IV. A very small brass coin preserved in the National Collection

in Paris informs us that Julia was alive at least three years

after that date. So far from having been doomed by her husband to

perish through want, Tiberius held her in such uncommon esteem

that he ordered a coin to be struck in her honour in the fourth

year of his reign for the money bears the inscription, in Greek

capitals, [Greek: IOULIA], with the initials, [Greek: LD],

signifying in the fourth year of Tiberius after the death of

Augustus.

V. Now let the reader bear in mind that when we find in the Annals

a statement so contrary to what we gather from an old coin, we

must set down that statement as a pure figment of history; for

nothing can be so valuable for correct and exact information as

coins, which were always struck among the ancient Romans by public

authority, by the decrees of the Senate or the Comitia Curiata, or

by the edicts of the Decuriones (Councils of the Municipal towns

or Colonies), and of the Propraetors or Proconsuls of the

Provinces.

VI. A coin of the latter description lays bare another very gross

error committed in the first part of the Annals in making Caius

Caecilius Cornutus governor of Paphlagonia in the time of Tiberius

(An. IV. 28): Cornutus must have been a Proconsul of that province

in the time of either Galba or Otho. The coin, which is a large

brass one, exhibits, on its obverse side, Cornutus with a helmet

on his head, and underneath [Greek: AMISOU], meaning that he was

the Governor of Paphlagonia, of which "Amisus" was the capital,

while on the reverse side are the words [Greek: EPI GAIOU

KAIKILIOU KORNOUTOU]; Rome, sitting upon shields, holds the Roman

world in her right hand Victory stretches forth hers to place a

crown on the head of Cornutus, and beneath is [Greek: ROMAE],

which, during the period of the Empire, was inscribed on coins,

but only in the time of Galba and Otho, because Amisus, that is

Paphlagonia, was then subject to Rome, that is, the Senate, under

Caius Caecilius Cornutus, as Africa was under Caius Clodius

Mucrinus.

VII. No one would have been more willing than Bracciolini himself

to have acknowledged the ample sufficiency of this argument to

prove in the cases of Julia and Cornutus the forgery of the

Annals; for he was himself a great collector of the coins and

medals of antiquity, from which he gained a great deal of his

historical information: he must, for example, have had in his

possession, or have seen somewhere one of those medals which

antiquaries say were struck in the time of Nero with a table, a

garland, a pot, and the inscription: "Certa: Quinq. Rom. Co. Se."

meaning "Certamen, Quinquennale Romae constituit"; for in the

fourteenth book of the Annals (20) he makes mention of a set of

games by the name "Quinquennale Ludricum," and in the sixteenth

(4) by the title "Lustrale Certamnen, though no one has been able

to decide, or even divine, what games these were on account of

their exceeding insignificance: his object, then, in mentioning

them, when their chief constituents or principal prizes were a

table, a garland, and a pot, was evidently to impress his reader

with his most intimate knowledge of ancient Roman customs, and

leave his reader to infer with certainty that the Annals must have

proceeded from a native Roman; but here it strikes me that he

altogether defeated his own purpose; for if the Annals had been

written by Tacitus, that grave historian took such high ground

that he would have deemed it beneath him to notice any such

trivial amusements, just as Hume and Henry, in tracing the history

of the people of England, did not descend to make any inquiry into

or mention of the precise time when such popular games were

instituted, as the Maypole or country fairs, horse-racing or

football.

VIII. Monuments as well as coins may be relied upon for correcting

errors made by historians. There is a monument at Puteoli erected

in the time of Tiberius A.D. 30, containing the names of fourteen

cities in Asia Minor that were destroyed by a series of

earthquakes that took place during seven years in the course of

the reign of Tiberius, the first being Cilicia (Nipp. I. 233),

which was destroyed A.D. 23, and the last, and greatest of all,

being Ephesus, which was reduced to ruins A.D. 29. A passage in

the second book of the Annals (47) describes twelve famous cities

of Asia owing their sudden destruction to an earthquake occurring

at night. We are told that "the usual means of escape by rushing

into the open air was of no avail: the yawning earth swallowed up

everybody: huge mountains sank down, level plains rose into hills,

and lightning flashed throughout the catastrophe." Substitute

"villages" for "famous cities," "hills" for "huge mountains," and

we have, perhaps, as good an account as can be found in such few

words of one of those dreadful calamities of nature,--though it

happened not in the reign of Tiberius but three years before the

death of Bracciolini,--the entire destruction of the city of

Naples and its surrounding villages in 1456, when all the

inhabitants perished, men, women and children, to the number of no

fewer than 20,000 souls. "Eodem anno duodecim celebres Asiae urbes

conlapsae nocturno motu terrae; quo improvisior graviorque pestis

fuit. Neque solitum in tali casu effugium in aperta prorumpendi,

quia diductis terris hauriebantur. Sedisse immensos montes, enisa

in arduum quae plana fuerint, effulsisse inter ruinam ignis

memorant." (II. 47).

IX. It will be here seen that the only thing mentioned as breaking

out more suddenly and being more dreadful in its devastation than

an earthquake is the "plague": "quo IMPROVISIOR GRAVIORque PESTIS

fuit." Bracciolini spoke from personal observation. When he was

here in England in 1422, he would not venture abroad nor leave

London, on account of the plague which raged in the provinces and

extended over almost the whole island (Ep. I. 7.). Details of this

pestilence have not come down to us, but we see how terrible must

have been its character, when this strong and lasting impression

was left on the memory of Bracciolini, that he avails himself of

it in this passage of the Annals to serve as a symbol of the worst

species of destructiveness, from which we needs must gather that

nothing could have broken out so unexpectedly and without apparent

cause as the plague in England in 1422, nor have been more

frightful and more rapid in its fatality.

X. Another instance in the first part of the Annnals of how

Bracciolini modified circumstances from his own period, and then,

--knowing that human actions are ever repeating themselves, just

as that the human passions remain the same in all ages,--remitted

them to the first century, is his account of the fawning of the

Roman Senators, when he represents them imploring Tiberius and

Sejanus to deign to vouchsafe to the citizens the honour of an

audience: the Emperor and the Minister refuse the supplication;

their condescension extends no further than to their not crossing

over to the island of Caprea, but remaining on the coast of

Campania: thither the Senators, the knights, and the vast mass of

the commonalty of the City resort to exhibit a disgraceful spirit

of sycophancy and servility; they hurry continually to and from

Rome, crowd into Campania in such numbers that they are forced to

lie in the open fields night and day, some on the bare sands of

the seashore, without distinction of rank; and they put up with

the insolence of the porters of Sejanus, who deny them ingress to

the Minister. "Aram Clementiae, aram Amicitiae effigiesquecircum

Caesaris ac Sejani censuere; crebrisque precibus efflagitabant,

visendi sui copiam facerent. Non illi tamen in urbem, aut

propinqua urbi digressi sunt: satis visum, omittere insulam, et in

proximo Campaniae adspici. eo venire patres, eques, magna pars

plebis, anxii erga Sejanum; cujus durior congressus, atque eo per

ambitum, et societate consiliorum parabatur. Satis constabat

auctam, ei adrogantiam, foedum illud in propatulo servitium

spectanti. quippe Romae, sueti discursus; et magnitudine urbis

incertum, quod quisque ad negotium pergat: ibi campo aut litore

jacentes, nullo discrimine noctem ac diem, juxta gratiam aut

fastus janitorum perpetiebantur" (An. IV. 74).

A man must be credulous beyond measure who can believe that such

degrading servility was ever manifested among all classes by the

ancient Roman people; the picture, nevertheless, seems to have

much truth in it, though tinged with exaggeration; but the

painting must be transferred from the first to the fifteenth

century: there was then a schism in the Church: every now and then

the Pope would leave Rome, and stay at Florence, Reate, Ferrara,

or some other city in Italy; thereupon crowds of sycophantic

devotees, of whom the Roman Church has always had multitudes,

would crouch into the presence of the Sovereign Pontiff, and put

themselves to a wonderful amount of inconvenience, by thronging

into towns beyond the power they possessed of affording

accommodation: these flying visits of the Popes into small country

towns always occurred during the heats of summer; hence the

pilgrims lay in the open air; and all this suffering they

submitted to with the patient spirit of martyrs, only to obtain an

audience, to have a sight of and a blessing from the Holy Father.

When we remember too what was the power of the Popes in those

days, we can easily fancy how true is the remainder of the picture

when those to whom an audience was denied returned home in alarm,

and how ill-timed was the joy of those whose unfortunate

friendship with some cruel Papal Minister portended their imminent

death. "Donec idque vetitum. et revenere in urbeni trepidi, quos

non sermone, non visu dignatus erat: quidam male alacres, quibus

infaustae amicitiae gravis exitus imminebat" (l. c.)

XI. The same love of extraordinary exaggeration is found in the

last as in the first part of the Annals, showing thereby that the

whole work came from the same source. In the thirteenth book

Pomponia Graecina is described as changing not her weeds nor her

lamenting spirit for "forty" years,--mourning, too, as she was,

not for a husband, a son or a father, but Julia, the daughter of

Drusus, who was murdered by Messalina. "Nam post Juliam, Drusi

filiam, dolo Messalinae interfectam, per 'quadraginta' annos, non

cultu nisi lugubri, non animo nisi moesto egit." (An. XIII. 32).

Lipsius saw something so extraordinary in this, that, in his usual

way, without any authority of manuscript or edition, he cut short

the term, substituting "fourteen" for "forty,"--"quatuordecim" for

"quadraginta."

XII. A mistake which no Roman could have made occurs in the first

part of the Annals, where, we are told that, at the funeral of

Drusus, the father of Germanicus, "the images of the Claudii and

the _Julii_ were borne around his bier":--"circumfusas lecto

Claudiorum _Juliorumque_ imagines" (III. 5). Should the

reader turn for the venfication of this curious statement to some

modern edition of the works of Tacitus, it is possible that he may

find "Liviorum" instead of "Juliorum," for reasons which will be

immediately given; but if he will consult any of the MSS. or

editions prior to the time of Justus Lipsius, he will find the

passage as given. The error was so monstrous, that Lipsius

corrected it; because the Romans, at the obsequies of their great,

only carried around the bier the images of the ancestors of the

deceased. Accordingly Lipsius asks the very pertinent question,

how at the funeral procession of Drusus, who was no member of the

Julian family, not even by adoption, the images of members of that

house could be borne? He, therefore, substituted a family to which

Drusus belonged, the Livii. Freinshemius followed him, and some of

the subsequent editors, among them Ernesti, who observes he could

see no reason why the images of the Livii should have been omitted

at the funeral of Drusus; nor anybody else, except for the very

strong and simple reason that the author of the Annals, being

Bracciolini, was not acquainted with the fact, which must have

been familiar to Tacitus, that the Livii, and not the Julii, were

the great ancestors of Drusus.

XIII. That Bracciolini was just the sort of man to fall into

glaring mistakes, oftener than otherwise from perverseness, or

some peculiar humour, such as a resolution to be in the wrong,

would appear to be the case from the remarkable error which he

commits in his "Historia de Varietate Fortunae," respecting the

beginning of the French kingdom which he puts down at "a little

beyond the year 900,"--"paulo ultra nongentesimum annum" (Hist. de

Var. For. II. p. 45), thus entirely discarding the Merovingian and

Carlovingian dynasties, and ascribing the commencement of the

French kingdom to the beginning of the Capetian house; and he

gives his reason; for he says that until "a little beyond 900,"

France had been divided among a number of Princes; but so it was

even when Hugh Capet, putting an end to the system of anarchy

which had prevailed before his time, established real monarchy;

yet monarchy, after all, was not so real then as it was in the

time of Charlemagne: Capet was only the most powerful prince among

a number of others, who, nominally acknowledging him as king, were

absolute in their own rights, raised taxes, dispensed justice,

framed laws, coined money and made war. It is true that it is not

very easy to get at the proper history of France at the period in

question, from there not being the requisite authority for a

correct knowledge of those dark and distant times: a great deal of

obscurity and conjecture, too, exist as to the actual character of

the monarchy,--as to whether, for example, Clovis and his

predecessors were real kings, or merely knights errant, and

whether their successors were as absolute as the Emperors among

the Romans, or more magistrates than sovereigns as among the

Germans, all sorts of doubts having been raised and mistiness

thrown over these and other important matters by the ingenuity of

such writers as Adrien de Valois, Boulainvilliers, Daniel, Dubos,

Mad'lle de Lézardière, Mably, Montesquieu, Mad'lle Montlozier,

Velly and others: still the historians of France are all unanimous

in agreeing, that the French monarchy commenced hundreds of years

before the date fixed by Bracciolini, namely, at the commencement

of the fifth century, some preferring to begin with Marchomir,

Duke of the Sicambrian Franks, and others with Pharamond, (though

Marchomir, before Pharamond, was, certainly, king of Gallic

France).

XIV. We are told in the first part of the Annals (II. 61) that the

boundaries of the Roman Empire extended to the Red Sea. This is

generally supposed to allude to the possession of Mesopotamia,

Assyria and Armenia by the Romans, which they held only for two

years, from 115 to 117. Now, none of these provinces, only Arabia,

Susiana, Persis, Carmania and Gedrosia, bordered upon what the

Romans called "The Red Sea," and we "The Indian Ocean"; for the

ancients believed that from about twelve degrees south of the

sources of the Nile, from a country named by them Agyzimba, there

was a continuation of land stretching from Africa to Asia, an

opinion entertained by all the old geographers, from Hipparchus to

Marinus of Tyre and Ptolemy, and never abandoned, until long after

the death of Bracciolini, when the Portuguese under Vasco de Gama,

doubling the Cape of Good Hope, and hugging the shores of eastern

Africa and of Asia, reached India by the sea towards the close of

the fifteenth century. The Indian Ocean having then been known for

many hundred years by the name of the Red Sea, and looked upon as

a vast body of inland water, like the Mediterranean, we have,

unquestionably, a gross error with respect to the geography of

Asia, as it was known in the time of Tacitus, when it is written

in the Annals: "Exin ventum Elephantinen ac Syenen, claustra olim

Romani Imperii, quod nunc RUBRUM AD MARE patescit."(An. II. 61).

XV. The same confusion of ideas with respect to the Indian Ocean,

and pointing to identity of authorship, is found in the last, as

well as in the first, part of the Annals, when the Hyrcanian

ambassadors returning home from Rome have a military escort as far

as the shores (it is said) "of the Red Sea," which they are to

pass over in order to avoid the territories of the enemy:--"eos

regredientes Corbulo, ne Euphraten transgressi hostium custodiis

circumvenirentur, dato praesidio ad littora 'Maris Rubri' deduxit,

unde vitatis Parthorum finibus, patrias in sedes remeavere"

(An. XIV. 25). Here the "Red Sea" clearly means the Caspian Sea,

because the Parthians lived to the south of the Hyrcanians, and

there was no means of the ambassadors by crossing the Euphrates or

going southwards, getting into their country without passing

through the territory of their enemies, but by travelling

northwards they would pass through Media across the Caspian Sea to

their own shores. It is difficult to determine whether Bracciolini

did not give the name of "Mare Rubrum" to any large body of water

which he believed communicated with the Indian Ocean, which he may

have thought was the case with the Caspian, in common with Strabo,

and before Strabo Eratosthenes, and after Strabo Pomponius Mela:

or Bracciolini may have thought that the Caspian had no

communication with any other sea,--was perfectly mediterranean,

and that being in the midst of land, it ought to have the same

name given to it as the lndian Ocean, that neither mingled with

nor joined any other sea. Let the error have originated as it

might, it is of a character so cognate with that in the second

book, as to induce one to believe that both parts of the Annals

proceeded from the same hand, and that that could not have been

the hand of Tacitus, as in his day the Romans spoke specifically

of the Euxine and the Caspian Sea, so that if he had written the

Annals, he would have written in the first instance, "ad Pontum

Euxinum," and in the second,"Caspii Maris."

XVI. But if my theory be accepted that Bracciolini forged both

parts of the Annals, these errors are not at all to be wondered

at; for at the commencement of the fifteenth century, even his

countrymen, the Italians, especially the rich merchants of his

native city, Florence, as well as the other wealthy traders of

Venice and Genoa, who dealt in spices and other Oriental

productions, alone practised navigation and cultivated commerce in

the countries of Asia, and though better informed of those parts

of the world than the other nations of Europe, had yet but a

confused and false conception of the Red Sea and the waters in the

East.

There ought, further, to be no surprise that Bracciolini possessed

this limited geographical knowledge of the lands and waters of

Asia, considering that, up to his time, only a few travellers,

such as Carpin and Asevlino, Rubrequis, Marco Polo and Conti, had

penetrated into the central portions of that continent:--as to

Africa, its very shape was unknown, for navigation scarcely

extended beyond the Mediterranean: at the commencement of the

fifteenth century, indeed, not only information about the

different quarters of the globe, but letters, arts, the sciences,

and the greater part of our present ideas, were all prostrate,

--crushed beneath the weight of weapons and silent amid the din

of arms, for everybody thought of nothing but wars.

XVII. While treating of maritime matters, I may refer to a passage

in the second book of the Annals, which forcibly impresses me as

being penned by Bracciolini, in whose declining years Prince Henry

of Portugal, with a passion for voyages and discoveries, gave a

new direction to the genius of his age by laying the foundation

for a revolution which must be for ever memorable in modern

history. On Prince Henry giving the signal, navigation spread its

sails; discovery followed discovery with amazing, speed; successes

attended every expedition; each started after the other rapidly,

and soon in all directions; the navigators returning home brought

news so strange,--so animating all minds,--so inspiring all

imaginations,--of the fresh lands they had seen that we can easily

imagine a writer living in the midst of all these stirring

accounts, who was desirous of producing as much effect as possible

in a history that he was forging, writing thus of mariners on

their "return from a long distance": "they talk about wonders, the

power of whirlwinds and unheard of birds, monsters of the deep

having the forms of half men and half beasts,--things either

actually seen or else believed under the influence of excitement":

--Lipsius adds in a note, "rather based on pure fancy,"--"vanitate

efficta";--had the great Dutch critic for a moment dreamt that

Bracciolini had forged the "Annals of Tacitus," he would have known

that the observation, as far as concerned the author's own period,

was founded on fact, the English having then had the good fortune

to discover,--(or, as it was known to the Romans, more properly,

re-discover) Madeira; for the first time, in modern days, the French

nobleman in the service of Spain, Jean de Bethencourt, reached the

Canaries; the Flemings, too, for the first time got as far as the

Azores; above all, Gilianez, in 1433, doubling Cape Boyador, or Nun,

arrived on the West Coast of Africa to a few degrees above the equator:

every one of them returned with wonderful news of his voyage which was

looked upon as something marvellous:--accordingly their great contemp-

orary, Bracciolini, wrote thus, thinking of the miraculous narrative

that was told by each adventurous navigator of his time:--"Ut quis ex

longinquo venerat, miracula narrabant, vim turbinum, et inauditas

volucres, monstra maris, ambiguas hominum et belluarum formas,

--visa, sive ex motu credita" (An. II. 24). Nothing was going on in

the days of Tacitus, which could have put such a notion in his

head; nor is the passage from which it is taken at all in his

style, as will be admitted when I immediately proceed to compare

and contrast certain passages in Bracciolini and himself with the

view of examining the graphic powers which they both possessed.

CHAPTER THE LAST.

FURTHER PROOFS OF BRACCIOLINI BEING THE AUTHOR OF THE FIRST SIX

BOOKS OF THE ANNALS.

I. The descriptive powers of Bracciolini and Tacitus.--II. The

different mode of writing of both.--III. Their different manners

of digressing.--IV. Two Statements in the Fourth Book of the

Annals that could not have been made by Tacitus.--V. The spirit

of the Renaissance shown in both parts of the Annals.--VI. That

both parts proceeded from the same hand shown in the writer

pretending to know the feelings of the characters in the

narrative.--VII. The contradictions in the two parts of the Annals

and in the works of Bracciolini.--VIII. The Second Florence MS. a

forgery.--IX. Conclusion.

I. The graphic powers possessed by Tacitus and Bracciolini were

considerably influenced by their respective characters, which were

widely different: no one can read the works of Tacitus, and not

come to the conclusion that he was unassuming; whereas no one can

read the works of Bracciolini, without being struck by his

inordinate vanity, no matter what he maybe doing, describing the

Ruins of Rome, discoursing on the Unhappiness of Princes,

moralizing on Avarice or wailing in rhetorical magniloquence over

the remains of friends: still he displays himself for admiration.

The same thing occurs throughout the Annals. From the first to the

last the author stands before his reader on account of the

extraordinary manner of his narrative which is ever filling one

with surprize from Emperors and Generals, like Tiberius and

Germanicus, weeping like Homer's heroes, and Queens and captive

women, like Boadicea and the wife of Armin, exhibiting none of the

frailties of their sex, being above the timorous passions, and not

shedding a tear even when they are made prisoners, but conducting

themselves with all the insolence of conquerors. Roman knights and

senators, of the stamp of Lucanus, Senecio and Quinctianus

(XV. 49-57) betray the dearest pledges they have in blood and

friendship, while slaves, and wantons such as Epicharis, undergo

the fury of stripes and tortures to protect those not bound to

them by ties of kindred and not even personally known to them. Not

only do we find the heroic in malefactors and the criminal in

heroes;--the spirited where we expect to come across the sordid,

and the mean where we look for the grand, but the supernatural and

magical mingle with the real and practical;--the sound of

trumpets comes from hills where it is known there are no musical

instruments; shrieks of departed ghosts issue from the tombs of

mothers; incidents by sea and land are accompanied by wonderfully

sublime circumstances; shipwrecks have whatever make up such

scenes in their worst appearances.

The whole of this proceeds from Bracciolini indulging his fancy in

a latitude which is denied the historian, and allowed only to the

poet; hence he sometimes carries circumstances to bounds that

border upon extravagance. Tacitus, on the other hand, always

maintains his dignity; holding command over his fancy he carries

circumstances to their due length, and only to their due extent.

This will be seen in the passages which I shall now select to

illustrate the correctness of this remark; and beginning with

Bracciolini, I will take his account of a marine disaster in the

second book of the Annals.

The picture opens with a scene of beauty: "a thousand ships

propelled by creaking oars or flapping sails float over a calm

sea: all of a sudden a hailstorm bursts from a circular rack of

clouds: simultaneously billows rolling to uncertain heights before

shifting squalls that blow from every quarter shut out the view

and impede navigation: the soldiers, in their alarm and knowing

nothing of the dangers of the deep, get in the way of the sailors,

or rendering services not required, undo the work of the skilful

seaman: from this point the whole welkin and the whole sea are

given up to a hurricane that rages from an enormous mass of clouds

sweeping down from the swelling hilltops and deep rivers of

Germany: the hurricane made more dreadful by freezing blasts from

the neighbouring North, lays hold of the ships which it scatters

into the open ocean or among islands perilous with precipitous

cliffs or hidden shoals; the fleet, narrowly escaping shipwreck

among them, is borne onwards, after the change of tide, in the

direction whither the wind is blowing."

The reader is now left to the resources of his imagination; he has

to supply a missing link in the chain of the description,--the

mooring of the ships; though how or where that could be done it is

impossible to conceive; we are, nevertheless, told that the

vessels "cannot hold by their anchors"--("non adhaerere anchoris

... poterant"), "nor draw off the water that rushes into them.

Horses, beasts of burden, baggage and even arms are thrown

overboard to lighten the hulls with their leaking sides and seas

breaking over them."

Here the terrible character of the calamity is poetically

heightened by the writer observing that, "though there might be

greater tempests in other parts of the Ocean, and Germany was

unsurpassed for its convulsions of the elements, yet this disaster

was worse than those for the novelty and magnitude of its dangers

--the surrounding shores being inhabited by enemies, and the sea

so boundless and unfathomable that it was taken to be without a

shore, and the last in the world": whence we way infer that the

ships had got well out into the Atlantic, which must have

presented to the eyes of the Romans pretty much the same

appearance that it presented to Bracciolini's contemporaries, the

English, Flemings and Spaniards, when, sailing for days together

out of sight of land, they were making their way for the first

time to (in the language in the Annals) "islands situated a very

long way off":--"insulas longius sitas",--Madeira, the Azores and

the Canaries.

On such far-away islands described as deserted, "the majority of

the ships are cast ashore, the remainder having foundered in the

deep; there the soldiers, deprived of the means of existence,

perish from starvation, except those who survive by eating the

dead horses that are thrown up on the sands"; though it is beyond

the reach of the mind to conjecture whence the dead horses could

have come after such a description.

"Germanicus, whose galley alone is saved by being thrown on the

country of the Chauci, roams about the rocky coast and

promontories all those days and nights, bitterly blaming himself

as the guilty cause of the mighty catastrophe, and is with

difficulty prevented by his friends from casting himself into the

sea, and thus putting an end to a life made miserable by such

self-accusation. At length the swell subsides; a favourable breeze

springs up; the shattered ships return, with few oars and garments

spread for sails; some are towed by others more efficient; these

being hastily repaired are sent to search the distant islands; by

these means several" of the surviving soldiers "are with great

pains recovered; the Angrivarii, newly received into alliance with

the Romans, return others, who had found their way into the

interior of their country; and the petty British princes send back

the remainder who had been cast upon their shores." Thus all ends

as happily as a comedy; everybody and everything are saved; men

and ships return: meanwhile Bracciolini has entertained his reader

with a pretty, exciting episode, (what British sailors call "a

yarn"), without making himself absolutely ridiculous by placing on

record that the Romans in the days of Tiberius lost "a thousand

ships"; though he certainly gives credit to his reader for

considerable credulity by inviting him to believe that the Romans

at any time ever had a fleet amounting to such an enormous number

of vessels. [Endnote 401]

"Ac primo placidum aequor mille navium remis strepere, aut velis

impelli: mox atro nubium globo effusa grando, simul variis undique

procellis incerti fluctus prospectum adimere, regimen impedire:

milesque pavidus, et casuum maris ignarus, dum turbat nautas, vel

intempestive juvat, officia prudentium corrumpebat. omne dehine

coelum, et mare omne in austrum cessit, qui tumidis Germaniae

terris, profundis amnibus, immenso nubium tractu validus, et

rigore vicini septemtrionis horridior, rapuit disjecitque naves in

aperta Oceani, aut insulas saxis abruptis vel per occulta vada

infestas. quibus paulum aegreque vitatis, postquam mutabat aestus,

eodemque quo ventus ferebat; non adhaerere anchoris, non exhaurire

inrumpentis undas poterant: equi, jumenta, sarcinae, etiam arma

praecipitantur, quo levarentur alvei manantes per latera, et

fluctu superurgente.

"Quanto violentior cetero mari Oceanus, et truculentia coeli

praestat Germania, tantum illa clades novitate et magnitudine

excessit, hostilibus circum litoribus, aut ita vasto et profundo,

ut credatur novissimum ac sine terris, mari. pars navium haustae

sunt; plures, apud insulas longius sitas ejectae: milesque, nullo

illic hominum cultu, fame absumptus, nisi quos corpora equorum

eodem elisa toleraverant. sola Germanici triremis Chaucorum terram

adpulit, quem per omnes illos dies noctesque apud scopulos et

prominentis oras, cum se tanti exitii reum clamitaret, vix

cohibuere amici, quo minus eodem mari oppeteret. Tandem relabente

aestu, et secundante vento, claudae naves raro remigio, aut

intentis vestibus, et quaedam a validioribus tractae, revertere:

quas raptim refectas misit, ut scrutarentur insulas. collecti ea

cura plerique: multos Angrivarii nuper in fidem accepti, redemptos

ab interioribus reddidere: quidam in Britanniam rapti, et remissi

a regulis" (An. II. 24, 25).

We have no means of testing by minute and accurate comparison the

descriptive powers which Tacitus possessed in dealing with such a

subject, because he has no account of a marine disaster in any of

his works. We must then do the next best we can, see how he deals

with a military calamity,--for, though in the account we are about

to give, the Romans had been victorious, we must remember the

sentiment of the Duke of Wellington, that next to a defeat there

is nothing so miserable as a victory. The passage we shall give is

that of the visit of Vitellius to the plains of Bedriacum forty

days after a battle had been fought and a victory had been won by

the Romans.

"Thence Vitellius turned aside to Cremona, and, after he had seen

Caecina's contest of gladiators, longed to visit the plains of

Bedriacum, and view the field where a victory had been lately won.

Horrible and ghastly spectacle! Forty days after the battle,--and

the mangled bodies, lacerated limbs and putrefying corpses of men

and horses,--the ground stained with gore,--the trees and the corn

levelled;--what a dismal devastation!--nor less painful the part

of the road which the people of Cremona,--as if they were the

subjects of a king,--had strewn with roses and laurels, altars

they had raised and victims they had slain,--signs of gratulation

for the moment, which very soon afterwards occasioned their

destruction. Valens and Caecina were there, and told the points of

the battle:--'Here the columns of the legions rushed to the fray:

here the cavalry charged: there the bands of the auxiliaries

routed the foe.' The tribunes and prefects then began each to

praise his own deeds, and utter a medley of truths and

falsehoods,--or exaggerations. The rank and file, too, of the

troops with shouts that showed their joy turned from the line of

march to behold again the field of battle, and wonder as they

looked at the piles of arms and the heaps of bodies. And some,

when the various turns of chance occurred to their minds, melted

into tears and were heavy at heart from sorrow, but Vitellius did

not turn aside his eyes nor shudder at so many thousands of his

unburied countrymen: he was even glad, and ignorant of his all but

impending fate made an offering to the gods of the place."

"Inde Vitellius Cremonam flexit, et spectato munere Caecinae,

insistere Bedriacensibus campis, ac vestigia recentis victoriae

lustrare oculis concupivit. Foedum atque atrox spectaculum! Intra

quadragesimum pugnae diem lacera corpora, trunci artus, putres

virorum equorumque formae, infecta tabo humus, protritis arboribus

ac frugibus--dira vastitas: nec minus inhumana pars viae, quam

Cremonenses lauro rosisque constraverant, exstructis altaribus

caesisque victimis, regium in morem: quae, laeta in praesens, mox

perniciem ipsis fecere. Aderant Valens et Caecina, monstrabantque

pugnae locos: 'Hinc irrupisse legionum agmen: hinc equites

coortos: inde circumfusas auxiliorum manus.' Jam tribuni

praefectique, sua quisque facta extollentes; falsa, vera, aut

majora vero miscebant. Vulgus quoque militum, clamore et gaudio

deflectere via, spatia certaminum recognoscere, aggerem armorum,

strues corporum intueri, mirari. Et erant, quos varia fors rerum,

lacrimaeque et misericordia subiret; at non Vitellius deflexit

oculos, nec tot millia insepultorum civium exhorruit: laetus

ultro, et tam propinquae sortis ignarus, instaurabat sacrum diis

loci" (Hist. II. 70).

It must be obvious even to the most careless and least

perspicacious what a striking contrast there is in the descriptive

powers of the two; the objects that Tacitus depicts are not only

few in number and telling in character, but seem to be presented

to us on the principle of truth, as of actual occurrences; the

method he adopts reminds one of that pursued by Sir Walter Scott,

no matter whether the descriptive passage occur in one of his

poems, as The Lady of the Lake, or in one of his romances, as The

Heart of Mid-Lothian: Bracciolini, on the other hand, appears to

be inventing,--or, at least, heaping together a number of real

circumstances, one or two of which might have happened together,

but scarcely all of them at the same time, while he so arranges

them as to produce a highly poetic effect: he writes as Lord Byron

made up his shipwreck in Don Juan,--as Moore shows us in his Life

of the eminent poet,--by selecting here and there a telling

incident from the narrative of this or that shipwrecked mariner.

II. Not only in description did Bracciolini fail to imitate the

writing of Tacitus; he failed to imitate it also in sequence of

ideas. There is unquestionably resemblance in the absence of

circumlocution; in such considerable conciseness that words are as

sentences; in there being no hyperbole, and in judicious language

at all times consonant with the solidity of the instructions

conducive to wisdom in political and civil life. But in order to

effect this Bracciolini clipped his sentences as a gardener clips

hedges: a sentence is now and then like an amputated limb; a word

is wanting, like a hand or a foot cut off from an arm or a leg:

sometimes the reader sees, what was evidently made with

mischievous intent, a great gap in thought, at which he is stopped

and disturbed,--as a farmer, when walking in his fields, is

brought to a stand-still and overcome with annoyance to see an

opening which his cattle have made in his fences, and which he

must be at the pains of repairing: so these vacuities in thought

require to be botched by the fancy of the reader; the patching may

not be the requisite thing to be done: accordingly the gaps cause

difficulties in rightly apprehending the meaning of the writer,

who, in some passages may, possibly, never be properly understood.

The consequence of this is that no remark is so common as to hear

people, especially young persons, say of Tacitus, "How difficult

his Latin is!" Even Messrs. Church and Brodripp say so in the

Preface to their translation of the "History." Certainly, it is

difficult, perhaps impossible, to reproduce in another language

the smooth style and polished phrases of Tacitus; but his Latin is

easy to follow, whatever he maybe doing,--describing a battle, a

riot or a flight;--recording the success of a party, the death of

an Emperor, or a disturbance in the Forum. Notwithstanding his

fiery, rapid style, he is regular in his connection of thought,--

logical in his sequence of ideas, thereby he is always alluring

and attractive, while crisp, clear and comprehensible, he dazzles

and delights with his picturesque images and glittering beauties.

It is otherwise with the author of the Annals, whose style is

occasionally enveloped in such Cimmerian obscurities from

deficiencies of expression as to beset his work with a formidable

opaqueness--anything but Milton's "darkness visible". [Endnote 408]

Many specimens of this might be given, but as the mist is

impenetrable, we will turn to one where the light can be seen--the

story of the peasant of Termes, who assassinates a praetor, while

that officer is passing along a road unattended. The assassin,

being on the back of a fleet horse, gallops off to a wood,

entering which, after turning his horse loose, he baffles pursuit

by clambering over steep and stony parts into the pathless

wilderness, "where," continues the writer, "he did _not remain

long concealed_; FOR" (mark the sequence), "his horse having

been caught and shown through all the towns round, the people knew

whose it was, _and_ that led to his apprehension":--"pernicitate

equi profugus, postquam saltuosos locos adtigerat, dimisso equo,

per derupta et avia sequentis frustratus est, _neque diu fefellit_;

NAM prehenso ductoque per proximos pagos equo, eujus foret cognitum,

_et_ repertus" (An. IV. 45).

The context is not seen. A man who has committed a murder unseen

by anybody effects his escape from pursuit by getting into a wood.

Of what consequence was it whether his horse was known or not? for

how could that help his pursuer to catch him, if, like a maroon

negro, having run away safely into the impenetrable thicket, he

staid in the bush for the remainder of his days,--or as long as he

was not wanted for a breakfast by a hungry wild beast? The author

means us to understand, after the fugitive had baffled pursuit by

getting into the depth of the forest, that he lay hidden there for

a certain number of days, after which, deeming that all was safe,

he returned into the towns to his home: then should come the

words: "where he did not remain long concealed, for his horse

having been caught," &c.

This obscurity increases when the author of the Annals is in the

palace of Tiberius, or in the Senate amid the deliberations of the

Patres Conscripti. From his inadequate mode of speech he then

outstrips the comprehension of the reader; certainly he quite

baffles the intelligence of the very young, his meaning being

penetrable only by the keen sagacity of ripe age, for he enters

into the recesses of the heart, and reveals the secret workings of

the bad passions,--envy, hatred, malice and ambition.

As before, we cannot give one of his best gems, because those are

hidden in clouds of darkness, through which nobody can see, only

one of them that is shrouded in a light mist through which the eye

can dimly peer. So take the passage where Tiberius leaves it to

the Senate to choose whether Lepidus or Blaesus shall have the

government of Africa. Lepidus refuses in very unmistakable terms,

alleging as his reasons the bad state of his health, the tender

age of his children, and the marriageable condition of his

daughter: the writer then goes on: "another reason that Lepidus

had, he kept to himself, though it was understood, Blaesus being

the uncle of Sejanus, and that was a very powerful reason with

him." "Tum audita amborum verba, intentius excusante se Lepido,

cum valetudinem corporis, aetatem liberum, nubilem filiam

obtenderet: intelligereturque etiam, (quod silebat), avunculum

esse Sejani Blaesum, atque eo praevalidum." (An. III. 35). Of

course, that was the most powerful reason for Lepidus refusing the

honour, because he knew that if he stood in the way of the

promotion of the uncle, the nephew, in those corrupt times, would

seek a way of wreaking his vengeance upon him. That is easily

enough understood, and certainly did not require any further

explanation from the historian. But how about the next sentence?

"Blaesus in his reply to the Senate made, (but not in the same

resolute tone as Lepidus), a show of refusal, and by the assent of

the sycophants he was not supported"; and, without another

syllable, the author leaves the subject and passes on to another

matter. "Respondit Blaesus specie recusantis, sed neque eadem

adseveratione; et consensu adulantium haud jutus est." (ibid.) In

what was he not supported? And whom were the "sycophants," that is

the Senators, flattering? Blaesus? They had no cause to care

whether they pleased or displeased him. Tiberius? The Emperor was

perfectly indifferent as to which of the two men the Senate

selected. The author of the Annals, in order that his full meaning

may be brought out, wants the reader to supply, after the words "a

show of refusal," some such as the following:--"the Senators could

see from the sham of Blaesus that the promotion to the office

would be highly acceptable to him, and, as they knew it would

please Sejanus, they were desirous of doing what would gratify the

minister": then should come the words: "and by the assent of the

sycophants he was not supported," that is, in his refusal:

accordingly the writer leaves his reader to infer that the

Senators gave their universal approval to the appointment of

Blaesus as the Proconsul of Africa.

There is no such writing as this in any of the works of Tacitus,

who, though curt and concise, is always remarkable for concinnity

and clearness of expression as well as for perspicuity and

consecutiveness of idea. This can be instanced by any passage in

the "History": take this where Galba admonishes Piso whom he has

adopted to be careful of himself as the successor to the empire,

and beware of the perils to which he was exposed by his new

position:--

"You are at the age which shuns the passions of youth: your past

life has been such you have nothing to regret. You have endured

hardship up to this point: prosperity tries our dispositions with

sharper probes; because misfortune is borne, we are spoilt by a

brilliant position. With your determined character you will

preserve those most precious boons of the human soul, honourable

principles, an independent spirit and friendly feelings; but

others will undermine these by obsequiousness. Flattery,

--fawning,--that worst bane of virtuous inclinations,--will assail

you:--everybody seeks his own advancement. To-day you and I

converse together quite disinterestedly; others all selfishly pay

their court to our fortunes in preference to ourselves. Now to

counsel an Emperor what he ought to do is a task of much

difficulty: humouring the whims of this or that Emperor does not

cost the slightest trouble." "Ea aetas tua, quae cupiditates

adolescentiae jam effugerit: ea vita, in qua nihil praeteritum

excusandum habeas. Fortunam adhuc adversam tulisti: secundae res

acrioribus stimulis animos explorant, quia miseriae tolerantur,

felicitate corrumpimur. Fidem, libertatem, amicitiam, praecipua

humani animi bona, tu quidem eadem constantia retinebis: sed alii

per obsequium imminuent. Irrumpet adulatio,--blanditiae, pessimum

veri adfectus venenum,--sua cuique utilitas. Ego ac tu

simplicissime inter nos hodie loquimur; ceteri libentius cum

fortuna nostra, quam nobiscum. Nam suadere principi quod oporteat

multi laboris: adsentatio erga principem quemeunque sine adfectu

peragitur." (Hist. I. 15).

It will be seen from this literal version of his text, that,

notwithstanding his epigrammatic brevity, Tacitus writes with a

precision of thought that leaves nothing to be supplied. It may be

that the author of the Annals found it impossible to write thus:

at any rate he resorts to quite another kind of composition in

order to be on a level with his prototype by making his book hard

reading, for he gives his reader as much difficulty in following

him by leaving gaps in thought, as Tacitus gives his reader by

uncommon terseness. The difference of exertion to which the mind

is subjected in understanding the two is pretty much like the

difference of exerting the legs which a traveller experiences when

moving about a most mountainous region, between toiling painfully

up steep but smooth acclivities and taking violent leaps over a

succession of ravines.

III. The Rev. Thomas Hunter, in the opening portion of his work

entitled "Observations on Tacitus," (to which I have so often

referred, and to which I am so much indebted),--misled by giving

his assent, as a matter of necessity, to the universal belief that

Tacitus and Bracciolini were one,--errs in ascribing to them both

a perfect similarity in ambition of pomp and ornament to display

learning; Bracciolini bears little or no resemblance in this

respect to Tacitus, as may be seen by comparing, or rather

contrasting them in any one thing,--say in their digressions.

Whenever Tacitus digresses, it is always appropriately,--with

taste and judgment. What, for instance, can be more fitting than

that he should fall into a little digression about the Temple of

Venus in Cyprus, when Titus visits that island (Hist. II. 2 & 3),

because Titus had an amorous disposition? or, when he is about to

relate such an important event and turning point in the history of

the Jews as the destruction of Jerusalem, that he should recount

the whole origin of that most mysterious and romantic people

(Hist. V. 2)? or, when the Capitol was burnt, give a history of it

(ib. III. 71)? On these and other occasions, his digressions are

seemly, and afford satisfaction as appertaining closely to the

subject.

It is not so with the author of the Annals; he cannot speak about

a law, but straightway must tell his reader about laws in general,

as he does when speaking of the Lex Poppaea, of which had Tacitus

spoken, he would have merely mentioned its qualification, then

passed on; or, if digressing, confined his statement to the other

laws of a similar kind which had been enacted by his countrymen;

but the author of the Annals starts off to talk about laws of all

kinds that the whole world had witnessed from the Flood of

Deucalion to the time of which he is writing,--consequently he

talks about the legislation of Minos, Lycurgus and Solon, the

law-making of Numa and Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Martius and Servius

Tullius, down to what was done in that way by the Emperor Augustus

Caesar (III. 26); and when the cities of Asia contend for the

honour of building a temple, away he rambles into a discourse

about things in general, the wars of Perseus and Aristonicus; the

great antiquity of Troy, proclaimed to be the mother of Rome; the

love of home of the Lydians; the first names and settlements of

the Tyrrhenians; the Sardinians and Etrurians being of the same

descent; the divine origin of Tantalus and Theseus; and the

Amazons being the founders of some of the cities in Asia (IV. 55

and 56).

