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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tacitus and Bracciolini, by John Wilson Ross
+
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+Title: Tacitus and Bracciolini
+       The Annals Forged in the XVth Century
+
+Author: John Wilson Ross
+
+Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9098]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 5, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TACITUS AND BRACCIOLINI ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by the PG Online Distributed Proofreaders.
+
+
+
+
+TACITUS AND BRACCIOLINI.
+
+THE ANNALS FORGED IN THE XVth CENTURY.
+
+by JOHN WILSON ROSS (1818-1887)
+
+
+Originally published anonymously in 1878.
+
+
+
+
+    Non ulli Tacitus patuit manifestius unquam.
+                                         SOSSAGO. _Epigrammata_.
+
+    Excellentissimum Poggium, immortalem quidem virum, sed prope
+    hac aetate sepultum, redivivium donaveris nobis.
+               BICCIONI. _Epistola Hyacintho de Lan inscripta._
+
+    Is ... reliquit, quae et facundiam, et mirificam ingenii
+    facilitatem ostendunt. Tendebat toto animo, et quotidiano
+    quodam usu ad EFFINGENDUM ... Sed habet hoc dilucida illa
+    divini hominis in dicendo copia, ut estimanti se imitabilem
+    praebeat, _experienti spem imitationis eripiat_. Eam
+    igitur dicendi laudem POGGIUS si non facultate, at _certe
+    voluntate_ complectebatur. Scripsit ... Historiam ...
+    magnuum munus.
+         PAOLO CORTESE (Bishop of Urbino). _De Hominibus Doctis_.
+
+    Quaestio ... contra communem totius orbis traditionem ac fidem,
+    contra tot historicocum ... nemine contradicente, consensum,
+    demum agitari coepta est; et a nobis ... tam abunde ventilate,
+    ut magis copia quam inopia laborare videamur.
+         GISBERT VOET. _Spicilegium ad Disceptationem Historicam de
+                       Papissa Johanna._
+
+
+
+LONDON: 1878
+
+
+I DEDICATE
+TO MY ESTEEMED AND ESTIMABLE BROTHER
+ROBERT DALRYMPLE ROSS
+
+This Research
+into
+The Authorship of the Annals of Tacitus
+
+AS A VERY SLIGHT TOKEN
+OF MY AFFECTION
+AND ALSO
+OF MY ADMIRATION
+FOR HIS RARE ASSEMBLAGE OF QUALITIES
+LOFTY MORAL RECTITUDE
+THE KINDLIEST FEELINGS OF THE HEART
+DEVOTION TO HIGH OCCUPATION
+APTITUDE FOR BOOKS AS FOR AFFAIRS
+
+AND
+
+A REFINED ENLIGHTENMENT
+TO APPRECIATE
+THE GENIUS OF TACITUS AND OF BRACCIOLINI
+
+AND
+
+FULLY TO APPREHEND
+AN INVESTIGATION UNDERTAKEN
+IN THE TRUE INTERESTS OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The theory broached in this book involves a charge of the
+grossest fraud against a most distinguished man, who rose to high
+posts in public affairs and won imperishable fame in letters.
+There being blots on his moral character, it would be censurable
+to fasten upon his memory this new imputation of dishonesty, were
+it not substantiated by irresistible evidence.
+
+The title of this book quite explains what its design is,--to
+contribute something towards settling the authorship of the Annals
+of Tacitus, which encomiastic admirers imagine to be the most
+extraordinary history ever penned, and the writer "but one degree
+removed from inspiration, if not inspired." This wondrous writer I
+assert to be the famous Florentine of the Renaissance, Poggio
+Bracciolini, in favour of which view I have tried to make out a
+case by bringing forward a variety of passages from the "History"
+and the "Annals" to show an extensive series of contradictions as
+to facts and characters, departures from truth about matters
+connected with ancient Roman life, laches in grammar and use of
+words that never could have proceeded from any patrician or
+plebian of the world-renowned old Commonwealth, with a number of
+other things that will readily strike the intelligent and sober
+mind as utterly inconsistent with the existing belief of the
+"Annals" being the production of Tacitus. All this is case in the
+shade for the fullest light to be thrown on the subject, when not
+wishing to make my theory a matter of speculation but founded in
+common sense, I give a detailed history of the forgery, from its
+conception to its completion, the sum that was paid for it, the
+abbey where it was transcribed, and other such convincing minutiae
+taken from a correspondence that Poggio carried on with a familiar
+friend who resided in Florence.
+
+A reader of acumen and critical faculty following a writer in an
+inquiry of this nature places himself in the position of a lawyer
+who will not accept the interpretation of an Act of Parliament, or
+even a clause in it, as correct, except,--as his phrase goes,--it
+"runs upon all fours:" he knows that it is with a speculation in a
+literary matter as with a chapter of a statute: he struggles to
+raise only a single valid objection against what is advanced: if
+successful he at one destroys the whole of the theory, from thus
+exposing it to view as not "running upon all fours;" the fabric
+is, in fact, discovered to be reared on a false foundation; it
+must, therefore, fall as at the slightest breath a child's house
+built of cards; and the theory becomes one more added to the list
+of those that are apocryphal. If on examination it should be
+agreed that the theory in this book is without a flaw, I conceived
+that I shall have done not a small, but a considerable service to
+the cause of true history.
+
+LONDON, _April_ 3, 1878.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+BOOK THE FIRST.
+
+TACITUS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TACITUS COULD BARELY HAVE WRITTEN THE ANNALS.
