The pleasure we derive from the perusal of ancient history is partly because it is ancient. The mind, being formed for what is infinite, is naturally delighted with an image of unlimited duration as well as of unbounded space. The retrospection of events, which are faintly discerned in the depth of past ages, is not less pleasing than the view of an extensive prospect, where the dusky hills in the extremity of the horizon are scarcely distinguishable from the clouds.
“I do not think altogether the worse of a book for having survived the author a generation or two. I have more confidence in the dead than the living.” — Hazlitt
21 March 2012
The Retrospection of Events
Ely Bates in Rural Philosophy (London: Longman and Rees, 1804), p. 261: