and the succeeding age, finding in their exquisitely clear style, their admirable common-sense, and their freedom from all the tricks of affectation, a delightful contrast to so many of the eminent authors of our own time." These words might be used of Gordon: I do not claim for him the style of Addison, nor the accomplished negligence of Goldsmith; these are graces beyond the reach of art; but he exhibits the common-sense, and the clear style, of the eighteenth century. Like all the good writers of his time, he is unaffected and "simplex munditiis"; he has the better qualities of Pyrrha, and is "plain in his neatness." In Mr. Ward's edition of the English Poets, there may be read side by side a notice of Collins and of Gray; the one by Mr. Swinburne, the other by Mr. Matthew Arnold: I make no allusion here to the greatness of either poet, to the merits of either style, nor to the value of either criticism. But the essay upon Gray is quiet in tone; it has an unity of treatment, and never deserts the principal subject; it is suffused with light, and full of the most delicate allusions: the essay on Collins, by being written in superlatives and vague similes, deafens and perplexes the reader; and the author, by squandering his resources, has no power to make fine distinctions, nor to exalt one part of his thesis above another. These two performances illustrate the last quality in Gordon, and in the old writers, to which I shall draw attention: they were always restrained in their utterances, and therefore they could be discriminating in their judgments; they could be emphatic without noise, and deep without obscurity, ornamental but not vulgar, carefully arranged but not stiff or artificial. They exhibit the three indispensable gifts of the finest authorship: "simplicitas munditiis," "lucidus ordo," "curiosa felicitas."
In this volume, Gordon's punctuation has been generally followed: his orthography has been modernised a little, though not by my hands, nor with my consent; and I have observed without regret, that some of Gordon's original spellings have eluded the vigilance of the printer: that stern official would by no means listen to my entreaties for the long "SS," the turn-over words, or the bounteous capitals, which add so much to the seductive and sober dignity of an eighteenth-century page; but, on the whole, we have given a tolerable reproduction of Gordon's folio. In the second edition, he himself made more changes than improvements. I will not say, that Gordon has always conveyed the exact meaning of the sentences of Tacitus: but he has done what is better, and more difficult; he has grasped the broad meaning of his author, and caught something of his lofty spirit. "A translation," he says, "ought to read like an original;" and Gordon has not failed, I think, to reach this perfection. It is not commonly attained among translators: Gordon says, of one rendering of Tacitus, "'Tis not the fire of Tacitus, but his embers; quenched with English words, cold and Gothick." Of the author of another version, he says "Learning is his chief accomplishment, and thence his translation is a very poor one." This judgment is true of most modern translations from the Ancients; they may be correct versions, but are miserable English: the authors, while studying the most perfect models of the art of writing, have produced copies which are not literature at all. From this low company, I would rescue Sir Charles Bowen's "Virgil": a delightful poem, to those who are ignorant of Latin; an exquisite production, and an amazing triumph, to those who converse with the original. There are many English translations of Tacitus: the first, by Sir Henry Savile and "one Greenway"; the former, says Gordon, "has performed like a schoolmaster, the latter like a school-boy." Anthony à Wood writes in another strain, in the "Athenae Oxonienis": "A rare Translation it is, and the Work of a very Great Master indeed, both in our Tongue and that Story. For if we consider the difficulty of the Original, and the Age wherein the Translation lived, it is both for the exactness of the version, and the chastity of the Language, one of the most accurate and perfect translations that ever were made into English." There is a rendering by Murphy, diffuse and poor; a dilution of Gordon, worthy neither of Tacitus nor of the English tongue. There are translations, too, into almost every modern language: I would give the highest praise to Davanzati; a scholar of Tuscany, who lived in the sixteenth century. In French, I cannot but admire the labours of M. Burnouf: although the austere rules, the precise constructions, and the easy comportment of the French prose are not suited to the style of Tacitus, and something of his weight and brevity are lost; yet the translator never loses the depth and subtilty of his author's meaning; his work is agreeable to read, and very useful to consult. The maps and the genealogical tables in the three volumes of Messrs. Church and Brodribb's translation are also of the greatest service, and the notes are sometimes most amusing.