This, it must be admitted, is not in the style of Tacitus; it is,

however, exactly in the style of Bracciolini--in proof of which I

need only point to the historic details which abound in the

Dialogue on the Unhappiness of Princes;--the introduction of the

particulars into which he enters when drawing up a comparison for

a young friend of Ferrara between Julius Caesar and Scipio

Africanus, on the question submitted to him, "which was the

greater man" (Op. 357 seq.); and when in the Discourse on Nobility

he refers to the statues that adorned the garden of a villa, he

enters into remarks on the passion possessed by the ancient Romans

of ornamenting their homes with the images of their ancestors (Op.

64-83).

IV. Bodinus, in his "Method to an Easy Knowledge of History,"

first published in 1566, seems to be very much struck at two

statements in the Fourth Book of the Annals; in the 33rd chapter

the words occur: "we link together cruel orders, continual

prosecutions, treacherous alliances, the destruction of the

innocent, and trials terminating in similar issues": in the

chapter preceding the writer says that he does not narrate "wars,

sieges of cities, routings of armies and struggles of politicians

and plebeians": Bodinus observes, Tacitus "carefully describes all

the wars that occurred in his time; they were conflicts in which

he was usually engaged or acted as commander, nor was there after

the battle of Actium a single historian who treated so copiously

of military and civil affairs":--"Libro quarto profitetur se 'nec

bella, nec urbium expugnationes, nec fusos exercitus, nec

certamina plebis et optimatium' narrare ... et paulo post: 'nos

saeva jussa, continuas accusationes, fallaces amicitias, perniciem

innocentium, et easdem exitu causas conjungimus', quanquam omnia

bella, quae illis temporibus contigerunt, et quibus fere interfuit

aut praefuit, studiose describit: nec post Actiacam victoriam

ullus est historicus qui militarem aut forensem rationem copiosius

tractavit" (Jo. Bodinus. Methodus ad facilem Historiarum

Cognitionem. p. 66. Geneva Ed. 1610).

Can anything be stronger than these simple words of the French

Doctor of Civil Law of the sixteenth century towards drawing

further the attention of the reader to the truth of the theory

maintained in this book? It is not possible that, though

Bracciolini thus, as we see, forgot himself for a moment as the

imitator of another, Tacitus could have made a slip of this kind.

He is always describing battles; he takes a special delight in

doing so; it is a species of description in which he particularly

excelled, even as it is a species of description in which

Bracciolini just as particularly showed weakness; Tacitus could do

nothing better, because, as Bodinus says, he was actually engaged

in the battles, or else acted in them as a commander. Nor is it

true of his History, as it is of the Annals, that it is one

perpetual tissue of prosecutions and trials that end in the

conviction of innocent persons, treacherous alliances and

tyrannical decrees; nor that it avoids all narration of the

contentions between the people and the nobles.

V. We seem to be looking at a picture of the middle ages or the

Renaissance and not of the first or second century of the

Christian aera, when we read the story of Caius Silanus, the

Proconsul of Asia, who, accused of malversation and peculation, is

first banished to the island of Gyarus, but when the Prince pleads

for him, and he is backed by the intercession of a Vestal Virgin

of sanctity,--corresponding to a Christian nun or abbess of

exemplary piety,--Silanus is removed to the more bearable place of

exile, the island of Cythaera (III. 66-9).

Just as we find in the first part of the Annals this picture

marking the mediaeval period, we find in the last part a sentiment

that strongly denotes the time of the Renaissance, because it is

morally wrong: with the greatest coolness Bracciolini states in

the eleventh book of the Annals that "employment of stratagem

against a deserter and violator of his oath reflects no dishonour

on the Roman character": "nec irritae aut degeneres insidiae fuere

adversus transfugam et violatorem fidei" (XI. 19): the sentiment

would never have proceeded from Tacitus nor any other high-minded

Roman of antiquity; but it is strictly in accord with the views

and feelings of the Renaissance, or fifteenth and beginning of the

sixteenth century: in reading the best writers of that period we

every now and then come across maxims which a strict morality

condemns: Machiavelli, who better reflects the spirit of his age

and Italy than anybody else, except the author of the Annals,

occasionally shocks us by such utterances in his Treatise on Livy,

as, "it is permissible to deceive for the good of the State,

provided that advantage be gained by it"; it is a proper thing "to

violate one's word for the good of one's country"; "cruelty which

tends to a beneficial end is not blamable and that which profits

is praiseworthy"; or in his work entitled "The Prince",--"it is

quite enough for a Prince to be virtuous in show, and not in

fact"; he should "dissemble to reign well," and "the justice of

war is in its utility."

VI. Bracciolini, who was inventing history as well as forging a

production, did not deem it necessary to be actuated at all times

in his representations by the love of truth: in putting forth

supposititious matters as matters of fact, he advanced his own

opinions and conjectures as the conjectures and opinions of the

persons who figured in his narrative: to give an example:

--"Tiberius and Augusta abstained from appearing in public" on

the day when the remains of Germanicus were borne to the tomb of

Augustus: that may be history; but we are certain that it is not

history when we are told what their supposition was about going

abroad: "I do not know," says the writer, "whether they supposed

that a public expression of sorrow on their part would be

derogatory to their imperial dignity, but I rather suspect it was

fear that their hypocrisy would be detected when their looks were

scrutinised by the eyes of all": "Tiberius atque Augusta publico

abstinuere; inferius majestate sua rati, si palam lamentarentur,

an ne, omnium oculis vultum eorum scrutantibus, falsi

intelligerentur" (Ann. III. 4).

We have another proof here that the whole Annals proceeded from

the same hand; this sort of thing goes on as well in the last, as

in the first part of that work; in the fourteenth chapter (10),

the writer undertakes to describe the state of Nero's punishment

after (what may or may not be history) the murder of his mother:

we are told, as if Bracciolini possessed the magic of peering into

the inmost recesses of the soul, that it was only "at length after

Nero had completed the monstrous deed that he became conscious of

its enormity": "perfecto demum scelere magnitudo ejus intellecta

est". We then follow the Emperor into the privacy of his locked

chamber; in the dead of night, we see what he does, when he is

hidden from the eyes of all: everybody can pretty well guess (but

only guess not positively know) how it fared with him; an evil

conscience like a hidden torture wracks the criminal as the

vulture fed on the liver of the rock-tied Titan;--the Furies come,

causing the guilty to pass sleepless nights, for the Furies are

the Demons sent to torture the impious: accordingly Bracciolini

thus continues the description:--"during the remainder of the

night, he would at one time remain in silence with his eyes fixed

immovably, very often springing up out of terror, and with a

distracted soul watch for the dawn of day, as if it were to bring

death to him":--"reliquo noctis, modo, per silentium defixus

soepius pavore exurgens et mentis inops lucem opperiebatur,

tanquam exitium allaturam" (L. c.).

Though we all know that investigations of this kind must

necessarily be attended with uncertainty, yet in watching

Bracciolini's bold proceedings in unfolding the mazes of the human

heart by the passions of famous men, we assent readily to his

delineations, because the feelings he represents, if not true,

seem to be true on account of their being natural and obvious.

This kind of guesswork, nowhere to be found in the pages of

Tacitus, has been considered in these days a great improvement in

historical composition,--by none more so than by Lord Macaulay,

who made Bracciolini, (supposing him to be Tacitus), the object of

his adoration. Modern historians reject what Thucydides, Xenophon,

Herodotus, Livy, Sallust, Tacitus, and other ancient writers of

history, Greek and Roman, did,--ascribing probable words and

phrases to eminent persons on grand occasions, as violations of

truth and daring assumptions;--nevertheless, they imitate the

practice set by Bracciolini of knowing the motives that influenced

illustrious characters.

The cause of a memorable matter of fact,--Luther casting off his

allegiance to the Pope,--remains hidden in impenetrable mystery:

notwithstanding that, Protestant historians as confidently

maintain it was the love of truth, as Catholic biographers boldly

assert it was the passion of resentment.

We have the same rash conjectures as to James the Second: after he

abdicated the throne of England, he lived to the end of his days

in quietness and seclusion, never making an attempt to regain the

goodwill of his people, nor breathing a wish for a reconciliation:

though that monarch kept his feelings to himself, Lord Macaulay in

his History of England (IV. 380), with a comprehensiveness of

discernment that is amazing, writes thus: "_in his view_," that is,

King James's, "there could be between him and his subjects no

reciprocity of obligation. Their duty was to risk property, liberty,

life, in order to replace him on the throne, and then to bear

patiently whatever he chose to inflict upon them. They could no more

pretend to merit before him than before God. When they had done all

they were still unprofitable servants. The highest praise due to

the Royalist who shed his blood on the field of battle or on the

scaffold for hereditary monarchy was simply that he was not a

traitor." When such intimate acquaintance is shown with the senti-

ments of the fallen king, one wonders who knew better his intentions

and inclinations, Lord Macaulay, his historian, or Peters, his father

confessor. In writing thus Lord Macaulay merely imitated the example

set by Bracciolini, who, on almost every occasion, pretends to know

motives, detect inclinations, explore the causes of events as well

as look into the soul, reveal the passions and determine the judgments

of powerful men. It is very pretty, but it is not history; and any

one who considers how beyond his power it is to ascertain the

principles which regulate his own conduct or the behaviour of those

with whom he is in familiar and daily intercourse,--whose peculiar

habit, too, he knows well,--must see that the task is not only

difficult, but superhuman,--comprised in one plain and simple word

--impossible.

VII. A thousand authors may be read, and in vain contradictions

looked for in any of them. When, therefore, a writer is found

contradicting himself, it is a peculiarity to be noted as

uncommonly striking; one contradiction being found, several may be

looked for. Bracciolini is one of these writers; his

contradictions, too, are most remarkable: they are to be found

just as well in his acknowledged productions as in both parts of

the Annals. Many instances might be given; the following may

suffice:--

In the fourth book of the Annals, Tiberius is represented so full

of hatred that a man who had been for a long time in exile does

not escape his memory, as occurs with Serenus--"non occultante

Tiberio vetus odium adversus exulem Serenum" (IV. 29). In the

sixth book, however, Tiberius, though still actuated by hatred, is

so forgetful that Rubrius Fabatus remains unharmed through

oblivion:--"mansit tamen incolumis oblivione magis quam elementia"

(VI. 14). What then is the characteristic of Tiberius?

Forgetfulness or remembrance in his hatreds?

So in his acknowledged works, Bracciolini speaks in one of his

letters, as we have seen, of not having such a very high opinion

of the Papacy as the world believed: "Ego minus existimo

Pontificatum quam credunt" (Ep. I. 17). But in another of his

works, "De Infelicitate Principum," (Op. p. 392), he expresses his

belief that "all Princes were in the enjoyment of a large amount

of happiness, more particularly the Pope, who was considered the

greatest of men, and yet gained his position without any anxiety

or any labour, any pains or any peril." "Nam cum omnes principes

magna existimem felicitate frui, tum vero maxime Pontifices, cum

nulla cura, nullo labore, nulla opera, nullo periculo eum statum

adipiscuntur, qui habetur maximus apud mortales." What are we then

to suppose? that Bracciolini had formed a very lofty, or a very

indifferent estimate of the Papacy?

