Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/218

174 I take it to be the most difficult to attain in Perfection: In all other Subjects there is a greater Latitude and Compass for the Writer's Thoughts, a larger Field of Fancy and Imagination before him, but in History he is conﬁned to the Facts and Occurrences he relateth. And these, as they are not alike Entertaining, and Ornamental in themselves, require great Force and Judgment in the Narration to make them all agreeable. The worst Province an Historian can fall upon, is a Series of barren Times, in which nothing remarkable happeneth, to awake our Attention, or engage our Notice. Here Rh