the great end and design of history is to be useful: a species of
merit which can only arise from its truth. If the agreeable
follows, so much the better, as there may be beauty in a wrestler.
And yet Hercules would esteem the brave though ugly Nicostratus as
much as the beautiful Alcaeus. And thus history, when she adds
pleasure to utility, may attract more admirers; though as long as
she is possessed of that greatest of perfections, truth, she need
not be anxious concerning beauty.

In history, nothing fabulous can be agreeable; and flattery is
disgusting to all readers, except the very dregs of the people; good
judges look with the eyes of Argus on every part, reject everything
that is false and adulterated, and will admit nothing but what is
true, clear, and well expressed. These are the men you are to have
a regard to when you write, rather than the vulgar, though your
flattery should delight them ever so much. If you stuff history
with fulsome encomiums and idle tales, you will make her like
Hercules in Lydia, as you may have seen him painted, waiting upon
Omphale, who is dressed in the lion's skin, with his club in her
hand; whilst he is represented clothed in yellow and purple, and
spinning, and Omphale beating him with her slipper; a ridiculous
spectacle, wherein everything manly and godlike is sunk and degraded
to effeminacy.

The multitude perhaps, indeed, may admire such things; but the
judicious few whose opinion you despise will always laugh at what is
absurd, incongruous, and inconsistent. Everything has a beauty
peculiar to itself; but if you put one instead of another, the most
beautiful becomes ugly, because it is not in its proper place. I
need not add, that praise is agreeable only to the person praised,