+
+ I. From the chronological point of view.
+ II. The silence preserved about that work by all writers till
+ the fifteenth century.
+ III. The age of the MSS. containing the Annals.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A FEW REASONS FOR BELIEVING THE ANNALS TO BE A FORGERY.
+
+ I. The fifteenth century an age of imposture, shown in the
+ invention of printing.
+ II. The curious discovery of the first six books of the Annals.
+ III. The blunders it has in common with all forged documents.
+ IV. The Twelve Tables.
+ V. The Speech of Claudius in the Eleventh Book of the Annals.
+ VI. Brutus creating the second class of nobility.
+ VII. Camillus and his grandson.
+ VIII. The Marching of Germanicus.
+ IX. Description of London in the time of Nero.
+ X. Labeo Antistius and Capito Ateius; the number of people
+ executed for their attachment to Sejanus; and the
+ marriage of Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, to the
+ Elder Antonia.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER OF THE ANNALS FROM THE POINT OF TREATMENT.
+
+ I. Nature of the history.
+ II. Arrangement of the narrative.
+ III. Completeness in form.
+ IV. Incongruities, contradictions and disagreements from the
+ History of Tacitus.
+ V. Craftiness of the writer.
+ VI. Subordination of history to biography.
+ VII. The author of the Annals and Tacitus differently illustrate
+ Roman history.
+ VIII. Characters and events corresponding to characters and
+ events in the XVth century.
+ IX. Greatness of the Author of the Annals.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HOW THE ANNALS DIFFERS FROM THE HISTORY.
+
+ I. In the qualities of the writers; and why that difference.
+ II. In the narrative, and in what respect.
+ III. In style and language.
+ IV. The reputation Tacitus has of writing bad Latin due to the
+ mistakes of his imitator.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE LATIN AND THE ALLITERATIONS IN THE ANNALS.
+
+ I. Errors in Latin, (_a_) on the part of the transcriber;
+ (_b_) on the part of the writer.
+ II. Diction and Alliterations: Wherein they differ from those
+ of Tacitus.
+
+
+BOOK THE SECOND.
+
+BRACCIOLINI.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BRACCIOLINI IN ROME.
+
+ I. His genius and the greatness of his age.
+ II. His qualifications.
+ III. His early career.
+ IV. The character of Niccolo Niccoli, who abetted him in the
+ forgery
+ V. Bracciolini's descriptive writing of the Burning of Jerome
+ of Prague compared with the descriptive writing of the
+ sham sea fight in the Twelfth Book of the Annals.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+BRACCIOLINI IN LONDON.
+
+ I. Gaining insight into the darkest passions from associating
+ with Cardinal Beaufort.
+ II. His passage about London in the Fourteenth Book of the
+ Annals examined.
+ III. About the Parliament of England in the Fourth Book.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+BRACCIOLINI SETTING ABOUT THE FORGERY OF THE ANNALS
+
+ I. The Proposal made in February, 1422, by a Florentine, named
+ Lamberteschi, and backed by Niccoli.
+ II. Correspondence on the matter, and Mr. Shepherd's view that
+ it referred to a Professorship refuted.
+ III. Professional disappointments in England determine
+ Bracciolini to persevere in his intention of forging
+ the Annals.
+ IV. He returns to the Papal Secretaryship, and begins the
+ forgery in Rome in October, 1423.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+BRACCIOLINI AS A BOOKFINDER
+
+ I. Doubts on the authenticity of the Latin, but not the
+ Greek Classics.
+ II. At the revival of letters Popes and Princes offered large
+ rewards for the recovery of the ancient classics.
+ III. The labours of Bracciolini as a bookfinder.
+ IV. Belief put about by the professional bookfinders that
+ MSS. were soonest found in obscure convents in barbarous
+ lands.
+ V. How this reasoning throws the door open to fraud and
+ forgery.
+ VI. The bands of bookfinders consisted of men of genius in
+ every department of literature and science.
+ VII. Bracciolini endeavours to escape from forging the Annals by
+ forging the whole lost History of Livy.
+ VIII. His Letter on the subject to Niccoli quoted, and examined.
+ IX. Failure of his attempt, and he proceeds with the forgery of
+ the Annals.
+
+
+BOOK THE THIRD.
+
+THE LAST SIX BOOKS OF THE ANNALS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE CHARACTER OF BRACCIOLINI.
+
+ I. The audacity of the forgery accounted for by the mean
+ opinion Bracciolini had of the intelligence of men.
+ II. The character and tone of the last Six Books of the Annals
+ exemplified by what is said of Sabina Poppaea, Sagitta,
+ Pontia and Messalina.
+ III. A few errors that must have proceeded from Bracciolini
+ about the Colophonian Oracle of Apollo Clarius, the
+ Household Gods of the Germans, Gotarzes, Bardanes and,
+ above all, Nineveh.
+ IV. The estimate taken of human nature by the writer of the
+ Annals the same as that taken by Bracciolini.
+ V. The general depravity of mankind as shown in the
+ Annals insisted upon in Bracciolini's Dialogue
+ "De Infelicitate Principum".
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+ I. The intellect and depravity of the age.
+ II. Bracciolini as its exponent.
+ III. Hunter's accurate description of him.
+ IV. Bracciolini gave way to the impulses of his age.
+ V. The Claudius, Nero and Tiberius of the Annals
+ personifications of the Church of Rome in the
+ fifteenth century.
+ VI. Schildius and his doubts.
