a fig, {57a}
and a skiff a skiff, neither giving nor withholding from any, from
favour or from enmity, not influenced by pity, by shame, or by
remorse; a just judge, so far benevolent to all as never to give
more than is due to any in his work; a stranger to all, of no
country, bound only by his own laws, acknowledging no sovereign,
never considering what this or that man may say of him, but relating
faithfully everything as it happened.

This rule therefore Thucydides observed, distinguishing properly the
faults and perfections of history: not unmindful of the great
reputation which Herodotus had acquired, insomuch that his books
were called by the names of the Muses. {57b} Thucydides tells us
that he "wrote for posterity, and not for present delight; that he
by no means approved of the fabulous, but was desirous of delivering
down the truth alone to future ages." It is the useful, he adds,
which must constitute the merit of history, that by the
retrospection of what is past, when similar events occur, men may
know how to act in present exigencies.

Such an historian would I wish to have under my care: with regard
to language and expression, I would not have it rough and vehement,
consisting of long periods, {58} or complex arguments; but soft,
quiet, smooth, and peaceable. The reflections, short and frequent,
the style clear and perspicuous; for as freedom and truth should be
the principal perfections of the writer's mind, so, with regard to
language, the great point is to make everything plain and
intelligible, not to use remote and far-fetched phrases or
expressions, at the same time avoiding such as are mean and vulgar:
let it be, in short, what the lowest may understand; and, at the
same time, the most learned cannot but approve. The whole may be
adorned with figure and metaphor, provided they are not turgid or
bombast, nor seem stiff and laboured, which, like meat too highly
seasoned, always give disgust.

History may sometimes assume a poetical form, and rise into a
magnificence of expression, when the subject demands it; and
especially when it is describing armies, battles, and sea-fights.
The Pierian spirit {59} is wanting then to swell the sails with a
propitious breeze, and carry the lofty ship over the tops of the
waves. In general, the diction should creep humbly on the ground,
and only be raised as the grand and beautiful occurring shall
require it; keeping, in the meantime, within proper bou