{55b} The Campus Nisaeus, a large plain in Media, near the Caspian mountains, was famous for breeding the finest horses, which were allotted to the use of kings only; or, according to Xenophon, those favourites on whom the sovereign thought proper to bestow them.  See the “Cyropaed.,” book viii.

{56} This fine picture of a good historian has been copied by Tully, Strabo, Polybius, and other writers; it is a standard of perfection, however, which few writers, ancient or modern, have been able to reach.  Thuanus has prefixed to his history these lines of Lucian; but whether he, or any other historian, hath answered in every point to the description here given, is, I believe, yet undetermined.

{57a} The saying is attributed to Aristophanes, though I cannot find it there.  It is observable that this proverbial kind of expression, for freedom of words and sentiments, has been adopted into almost every language, though the image conveying it is different.  Thus the Greeks call a fig a fig, etc.  We say, an honest man calls a spade a spade; and the French call “un chat un chat.”  Boileau says, “J’appelle un chat un chat, et Rolet un fripon.”

{57b} Herodotus’s history is comprehended in nine books, to each of which is prefixed the name of a Muse; the first is called Clio, the second Euterpe, and so on.  A modern poet, I have been told, the ingenious Mr. Aaron Hill, improved upon this thought, and christened (if we may properly so call it), not his books, but his daughters by the same poetical names of Miss Cli, Miss Melp-y, Miss Terps-y, Miss Urania, etc.

{58} Both Thucydides and Livy are reprehensible in this particular; and the same objection may be made to Thuanus, Clarendon, Burnet, and many other modern historians.

{59} How just is this observation of Lucian’s, and at the same time how truly poetical is the image which he makes use of to express it!  It puts us in mind of his rival critic Longinus, who, as Pope has observed, is himself the great sublime he draws.

{60} By this very just observation, Lucian means to censure all those writers—­and we have many such now amongst us—­who take so much pains to smooth and round their periods, as to disgust their readers by the frequent repetition of it, as it naturally produces a tiresome sameness in the sound of them; and at the same time discovers too much that laborious art and care, which it is always the author’s business as much as possible to conceal.

{61} See Homer’s “Iliad,” bk. xiii., 1. 4.

{62a} The famous Lacedaemonian general.  The circumstance alluded to is in Thucydides, bk. iv.

{62b} Gr. [Greek], a technical term, borrowed from music, and signifying that tone of the voice which exactly corresponds with the instrument accompanying it.

{66a} A coarse fish that came from Pontus, or the Black Sea.—­ Saperdas advehe Ponto.  See Pers.  Sat. v. 1. 134.