+ VII. Bracciolini not covetous of martyrdom: communicates his
+ fears to Niccoli.
+ VIII. The princes and great men in the Annals the princes and
+ great men of the XVth century, not of the opening period
+ of the Christian aera.
+ IX. Bracciolini, and not Tacitus, a disparager of persons in
+ high places.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FURTHER PROOFS OF FORGERY.
+
+ I. "Octavianus" as the name of Augustus Caesar.
+ II. Cumanus and Felix as joint governors of Judaea.
+ III. The blood relationship of Italians and Romans.
+ IV. Fatal error in the _oratio obliqua_.
+ V. Mistake made about "locus".
+ VI. Objections of some critics to the language of Tacitus
+ examined.
+ VII. Some improprieties that occur in the Annals found also in
+ Bracciolini's works.
+ VIII. Instanced in (_a_) "nec--aut".
+ (_b_) rhyming and the peculiar use of "pariter".
+ IX. The harmony of Tacitus and the ruggedness of Bracciolini
+ illustrated.
+ X. Other peculiarities of Bracciolini's not shared by Tacitus:
+ Two words terminating alike following two others with like
+ terminations; prefixes that have no meaning; and playing
+ on a single letter for alliterative purposes.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE TERMINATION OF THE FORGERY.
+
+ I. The literary merit and avaricious humour of Bracciolini.
+ II. He is aided in his scheme by a monk of the Abbey of Fulda.
+ III. Expressions indicating forgery.
+ IV. Efforts to obtain a very old copy of Tacitus.
+ V. The forgery transcribed in the Abbey of Fulda.
+ VI. First saw the light in the spring of 1429.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE FORGED MANUSCRIPT.
+
+ I. Recapitulation, showing the certainty of forgery.
+ II. The Second Florence MS. the forged MS.
+ III. Cosmo de' Medici the man imposed upon.
+ IV. Digressions about Cosmo de' Medici's position, and fondness
+ for books, especially Tacitus.
+ V. The many suspicious marks of forgery about the Second
+ Florence MS.; the Lombard characters; the attestation
+ of Salustius.
+ VI. The headings, and Tacitus being bound up with Apuleius,
+ seem to connect Bracciolini with the forged MS.
+ VII. The first authentic mention of the Annals.
+ VIII. Nothing invalidates the theory in this book.
+ IX. Brief recapitulation of the whole argument.
+
+
+BOOK THE FOURTH.
+
+THE FIRST SIX BOOKS OF THE ANNALS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+REASONS FOR BELIEVING THAT BRACCIOLINI WROTE BOTH PARTS OF THE ANNALS.
+
+ I. Improvement in Bracciolini's means after the completion
+ of the forgery of the last part of the Annals.
+ II. Discovery of the first six books, and theory about their
+ forgery.
+ III. Internal evidence the only proof of their being forged.
+ IV. Superiority of workmanship a strong proof.
+ V. Further departure than in the last six books from Tacitus's
+ method another proof.
+ VI. The symmetry of the framework a third proof.
+ VII. Fourth evidence, the close resemblance in the openings of
+ the two parts.
+ VIII. The same tone and colouring prove the same authorship.
+ IX. False statements made about Sejanus and Antonius Natalis
+ for the purpose of blackening Tiberius and Nero.
+ X. This spirit of detraction runs through Bracciolini's works.
+ XI. Other resemblances denoting the same author.
+ XII. Policy given to every subject another cause to believe both
+ parts composed by a single writer.
+ XIII. An absence of the power to depict differences in persons
+ and things.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LANGUAGE, ALLITERATION, ACCENT AND WORDS.
+
+ I. The poetic diction of Tacitus, and its fabrication in
+ the Annals.
+ II. Florid passages in the Annals.
+ III. Metrical composition of Bracciolini.
+ IV. Figurative words: (_a_) "pessum dare"
+ (_b_) "voluntas"
+ V. The verb "foedare" and the Ciceronian use of "foedus".
+ VI. The language of other Roman writers,--Livy, Quintus Curtius
+ and Sallust.
+ VII. The phrase "non modo--sed", and other anomalous expressions,
+ not Tacitus's.
+ VIII. Words not used by Tacitus, "distinctus" and "codicillus"
+ IX. Peculiar alliterations in the Annals and works of
+ Bracciolini.
+ X. Monotonous repetition of accent on penultimate syllables.
+ XI. Peculiar use of words: (_a_) "properus"
+ (_b_) "annales" and "scriptura"
+ (_c_) "totiens"
+ XII. Words not used by Tacitus: (_a_) "addubitare"
+ (_b_) "extitere"
+ XIII. Polysyllabic words ending consecutive sentences.
+ XIV. Omissions of prepositions: (_a_) in.
+ (_b_) with names of nations.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MISTAKES THAT PROVE FORGERY
+
+ I. The gift for the recovery of Livia.
+ II. Julius Caesar and the Pomoerium.
+ III. Julia, the wife of Tiberius.
+ IV. The statement about her proved false by a coin.
+ V. Value of coins in detecting historical errors.
+ VI. Another coin shows an error about Cornatus.
+ VII. Suspicion of spuriousness from mention of the
+ Quinquennale Ludicrum.
+ VIII. Account of cities destroyed by earthquake contradicted by
+ a monument.
+ IX. Bracciolini's hand shown by reference to the Plague.
+ X. Fawning of Roman senators more like conduct of Italians in
+ the fifteenth century.
+ XI. Same exaggeration with respect to Pomponia Graecina.