Of Tacitus himself, there is little for me to say: those, who know him, can judge for themselves; to those who do not, no words are able to convey an adequate impression. "Who is able to infuse into me," Cardinal Newman asks, "or how shall I imbibe, a sense of the peculiarities of the style of Cicero or Virgil, if I have not read their writings? No description, however complete, could convey to my mind an exact likeness of a tune, or an harmony, which I have never heard; and still less of a scent, which I have never smelled: and if I said that Mozart's melodies were as a summer sky, or as the breath of Zephyr, I shall be better understood by those who knew Mozart, than by those who did not." These truths are little remembered by modern critics: though, indeed, it is not possible to convey to a reader adequate notions about the style of an author, whom that reader has not pondered for himself; about his thoughts or his subjects, it may be different. Still, I may write something about the manner of Tacitus, which will not violate Cardinal Newman's laws, nor be an outrage to taste and common-sense. "It is the great excellence of a writer," says Dr. Johnson, "to put into his book as much as it will hold:" and if this judgment be sound, then is Tacitus the greatest of all writers in prose. Gordon says of him, "He explains events with a redundancy of images, and a frugality of words: his images are many, but close and thick; his words are few, but pointed and glowing; and even his silence is instructive and affecting. Whatever he says, you see; and all, that you see, affects you. Let his words be ever so few, his thought and matter are always abundant. His imagination is boundless, yet never outruns his judgment; his wisdom is solid and vast, yet always enlivened by his imagination. He starts the idea, and lets the imagination pursue it; the sample he gives you is so fine, that you are presently curious to see the whole piece, and then you have your share in the merit of the discovery; a compliment, which some able writers have forgot to pay to their readers." I would remark here, that many of the old writers give me the sense of handling things, they are definite and solid; while some of the moderns appear to play with words only, and never to come up with the objects of their pursuit: "we are too often ravished with a sonorous sentence," as Dr. Johnson says, "of which, when the noise is past, the meaning does not long remain." But of Tacitus, Gordon says, "His words and phrases are admirably adapted to his matter and conceptions, and make impressions sudden and wonderful upon the mind of man. Stile is a part of genius, and Tacitus had one peculiar to himself; a sort of language of his own, one fit to express the amazing vigour of his spirit, and that redundancy of reflections which for force and frequency are to be equalled by no writer before nor since."
Dr. Johnson, however, says in another place, "Tacitus, Sir, seems to me rather to have made notes for an historical work, than to have written a history:" I must own, that upon the subject of Tacitus, I prefer the sentiments of Gordon; and Montaigne would agree with me, for he says, "I do not know any author, who, in a work of history, has taken so broad a view of human events, or given a more just analysis of particular characters." The impressions of Tacitus are indeed wonderful: I doubt, whether volumes could bring us nearer to the mutinous legions, than the few chapters in which he records their history. I am always delighted by Gordon's way of telling the battle, in which the iron men of Sacrovir were overthrown; the account begins on page 139. Then how satisfying is the narrative of the wars in Germany, of the shipwreck, of the funeral of Varus and the slaughtered legions; how pleasing the description of Germanicus' antiquarian travels in Egypt, and in Greece. Though Tacitus is not a maker of "descriptions," in our modern sense: there is but one "description" in "The Annals," so far as I remember, it is of Capri; and it is not the sort, that would be quoted by a reviewer, as a "beautiful cameo of description." With Tacitus, a field of battle is not an occasion for "word-painting," as we call it; the battle is always first, the scenery of less importance. He tells, what it is necessary to know; but he is too wise to think, that we can realise from words, a place which we have never seen; and too sound in his taste, to forget the wholesome boundaries between poetry and prose. This is the way of all the ancient writers. In a work on "Landscape," I remember that Mr. Hamerton mourns over the Commentaries of Caesar; because they do not resemble the letters of a modern war-correspondent; Ascham, on the other