1. Addison writes in the Spectator (Wednesday, 2 July
2. 1712):
3. “It is the most agreeable talent of an historian, to be able to draw
4. “up his armies and fight his battles in proper expressions, to set
5. “before our eyes the divisions, cabals, and jealousies of great men,
6. “and to lead us step by step into the several actions and events
7. “of his history. We love to see the subject unfolding itself by
8. “just degrees, and breaking upon us insensibly, that so we may
9. “be kept in a pleasing suspense, and have time given us to
10. “raise our expectations, and to side with one of the parties concer
11. “ned in the relation. I confess this shows more the art than the
12. “veracity of the historian, but I am only to speak of him as he is
13. “qualified to please the Imagination. And in this respect Livy
14. “has, perhaps, excelled all who went before him, or have writ
15. “ten since his time. He describes everything in so lively a man
16. “ner, that his whole history is an admirable picture, and
17. “touches on such proper circumstances in every story, that his
18. “reader becomes a kind of spectator, and feels in himself all
19. “the variety of passions that are correspondent to the several parts
20. “of the relation”. –
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