+ XII. Wrong statement of the images borne at the funeral
+ of Drusus.
+ XIII. Similar kind of error committed by Bracciolini in his
+ "Varietate Fortunae".
+ XIV. Errors about the Red Sea.
+ XV. About the Caspian Sea.
+ XVI. Accounted for.
+ XVII. A passage clearly written by Bracciolini.
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE FIRST.
+
+TACITUS.
+
+
+ "Allusiones saepe subobscurae ... mihi conjectandi aliquando,
+ et aliquando exploratae veritatis fundamento innitendi materiam
+ praebuere."
+ DE TONELLIS. Praef. ad Poggii Epist.
+
+
+
+
+TACITUS AND BRACCIOLINI.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+TACITUS COULD BARELY HAVE WRITTEN THE ANNALS.
+
+I. From the chronological point of view.--II. The silence
+preserved about that work by all writers till the fifteenth
+century.--III. The age of the MSS. containing the Annals.
+
+
+I. The Annals and the History of Tacitus are like two houses in
+ruins: dismantled of their original proportions they perpetuate
+the splendour of Roman historiography, as the crumbling remnants
+of the Coliseum preserve from oblivion the magnificence of Roman
+architecture. Some of the subtlest intellects, keen in criticism
+and expert in scholarship, have, for centuries, endeavoured with
+considerable pains, though not with success in every instance, to
+free the imperfect pieces from difficulties, as the priesthood of
+the Quindecimvirs, generation after generation, assiduously, yet
+vainly, strove to clear from perplexities the mutilated books of
+the Sibyls. I purpose to bring,--parodying a passage of the good
+Sieur Chanvallon,--not freestone and marble for their restoration,
+but a critical hammer to knock down the loose bricks that, for
+more than four centuries, have shown large holes in several
+places.
+
+Tacitus is raised by his genius to a height, which lifts him above
+the reach of the critic. He shines in the firmament of letters
+like a sun before whose lustre all, Parsee-like, bow down in
+worship. Preceding generations have read him with reverence and
+admiration: as one of the greatest masters of history, he must
+continue to be so read. But though neither praise nor censure can
+exalt or impair his fame, truth and justice call for a passionless
+inquiry into the nature and character of works presenting such
+difference in structure, and such contradictions in a variety of
+matters as the History and the Annals.
+
+The belief is general that Tacitus wrote Roman history in the
+retrograde order, in which Hume wrote the History of England. Why
+Hume pursued that method is obvious: eager to gain fame in
+letters,--seeing his opportunity by supplying a good History of
+England,--knowing how interest attaches to times near us while all
+but absence of sympathy accompanies those that are remote,--and
+meaning to exclude from his plan the incompleted dynasty under
+which he lived,--he commenced with the House of Stuart, continued
+with that of Tudor, and finished with the remaining portion from
+the Roman Invasion to the Accession of Henry VII. But why Tacitus
+should have decided in favour of the inverse of chronological
+order is by no means clear. He could not have been actuated by any
+of the motives which influenced Hume. Rome, with respect to her
+history, was not in the position that England was, with respect to
+hers, in the middle of the last century. All the remarkable
+occurrences during the 820 years from her Foundation to the office
+of Emperor ceasing as the inheritance of the Julian Family on the
+death of Nero, had been recorded by many writers that rendered
+needless the further labours of the historian. Tacitus states this
+at the commencement of his history, and as a reason why he began
+that work with the accession of Galba: "Initium mihi operis
+Servius Galba iterum, Titus Vinius consules erunt; nam post
+conditam urbem, octingentos et viginti prioris aevi annos multi
+auctores retulerunt." (Hist. I. 1.) After this admission, it is
+absolutely unaccountable that he should revert to the year since
+the building of the City 769, and continue writing to the year
+819, going over ground that, according to his own account, had
+been gone over before most admirably, every one of the numerous
+historians having written in his view, "with an equal amount of
+forcible expression and independent opinion"--"pari eloquentia ac
+libertate." Thus, by his own showing, he performed a work which he
+knew to be superfluous in recounting events that occurred in the
+time of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero.
+
+What authority have we that he did this? Certainly, not the
+authority of those who knew best--the ancients. They do not
+mention, in their meagre accounts of him, the names of his
+writings, the number of which we, perhaps, glean from casual
+remarks dropped by Pliny the Younger in his Epistles. He says
+(vii. 20), "I have read your book, and with the utmost care have
+made remarks upon such passages, as I think ought to be altered or
+expunged." "Librum tuum legi, et quam diligentissime potui,
+adnotavi, quae commutanda, quae eximenda arbitrarer." In a second
+letter (viii. 7) he alludes to another (or it might be the same)
+"book," which his friend had sent him "not as a master to a
+master, nor as a disciple to a disciple, but as a master to a
+disciple:" "neque ut magistro magister, neque ut discipulo
+discipulus ... sed ut discipulo magister ... librum misisti." That
+Tacitus was not the author of one work only is clear from Pliny in
+another of his letters (vi. 16) speaking in the plural of what his
+friend had written: "the immortality of your writings:"--
+"scriptorum tuorum aeternitas;" also of "my uncle both by his own,
+and your works:"--"avunculus meus et suis libris et tuis." In the
+letter already referred to (vii. 20), Tacitus is further spoken of
+as having written, at least, two historical works, the immortality
+of which Pliny predicted without fear of proving a false prophet:
+"auguror, nec me fallit augurium, historias tuas immortales
+futuras." From these passages it would seem that the works of
+Tacitus were, at the most, three.
