Veracity and fidelity are the chief, and, indeed, the indispensable duties of an historian. Of all the _ornaments_ of historic composition, it derives its chief embellishment from a graceful and perspicuous style. That of the early annalists, as we have already seen, was inelegant and jejune; but style came to be considered, in the progress of history, as a matter of primary importance. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that so much value was at length attached to it, since the ancient historians seldom gave their authorities, and considered the excellence of history as consisting in fine writing, more than in an accurate detail of facts. Sallust evidently regarded an elegant style as one of the chief merits of an historical work. His own style, on which he took so much pains, was carefully formed on that of Thucydides, whose manner of writing was in a great measure original, and, till the time of Sallust, peculiar to himself. The Roman has wonderfully succeeded in imitating the vigour and conciseness of the Greek historian, and infusing into his composition something of that dignified austerity, which distinguishes the works of his great model; but when I say that Sallust has imitated the conciseness of Thucydides, I mean the rapid and compressed manner in which his narrative is conducted,—in short, brevity of idea, rather than language. For Thucydides, although he brings forward only the principal idea, and discards what is collateral, yet frequently employs long and involved periods. Sallust, on the other hand, is abrupt and sententious, and is generally considered as having carried this sort of brevity to a vicious excess. The use of copulatives, either for the purpose of connecting his sentences with each other, or uniting the clauses of the same sentence, is in a great measure rejected. This omission produces a monotonous effect, and a total want of that flow and that variety, which are the principal charms of the historic period. Seneca accordingly talks of the “Amputatæ sententiæ, et verba ante expectatum cadentia(194),” which the practice of Sallust had rendered fashionable. Lord Monboddo calls his style incoherent, and declares that there is not one of his short and uniform sentences which deserves the name of a period; so that supposing each sentence were in itself beautiful, there is not variety enough to constitute fine writing.