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THE

WORKS

OF

CORNELIUS TACITUS;

WITH

AN ESSAY ON HIS LIFE AND GENIUS,

NOTES, SUPPLEMENTS, &c.

BY ARTHUR MURPHY, Esq.

Præcipuum munus annalium reor, ne virtutes sileantur, utque pravis dictis factisque ex posteritate
et infamia metus sit.-TACITUS, Annales, iii. 65.

A NEW EDITION WITH THE AUTHOR'S LAST CORRECTIONS.

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED BY THOMAS WARDLE,

No. 11 MINOR STREET.

MDCCCXXXVI.

63

APARY
Executor of

J. Elliot Cabot.

22-27

45

DEDICATION.

ΤΟ

SIR,

THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE.

You will be surprised to see your name at the head of this address; but I flatter myself that the liberty which I take, in violation of all preliminary forms, will not require an apology. As soon as I had finished a long and laborious work, with the ambition of adding to English literature (what seemed to be much wanted) a translation of a great historian, it was natural that I should look round for a person of genius and learning, from whose candour I can promise myself a just, but mild, decision. This, Sir, was the practice in ancient times, when the republic of letters was considered as an honourable community, and the several members addressed their works to one another with a spirit of freedom and integrity, till the manners underwent a change, and, adulation diffusing its baneful influence, dedication became another word for servile flattery.

It is not my intention to conform to the modern practice; but, though I know what a small, if any, portion of ancient genius has fallen to my lot, I claim the privilege of imitating the disinterested manners of a liberal age. I beg leave to dedicate my labours to the person whose talents I have long admired; to the man whom I saw many vears ago coming forth from the school of Quintilian, impressed with the great principle of that consummate master, ne futurum quidem oratorem, nisi bonum cirum. In the part which you have acted on the great stage of public business, the effect of that principle has been seen and acknowledged; but in no instance with such distinguished lustre, as when we saw you, on a late occasion, with a patriot spirit, standing forth the champion of Truth, of your country, and the British constitution.

Per obstantes catervas
Explicuit sua victor arma.

The regicides of France had the vanity to offer their new lights and wild metaphysics to a people who have understood and cherished civil liberty from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the present hour; but your penetrating eye pervaded the whole, and, in one book, demonstrated, that so far from being objects of imitation, the new politicians of France were no better than ARCHITECTS OF RUIN. The Friends of the People in that country have been for years employed in proving, by all their acts and decrees, the truth of your reasoning; they have been, I may say, writing Notes on your book, and the Commentary has been fatally too often written in blood.

It is now acknowledged, Sir, that your early vigilance, your zeal and ardour, have hindered this country from being made a theatre of rapine, blood, and massacre. To whom can Tacitus, the great statesman of his time, be so properly addressed, as to him whose writings have saved his country? Scenes of horror, like those which you have described, were acted at Rome, and Tacitus has painted them in colours equal to your own. He has shown a frantic people, under the prætorian bands, and the German legions, fighting for anarchy, not for civil government..

Though it is not for me to tell you, Sir, what is to be found in Tacitus, I beg leave to observe, that in these volumes there are three tracts of great importance. In the Manners of the Germans, we have the origin of that constitution which you have so ably defended: in the Life of Agricola, we see that holy flame of liberty which has been for ages the glory of Englishmen, and the wonder of foreign nations. The Dialogue concerning Oratory is, perhaps, one of the most beautiful pieces that have come down to us from antiquity. Those three tracts have been always admired, and have now, in a great measure, occasioned this address; for, to speak my mind with freedom, if I knew a man in the kingdom who understands those subjects better than yourself, I should have spared you the trouble of this Dedication.

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AN

ESSAY

ON THE

LIFE AND GENIUS OF TACITUS.

THE author, whose works are now offered to [tus were nearly of the same age, and that, the public, has gained, by the suffrages of pos- when he was growing up to manhood, his friend terity, the highest rank among the historians of was flourishing among the foremost orators of Greece and Rome. A profound judge of men, the bar. Pliny's age can be stated with cerand a severe censor of the manners, he has de- tainty. He says, in his account of the eruplineated, with the pencil of a master, the char- tion of Mount Vesuvius, which happened in acters and the very inward frame of the vile and November A. U. C. 832, of the Christian era profligate: while the good and upright receive, 79, that he was then in his eighteenth year.2 in his immortal page, the recompense due to Tacitus, at that time high in reputation, was at their virtue. It is true that, while he extends least four or five years older then Pliny, and most the fame of others, he exalts his own name, probably was horn in the year of Rome 809 or and enjoys the triumph; but it is to be regretted 810, about the sixth year of Nero's reign. The that no memoirs of his life are extant. He place of his nativity is no where mentioned. knew the value of that private history which It seems generally agreed, that he was the son presents the select lives of eminent men; and, of Cornelius Tacitus, a procurator appointed in the life of Agricola, has left a perfect model by the prince to manage the imperial revenue, of biography: a mode of writing which, he and govern a province in Belgic Gaul. The says, was cultivated, with zeal and diligence, in person so employed was, by virtue of his office, the time of the old republic; but, under the of equestrian rank; and, if he was our histoemperors, fell into disuse. The good and vir- rian's father, it may be said of him, that it was tuous were suffered to pass out of the world, his lot to give to the world two remarkable prowithout an historian to record their names. digies; one, in the genius of a great historian; The age was grown inattentive to its own con- the other, in a son, of whom we are told by cerns; and that cold indifference has withheld Pliny the elder, 3 that in the space of three from us, what now would be highly gratifying years he grew three cubits, or six feet nine to the learned world, an intimate and familiar inches, able to walk, but in a slow heavy pace, acquaintance with a great and celebrated writer. and dull of apprehension almost to stupidity. All that can be done at present, is to collect the materials that lie dispersed in fragments, and give a sketch of the prominent features, since it were vain to attempt an exact portrait of him, who cannot now sit for his picture.

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1 Etate propemodum æquales. Equidem adolescentulus, cum jam tu fama gloriaque florens; te sequi, tibi longo, sed proximus, intervallo et esse, et haberi concupiscebam. Lib. vii. epist. 20.

2 Ageham enim duodevicesimum annum. Lib. vi. epist. 20.

Caius Cornelius Tacitus was born towards 3 In tria cubita triennio adolevisse, incessu tarthe beginning of Nero's reign. The exact year dum, censu hebetem, et absumptum contractione memcannot be ascertained, but there are circum-brorum subita. Ipsi non pridem vindimus eadem omnia in filio Cornelii Taciti, equitis Romani, Belstances that lead to a reasonable conclusion.gica Galliæ rationes procurantis. Pliny, Nat. Hist. lib. Pliny the younger informs us, that he and Taci-vii. s. 12.

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