i 9 4 ESSAY upon the PRINCIPLES 



the neceffary caufe of his defers. His errors proceed from 

 the exuberance, not from the want of genius. 



THE imagination of TACITUS had certainly got beyond due 

 bounds, when he told us, that the rednefs of DOMITIAN'S face 

 was ufeful to him in fupprefling the figns of fhame. ' Sasvus 

 " ille vultus et rubor, a quo fe contra pudorem muniebat *." 

 The character of DOMITIAN was fo completely abandoned, 

 that we mufl fuppofe him deftitute of every fentiment like mo- 

 defty y and, at any rate, it is abfurd to talk of a perfon thus 

 ftifling the figns of emotions of which he was actually con- 

 fcious. 



OUR author alfo fpeaks of the Germans as feparated from 

 the Dacians, " Mutuo metu out montibus f." When two fub- 

 jeds fo completely different as fear and mountains, are flated 

 as operating in the production of one common effecl, we are 

 apt to imagine, that the hiftorian had forgot his dignity, and 

 aimed at a fpecies of wit. 



THE fame unmeaning quaintnefs appears when TACITUS 

 tells vis of the confirmed jealoufy that fubfifled between the 

 Lugdunenfes and Viennenfes. " Unde aemulatio, et invidia, 

 " et uno amne difcretis connexum odium ^." That the vici- 

 nity mould infure the difagreement of thefe two nations is 

 highly probable ; but, in order to announce this fentiment, 

 there was no need to go in queft of the pointed antithefis in- 

 volved in the two terms difcretis and connexum. 



THE facfl is, that the writings of PLINY, QUINCTILIAN, and 

 the other contemporaries of TACITUS, do all carry the fymptoms 

 of declining tafte. That period had arrived, at which, as the 

 ingenious critic |[ before quoted obferves, the writer mud find 

 means to ftrike and to furprife. Antithefis, remote allufions, 

 and the double fenfe of words, are the tools by which he does 

 fo. In thefe artifices, fuited to pleafe the falfe tafte of his 



countrymen^ 



* Vit. AGRIC. cap. 45. \ De Mor. Germ. cap. i. 



t Hift. lib. i. cap. 65. || Biihop of Worcefter. 



