390 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 179*. 



rertiptory and dogmatical assertion 

 of a disputed, nay, improbable, 

 charge, have we not cause to view- 

 bis writings with general suspicion, 

 and scrutinize with jealous eye his 

 accuracy or his candour ? And we 

 cannot select a better example than 

 that of a direct and unqualified al- 

 legation of a plain and simple fact, 

 into which, if false, the writer could 

 not from any circumstances be sup- 

 posed to be innocently or unwit- 

 tingly betrayed. 



Suetonius, then, directly and cir- 

 cumstanti^illy ascribes the conflagra- 

 tion at Rome, in the time of Nero, 

 to that detested emperor, while Ta- 

 citus only szys, forte an dolo impera- 

 toris inccrtum. The authority of 

 the former seems to have prevailed, 

 and few traditions have been more 

 strongly believed, or sayings more 

 frequently applied, than " that Ne- 

 ro fiddled while Rome was burn- 

 ing. " I apprehend, therefore, that 

 the following arguments to the con- 

 trary will have at least the recom- 

 mendation of novelty, as the oppo- 

 site opinion has never been hinted 

 by any writer whom I have met, 

 except the Abb6 Millot, who an- 

 nexes no reasons for his doubts. 



The reader, who recollects the 

 idle calumnies, which, upon a simir 

 lar occasion, were thrown out a- 

 gainst a prince of our own, Charles 

 the Second, and the numberless in- 

 sinuations of opposite parties at that 

 period, branding each other with 

 the name of incendiaries, will not 

 incautiously assent to the rumour 

 bred by inflamed imaginations, a- 

 scribing to malice the offspring of 

 accident. 



Whoever has implicitly believed, 

 that Rome was bun t by Nero, will 

 find, to his surpiise, on the first 

 peep into Tacitus, this passage, /foe 



tempore, Nero jintii agens, the para- 

 graph which first indeed, by ex- 

 citing my wonder, drew my at» 

 tention to this subject. The man, 

 who is depicted as sitting on a lofty 

 tower of his palace, attuning to his 

 harp the poet's numbers on the de» 

 struction of Troy, in the midst of 

 the imperial city, with whose fires 

 his eyes were feasted, was not, at 

 their commencement, at least, in 

 Rome at all. This should seem al- 

 most to terminate the question : 

 but, no ! the critic will say, An- 

 tium was only ten miles from Rome, 

 and the emperor had ample time to 

 arrive there long before the ex- 

 tinction of the flames; in fact he 

 did so, when he found that the 

 most vigorous orders which he had 

 issued from Antium had no effect.— >- 

 Such orders he had issued, and it 

 shews his alacrity in trying to have 

 the fire extinguished before his ar- 

 rival. Let us see then how he act- 

 ed after his arrival. During the 

 ver)' confusion and terror of the 

 conflagration, it may have been 

 difficult to ascertain (he conduct of 

 the prince j and it is during that 

 period, that Suetonius charges him 

 with encouraging the flames, and 

 cherisliingthe incendiaries. "Voices 

 of men," says he, " were heard, 

 exclaiming, that they acted by or- 

 ders from the emperor, and emisr 

 saries from his very household might 

 have been -apprelieiided in tjie act 

 of spreading the flames." That the 

 emperor should have been absurd 

 enough to furnish incendiaries with 

 the authority of his name is incre- 

 dible ; but let us remember, that 

 within three years past, the destroy- 

 ers of the castles of the nobility in 

 France, pleaded authority from that 

 king, whose throne they were on 

 the point of overt ufning. To these 



idle 



