he meanest and most beggarly phrases, such as
"the leader of the army epistolised his master," "the soldiers
bought utensils," "they washed and waited on them," with many other
things of the same kind, like a tragedian with a high cothurnus on
one foot and a slipper on the other. You will meet with many of
these writers, who will give you a fine heroic long preface, that
makes you hope for something extraordinary to follow, when after
all, the body of the history shall be idle, weak, and trifling, such
as puts you in mind of a sporting Cupid, who covers his head with
the mask of a Hercules or Titan. The reader immediately cries out,
"The mountain {39} has brought forth!" Certainly it ought not to be
so; everything should be alike and of the same colour; the body
fitted to the head, not a golden helmet, with a ridiculous breast-
plate made of stinking skins, shreds, and patches, a basket shield,
and hog-skin boots; and yet numbers of them put the head of a
Rhodian Colossus on the body of a dwarf, whilst others show you a
body without a head, and step directly into the midst of things,
bringing in Xenophon for their authority, who begins with "Darius
and Parysatis had two sons;" so likewise have other ancient writers;
not considering that the narration itself may sometimes supply the
place of preface, or exordium, though it does not appear to the
vulgar eye, as we shall show hereafter.

All this, however, with regard to style and composition, may be
borne with, but when they misinform us about places, and make
mistakes, not of a few leagues, but whole day's journeys, what shall
we say to such historians? One of them, who never, we may suppose,
so much as conversed with a Syrian, or picked up anything concerning
them in the barbers' {40} shop, when he speaks of Europus, tells us,
"it is situated in Mesopotamia, two days' journey from Euphrates,
and was built by the Edessenes." Not content with this, the same
noble writer has taken away my poor country, Samosata, and carried
it off, tower, bulwarks, and all, to Mesopotamia, where he says it
is shut up between two rivers, which at least run close to, if they
do not wash the walls of it. After this, it would be to no purpose,
my dear Philo, for me to assure you that I am not from Parthia, nor
do I belong to Mesopotamia, of which this admirable historian has
thought fit to make me an inhabitant.

What he tells us of Severian, and which he swears he heard from
those wh