ancient classical pattern.
However, in the historical literature of the Renaissance, two novelties claim our attention, in which the mediæval influence is incontrovertibly manifest. On the one hand we see the retention of a form of exposition which was unusual in antiquity, which was created by the Catholic historians of the later ages (Eusebius, Orosius), and which enjoyed great favour in the Middle Ages,—that which, instead of embracing only the history of a single man, family, or people, embraces universal history. On the other hand there was introduced a mechanical artifice of exposition, having its origin in a practice common in the mediæval schools (the gloss), which had far-reaching consequences. The custom arose of adding notes to printed books of history. Notes have made it possible to distinguish between the historical narrative and the documents which support it, to give references to sources, to disencumber and illustrate the text. It was in collections of documents, and in critical dissertations, that the artifice of annotation was first employed; thence it penetrated, slowly, into historical works of other classes.
A second period begins in the eighteenth century. The "philosophers" then began to conceive history as the study, not of events for their own sakes, but of the habits of men. They were thus led to take an interest, not only in facts of a political order, but in the evolution of the arts, the sciences, of industry, and in manners. Montesquieu and Voltaire personified these tendencies. The Essai sur les mœurs is the first sketch, and, in some respects, the masterpiece of history thus conceived. The detailed narration of political and military events was still regarded as the main work of history, but to this it now became