+
+If his works were only three in number, everything points in
+preference to the Books of History, of which we possess but five;
+the Treatise on the different manners of the various tribes that
+peopled Germany in his day; and the Life of his father-in-law,
+Agricola. Nobody but Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, Bishop of
+Carthage, supposes that he wrote a book of Facetiae or pleasant
+tales and anecdotes, as may be seen by reference to the episcopal
+writer's Treatise on Archaic or Obsolete Words, where explaining
+"Elogium" to mean "hereditary disease," he continues, "as
+Cornelius Tacitus says in his book of Facetiae; 'therefore pained
+in the cutting off of children who had hereditary disease left to
+them'": "Elogium est haereditas in malo; sicut Cornelius Tacitus
+ait in libro Facetiarum: 'caesis itaque motum elogio in filiis
+derelicto.'" (De Vocibus Antiquis. p. 151. Basle ed. 1549).
+Justus Lipsius doubts whether the Discourse on the Causes of the
+Corruption of Latin Eloquence proceeded from Tacitus, or the other
+Roman to whom many impute it, Quintilian, for he says in his
+Preface to that Dialogue: "What will it matter whether we
+attribute it to Tacitus, or, as I once thought, to Marcus Fabius
+Quinctilianus? ... Though the age of Quinctilianus seems to have
+been a little too old for this Discourse to be by that young man.
+Therefore, I have my doubts." "Incommodi quid erit, sive Tacito
+tribuamus; sive M. Fabio Quinctiliano, ut mihi olim visim? ...
+Aetas tamen Quinctiliani paullo grandior fuisse videtur, quam ut
+hic sermo illo juvene. Itaque ambigo." (p. 470. Antwerp ed. 1607.)
+Enough will be said in the course of this discussion to carry
+conviction to the minds of those who can be convinced by facts and
+arguments that Tacitus did not write the Annals.
+
+Chronology, in the first place, prevents our regarding him as the
+author. Though we know as little of his life as of his writings--
+and though no ancient mentions the date or place of his birth, or
+the time of his death,--we can form a conjecture when he
+flourished by comparing his age with that of his friend, Pliny the
+Younger. Pliny died in the year 13 of the second century at the
+age of 52, so that Pliny was born A.D. 61. Tacitus was by several
+years his senior. Otherwise Pliny would not have spoken of himself
+as a disciple looking up to him with reverence as to "a master";
+"the duty of submitting to his influence," and "a desire to obey
+his advice":--"tu magister, ego contra"--(Ep. viii. 7): "cedere
+auctoritati tuae debeam" (Ep. i. 20): "cupio praeceptis tuis
+parere" (Ep. ix. 10); nor would he describe himself as "a mere
+stripling when his friend was at the height of fame and in a proud
+position": "equidem adolescentulus, quum jam tu fama gloriaque
+floreres" (Ep. vii. 20); nor of their being, "all but
+contemporaries in age": "duos homines, aetate propemodum aequales"
+(Ep. vii. 20). From these remarks chiefly and a few other
+circumstances, the modern biographers of Tacitus suppose there was
+a difference of ten or eleven years between that ancient historian
+and Pliny, and fix the date of his birth about A.D. 52.
+
+This is reconcilable with the belief of Tacitus being the author
+of the Annals; for when the boundaries of Rome are spoken of in
+that work as being extended to the Red Sea in terms as if it were
+a recent extension--"claustra ... Romani imperii, quod _nunc_
+Rubrum ad mare patescit" (ii. 61),--he would be 63, the extension
+having been effected as we learn from Xiphilinus, by Trajan A.D.
+115. It is also reconcilable with Agricola when Consul offering to
+him his daughter in marriage, he being then "a young man": "Consul
+egregiae tum spei filiam juveni mihi despondit" (Agr. 9); for,
+according as Agricola was Consul A.D. 76 or 77, he would be 24 or
+25. But it is by no means reconcilable with the time when he
+administered the several offices in the State. He tells us himself
+that he "began holding office under Vespasian, was promoted by
+Titus, and still further advanced by Domitian": "dignitatem
+nostram a Vespasiano inchoatam, a Tito auctam, a Domitiano longius
+provectam" (Hist. i. 1). To have "held office" under Vespasian he
+must have been quaestor; to have been "promoted" by Titus he must
+have been aedile; and as for his further advancement we know that
+he was praetor under Domitian. By the Lex Villia Annalis, passed
+by the Tribune Lucius Villius during the time of the Republic in
+573 after the Building of the City, the years were fixed wherein
+the different offices were to be entered on--in the language of
+Livy; "eo anno rogatio primum lata est ab Lucio Villio tribuno
+plebis, quot annos nati quemque magistratum peterent caperentque"
+(xl. 44); and the custom was never departed from, in conformity
+with Ovid's statement in his Fasti with respect to the mature
+years of those who legislated for his countrymen, and the special
+enactment which strictly prescribed the age when Romans could be
+candidates for public offices:
+
+    "Jura dabat populo senior, finitaque certis
+    Legibus est aetas, unde petatur honos."
+    Fast. v. 65-6.
+
+After the promulgation of his famous plebiscitum by the old
+Tribune of the People in the year 179 A.C., a Roman could not fill
+the office of quaestor till he was 31, nor aedile till he was 37,--as,
+guided by the antiquaries, Sigonius and Pighius, Doujat, the
+Delphin editor of Livy, states: "quaestores ante annum aetatis
+trigesimum primum non crearentur, nec aediles curules ante
+septimum ac trigesimum";--and the ages for the two offices were
+usually 32 and 38.
