i82 ESS^T upon the PRINCIPLES 



flatefman. During his abode in Belgium, he collected mate- 

 rials relating to the iirft ftage of human fociety, which form 

 the moil valuable treatife that is even yet to be found upon the 

 fubject. 



HE next wrote the life of his father-in-law AGRICOLA. In 

 this treatife, we have reafon to admire the qualities of an af- 

 fectionate heart as much as the accomplifhments of an able 

 writer. As a piece of biographical writing, it may be deemed 

 a ftandard. Nothing needful to be known is fupprefled, and 

 nothing fuperfluous is admitted. AGRICOLA is made fo com- 

 pletely refpectable as a foldier, and amiable as a man, that the 

 character drawn may feem perhaps too near to perfection. It 

 does not appear, however, that the contemporaries of TACITUS 

 ever accufed him of partiality. 



AFTER the life of AGRICOLA, he compofed his hiftory, 

 which begins at the death of NERO, and ends with the reign of 

 TITUS. It is unfortunately -fo much mutilated, that it compre- 

 hends little more than a twentieth part of its fubject. That our 

 author knew precifely the nature -of the period he had chofen, 

 is evident from his own words : " Opus aggredior (fays he) 

 " opimum cafibus, atrox praeliis, difcors feditionibus, ipfa etiam 

 " pace faevum *." Throughout the work, a mofl exact unity 

 is preferved, in the midft of a multiplicity of facts. The views 

 of VESPASIAN in the eaft are fuggefted before the difpute be- 

 tween OTHO and VITELLIUS had come to a conclusion, and 

 the reader is thus prepared for contemplating a new druggie. 

 The difturbances in Germany and in Britain folicit his atten- 

 tion when they occur ; but fo as not to break in upon the main 

 ftory.' Foreign .and domeftic occurrences find a place fuited to 

 their refpective importance ; and the account of the war in 

 Germany, and that of the expedition of TITUS in Judea are 

 kept completely diftinct, and made clearly intelligible. 



IN 



* Hift. lib. i. cap. 2. 



