Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/240

196 him. For the Orator hath the Advantage of all Arts and Topics of Persuasion, but the Historian can only use the Abilities of an Orator to express and relate, and according to Truth, adorn the Subject of his History.

Having thus prepared Your Lordship for Reading them, so as to form some judgment of their Style, from these ancient Standards I descend at last to our own Historians, who are no less various, than excellent in their Style and Method, and do not come altogether short of the Greek and Roman Writers, but emulate both the Height and Spirit of the Classic Diction: Rh