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.

{66b} Here doctors differ. Several of Thucydides's descriptions are
certainly very long, many of them, perhaps, rather tedious.

{67} Lucian is rather severe on this writer. Cicero only says, De
omnibus omnia libere palam dixit; he spoke freely of everybody.
Other writers, however, are of the same opinion with our satirist
with regard to him. See Dions. Plutarch. Cornelius Nepos, etc.

{69} Alluding to t