Project Gutenberg 2025-06-05 Public domain in the USA. 150 Feijoo, Benito Jerónimo 1676 1764 Feijoo, Benito Jeronimo Feijoo, Jerónimo Feijoo, B. J. (Benito Jerónimo) Feijoo y Montenegro, Benito Geronymo Feijóo y Montenegro, Benito Jerónimo Feyjóo y Montenegro, Benito Jerónimo Feijóo de Montenegro, Benito Jerónimo Montenegro, Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Feijóo, Benito Jerónimo Brett, John 1785 Gentleman Essays, or discourses, vol. 3 (of 4) : $b Selected from the works of Feyjoo, and translated from the Spanish $aLondon :$bH. Payne, $c1780. Josep Cols Canals and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) "Essays, or discourses, vol. 3 (of 4) : Selected from the works of Feyjoo, and…." by Feyjoo is a collection of essays written in the late 18th century. This volume turns a sharp, skeptical eye on how history is written, weighing style against substance and probing the biases that distort the record. Its likely focus is on the art and ethics of historiography—how truth is pursued, how it goes astray, and how celebrated anecdotes harden into “common errors.” At the start of this volume, the essayist argues that an excellent historian is rarer than a great poet, then surveys the celebrated ancients to show how even the best—Herodotus, Xenophon, Livy, Sallust, Tacitus—have been faulted for order, invention, speeches, and bias. He uses Quintus Curtius (as dismantled by Le Clerc) to illustrate how admired histories can be riddled with errors, then details the perils of style (affectation, false sublimity, uneven elevation), the difficulty of selecting essentials without confusion, and the constant tug‑of‑war between chronology and clear narrative. The core problem is truth: proximity to power, national and religious partisanship, hope and fear, personal grudges, and the temptation to embellish or to please the reader all warp accounts; forged chronicles and thin reading compound the damage. The essay closes the opening with a rapid catalogue of “popular errors” and doubtful tales—Helen never at Troy, Virgil’s Dido anachronism, the Cretan labyrinth likely a myth, Archimedes’ and Proclus’s burning mirrors unattested by reliable sources, French royal legends (Pharamond, Salic Law, holy oil and fleurs‑de‑lis) questioned, Belisarius’s beggary likely apocryphal, and Joan of Arc’s “inspiration” reframed as political stagecraft—modeling how to sift famous stories with critical restraint. (This is an automatically generated summary.) https://archive.org/details/essaysordiscours03feij 20140811141816feijo 1780 gb Reading ease score: 45.9 (College-level). Difficult to read. en Spanish essays -- Translations into English PQ Text Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches Category: History - Other 526514 2025-07-30T07:13:40.059622 text/html 501518 2025-06-05T16:05:47 text/html 416000 2025-07-30T07:13:47.327497 application/epub+zip 415236 2025-07-30T07:13:41.643524 application/epub+zip 312534 2025-07-30T07:13:40.773549 application/epub+zip 832114 2025-07-30T07:13:51.880473 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 787763 2025-07-30T07:13:46.447487 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 475307 2025-07-30T07:13:39.280570 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 455253 2025-06-05T16:05:47 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 15473 2025-07-30T07:13:52.072470 application/rdf+xml 16933 2025-07-30T07:13:41.070562 image/jpeg 2707 2025-07-30T07:13:40.919514 image/jpeg 635781 2025-07-30T07:13:40.105558 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog es.wikipedia en.wikipedia en.wikipedia