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for searching only. *SHAKSPERE'S HISTORY 565 Cheke's opinion and explanation of the peculiarities of Sallust's style.
He said, that Salust was not verie fitte for yong men, to learne out of him, the puritie of the Latin tong: because, he was not the purest in proprietie of wordes, nor choisest in aptnes of phrases, nor the best in framing of sentences: and therefore is his writing, sayd he neyther plaine for the matter, nor sensible for mens vnderstanding . . . bicause in Salust writing, is more Arte than nature, and more labor than Arte: and in his labor also, to moth toyle, as it were, with an vncontented care to write better than he could, a fault common to very many men.'
But what is left of Caesar is perfect.
And therfore thus iustlie I may conclude of Caesar, that where, in all other, the best that ewer wrote, in any tyme, or in any tong, in Greke or Latin, I except neither Plato, Demosthenes, nor Tullie, some fault is iustlie noted, in Caesar onelie, could neuer yet fault be found.
Yet, neuertheles, for all this perfite excellencie in him, yet it is but in one member of eloquence, and that but of one side neither, whan we must looke for that example to blow, which bath a perlte head, a whole bodie, forward and backward, armes and legges and ail.Î
But as Ascham thus prepared to soar upon the rounded virtues of Cicero, death took him. Sallust and Caesar, therefore, win for them-selves a fundamental place in the curriculum, not as historians, but because they belonged to the great period, along with Cicero.
Elsewhere Ascham gives his models for imitation in history as such.
Diaria. Historicum in ; rQrtnales.
Commentarios. Iustam Historiam.
For what proprietie in wordes, simplicitie in sentences, plainnesse and light, is cumelie for these kindes, Caesar and Liuie, for the two last, are perfite examples of Imitation: And for the two first, the old paternes be lost.Î
Ascham's chief interest in Livy lay in the orations, so that to Caesar as basic author he would join "some Orations of T. Liuius, such as be both longest and plainest."10 Primarily, these are masters of style, only secondarily are they historians.
' Ascham, Scholemaster (1570), pp. 64V-65r.
à Ascham, Scholemarter (1570), pp. 67r and v.
à Ascham, Scholemaster (1370), p. 57v
10 Ascham, Scholamaster (1570), p. 3ir. Cf. also pp. 4rv, 42r and v, 52v-53r.
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