Page:A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style.djvu/243

Rh the Reputation of the History.

Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World is a Work of so vast a Compass, such endless Variety, that no Genius, but one Adventurous as his own, durst have undertaken that great Design. I do not apprehend any great Difficulty in Collecting, and Common-placing an universal History from the whole Body of Historians; that is nothing but mechanic Labour. But to digest the several Authors in his Mind, to take in all their Majesty, Strength, and Beauty, to raise the Spirit of meaner Historians, and to equal all the Excellencies of the best, is Rh