In both parts of the Annals, he displays the same spirit of

contradiction; first he praises, then condemns the same things; in

the last part he defends Popular Revels (XIV. 20) and objects to

them immediately afterwards (ibid); so in the first part he lauds

luxury in the second book (33) and censures it in the third (53).

We find the same contradiction with respect to Augustus and

deification; in the first book of the Annals we are told that if a

man has temples reared to him and is worshipped in the likeness of

a god, he commits a grievous wrong, because he deprives divine

beings of all their honours: this it is stated was done by

Augustus:--"Nihil Deorum honoribus relictum cum se templis et

effigie numinum coli vellet" (An. I. 10). After this we should be

mightily surprised, did we not know of the humour of the writer

with whom we are dealing, to find it asserted in the fourth book,

when the people of Lusitania and Boetica (now Portugal, Andalusia

and Granada), offer to erect a temple to Tiberius, and he refuses

(IV. 37, 38), that that Emperor "showed degeneracy of spirit,

because men of the highest virtue have ever sought the greatest

honours: thus Hercules and Bacchus were added to the number of the

Gods among the Greeks, and Romulus among the Romans: accordingly

that Augustus who hoped for deification chose the nobler part, for

when we scorn fame we scorn the virtues:--"quidam, ut degeneris

animi, interpretabantur: optumos quippe mortalium altissima

cupere. Sic Herculem et Liberum apud Graecos; Quirinum apud nos,

deum numero, additos. Melius Augustum, qui speraverit ... contemtu

famae, contemni virtutes" (IV. 38).

VIII. A few words, in conclusion, may be said about the oldest

manuscript containing the first six, and, consequently, all the

books of the Annals. This, which, it has been stated, is the First

Florence MS., I take to be the identical one that came out of the

Abbey of Corvey through the hands of Arcimboldi, because, like its

mendacious brother, the Second Florence, it bears upon it the

unmistakable stamp of an impudent forgery. Just as the Second

Florence pretends to be of the fourth century, if not earlier,

from having the attestation of Salustius the Philosopher, so the

First Florence professes to be as old as, at the very least, the

twelfth century, from being written in characters, which,

Taurellus says (Praef. ad Pand. Floren.), are the same as those in

the Florentine MS. of the Pandects of Justinian. Now, the

Florentine Pandects, which were found at Amalfi, were plundered

from that town and taken to Pisa in 1137 by Lotharius Saxe after

his successful war with Pope Innocent II., though the two costly

volumes were not first deposited in the Grand Duke's Library at

Florence until 1406.

Danesius, Bishop of Lavaur (in Languedoc), also bears testimony to

the great antiquity of the First Florence MS. But this was

nineteen years after the first publication of all the Annals in

Rome, it being in 1534 that Danesius, examining it with other

ancient works, pronounced upon its very old age.

Ernesti, in his preface to the works of Tacitus, quotes a passage

from a letter of Graevius to his friend Heinsius where the great

Hellenist is of opinion that the MS. bore the marks of being

copied from a supposititious and half learned original; "exemplar,

unde illud fluxit, mendosum et ab semidocto interpolatum"

(Tom. IV. Coll. Burm. p. 496). But suppose that the manuscript is

no copy, but, as I maintain, an original, then the opinion of

Graevius becomes extremely valuable in this inquiry, because it

actually corroborates what I have said about the manuscript,--that

it was transcribed by an ignorant monk, and that it is an

audacious forgery.

We have, then, no evidence whatsoever that can be relied upon of

the great antiquity of this manuscript: on the contrary what we do

know about it as a fact is utterly subversive of such an

assumption: this copy in the Mediceo-Laurentian Library in

Florence of all the Annals of Tacitus cannot be traced further

back than to the possession of a man who flourished in the days of

Leo X. and the Emperor Maximilian I.,--Johannes Jocundus of

Verona; so that it turns out, on careful investigation that all

positive knowledge of this MS. stops at the commencement of the

sixteenth century, exactly as all positive knowledge of the other

Florentine MS. stops at the commencement of the fifteenth century.

IX. I have now done; and think that I have said quite enough for

the spuriousness of the Annals never to be hereafter argued as a

moot point, but accepted as an established fact. I need not go

into further consideration; because further consideration cannot

give more weight to what has been put forward. I, therefore,

pause, assured that with only these few facts and observations

placed before him, the reader has come to the same conclusion as

myself, that, strange as it may be, yet, nevertheless, there is

truth in the theory now started for the first time, I dare say, to

the amazement of the reader, as to the amazement of everybody,

that Tacitus is, and has been, for century after century, wrongly

accredited with the authorship of the Annals. It is to dispel all

cavil about this, that I have examined the History and the Annals

from every imaginable point of view, so as to enable the reader to

see the two works as clearly as they can be seen--not that the

reader has seen them as clearly as objects are seen under the open

sky by the blaze of the noontide sun; still I hope that he has

seen them, as objects in broad day are seen,--where there must he

some shadows in corners,--in a room, when all the blinds are drawn

up and all the windows are thrown open.

T H E E N D.

[ENDNOTES]

[Endnote 013] Here we find the most learned Father of the Church

using "volumen" in an unusual acceptation, not as a whole work,

nor a part of a literary composition rolled into a scroll among

the ancients, or separately bound among ourselves, but a division

of a subject in the same "volume," just as Cornelius Nepos, once,

and once only,--in his Life of Atticus (16),--speaks of the

sixteen "books" of Letters which Cicero addressed to Atticus:

"Sexdecim _volumina_ Epistolarum ... ad Atticum missarum";

yet three or four "books" must have formed a "volumen," when we

find Ovid, in his "Tristia" (III. 14, 19) speaking of the "five

volumes" that contained his Metamorphoses:--

"Sunt quoque mutatae per quinque volumina formae;"

as the Metamorphoses were divided into fifteen books, three then

formed a "volumen."--I cannot avoid calling attention to the

curiously incorrect phrase, "voluminibus exaravit." An ancient,

speaking of the "volumen," or scroll, would have used "scribere,"

--"exarare," possibly, when speaking of the "codicillus," or little

wooden table made of wax, which he sent as a note or billet-doux

to a friend or sweetheart, the figurative verb being applicable to

the stylus "ploughing" letters "out" of the wax. The passage, from

this blunder alone, seems to be an interpolation, where the forger

ridiculously overshoots his mark: he out-Jeromes Jerome; for he

makes the saint write bad Latin from a motive that never led

St. Jerome astray,--a desire to be poetic. It is strange, too, for

the passage to have come from the most learned of the Latin fathers

with the loose expression, "post Augustum," to denote a history

that began with Galba; and when Tacitus, who confined his

attention to affairs of state (to the utter disregard of

biographical details of the emperors), is spoken of as writing

"Vitas Caesarum." However, the man who made the interpolation knew

all that he wanted to accomplish, and would have been eminently

successful in his crafty and knavish design, had he only known

Latin well enough to have made St. Jerome write it as a bishop

would have written it in the fourth century.

[Endnote 019] Nevertheless, Tacitus is uncommonly provoking to

believers,--in his version, for example, of what is solemnly

recorded in the xviith chapter of Exodus and the xxth of Numbers

about the Israelites, when, in their wanderings, they murmured for

want of water, and the Lord instructed Moses to "take the rod with

which he smote" the waters of the Red Sea: the sacred penman

proceeds: "And Moses took the rod from before the Lord, as he

commanded him: And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation

together before the rock, and he said unto them, 'Hear now, ye

rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?' And Moses

lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and

the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank and

their beasts also." (Numbers xx. 9-11). This incident, opposed to

the laws of nature, Tacitus shews happened according to the

constituted course of things, and makes the miracle ridiculous by

introducing asses as the principal performers: he has been

speaking of the Jews, ignorant of all the parts through which they

were to pass, setting forth on a journey for which they had made

no provision; "but nothing distressed them so much," he continues,

"as want of water; and they were lying all over the plains, not

far from the point of death, when a herd of wild asses quitted the

pasture for a rock overgrown with copse and brushwood: Moses

followed, and found, as he had conjectured from the spot being

covered with verdure, abundant springs of water." "Omnium ignari,

fortuitum iter incipiunt: sed nihil aeque quam inopia aquae

fatigabat: jamque haud procul exitio, totis campis procubuerant,

cum grex asinorum agrestium e pastu in rupem nemore opacam

concessit: secutus Moses, conjectura herbidi soli, largas aquarum

venas aperit." (Hist. v. 3). Tacitus is infinitely more offensive,

and, certainly, most untruthful, when he says that the Jews "kept

for worship in their holy of holies the image of an ass, as the

animal by whose guidance they had slaked their thirst and brought

their wanderings to a happy sequel": "effigiem animalis, quo

monstrante errorem sitimque depulerant, penetrali sacravere."

(Hist. v. 4)

[Endnote 074] This, I take it, is what the author of the Annals

means. "Tibicen" was, of course, not a violin, but species of pipe

among the ancients; the Egyptians were not famous for their

performances upon this instrument, if they were acquainted with

the "tibicen" at all. The question then arises,--Was the author of

the Annals cognizant of the existence of such people as "Gipsies"?

The last part of the Annals (where, it will be seen, this passage

occurs,) was forged after the first quarter of the fifteenth

century; was this nomad horde in Europe at that time? If there be

one established fact it is that the "Gipsies" (then called

"Aegyptiani") came into Europe at the commencement of the

fifteenth century in the reign of the Emperor Sigismund. Martin

Zeiller in his "Topographia Hassiae" says they were first caught

sight of in Hesse in 1414, which is four years earlier than all

historians fix the date of their advent into Germany, from

following Jacob Thomasius, who makes that statement in the 16th

and 17th sections of his "Disputatio de Cingaris." Two years after

their arrival in Germany, (that is 1416, according to Zeiller, but

1420, according to Thomasius and the historians,) this curious

people, separating into several bands, found their way into Italy.

Here they may have attracted the attention of the author of the

Annals, as well as in his frequent visits to Germany and the

principality of Hesse. In fact, they attracted universal attention

by their sporadic habitations, their nomadic lives, their

wandering and dwelling, like the Thespians of old, in waggons,

their shabby and ragged clothes, yet the heaps of gold and silver

they had with them, their trains of horses, mules and asses, their

love of music (to this day they are great experts with the

violin), their favourite practice of fortune-telling, magic,

palmistry, and those arts of sorcery, of which we hear so much in

the Annals, the author of which must have been further impressed

with their giving out that, though heathens coming from Lower

Egypt, they wanted to embrace the Christian faith. This vagabond

people had at their head a "king," whom the chroniclers style a

"noble Count,"--as Martin Cursius in his Annals of Swabia (sub

A.D. 1453): "obiit nobilis Comes Petrus de Minori Egypto, in die

Philippi et Jacobi Apostolorum." "Peter" was preceded on the gipsy

throne by "Panuel," who, styled also "nobilis Comes" by the

chroniclers, died in 1445, his immediate predecessor being

"Michael," under whom the immigration into Europe was effected of

these "Egyptian" wanderers numbering 14,000 men, women and

children.

