In proportion as a writer transcends the special limitations of his time, will "age fail to wither him." That he cannot entirely shake off the fetters which fasten him to his epoch is manifest.

But in proportion as his vision is clear, in proportion as he has with singleness of eye striven to draw the past with reverent loyalty, will his bondage to his own time be loosened, and his work will remain faithful work for which due gratitude will not be withheld.
The sudden and rapid expansion of historic studies in the middle of the eighteenth century constitutes one of the great epochs in literature.

Up to the year 1750 no great historical work had appeared in any modern language.[11] The instances that seem to make against this remark will be found to confirm it.

They consist of memoirs, contemporary documents, in short materials for history, but not history itself.

From Froissart and De Comines, or even from the earlier monastic writers to St.Simon (who was just finishing his incomparable Memoirs), history with wide outlook and the conception of social progress and interconnection of events did not exist.