+
+From Vespasian's rule extending to ten years we cannot arrive at
+the date when Tacitus was quaestor; but we can guess when he was
+aedile, as Titus was emperor only from the spring of 79 to the
+autumn of 81.
+
+Had his appointment to the aedileship taken place on the last day
+of the reign of Titus, he would then be but 29 years old; and
+though in the time of the Emperors, after the year 9 of our aera,
+there might be a remission of one or more years by the Lex Julia
+or the Lex Pappia Poppaea, those laws enacted rewards and
+privileges to encourage marriage and the begetting of children;
+the remission could, therefore, be in favour only of married men,
+especially those who had children; so that any such indulgence in
+the competition for the place of honours could not have been
+granted to Tacitus, he not being, as will be immediately seen, yet
+married. In order, then, that he should have been aedile under
+Titus,--even admitting that he could boast, like Cicero, of having
+obtained all his honours in the prescribed years--"omnes honores
+anno suo"--and been aedile the moment he was qualified by age for
+the office,--he must have been born, at least, as far back as the
+year 44.
+
+This will be reconcilable with all that Pliny says, as well as
+with his being married when "young"; for he would then be 32 or
+33, and his bride 22 or 23; for the daughter of Agricola was born
+when her father was quaestor in Asia--"sors quaesturae provinciam
+Asiam dedit ... auctus est ibi filiâ." (Agr. 9). Nor let it be
+supposed that a Roman would not have used the epithet "young" to a
+man of 32 or 33, seeing that the Romans applied the term to men in
+their best years, from 20 to 40, or a little under or over. Hence
+Livy terms Alexander the Great at the time of his death, when he
+was 31, "a young man," "egregium ducem fuisse Alexandrum ...
+adolescens ... decessit" (ix. 17): so Cicero styles Lucius Crassus
+at the age of 34;--"talem vero exsistere eloquentiam qualis fuerit
+in Crasso et Antonio ... alter non multum (quod quidem exstaret),
+et id ipsum adolescens, alter nihil admodum scripti reliquisset".
+(De Orat. ii. 2): so also does Cornelius Nepos speak of Marcus
+Brutus, when the latter was praetor, Brutus being then 43 years of
+age:--"sic Marco Bruto usus est, ut nullo ille adolescens aequali
+familiarius" (Att. 8); to this passage of Nepos's, Nicholas
+Courtin, his Delphin editor, adds that the ancients called men
+"young" from the age of 17 to the age of 46; notwithstanding that
+Varro limited youth to 30 years:--"a 17 ad 46 annum, adolescentia
+antiquitus pertingebat, ut ab antiquis observatum est. Nihilominus
+Varro ad 30 tantum pertingere ait." But Tacitus being born in 44
+is not reconcilable with his being the Author of the Annals, as
+thus:--
+
+Some time in the nineteen years that Trajan was Emperor,--from 98
+to ll7,--Tacitus, being then between the ages of 54 and 73,
+composed his History. He paused when he had carried it on to the
+reign of Domitian; the narrative had then extended to twenty-three
+years, and was comprised in "thirty books," if we are to believe
+St. Jerome in his Commentary on the Fourteenth Chapter of
+Zechariah:
+
+"Cornelius Tacitus ... post Augustum usque ad mortem Domitiani
+vitas Caesarum triginta voluminibus exaravit." [Endnote 013] It was
+scarcely possible for Tacitus to have executed his History in a
+shorter compass;--indeed, it is surprising that the compass was so
+short, looking at the probability of his having observed the
+symmetry attended to by the ancients in their writings, and having
+continued his work on the plan he pursued at the commencement, the
+important fragment which we have of four books, and a part of the
+fifth, embracing but little more than one year. Whether he ever
+carried into execution the design he had reserved for his old
+age,--writing of Nerva and Trajan,--we have no record. But two
+things seem tolerably certain; that he would have gone on with
+that continuation to his History in preference to writing the
+Annals; and that he would not have written that continuation until
+after the death of the Emperor Trajan. He would then have been 73.
+Now, how long would he have been on that separate history? Then at
+what age could he have commenced the Annals? And how long would he
+have been engaged in its composition? We see that he must have
+been bordering on 80, if not 90: consequently with impaired
+faculties, and thus altogether disqualified for producing such a
+vigorous historical masterpiece; for though we have instances of
+poets writing successfully at a very advanced age, as Pindar
+composing one of his grandest lyrics at 84, and Sophocles his
+Oedipus Coloneus at 90, we have no instance of any great
+historian, except Livy, attempting to write at a very old age, and
+then Livy rambled into inordinate diffuseness.
+
+II. The silence maintained with respect to the Annals by all
+writers till the first half of the fifteenth century is much more
+striking than chronology in raising the very strongest suspicion
+that Tacitus did not write that book. This is the more remarkable
+as after the first publication of the last portion of that work by
+Vindelinus of Spire at Venice in 1469 or 1470, all sorts and
+degrees of writers began referring to or quoting the Annals, and
+have continued doing so to the present day with a frequency which
+has given to its supposed writer as great a celebrity as any name
+in antiquity. Kings, princes, ministers and politicians have
+studied it with diligence and curiosity, while scholars,
+professors, authors and historians in Italy, Spain, France,
+England, Holland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden have applied their
+minds to it with an enthusiasm, which has been like a kind of
+worship. Yet, after the most minute investigation, it cannot be
+discovered that a single reference was made to the Annals by any
+person from the time when Tacitus lived until shortly before the
+day when Vindelinus of Spire first ushered the last six books to
+the admiring world from the mediaeval Athens. When it appeared it
+was at once pronounced to be the brightest gem among histories;
+its author was greeted as a most wonderful man,--the "unique
+historian", for so went the phrase--"inter historicos unicus."