[Endnote 081] I am indebted for nearly the whole of this to

Niebuhr's Essay in the "Rheinisches Museum" on "The Difference

between Annals and History." But in saying that Aulus Gellius

attempting to solve the same problem showed "more learning than

thought," Niebuhr did not know how easy it was to retaliate upon

him by saying that in his own investigation he exhibited "more

thought than learning" from supposing that a writer in the time of

Marcus Antoninus might have had his inquiry suggested to him by

Tacitus's "History" and "Annals," when, down to the fifteenth

century, as we have shown, one common title, "Imperial History"

("Augusta Historia,") covered the historical productions of

Tacitus, now known as "Annales" and "Historiae."

[Endnote 083] No overstatement but a fact. There are only 14

paragraphs in the Life and 8 letters, namely:--1. A letter from

the Emperor Verus to Marcus Aurelius (§ 1); 2. Marcus Aurelius's

Reply (§ 2); 3. A letter from Marcus Aurelius to his prefect (§ 5);

4. The prefect's reply (ibid); 5. A letter from Marcus Aurelius

to Faustina (§ 9); 6. From Faustina to Marcus Aurelius (§ 10);

7. Marcus Aurelius's Answer (§ 11); and 8. A letter from

Avidius Cassius to his son-in-law (§ 14); which ends the Life and

enables the biographer to observe that "that letter showed what a

stern and cruel emperor Avidius Cassius must have been": "haec

epistola ejus indicat, quam severus et quam tristis futurus fuerit

imperator."

[Endnote 136] The name of Emmanuel Chrysolaras must ever be

associated with the revival of the Greek language in Western

Europe after the study of it had been discontinued since the close

of the eighth century, or for six hundred years. One of the

earliest pupils of Chrysolaras, Leonardi Bruni, speaks of him in

terms of warm admiration in his interesting "Memoirs of

Occurrences in Italy during his Time" ("Rerum suo Tempore in

Italia Gestarum Commentarius"). Bruni says that Chrysolaras was

"the only and sole Professor of Greek, and that if he had been

lost sight of, there was no one afterwards who could have taught

that tongue": "hic autem unus solusque Literarum Graecarum Doctor,

si e conspectu se auferet, a quo postmodum ediscas, nemo

reperietur" (Muratori XIX. 920). Chrysolaras was a native of

Constantinople, and member of a noble family; the way in which his

country was assailed by Bayazid, Sultan of the Turks, and

threatened by Tamerlane, Sultan of Samarcand, caused him to leave

home, assured, as he was, of the certain downfall of the Byzantine

Empire; first he went to Venice, which he reached by sea; while he

was there teaching the Greek language his reputation spread to

Florence, the inhabitants of which, making him the offer of a

public salary, pressed him to come to their city, to teach their

young men, numbers of whom were desirous of making themselves

masters of his native tongue. It was in the year 1399 when

Chrysolaras, thus settling in Florence, revived the study of the

Greek language, and thereby gave a new and wonderful impulse to

literature, first throughout Italy, and then Spain, Portugal,

France, and the other countries of Europe.

[Endnote 145] The letter, from which this extract is made, will be

found in Bracciolini's works (Pog. Op. pp. 301-5), as well as in

the collection of his Epistles, (of which we have the first volume

only,) by the Chevalier de' Tonelli (pp. 11-20);--should the

reader be fond of literary curiosities he will also find it

reproduced, as if it were his own composition, by Reduxis de Quero

in his "Chronicle of Trevigo,"--"Chronicon Tarvisinum,"--

preserved in Muratori's Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (tom. XIX.

829-33). As Bracciolini wrote to his friend Leonardo Bruni,

Reduxis de Quero, not venturing to alter a word of what he

pilfered, for fear of spoiling his pillage, takes his reader into

his confidence and affectionately addresses him in the second

person, while pretending, to have the exclusive information and

personal recollections of Bracciolini, who, present at the Council

of Constance, as a member of the court of John XXIII., witnessed

the whole of the trial, defence and death of Jerome of Prague.

Muratori, in exposing the plagiarism, is surprised at the

impudence of Reduxis stating that, at the time he wrote the

account, he was enjoying some leisure moments as Castellan of the

"great Castle of Brescia":--"nihil enim agens, _dum custodiae

vacarem Castri magni Brixiae_, aliquid agere," &c. The

narrative of Bracciolini, light and airy, yet withal touching and

graphic, has a wonderful effect in the "Chronicon Tarvisinum":

it's not unlike sunlight breaking in and brightly shining between

banks of fog. It was, therefore, necessary that a cause should be

given for this supreme gleaming amid the general mists of the dull

and heavy Chronicle of de Quero; Muratori, accordingly, very

properly dispels the wonder of the reader by informing him that he

is "here listening to Poggio writing, and in a style," he adds,

"which Reduxis was about the last man to imitate":--"itaque heic

audis Poggium scribentem, et quidem stylo, quem aequare Redusius

minime gentium poterat."

[Endnote 208] Father Hardouin, however, is outrageously extravagant.

He will admit that only two Greek authors and four Latin ones

--Cicero, Pliny the Elder, (a big part of) Horace (the Satires

and Epistles), and (a little bit of) Virgil (the Georgics),

have come down to us, along with the sacred writings of the

Old and New Testaments. Nothing else is genuine that we have

from antiquity,--not even the coins,--certainly, not the

productions of the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church, nor the

Ecumenical Councils down to that held at Trent, and to cap the

climax of these appalling paradoxes, the parables and prophecies

of the Saviour and the Apostles first appeared in Latin. More

wondrous still! This wholesale fabrication all occurred in the

13th century, and the forgers were exclusively Benedictine monks.

Had the great Jesuit confined his playful erudition to profane

people all would have been well with him; but as he trenched upon

holy ground in the skittishness of his scepticism the

ecclesiastical authorities set over him were bound to interfere:

his superiors severely reprimanded him, his promotion in the

Church was for ever after stopped, and the supreme French law

court,--the Parlement de Paris,--suppressed the book containing

the novel raciness:--"Chronologiae ex Nummis Antiquis Restitutae

Prolusio de Nummis Herodiadum":--but wedded to his opinions, and

stubborn in the maintenance of them, Hardouin reproduced the least

reprehensible in his "Ad Censuram Scriptorum Veterum Prologomena."

From the manner in which he has been replied to by scholars all

over Europe, especially in Holland, France and Germany,

conspicuous among whom for pith of argument stand Basnage,

Leclerc, Lacroze, Ittig and Bierling, nobody at the present day

considers that what he said about the monuments of antiquity is

worthy of the slightest attention, though everybody acknowledges

his wonderful memory, sagacity, ingenuity, and mastery of all

kinds of literature, especially history and chronology, and, above

all, theology, of which he was a professor.

[Endnote 231] This I borrow from the Rev. Thomas Hunter, Vicar of

Wrexham in the middle of the last century, and author of a book on

Tacitus, from which I take the idea in the text. Hunter meant his

work to be at once a philological and historical disquisition and

a psychological and ethical analysis: he wrote it evidently from

being thoroughly disgusted by what he had read in the Annals--(as

well he might be);--and he laboured hard but in vain to show that

the same faults which he found in that work he detected also in

the History. His dissertation ends with a parallel between Livy

and Tacitus, drawn expressly to disparage the latter, when every

judicious, unbiassed reader who will form his opinion of Tacitus

solely from the narrative, maxims, and sentiments met with in his

History, must freely admit that he stands on a par with (to the

thinking of many, above) Livy as an historian, a moralist and a

man, all of which is denied by the ingenious Denbighshire

clergyman. By a sort of intuitive knowledge,--or that mental

process, known as the evolution of inner consciousness,--the world

has long arrived at the conclusion that the Vicar of Wrexham's

production is not valuable as a literary venture that aims at

imparting truth: accordingly, his small 8vo. of 1752 labelled

"Observations on Tacitus" shares the fate of the vast majority of

modern volumes--it rests in peace buried in dust upon bookshelves.

[Endnote 251] I know that Hallam says in one of his great books

("Literature of Europe") that nobody now living believes in the

authenticity of the Rowley Poems: but poetry was not the forte of

Henry Hallam. I am also aware that, towards the close of the last

century, a long and heated controversy raged for years among

literary men, who may be divided into two distinct classes,--

Believers in the Natural,--as Mr. Jacob Bryant, Dr. Jeremiah

Milles, the Dean of Exeter, Dr. Langhorne, and Dr. Glynne,--and

Believers in the Cock Lane Ghost and the Supernatural as

Dr. Johnson, and the Mysterious and Impossible, as Lord Camden and

Horace Walpole; and that the world has denied its assent to the

theory of the first set who maintained that the poems were

Rowley's, agreeing with the other set that they were Chatterton's,

who, in consequence of his tender years and ignorance, was placed,

for inspiration and intuitive knowledge, on a higher pedestal than

Jeremiah. The position of the controversialists which has been

accepted amounts to this:--that a child at the age of twelve years

wrote the pastoral "Elinoure and Juga," which is marked by finer

pathos than anything that proceeded from the passionate soul of

Burns: that when a few months or so older this child wrote

"Aella," which displays an energy equal, if not superior to

Spencer's, and about the same time the "Tournament," which

breathes the spirit of the middle ages more intensely than the

Ivanhoe of Sir Walter Scott. Marvellous as all this is, it is

found to be nearly a trifle by the side of this:--that the infant

prodigy, when a lad in his eighteenth year, composed poetry that

is not in accord with an improved information, but is a very

deteriorated sort of stuff,--a reproduction of old fancies, too,

in no new form,--as, to test it anywhere,--I take at random the

opening lines of the "Invitation," as good as anything in "Kew

Gardens," "Sly Dick," "Fanny of the Hill," or any other piece

composed by Chatterton towards the close of his life:

"O God! whose thunder shakes the sky,

Whose eye this atom globe surveys,

To thee, my only rock, I fly,

Thy mercy in thy justice praise.

