licjlaxions on Hislori " 3t)l 



rhetoric by inventing speeches for favorite or 



distinguished characters*. Though Herodotus 



perhaps first adopted this mode of writing, yet 



he does not seem to have carried it to such an 



extreme as some of his successors. The ha- 



ran^uji:s which he probably composed, are much 



shouOei^^nd less elaborate than those which are 



found in Thucydides, or in Xenophon. Such 



a style of co^iiposition however, was certainlv 



faulty, and by no means consistent with ihat 



love of truth, which ought ever to guide the 



historian's pen. Still it has been thought diat 



Polybius, ip ei^deavouring to avoid such an 



error, has committed an opposite one, and 



written not o;^ly in an unadorned, but in a 



repulsive manner. If Justin be excepted, 



scarcely any ancient historian may be allowed 



to havc; preserved the proper medium betw^Qo^ 



tl)C simplicity fof narration, and the artifice of 



rhetoric, or to have united eloquence and 



correctness with veracity. This indeed is but 



the abridgment ^md the translation of a larger 



\york, whiclj, if it had been his lot to compose, 



he .too ipightl^ave blended the rhetorician with 



tiie narrator. ) ^^, , 



„ Among the Roman historians, no ouc seciijt> 

 more to have offended against the simplicitv ol" 

 narration, to. have mixed his own sentiments. 



and prejudices with his works, or to have been 



4 



