II. In fact, the critics have not been so difficult to please on the part of poetry as on the part of history; for, with the exception of one or two exquisitely nice ones, they all agree, that Homer, Virgil, and Horace, were most excellent poets, and in whom there could be found no striking defect; and they would not have scrupled to concede the same honour to Ovid, Catullus, and Propertius, if the lascivious impurity of their expressions had not tarnished the lustre of their verses. But how difficult and severe have they shewn themselves with the historians, even when they have criticised the works of the most eminent of them! The same prelate we have just quoted, observes a want of unity and order in Herodotus, and thinks Xenophon more of a novelist than a historian; and it is a general received opinion, that in his history of Cyrus he did not so much attend to relating the true actions of that prince, as to painting his own idea of a perfect king. He admits, that Polybius reasons admirably on political and military matters; but observes, that he reasons too much. He celebrates the fine harangues of Thucydides and Titus Livius, but objects to their being too numerous, and seeming more like the works of their own invention, than the speeches of those, in whose mouths they put them. He blames Sallust, for having in two very short histories entered into too large a description of persons and customs. He censures Tacitus for an affected brevity, and for having had the audacity to pretend to discern and point out the political springs and causes of all kinds of events; which is also a defect he reprehends in Henricus Catherinus.