had executed
his design of writing a history of England, it would probably have
abounded in such diction, especially in the more turbulent scenes and
in the darker ages.

_Southey._ There are quiet hours and places in which a taper may be
carried steadily, and show the way along the ground; but you must
stand a-tiptoe and raise a blazing torch above your head, if you would
bring to our vision the obscure and time-worn figures depicted on the
lofty vaults of antiquity. The philosopher shows everything in one
clear light; the historian loves strong reflections and deep shadows,
but, above all, prominent and moving characters. We are little pleased
with the man who disenchants us: but whoever can make us wonder, must
himself (we think) be wonderful, and deserve our admiration.

_Landor._ Believing no longer in magic and its charms, we still
shudder at the story told by Tacitus, of those which were discovered
in the mournful house of Germanicus.

_Southey._ Tacitus was also a great poet, and would have been a
greater, had he been more contented with the external and ordinary
appearances of things. Instead of which, he looked at a part of his
pictures through a prism, and at another part through a _camera
obscura_. If the historian were as profuse of moral as of political
axioms, we should tolerate him less: for in the political we fancy a
writer is but meditating; in the moral we regard him as declaiming. In
history we desire to be conversant with only the great, according to
our notions of greatness: we take it as an affront, on such an
invitation, to be conducted into the lecture-room, or to be desired to
amuse ourselves in the study.

_Landor._ Pray go on. I am desirous of hearing more.

_Southey._ Being now alone, with the whole day before us, and having
carried, as we agreed at breakfast, each his Milton in his pocket, let
us collect all the graver faults we can lay our hands upon, without a
too minute and troublesome research; not in the spirit of Johnson, but
in our own.

_Landor._ That is, abasing our eyes in reverence to so great a man,
but without closing them. The beauties of his poetry we may omit to
notice, if we can: but where the crowd claps the hands, it will be
difficult for us always to refrain. Johnson, I think, has been charged
unjustly with expressing too freely and inconsiderately the blemishes
of Milton. There are many more of them than he has noticed.

_Southey._ If we add any to the number,