192 ESSAY upon the PRINCIPLES 



tator never aimed; and, in the fentiment of TACITUS, there 

 is a depth which SALLUST could never rival. 



TACITUS is accufed of being vain of his erudition, and of 

 feizing even the flighteft opportunities of difplaying it. He is 

 faid to be at too much pains to give the origin of cuftoms, both 

 foreign and domeftic, and to make too frequent references to 

 the more remote events in the hiftory of his country. This ac- 

 cufation I hold to be groundlefs. A philofophic mind, like that 

 of TACITUS, muft have feen a value in certain facts that efcapes 

 common obfervers. His benevolence, too, may have urged him 

 to flimulate the remaining virtue of his contemporaries, by 

 recalling to their remembrance the merits of their anceftors. 

 As the empire declined, he perceived, that the materials of hi- 

 flory were the more likely to perim ; and, happily for fociety, 

 he pofTefled both that precifion, by which the antiquary efta- 

 blifhes fingle facts, ..and that power of arrangement, by which 

 the hiftorian ftates a number in that order which is to form his 

 detail. 



THE energy of the ftyle of TACITUS has been condemned 

 as romantic. This may appear to be the cafe to thofe who 

 never felt that enthufiafm which warmed his breaft. The glow- 

 ing language of an elevated mind tallies ill with the cold pro- 

 priety of vulgar criticifm. The learned Bifhop of Worcefler, 

 in his notes upon HORACE'S art of poetry, tells us, that fi- 

 gurative expreffion became the dignity of the hiftoric character 

 and genius of TACITUS ; but that, had his contemporary SUE- 

 TONIUS ufed the fame language, he would have fet his readers 

 a-laughing *. 



OUR hiftorian's defcriptions have been charged with incon- 

 fiftency ; but this is owing to the inconfiftency of thofe cha- 

 racters that are their fubjects. A more fuperficial obferver 

 would have prefented a picture lefs juft, though more uniform 

 in its parts ; yet the merit of an hiftorian is to be tried by the 

 confonancy of his relation with what exifted, not with what 



may 



* Vol. i. p. 75. 



