degree of falsehood any more than, as physicians say, the wind-pipe {24b} can receive into it any kind of food.

These men seem not to know that poetry has its particular rules and precepts; and that history is governed by others directly opposite.  That with regard to the former, the licence is immoderate, and there is scarce any law but what the poet prescribes to himself.  When he is full of the Deity, and possessed, as it were, by the Muses, if he has a mind to put winged horses {25a} to his chariot, and drive some through the waters, and others over the tops of unbending corn, there is no offence taken.  Neither, if his Jupiter {25b} hangs the earth and sea at the end of a chain, are we afraid that it should break and destroy us all.  If he wants to extol Agamemnon, who shall forbid his bestowing on him the head and eyes of Jupiter, the breast of his brother Neptune, and the belt of Mars?  The son of Atreus and Ærope must be a composition of all the gods; nor are Jupiter, Mars, and Neptune sufficient, perhaps, of themselves to give us an idea of his perfection.  But if history admits any adulation of this kind, it becomes a sort of prosaic poetry, without its numbers or magnificence; a heap of monstrous stories, only more conspicuous by their incredibility.  He is unpardonable, therefore, who cannot distinguish one from the other; but lays on history the paint of poetry, its flattery, fable, and hyperbole: it is just as ridiculous as it would be to clothe one of our robust wrestlers, who is as hard as an oak, in fine purple, or some such meretricious garb, and put paint {26} on his cheeks; how would such ornaments debase and degrade him!  I do not mean by this, that in history we are not to praise sometimes, but it must be done at proper seasons, and in a proper degree, that it may not offend the readers of future ages; for future ages must be considered in this affair, as I shall endeavour to prove hereafter.

Those, I must here observe, are greatly mistaken who divide history into two parts, the useful and the agreeable; and in consequence of it, would introduce panegyric as always delectable and entertaining to the reader.  But the division itself is false and delusive; for the great end and design of history is to be useful: a species of merit which can only arise from its truth.  If the agreeable follows, so much the better, as there may be beauty in a wrestler.  And yet Hercules would esteem the brave though ugly Nicostratus as much as the beautiful Alcæus.  And thus history, when she adds pleasure to utility, may attract more admirers; though as long as she is possessed of that greatest of perfections, truth, she need not be anxious concerning beauty.

In history, nothing fabulous can be agreeable; and flattery is disgusting to all readers, except the very dregs of the people; good judges look with the eyes of Argus on every part, reject everything that is false and adulterated, and will admit nothing but what is true, clear, and well expressed.  These are the men you are to have a regard to when you write, rather than the vulgar, though your flattery should delight them ever so much.  If you stuff history with fulsome encomiums and idle tales, you will make her like Hercules in Lydia, as you may have seen him painted, waiting upon Omphale, who is dressed in the lion’s skin, with his club in her hand; whilst he is represented clothed in yellow and purple, and spinning, and Omphale beating him with her slipper; a ridiculous spectacle, wherein everything manly and godlike is sunk and degraded to effeminacy.

The multitude perhaps, indeed, may admire such things; but the judicious few whose opinion you despise will always laugh at what is absurd, incongruous, and inconsistent.  Everything has a beauty peculiar to itself; but if you put one instead of another, the most beautiful becomes ugly, because it is not in its proper place.  I need not add, that praise is agreeable only to the person praised, and disgustful to everybody else, especially when it is lavishly bestowed; as is the practice of most writers, who are so extremely desirous of recommending themselves by flattery, and dwell so much upon it as to convince the reader it is mere adulation, which they have not art enough to conceal, but heap up together, naked, uncovered, and totally incredible, so that they seldom gain what they expected from it; for the person flattered, if he has anything noble or manly in him, only abhors and despises them for it as mean parasites.  Aristobulus, after he had written an account of the single combat between Alexander and Porus, showed that monarch a particular part of it, wherein, the better to get into his good graces, he had inserted a great deal more than was true; when Alexander seized the book and threw it (for they happened at that time to be sailing on the Hydaspes) directly into the river: “Thus,” said he, “ought you to have been served yourself for pretending to describe my battles, and killing half a dozen elephants for me with a single spear.”  This anger was worthy of Alexander, of him who could not bear the adulation of that architect {29} who promised to transform Mount Athos into a statue of him; but he looked upon the man from that time as a base flatterer, and never employed him afterwards.

What is there in this custom, therefore, that can be agreeable, unless to the proud and vain; to deformed men or ugly women, who insist on being painted handsome, and think they shall look better if the artist gives them a little more red and white!  Such, for the most part, are the historians of our times, who sacrifice everything to the present moment and their own interest and advantage; who can only be despised as ignorant flatterers of the age they live in; and as men, who, at the same time, by their extravagant stories, make everything which they relate liable to suspicion.  If notwithstanding any are still of opinion, that the agreeable should be admitted in history, let them join that which is pleasant with that which is true, by the beauties of style and diction, instead of foisting in, as is commonly done, what is nothing to the purpose.

I will now acquaint you with some things I lately picked up in Ionia and Achaia, from several historians, who gave accounts of this war.  By the graces I beseech you to give me credit for what I am going to tell you, as I could swear to the truth of it, if it were polite to swear in a dissertation.  One of these gentlemen begins by invoking the Muses, and entreats the goddesses to assist him in the performance.  What an excellent setting out and how properly is this form of speech adapted to history!  A little farther on, he compares our emperor to Achilles, and the Persian king to Thersites; not considering that his Achilles would have been a much greater man if he had killed Hector rather than Thersites; if the brave should fly, he who pursues must be braver.  Then follows an encomium on himself, showing how worthy he is to recite such noble actions; and when he is got on a little, he extols his own country, Miletus, adding that in this he had acted better than Homer, who never tells us where he was born.  He informs us, moreover, at the end of his preface, in