recorded, but the works are lost. Quintilian remarks, that in history the Latin had shown themselves not inferior to the Grecian writers; and he expatiates, in the warmest strain of panegyric, on the merits of Sallust and of Titus Livius, comparing the one with Thucydides and the other with Herodotus: but as he approaches his own times, he mentions, besides Aufidius Bassus, only Servilius Novianus, a man of resplendent talents, but whose style was less compressed than the dignity of history required. As we have not the works of Novianus, it is not possible to decide what that compression was, the want of which he censures; but it is probable, that the critic had himself learned to admire the sententious brevity which, forsaking the copious perspicuity of better days, had become the general taste.

Have I then forgotten Cornelius Tacitus, it will be asked: or do I mean to pass him over in silence? He has by no means escaped my recollection; nor shall I leave him unnoticed: but I thought, that if I selected him as a model of the historical taste of the age, its beauties and its blemishes would become more palpable and manifest.

Tacitus was the favourite of many emperors, or, at least, they promoted him to the highest offices in the state. The younger Pliny was amongst his friends; and that elegant writer addressed several of his epistles to Tacitus. From the station which Tacitus occupied, he had means of access to accurate information, and his talents enabled him to select and record such events, characters, views of human nature, and motives of action, as offered themselves to his observation during the disastrous period of which he wrote. His works, mutilated and imperfect as we possess them, are comprised under Annals, from the death of Augustus to that of Nero: a History, beginning with the reign of Galba and ending with that of Domitian, a treatise on the Manners of the Germans, and the Life of Agricola. Of the Annals and History many entire books are lost.2

No author has more frequently engaged the comments and expositions of the learned; and none has been more frequently translated. His admirers, with an enthusiasm seldom equalled, have fancied that, without a single blemish, they discovered in him all the qualities which are required in a perfect

historian. "He is accused," observes a sagacious critic,1 "of having painted human nature in colours of too dark a tinge, that is, of having viewed her with too searching an eye. He is said to be obscure, which means, I believe, that he did not write for the multitude: and his style is by some deemed to be too rapid and too concise, as if to say much in few words were not the first quality of a writer." Another critic of the same nation,2 whose judgment I often admire, hesitates not to declare, that the diction of Tacitus has the energy of his soul; that it is singularly picturesque without being too figurative, precise without obscurity, and nervous without inflation. He speaks, at the same time, to the affections, to the fancy, and to the understanding. Of the capacity of the reader, he observes, we may fairly judge by the opinion which he forms of Tacitus: for no one, who is not himself profound, can fathom the depth of his reflections. But the secret magic of his style arose from the circumstances of his life, as well as from the singular powers of his genius. He then adds, this virtuous man, whose eyes first opened on the horrors of the court of Nero; who then beheld the ignominy of Galba; gluttony of Vitellius; and the rapine of Otho; was compelled, in a mature age, after he had breathed the milder air of the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, again to endure, and to endure in silence, the hypocritical and jealous tyranny of Domitian. His situation, as well as the hopes of his family, demanded that he should not irritate the tyrant, but suppress his indignation, and weep in secret over the wounds of his country, and the blood of his fellow-citizens. In these circumstances,

the

Tacitus, absorbed in his own reflections, developed in his historical compositions the feelings of indignation which pressed for utterance; and this it is which has given to his style its interest and animation. His invective is not that of a declaimer, as he was too deeply affected to be declamatory; but he depicts in the full colours of life and truth whatever is odious in tyranny, or revolting in slavery; the hopes of the criminal, the fears of the innocent, and the dejection of the virtuous.

This eulogy is not void of truth; but the praise must be received with some abatement. I have read Tacitus, and I

1 D'Alembert, Melanges de Litterat., who translated select passages of his admired author.

2 La Harpe, Cours de Litterat. iii. 310.

never read him without delight: but this delight is diminished by his occasional obscurity, which the sagacity of commentators has not hitherto been able to dispel. But is this the manner in which history ought to be written? Whilst we are desirous of acquiring the knowledge of facts, and of discriminating the characters, the views and motives of the principal actors, can it be expedient that our progress should be suspended by diction which is enveloped in the shades of mystery, or by a sort of enigmatical brevity, of which the meaning is a matter of conjecture rather than of certainty? I do not here speak of such passages as time and ignorance have mutilated or corrupted, but of the text, when acknowledged to be genuine and entire. Of a Grecian painter, it was observed, intelligitur plus semper quam pingitur, "his meaning is much fuller than his expression:" in an art which is confined within local dimensions of such limited extent, the praise might be just. But there are no bounds to the field of history; and though all need not be said, yet nothing should be omitted, which can serve to illustrate character, to develop motives, or to give a clear insight into the causes and succession of events. The reader will recollect a passage in Quintilian, in which, describing the vicious taste of the age, he says, that it was thought by some, true genius was then only shown, when genius was necessary to investigate the sense." It was in this age that Tacitus wrote; and we need not hesitate to affirm, that he affected brevity and refinement in order to exhibit his acuteness; or, in other words, that Cornelius Tacitus, with all his excellences, was sometimes not superior to his contemporaries; and that the style of his history exhibits undoubted proofs of the decline of

taste.

