Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/226

182 doth more illustrate the Things he speaks of, or whether his Words themselves are not illustrated by his Matter. So mutual a Light do his Expression and Subject reflect on each other. His Diction, tho' it be pressed and close, is nevertheless great and magnificent, equal to the Dignity and Importance of his Subject. He first, after Herodotus, ventured to adorn the Historians style, to make the narration more pleasing, by leaving the Flatness and Nakedness of former Ages: This is most observable in his Battles, where he does not only relate the meer Fight, but writeth with a martial Rh