have elsewhere obferved, Horace, the chief beauty of whofe fatires and epiftles is the dialogue in them: And I am not fure but his beft ode is the dialogue betwixt him and Lydia *. My Lord Shaftefbury, in his dialogues, has avoided that fault in his ftile of being too copious, and sometimes overloaded with epithets; for his dialogue is altogether in the ftile of converfation, which does not admit VOL. IV. 3 D

the juftnefs and truth of workmanship, he makes a poor mechanic say to a rich customer, Sir, you are • mistaken for coming to me for fuch a piece of work< manship: Let who will make it for you, as you fan< cy; I know it to be wrong: Whatever I have made hitherto, has been true work; and neither for your fake or any body's elfe, fhall I put my hand to any other.' Here he has imitated the ftile of a common mechanic; but he has in the fame piece, fect. ii. a longer dialogue, in the form of a foliloquy, in a higher stile and upon a much nobler fubject: It is too long to be here inferted; but I call again upon the fashionable wits and critics of this age, who think meanly of my Lord Shaftesbury's ftile, to try whether they can do any thing better upon the fubject.

of an exuberance of words, or multitude of epithets: And where he introduces gentlemen speaking, it is altogether the conversation of gentlemen. And, in general, there runs through his whole writings a certain liberal air, and gentleman-like manner*, without which, I think, nothing can be agreeably either spoken or written. The greatest learning and science, without it, cannot please though it may inftruct.

*See Vol. III. p. 284. and 285.

СНАР. ІХ.

Of the file of Hiftory.-Of the difference betwixt History and Biography.-The Subject of history is narrative.-Whatever is not narrative in hiftory is epifodical.-What episodes are proper for history.—not political or philofophical reflections upon human nature, fuch as thofe of Salluft in the beginning of Cataline's confpiracy, and of the Jugurthine war.-Explanations of particular customs and manners of a nation, a proper epifode in hiftory.. -Difference in this respect betwixt the Greek hiftorians of Roman affairs, and their own. Of the rhetorical ftile in hiftory.-Speeches in it, not digreffions or epifodes but matters of fact and parts of the ftory.-Speeches make political and philofophical reflections not improper in hiftory-Hiftory therefore a most pleafant and various compofition ;-but the poetical file, a variety which history does

not admit. Of the peculiarities of the poetical file which history does not admit, fuch as Epithets, Similies, Metaphors, and Minute Defcriptions.-Of the painting in Homer, and the difference in that refpect betwixt his ftile, and the file of hiftory.-Of the choice of words in the hiftorical file.-Difference, in that respect, betwixt the file of Homer and of hiftory-Of the Compofition in hiftory, by which the file of it is chiefly to be diftinguished from common speech;—not to be diftinguished in that way by variety of arrangement, as in Greek and Latin, but only by Periods.-Of the great beauty of Periods. Quotation upon that fubject from Ariftotle, fhowing, that he thought there could be no beauty, without 'a Syltem and a Whole.-There is nothing that can be properly called Compofition without periods. Of the defect of Sallust and Tacitus in this refpect.-The file of Tacitus worse than that of Salluft.-One example of a Greek author, who writes like Salluft.-Such compofitions ftill more inexcufable in Greek than in Latin.

I

AM now to treat of the ftile of History, according to the order I proposed to follow in this work *. By hiftory I mean not the history of flies or reptiles or of other animals, commonly called natural history; but the history of man, and not of particu lar men, but of nations: For I distinguish betwixt biography and history, as I distinguish betwixt an individual and the nation of which he makes a part.

That the ftile of hiftory ought to be different from the stile of conversation or dialogue, of which I have already treated, or from the didactic, the rhetorical, and poetical, of which I am to treat, must be evident at firft fight: And I am now to show wherein that difference confifts.

As the fubject, or matter treated of, is principal in every work, the ftile ought to be fuitable to it t. Now, the subject of

* Page 291.

+ Page 291.