Of HISTORICAL COMPOSITION. 205 



a certain degree of blame, and the perfons fuppofed culpable. 

 The idea of blame in TACITUS, however, is got by implication j 

 that is, from knowing that TIBERIUS difapproved of the modes 

 of marrying by the Coemptio and the Ufus> which were different 

 from that before mentioned. The word incurta, befides, which 

 exprefTes the careleflhefs, that is, the culpable circumflance, is 

 under the government of die prepofition, inftead of being a 

 correlative term to thofe expreffing the perfons upon whom the 

 blame is laid. This word, alfo, as denoting only the abfence 

 of thought, is too fpecific to act as a correlative to thofe de- 

 noting the perfons. In proportion as the power of the nouu 

 is, in this fituation, more than ordinarily particular, that of 

 the prepofition becomes more than ordinarily general. The 

 latter is not limited to the conception of blame in agents, as 

 ufual, but denotes the relation between one object and another, 

 acting as its immediate caufe, and may be tranflated " owing 

 " to." Had the general term culpa been ufed, the expreflion 

 " penes viros feminafque" would have been legitimate j but 

 the " caufa penes incuriam virorum feminarumque" is certainly 

 fingular. 



IF we had leifure to examine the modes of conftruction in 

 TACITUS, as minutely as we have the terms, the former, per- 

 haps, would, on fome occafions, appear as fingular as the latter. 

 He fometimes puts a genitive after a verb that ufually governs 

 an accufative. " Nihil abnuentem dum dominationls apifce- 



1 retur *." We find, alfo, an accufative coming after a verb, 

 which other writers make govern a dative. " Sua faclnora ad- 



1 verfari deos lamentantur f. The verb prat/ideo^ befides, is 

 fometimes made to govern a dative, as ufual, and, at other 



times, an accufative, which will hardly be feen in any other 



author. " Prsefidere ludis $." " Praefidere Pannoniam ||." 



TACITUS 



* Ann. lib. 6. cap. 45. f Ibid. lib. I. cap. 28. 



\ Ibid. lib. 3. cap. 64. || Ibid. lib. 12. cap. 29. 