The mystic mazes of thy will,

The shadows of celestial," &c.:

as good as Tate and Brady, to be sure,--but verses so common-place

in ideas and so prosaic in expression--that any youth in the sixth

form at Eton or Winchester College would be ashamed to produce

them as a school exercise. Everything that is marvellous has its

history as well as everything that is comprehensible; and the

story of the poems is as follows:--A bridge at Bristol was

completed in 1768; thereupon a ballad of a friar crossing a

Bristol bridge in the reign of Edward IV. was inserted in a local

journal as appropriate to the occasion: it was so sweet in its

simplicity and rich in poetry while so much judgment tempered the

composition and such correctness was shown in every archaeological

detail that it struck with amazement all persons of literary taste

who read it: the author being inquired after was found to be an

attorney's snub-nosed apprentice who copied precedents: the

inquirer, becoming the victim of a thousand-fold multiplied

admiration and wonder, was astounded that such a queer boy turned

out to be the author of such a fine ballad! The world marvelled

too, but became, and remains to this day, a believer that

Chatterton composed all the fragments which he himself, in the

first instance, truly and honestly ascribed to Rowley and other

poets, who flourished in different centuries; the consequence of

which is that their poems form a very curious and interesting

medley of various archaic words belonging to several mediaeval

periods. From the poems ascribed to Lydgate (wrongly written by

Chatterton, Ladgate) not being printed elsewhere, we must infer

that those fragments of his, and, by induction, the fragments of

the other poets, were not multiplied in copies; consequently we

must conclude that they were all so highly prized by their

possessor in the fifteenth century, the rich Bristol merchant,

Canynge, the founder of St. Mary Redcliffe, that in his last will

he bequeathed the whole of these protographs, to be locked up in

strong iron coffers, and deposited for safety in the church he had

erected, believing, no doubt, and with much propriety, that if he

placed them in a sacred edifice their preservation would be

secured for the benefit of posterity. Unfortunately, if so, the

stupidity of the Town Clerk and the Mayor and Aldermen of Bristol

in 1727 frustrated the intention of the enlightened merchant; for

when in that year those civic functionaries examined the papers in

the muniment room over the north porch of St. Mary Redcliffe for

the purpose of reserving only those that were valuable, they threw

away as worthless all but the title deeds relating to the church.

They thus secured an immortal fame for Chatterton by enabling him

(through the aid of his uncle, the sexton), to get at the contents

of the chests, select what parchments he pleased, and place before

the world poems which he candidly acknowledged were not his own,

but which he seems to have modernised, to have smoothed the verse

(his own common-place rhymes showing that he had an exquisite ear

for harmony; but nothing else); and here and there to have

interpolated (or supplied missing, erased, and undecypherable)

words, which spoilt lines, but could not spoil the poems as

masterpieces, from the classic form in which they are cast, their

power of thought, brilliance and vigour of imagination, happiness

of invention, and extraordinary depth of sensibility. One cannot

help recalling Dogberry's saying that "good looks come by Fortune

and learning by Nature" when contemplating the universal belief

that Chatterton wrote the poems of Rowley.

[Endnote 297] I cannot help thinking that some confusion may

arise in the mind of the reader from misunderstanding the

concluding expression of Bracciolini: literally he says:

"provision is made for me in the way of food and clothing with

which I am satisfied, for out of _this_ very great costliness

of the means of living even the king does not get more": from such

language one is almost induced to think that, in common with the

sovereign, he had the use of the royal kitchen and the royal

wardrobe; in other words, that he was living in the royal palace,

and faring just as the king himself; but this was not the case:

during his stay in England, he resided with Cardinal Beaufort in

the London Palace of the Prince Prelate: he means that in eatables

and raiment he was as well off as the king: he is alluding to the

circumstance that, notwithstanding his means and position, he was

not bound down to the style of apparel and meals as regulated by

the law, which, for more than half a century, (since the days of

Edward III.,) had prohibited all who were not possessed of more

than £100 a year (as was the case with himself) from using gold

and silver in their dress, and had limited their grandest

entertainment to one soup and two dishes.

[Endnote 303] "To place the Moon in the Ram!" Well, the

expression certainly in its eccentricity is quite equal to the

phraseological excursion to the moon of Madame de Sévigné, who,

meaning to speak of attempting an impossibility, writes "lay hold

of the moon with the teeth"--prendre la lune avec les dents!"

Bracciolini, who, in his letters to Niccoli puts me in mind of

Dean Swift in his letters to Dr. Arbuthnot, (as far as using words

and inventing terms to bother and perplex his friend,) has here

fairly put his editors at a non plus from the first in Basle to

the last in Florence; he is up in a balloon--clean out of their

sight,--so they all print Aries in the accusative and with a small

a--"poneres lunam in arietem,"--which not at all understanding, I

have changed the phrase to what it is in the text. Bracciolini by

the Ram is referring neither to the male sheep nor the battering

instrument of war among the Romans, but the vernal sign: he had

evidently read Roger Bacon, and believed with the "Somersetshire

Magician," (as the Brother of the Minor Order was styled by his

contemporaries), that a man's neck is subject to the power of the

Bull, his arms to that of the Twins, and his head or brains to

that of the Ram: When "the Moon" then, "is in the Ram," a lunatic

is surely doubly mad, suffering, as he does, from the combined

influences of the Moon, (especially when full), and of the Ram,

--particularly at the beginning of April, the first day of which

is amusingly consecrated to fools, and has been so worshippingly

set apart in consequence of the belief that was entertained by the

Benedictine man of science respecting the Constellation of the

Zodiac that is the sign of April--"caput est de complexione

Arietis" (Rog. Bacon. Opus Majus. p. 240).

[Endnote 357] The way in which Bracciolini wrote Latin verse will

be seen in the following epitaph which he composed in honour of

his preceptor in the Greek language, Emanuel Chrysolarus:--

Hic est Emanuel situs

Sermonis decus Attici,

Qui dum quaerere spem patriae

Afflictae studeret, huc iit;

Res belle cecidit tuis

Votis Italia. Hic tibi

Linguae restituit decus,

Atticae ante reconditae.

Res belle cecidit tuis

Votis Emanuel. Solo

Constitutus in Italo

Aeternum decus, et tibi

Quale Graecia non dedit

Bello perdita Graecia.

The fact, then, is that,--putting aside false quantities,--he was

more eloquent and poetic when he was writing prose than when he

was writing poetry.

[Endnote 401] Don Pio Mutio in his "Meditations upon Tacitus"

forms a very different estimate of this description; he places the

account of this tempest which carried Germanicus into the ocean in

that part of his dissertation where he speaks of Tacitus as

"marvellous in description",--"nelle descrittioni maraviglioso",

--portraying things with such magnificent clearness that you can see

them as distinctly on his page as if you were looking at a picture

on canvas or cardboard done by an eminent artist;--"portando egli

le cose con tanta maestà e chiarezza, che quasi ce le fa vedere

nella sua scrittura, come farebbe eccellente pittore in una tela o

tavolo" (Considerationi sopra Cornelio Tacito. p. 481 Brescia Ed.

1623). Mutio's "Meditations" are no meditations on Cornelius

Tacitus but Poggio Bracciolini; for they are not meditations upon

all the historical productions that pass under the name of

Tacitus,--not even upon the whole of the Annals, but only the

first book of it; almost every passage of which,--certainly, every

sentiment is elucidated, or rather, expatiated upon with signal

originality and shrewdness of view, so as to have won the

admiration and praise in no fewer than five of his epigrams of

Benedetto Sossago, Mutio's fellow-countryman and contemporary,

well skilled in scholastic acquirements, philosophy and theology,

a doctor of the Ambrosian College at Milan, and a writer

distinguished principally for poems in Latin,--"Sylvae"; "Opuscula

Sacra"; two books of "Odes"; seven books of "Epigrams"; and

according to the Abbot Picinelli, in his "Atenco de i Letterati

Milanesi", Sossago would have added to these an epic about

Borromeo, had he not died in the midst of composing the

"Caroleis", which was to have made his name a "familiar household

word" to all posterity. The "Biographie Universelle", which Madame

Desplaces's editor of it, M. Charles Nodier, says, is "one of the

greatest and most useful conceptions of our age" ought, (because

it is so useful and great), to have contained a memoir of Mutio,

for he was a most accomplished politician: in addition to these

"Meditations on Tacitus" which are filled with political wisdom,

he wrote another treatise also on politics and also in Italian: he

was Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Monte Casino, and went

on several important embassies to the French Court during the

reign of Louis XIII. His work on the First Book of the Annals,

--which is a commentary divided into 358 meditations or

considerations comprised in a quarto of over 600 closely printed

pages,--goes a long way in proving the truth of my theory, because

it is one of the half-dozen or so of substantive books, (and bulky

tomes, too), which were devoted exclusively to a consideration of

the Annals in less than a century after the whole of that work was

first placed before the world, showing its remarkable

attractiveness, and what great attention MUST have been paid to

it, had it been as old as it is generally supposed to be; but, (as

I have observed in the text, p. 16), there not having been a word

said about it from the second to the fifteenth century is all but

proof positive of its non-existence during those 1,300 years.

[Endnote 408: "What has rendered 'Tacitus' obscure", says the

Rev. Thomas Hunter in that book of his from which I have so

frequently quoted, "is the refinement of his sentiments; which,

like some minims in Nature, require uncommon sagacity and

artificial power to assist you in the knowledge of." I cannot

help thinking that these remarks are much more, if not solely

applicable to the author of the Annals, (consequently,

Bracciolini), than to Tacitus, as well as these further

observations on the difficulty of the Latin:--"Let a reader take

Livy in hand without translation or notes, if he is but a moderate

adept in the Latin tongue, he will find little difficulty in many

chapters together, except where some plodding editor brings in an

awkward word to confound common sense and spoil a beautiful

antithesis. If he is a proficient in the Roman language, he will

read a book from end to end, with little hesitation or doubt

concerning his meaning in any place: but a good classical scholar,

who sits down to Tacitus, disclaiming the assistance of commentary

or translation, will meet with difficulties in every book, and

frequently in every page". (Observations upon Tacitus. pp. 218-9.)

Archdeacon Browne, speaking of the style of "Tacitus," says (in

his "History of Roman Classical Literature," p. 487), "his brevity

... is the necessary condensation of a writer whose thoughts flow

more quickly than his tongue could express them. Hence his

sentences are suggestive of far more than they express: they are

enigmatical hints of deep and hidden meaning, which keep the mind

active and the attention alive, and delight the reader with the

pleasures of discovery and the consciousness of difficulties

overcome." "The thoughts flowing more quickly than the tongue"

(that is, the pen) "can express them," is an apt phrase, (without

the Archdeacon knowing how truthfully he was speaking), for the

embarrassment under which a fabricator labours when endeavouring,

not only to write like an ancient, but to assimilate his style to

that of another, which being quite different to his own, he is

conscious that, strive as he may, he will never come up to a close

resemblance to the original. The reader no doubt recalls

Bracciolini's own description of his task when he first set about

forging the Annals: "Beginnings of any kind are arduous and

difficult; as what the ancients did pleasantly, quickly and easily

to ME is _troublesome, tedious and burdensome_":--"In quibusvis

quoque rebus principia sunt ardua et difficilia; ut quod

antiquioribus in officio sit jucundum, promptum ac leve, MIHI sit

_molestum, tardum, onerosum_." (See pages 192 and 266 of this

work).

End of Project Gutenberg's Tacitus and Bracciolini, by John Wilson Ross