Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/239

Rh with these, that History is the most difficult Province of all others; and if there were not something in Novelty grateful to the Curiosity of Mankind, something in the Histories of our own Times and Nation, that engages us as Parties, and gives us an Interest in the Events, Nothing would be read, but what was so beautifully expressed, as by the Charms of Language, and Force of a lively Representation, to attract our Eyes. Every great Historian would make a greater Orator, and perhaps, the greatest Orator, even Tully himself, would fall below the Historian, should he attempt to Rh