+
+Now, are we to be asked quietly to believe that there never lived
+from the first quarter of the second century till after the second
+quarter of the fifteenth, a single individual possessed of
+sufficient capacity to discern such eminent and obvious excellence
+as is contained in the Annals? Are we to believe that that could
+have been so? in a slowly revolving cycle of 1,000 years and more?
+ay, upwards of 1,300! If that really was the case, it is enough to
+strike us dumb with stupor in contemplating such a miraculous
+instance of perpetuated inanity,--among the lettered, too!--the
+learned! the studious! the critical! If that was not the case,
+what a long neglect! Anyhow, the silence is inexplicable. It
+indicates one of two things,--duncelike stupidity or studious
+contempt. Both these surmises must be dismissed,--the first as too
+absurd, the second as too improbable. There can arise a third
+conjecture--Taste for intellectual achievements, and appreciation
+of literary merit, had vanished for awhile from the earth, to
+return after an absence of forty generations of mankind. Again,
+this supposed probability is too preposterously extravagant to be
+for an instant credited because it cannot for a moment be
+comprehended. In short, how marvellous it is! how utterly
+unaccountable! how inexpressibly mysterious!
+
+Pliny does not say a word about the Annals. The earliest Latin
+father, Tertullian, quotes only the History (Apol. c. 16).
+St. Jerome, in his Commentary on Zechariah (iii. 14), cites the
+passage in the fifth book of the History about the origin of the
+Jews; he also notices what Tacitus says of another important
+event, the Fall of Jerusalem, which, having occurred in the reign
+of Vespasian, must have been narrated in the History. The "single
+book" treating of the Caesars, which Vopiscus says Tacitus wrote,
+must have been the "History," ten copies of which the Emperor
+Tacitus ordered to be placed every year in the public libraries
+among the national archives. (Tac. Imp. x.) Orosius, the Spanish
+ecclesiastic, who flourished at the commencement of the fifth
+century, has several references to Tacitus in his famous work,
+Hormesta. This great proficient in knowledge of the Scriptures and
+disciple of St. Augustin quotes the fifth book of the History
+thrice (Lib. V., cc. 5 and 10), and thrice alludes to facts
+recorded by Tacitus,--the Temple of Janus being open from the time
+of Augustus to Vespasian (vii. 3);--the number of the Jews who
+perished at the siege of Jerusalem (vii. 9); and the possibly
+large number of Romans who were killed in the wars with the Daci
+during the reign of Domitian (vii. 10):--all which passages must
+have been in the lost portions of the History.
+
+In his Epistles and Poems, that man of wit and fancy, with an
+intellect and learning above the fifth century in which he lived,
+--Sidonius Apollinaris,--has one quotation from Tacitus and three
+references to him. The quotation, which occurs in the fourteenth
+chapter of the fourth book of his Epistles, is from the last
+section of the History, (that part of the speech of Civilis where
+the seditious Batavian touches on the friendship which existed
+between himself and Vespasian); and his three references are,
+first, to the "ancient mode of narrative," combined with the
+greatest "literary excellence" (iv. 22); secondly, to "genius for
+eloquence" (Carm. xxiii. 153-4); and thirdly, to "pomp of manner"
+(Carm. ii. 192); the not inelegant Christian writer enumerating
+qualities that specially commend themselves in the History. When
+Spartian praises Tacitus for "good faith," the eulogy is more
+appropriate to the writer of the History than the Annals, howbeit
+that so many moderns, including the famous philologist and
+polygrapher, Justus Lipsius; the Pomeranian scholar of the last
+century, Meierotto; Boetticher and Prutz all question the veracity
+of Tacitus; while for what he says of the Jews Tertullian
+vituperates him in language so outrageous as to be altogether
+unbecoming the capacious mind of the Patristic worthy, who calls
+him, "the most loquacious of liars,"--"mendaciorum loquacissimus;"
+--in which strain of calumny he was, from the same cause of religious
+fervour, followed centuries after,--in the seventeenth,--by two
+of the most renowned preachers and orators of their day, the famous
+Jesuit, Famianus Strada, and his less known contemporary, but most
+able Chamberlain of Urban VIII., Augustino Mascardi,--as if all
+these pious Christians found it quite impossible to pardon a heathen,
+blinded by the prejudices of paganism, for believing what he did
+of the Hebrews; and for recording which belief he ought to receive
+immediate forgiveness, seeing that Justin, Plutarch, Strabo and
+Democritus said as bad, if not worse things of that ancient people
+and their sacred books. [Endnote 019]
+
+Cassiodorus, the Senator, is the only writer of the sixth century,
+who makes any allusion to Tacitus, and that but once, in the fifth
+book of his Epistles, to what the Roman says in his Germany of the
+origin of amber, about which naturalists are still divided, that
+it is a distillation from certain trees. Freculphus (otherwise
+written Radulphus), Bishop of Lisieux, who died in the middle of
+the ninth century (856), in the second volume of his Chronicles,
+--the sixth chapter of the second book,--quotes Tacitus as the
+author of the History, the passage being in reference to the
+Romans who fell in the Dacian war. We have no proof that the
+Annals was in existence in the twelfth century from what John of
+Salisbury says in his Polycraticon (viii. 18), that Tacitus is
+among the number of those historians, "qui tyrannorum atrocitates
+et exitus miseros plenius scribunt;" for in his completed History
+Tacitus must have expatiated pretty freely on the "atrocious
+tyranny" of Domitian, and the "unfortunate termination of the
+lives of tyrants."
