he erects the greatest tribu nal on earth, for it is his office to sit su preme judge of all that passes in the world, to pronounce the destiny of the great ones of the earth, and fix their cha racter with posterity ; to do justice to vir tue and worth, in bestowing eternity up on great and good actions, and fixing an everlasting mark of infamy on had ones ; to instruct all people and nations, and di rect the conduct of ages ; he therefore ought to be endowed with many great and uncommon qualifications. He must be a person of consummate knowlege of men and things, of sound judgment, uncom mon sagacity and 'penetration, experien ced in matters of state and war, of great integrity, firmness of mind, freedom of sentiment, and master of a pure, clear, nervous, and exalted style. An histori an, whose province it is to speak to kings and princes, to the great men of all ages and countries, and to be the common mas ter and instructor of mankind, must not only write with purity, simplicity, and manly sense, but with dignity and ele gance ; he must reject all that is vulgar and low in style ; make the majesty and sublimity of his expression the dignity of his subject ; must, by an ex act choice and propriety of u ords, a na tural disposition of phrases, and a pru dent moderate use of figures, give weight to his thoughts, force to his language, and imprint a character of greatness on all that he says. He must at the same time represent things with an air of gravity and prudence, and not give a loose to the heat of imagination, or vivacity of wit ; but discreetly suppress every thing that shall seem idle, languid and unprofita ble, and give every thing that just figure and proportion which is consistent with propriety and decorum. He must endea vour at a noble simplicity of thought, lan guage, design, and ordinance, and care fully avoid all profuseness of false conceit, strained expression, and affected pom pousness, so inconsistent with the gravity, dignity, and noble character of history. In a word, he must write so as to be in telligible to the ignorant, and yet charm' the wise ; form and express such ideas as are great, and yet shall appear very com mon, and intermix no other ornament with his narration than what the modesty of truth can bear. He should be above the reach and power of hopes and fears, and all kinds of interest, that he may al ways dare to speak the truth, and write of all without prejudice ; religiously ob serving never to abuse the public faith, nor to advance any thing upon common fame, which is always uncertain, but up on undoubted memoirs and faithful rela tions of such persons as have had a hand in affairs. He must always be upon his guard against the bias and affections of those who supply him with matter, and must not credulously give his assent to the historians that went before him, with out inquiring narrowly into their charac ter, and what influence they may have been under when they wrote, in order to make a just estimate of their Weight and credit.
An historian, as to his matter, should choose subjects great in themselves, and such as are worthy of public fame and re. membrance ; and should make himself so far master of his matter, as to be able to cast it into what form he pleases, and to strike upon all his subjects the colours they are naturally disposed to bear, in or der to make his lessons profitable to pos terity, by regulating the heart and spirits of men, animating them to great and vir tuous actions by illustrious examples, and cautioning them against vice, folly, cru elty, and injustice, by laying open the fatal consequences resulting from them, The course of his narration must pro ceed in the order of time in which the facts happened, in a pure, grave, unin terrupted series, such as may not impro perly be compared to a great river flow ing with composed majesty and stately smoothness; and when it falls in his way to introduce little occurrences, they must be so artfully interwoven with the great, in the thread of the narration, as to offer a seasonable entertainment and relief to the reader, from the fatigue that too sedulous an attention to the great requireth. He must also observe great
judgment in the ordinance and disposition of events and their circumstances, so as to interest the reader, and let him into all his thoughts and views, by making his persons act astheir character and temper inclined them ; discovering their man ners, sentiments, designs, motives, and operations, as they really stand in a ne. nessary dependence upon each other, and with so natural a connection, as to show nothing out of its place. His tran sitions, in which consists the great at.' of narration, and one of its principal beau ties, must be natural and easy, arising from the difference of subject ratherthan expression. He must make a wise and judicious choice of circumstances, such as are proper to enlarge 'and improve the ideas of things, and to strike that light and colour upon them, which most easily attracts belief and engages the mind ; and must for that purpose always observe a due mixture of great and little circum stances, neither of which must be carried beyond nature, or be so minute, low, or frivolous, as to debase his subject. He must not only recite the bare events and actions of men, but also lay open the mo tives and principles from which they took their rise, and upon which they proceed ed to their final issues. He must lay open the hearts of the actors, let his reader into the most important secrets of their coun cils and designs, and oblige him with a sight of those secret springs which mov ed them to enterprises, and of the causes of their success or miscarriage. He must be very sparing and cautious in the use of descriptions, which are to be introduced so far only as they serve to illustrate things that are essential to the main sub ject, and to enliven the narration : and even in that case they must be succinct and elegant. The frequent use of ha rangues are disapproved of by many judi cious persons ; for these long formal ha. rangues of generals to their soldiers, when in the presence of the enemy, and ready to enter upon action, which we find in many historians, are undoubtedly not only unnatural and improbable, but con trary to the truth of history. Neverthe less, a short speech, suited to the subject, made by a person of eminent character, has its proper beauty, and animates a nar ration. A judicious historian ought not to admit any portraits into his work but those of the greatest persons, and such as are principally interested, and have the chief hand in affairs; and these must be real, natural, and truly resembling their originals ; expressive of their genius, the qualities of the head and heart, rather than descriptive of the external form of his personages. When such are finished with a masterly hand, with true judgment and success, they are not only great orna ments and embellishments in history, but of use to strip the hearts of men of disguises, to lay open all their secret folds, and disclose the real springs of actions. It is a great fault in an historiographer to abound too much in reflections of his own; he therefore must not turn philosopher or moralist indifferently upon all occasions ; for every man desires to be free in his judgment of the facts represented to him, and the consequences he is to draw from them, in which consists the greatest plea sure of the reader. But if an author should throw in or mingle reflections of his own with his story, they must be such as arise naturally from the subject, and contain a great and noble sense in a few words ; they must not be too fine spun or studied, nor have more brightness than solidity, but appear rather to be the rea soning of a wise statesman than the affec tation of a declaimer ; nor must they be too frequent, or too loose and disjointed, but be enamelled in the body of the work. Digressions, if made with judgment, and not too wide and foreign from the subject, have also their proper grace and ornament in history ; as they give an agreeable va riety to the narration, and relieve the mind of the reader ; but they must be introduced by the historian with an artful hand and great address ; they must bear an alliance and connection with the pur port of the history • and their length must be proportionably greater or less, as they are more nearly or remotely allied to the capital point of the story.