66

The following character by a German author, now living,1 is, I think just:-" Tacitus," he says, "seems to have made Sallust his model, though, in his manner of treating history, and in his general composition, he be himself original. He paints as a poet rather than as an historian, whilst he is more an orator than a poet; more a moralist, than an orator; and more than all, a statesman. Of a statesman he everywhere assumes the reflections and the language. He surprises, and

1 Meusel- Leitfaden zur Geschichte der Gelehrsamkeit. Zweit Abtheil.

p. 449.

even astonishes; but addressing the imagination, and not the heart, he seldom moves. His ideas, besides, by a forced brevity of expression, are so pressed together, as to be involved in great obscurity; and the translator, to make a single line intelligible, is compelled to become a paraphrast." Other objections have been made. It has been said, that, in all events, he professed to discover views which probably were not entertained, and designs which did not exist; that he seemed to imagine that the ordinary course of nature and unpremeditated occurrences had no influence in human affairs; that his representations of character are depicted with too much elaborate artifice; and that the originals had no existence except in the imagination of the historian. On these objections, which are not unfounded, I shall not dwell; but I will beg leave to add, that he occasionally neglected those sources of accurate information which were easily accessible, and had recourse to fable or surmise. I here allude chiefly to his account of the origin of the Jewish nation and of its rites,1 than which nothing can be less authentic, whilst the sacred books of the Jews were at that time everywhere open to inspection, and individuals of that nation were to be found in every city of the empire. But he despised that people, and was anxious to render their origin an object of contempt.

I will finally observe, that the insurmountable difficulties which the translators of Tacitus have universally experienced,2 may be considered as a proof, that his originality, in whatever it consisted, was the offspring rather of affected refinement than of powerful genius or profound thought. The French critic, whom I quoted, would reply, that this judgment was dictated by shallowness of intellect, and that no one should pronounce on the merits of Tacitus who is not animated by the spirit which pervades his compositions. Before I quit this subject I will, however, declare, that whatever intricacies or obscurities may perplex the reader of Tacitus, he will find the labour more than compensated by the beauties with which his works abound.

1 Hist. 1. v.

2 I may mention, among the innumerable translations, the late one, in our language, by Mr. Murphy, which, certainly as an interesting narration, may be read with pleasure; but it is not Tacitus. The Italian Davanzati has attempted more; but he, it is said, is not intelligible.

It is not agreed among the learned who Quintus Curtius was, or at what time he lived. His History, in ten books, of the exploits of Alexander, though replete with many beauties, does not, in the opinion of sober critics, entitle him to a place of high antiquity; and, perhaps, of this opinion no more convincing proof could be given, than that, in the thirteenth century, a Spanish king should have been so delighted with its perusal as to have ascribed to it the recovery of his health. The genuine beauties of historical composition were not likely to have so powerfully allured the attention of a barbarous prince. It has been thought rather a romance than a genuine history.

If we except Justin, 'though it be not accurately known when he flourished, and whose abridgment of general history is not greatly admired,2 we have now a dreary chasm to pass till we come to the reign of Diocletian. At this period, or not long afterwards, we meet the authors of the Historia Augusta, which is a valuable collection, as it gives us the lives of the preceding emperors, of whom we should otherwise have had no account. But the narrations of these writers is sometimes confused and inaccurate, and it is vain to expect purity of diction, or elegance of style. The authors of the Historia Augusta are generally supposed to be six, if there be not some mistake in the names, Elius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Ælius Lampridius, Vulcatius Gallicanus, Trebellius Pollio, and Flavius Vopiscus.3

After Constantine, and during the reigns of his successors, we seek in vain for an historian to show us, who were the people, often conquerors, and sometimes conquered, that, from all sides, precipitated themselves upon the empire; whence they came, and what were their laws, manners, and customs; what were the real characters of the emperors and their ministers, or of such individuals as served to augment or to mitigate the evils of the period.4 No such historian is found. Aurelius Victor, indeed, who lived about the middle of the fourth century, has written the Lives of the emperors, from Augustus to Constantius; and his contemporary Eutropius has furnished an epitome of Roman history, from its origin to

1 See Bib. Lat. i.

2 Bib. Lat. ii.

Storia della Letter. ii. 144-154.

3 Ibid. [There is a French translation of the Scriptores Hist. Augustæ, 4 Storia della Letterat. ii. 456.

by Molines.]