"In Asiam factus imperator venit;cum esset Roma profectus rei militaris rudis;"[one would be ready to ascribe so sudden a change,and so vast an improvement,to nothing less than knowledge infused by inspiration,if we were not assured in the same place that they were effected by very natural means,by such as it is in every man's power to employ]"partim percontando a peritis,partim in rebus gestis legendis."Lucullus,according to this account,verified the reproach on the Roman nobility,which Sallust puts into the mouth of Marius.But as I discover the passion of Marius,and his prejudices to the patricians,in one case;so I discover,methinks,the cunning of Tully,and his partiality to himself,in the other.Lucullus,after he had been chosen consul,obtained by intrigue the government of Cilicia,and so put himself into a situation of commanding the Roman army against Mithridates:Tully had the same government afterwards,and though he had no Mithridates,nor any other enemy of consequence,opposed to him;though all his military feats consisted in surprising and pillaging a parcel of highlanders and wild Cilicians;yet he assumed the airs of a conqueror,and described his actions in so pompous a style,that the account becomes burlesque.
He laughs,indeed,in one of his letters to Atticus,at his generalship;but if we turn to those he wrote to Coelius Rufus,and to Cato,upon this occasion,or to those wherein he expresses to Atticus his resentment against Cato for not proposing in his favor the honors usually decreed to conquerors,we may see how vanity turned his head,and how impudently he insisted on obtaining a triumph.Is it any strain now to suppose,that he meant to insinuate,in the passage I have quoted about Lucullus,that the difference between him and the former governor of Cilicia,even in a military merit,arose from the different conjuncture alone;and that Lucullus could not have done in Cilicia,at that time,more than he himself did?Cicero had read and questioned at least as much Lucullus,and would therefore have appeared as great a captain if he had had as great a prince as Mithridates to encounter.But the truth is that Lucullus was made a great captain by theory,or the study of history,alone,no more than Ferdinand of Spain and Alphonsus of Naples were cured of desperate distempers by reading Livy and Quintus Curtius;a silly tale,which Bodin,Amyot,and others have picked up and propagated.Lucullus had served in his youth against the Marsi,probably in other wars,and Sylla took early notice of him:he went into the east with this general and had a great share in his confidence.He commanded in several expeditions.It was he who restored the Colophonians to their liberty,and who punished the revolt of the people of Mytelene.Thus we see that Lucullus was formed by experience,as well as study,and by an experience gained in those very countries,where he gathered so many laurels afterwards in fighting against the same enemy.The late Duke of Marlborough never read Xenophon,most certainly,nor the relation perhaps of any modern wars;but he served in his youth under Monsieur de Turenne,and I have heard that he was taken notice of,in those early days,by that great wan.He afterwards commanded in an expedition to Ireland,served a campaign or two,if I mistake not,under king William in Flanders:and,besides these occasions,had none of gaining experience in war,till he came to the head of our armies in one thousand seven hundred and two,and triumphed not over Asiatic troops,but over the veteran armies of France.The Roman had on his side genius and experience cultivated by study:the Briton had genius improved by experience,and no more.The first therefore is not an example of what study can do alone;but the latter is an example of what genius and experience can do without study.They can do so much,to be sure,when the first is given in a superior degree.But such examples are very rare;and when they happen it will be still true,that they would have had fewer blemishes,and would have come nearer to the perfection of private and public virtue,in all the arts of peace and achievements of war,if the views of such men had been enlarged,and their sentiments ennobled,by acquiring that cast of thought,and that temper of mind,which will grow up and become habitual in every man who applies himself early to the study of history,as to the study of philosophy,with the intention of being wiser and better,without the affectation of being more learned.
The temper of the mind is formed and a certain turn given to our ways of thinking;in a word,the seeds of that moral character which cannot wholly alter the natural character,but may correct the evil and improve the good that is in it,or do the very contrary,are sown betimes,and much sooner than is commonly supposed.It is equally certain,that we shall gather or not gather experience,be the better or the worse for this experience,when we come into the world and mingle amongst mankind,according to the temper of mind,and the turn of thought,that we have acquired beforehand,and bring along with us.They will tincture all our future acquisitions;so that the very same experience which secures the judgment of one man,or excites him to virtue,shall lead another into error,or plunge him into vice.From hence,it follows,that the study of history has in this respect a double advantage.
If experience alone can make us perfect in our parts,experience cannot begin to teach them till we are actually on the stage:whereas,by a previous application to this study,we con them over at least before we appear there:we are not quite unprepared;we learn our parts sooner,and we learn them better.
