observe, what he should pass over in silence, and what he should
dwell upon, how things may be best illustrated and connected. Of
these, and such as these, we will speak hereafter; in the meantime
let us point out the faults which bad writers are most generally
guilty of, the blunders which they commit in language, composition,
and sentiment, with many other marks of ignorance, which it would be
tedious to enumerate, and belong not to our present argument. The
principal faults, as I observed to you, are in the language and
composition.

You will find on examination, that history in general has a great
many of this kind, which, if you listen to them all, you will be
sufficiently convinced of; and for this purpose it may not be
unseasonable to recollect some of them by way of example. And the
first that I shall mention is that intolerable custom which most of
them have of omitting facts, and dwelling for ever on the praises of
their generals and commanders, extolling to the skies their own
leaders, and degrading beyond measure those of their enemies, not
knowing how much history differs from panegyric, that there is a
great wall between them, or that, to use a musical phrase, they are
a double octave {24a} distant from each other; the sole business of
the panegyrist is, at all events and by every means, to extol and
delight the object of his praise, and it little concerns him whether
it be true or not. But history will not admit the least degree of
falsehood any more than, as physicians say, the wind-pipe {24b} can
receive into it any kind of food.

These men seem not to know that poetry has its particular rules and
precepts; and that history is governed by others directly opposite.
That with regard to the former, the licence is immoderate, and there