Of HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 79 



that tafte, in which the balance is not delicate ; and the enjoyment 

 of the reader is jointly proportioned to the abfolute juftnefs of 

 the author's feelings, and to the correfpondence between them 

 and his own. 



BY perceptions thus delicate, the hiftorian's character muft 

 be highly improved. His defcriptions muft be tender, as be- 

 ing founded on thofe nice circumftances that efcape an or- 

 dinary eye ; and though his fenfibility muft multiply the 

 grounds of defcription, yet the correctnefs of his feeling leads 

 him to fuch only as are juft. Hiftorical narration is more fre- 

 quently faulty from that bluntnefs of perception, by which the 

 minute qualities of objects are concealed, than from that defect 

 in judgment, by which the leaft proper are felected. The de- 

 tail often becomes prolix from the dulnefs of the writer. One 

 of true feeling adopts a concife energy, which reaches both the 

 heart and the underftanding. He permits his reader to pafs little 

 that is worthy of his notice, and he with-holds it from that on- 

 ly which is really beneath it. 



FROM an hiftorian of this defcription a delicate fenfe of what 

 he owes to himfelf and to his reader is expected. If the ftrain 

 of his narration ceafes, at any time, to be dignified, it is to re- 

 move, by variety, what would otherwife become tirefome. 

 Quaint ornaments in his ftile he rejects as deformities. To the 

 approbation of the judicious, he cannot be fuppofed indifferent; 

 but he ftforns thofe condefcenfions with which the herd of 

 readers is pleafed*. A remark that is obvious and common 

 finds no place in his narration ; and, from a fenfe of perfonal 

 dignity, he would rather leave the more ignorant uninformed, 

 than difguft the difcerning. His fenfibility to every moral fen- 

 timent, not only detects the leaft fymptom of what is good or 

 bad in human conduct, but is accompanied with an immediate 

 approbation of the one and abhorrence of the other. He re- 

 cords 



* INTELLIGES aftum hoc, ut tu fcires quid illi placeret, non ut ille placeret tibi. 

 SEN. Ep. 100. 



