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The reader, who recolleds the idle calumnies, which, upon 

 a fimilar occafion, were thrown out againft a Prince of our own, 

 Charles the Second, and the numberlefs infinuations of oppofite 

 parties at that period, branding each other with the name of 

 incendiaries, will not incautioufly affent to the rumour bred by 

 inflamed imaginations, afcribing to malice the offspring of ac- 

 cident. 



Whoever has implicitly believed that Rome was burnt by 

 Nero, will find, to his furprife, on the firft peep into Tacitus, this 

 pafTage, Hoc tempore., Nero Antii agens, the paragraph which firft 

 indeed, by exciting my wonder, drew my attentioa to this fub- 

 jed. The man, who is depided as fitting on a lofty tower of 

 his palace, attuning to the harp the poet's numbers on the de- 

 ftrudion of Troy, in the midft of the imperial city, with whofe 

 fires his eyes were feafted, was not, at their commencement at 

 leaft, in Rome at all. This fhould feem almoft to terminate the 

 queftion : but, no ! the critic will fay, Antium was only ten 

 miles from Rome, and the Emperor had ample time to arrive 

 there long before the extinction of the flames ; in fad he did fo, 

 when he found that the moft vigorous orders which he had 

 iflTued from Antium had no effed. Such orders he had iflued, 

 and it fliews his alacrity in trying to have the fire extinguiflied 

 before his arrival. Let us fee then how he aded after his 

 arrival. During the very confufion and terror of the conflagra- 

 tion it may have been difficult to afcertain the condud of the 

 Prince ; and it is during that period that Suetonius charges him 



with. 