+
+From the time of John of Salisbury till shortly before the
+publication of the Annals, no further reference is made to Tacitus
+by any writer or historian, monkish or otherwise, not even of
+erudite Germany, beginning with Abbot Hermannus, who wrote in the
+twelfth century the history of his own monastery of St. Martin's
+at Dornick, and ending with Caspar Bruschius, who, in the
+sixteenth century, wrote an Epitome of the Archbishoprics and
+Bishoprics of Germany, and the Centuria Prima (as Daniel Nessel in
+the next century wrote the Centuria Secunda) of the German
+monasteries. And yet in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
+all kinds of writers quote the Annals about as freely and
+frequently as they quote the History, and that not once or twice,
+but five or six, and even seven and eight times, in the same work.
+It would be impossible to mention them all, the writers being "as
+numerous as the leaves in Vallambrosa's vale";--a figure that can
+hardly be considered hyperbolic when the enormous number of these
+writers can be partially guessed from the following catalogue of
+those who delighted in antiquarian researches, whose productions
+cited are archaeological, and who made all their references to the
+Annals for the purpose of merely illustrating archaic matters;
+nevertheless, the number of such writers alone amounts to as many
+as a score; moreover, the whole twenty are to be found in one
+compilation comprised in but five volumes,--Polenus's New
+Supplement to the collections of Graevius and Gronovius, entitled
+"Utriusque Thesauri Antiquitatum Romanarum Graecarumque Nova
+Supplementa";--the Friesland scholar, Titus Popma in his
+"De Operis Servorum"; the Italian antiquary, Lorenzo Pignorio,
+Canon of Trevigo, in his treatise "De Servis"; the renowned critic,
+Salmasius, in his explanation of two ancient inscriptions found on
+a Temple in the island of Crete ("Notae ad Consecrationem Templi
+in Agro Herodis Attici Triopio"); Peter Burmann in his "De
+Vectigalibus"; Albertinus Barrisonus in his "De Archivis"; Merula,
+the jurist, historian and polygrapher, in his "De Legibus
+Romanorum"; Carolus Patinus in his Commentary "In Antiquum
+Monumentum Marcellinae"; Polletus in his "Historia Fori Romani";
+Aegyptius in his "De Bacchanalibus Explicatio"; Gisbert Cuper in
+his "Monumenta Antiqua Inedita"; Octavius Ferrarius in his
+"Dissertatio de Gladiatoribus"; William à Loon in his
+"Eleutheria"; Schaeffer in his "De Re Vehiculari"; Johannes
+Jacobus Claudius in his "Diatribê de Nutricibus et Paedagogis";
+Antonius Bombardinus in his "De Carcere Tractatus"; Gutherlethus
+in his work on the "Salii," or Priests of Mars; the learned
+Spaniard, Miniana, in his "De Theatro Saguntino Dialogus"; Gorius
+in his "Columbarium Libertorum et Servorum"; Spon in his
+"Miscellanea Erudita Antiquitatis" and Jaques Leroy in his
+"Achates Tiberianus." In fact, the Annals of Tacitus is noticed,
+or quoted, or referred to, or commented upon at length (as at the
+commencement of the sixteenth century by Scipione Ammirato), in an
+endless list of works, with or without the names of the authors,
+which by itself is all but conclusive that the Annals was not in
+existence till the fifteenth century, and not generally known till
+the sixteenth and seventeenth.
+
+But to return for a moment to what was done by two writers, who
+lived before the fifteenth century,--Sulpicius Severus, who died
+A.D. 420; and Jornandez, who, in the time of Justinian, was
+Secretary to the Gothic kings in Italy. Now, it must not be
+withheld,--for it would be too uncandid,--that identical passages
+are found in the Annals ascribed to Tacitus and the Sacred History
+of Sulpicius Severus.
+
+In order that the reader may see the identity of the passages, we
+place them in juxtaposition, italicising the words that are found
+in both works:--
+
+Sulpicius (ii. 28). "_Inditum imperatori flammeum, dos et
+genialis torus et faces nuptiales; cuncta denique, quae_ vel
+_in feminis_ non sine verecundia conspiciuntur,
+_spectata_."
+
+Annals (xv. 37). "_Inditum imperatori flammeum_, visi
+auspices, _dos et genialis torus et faces nuptiales; cuncta
+denique spectata, quae_ etiam _in femina_ nox operit."
+
+Sulpicius (ii. 29). "Sed opinio omnium invidiam incendii in
+principem retorquebat, _credebaturque imperator gloriam
+innovandae urbis quaesisse_."
+
+Annals (xv. 10). "_Videbaturque Nero condendae urbis novae_
+et cognomento suo adpellandae _gloriam quaerere_."
+
+Sulpicius (v. 2). "Quin et novae mortes excogitatae, _ut ferarum
+tergis contecti laniatu canum interirent_. Multi _crucibus
+affixi, aut flamma usti_. Plerique in id reservati, ut, CUM
+_defecisset dies, in usum nocturni luminis urerentur_."
+
+Annals (xv. 44). "Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, _ut ferarum
+tergis contecti, laniatu canum interirent_, aut _crucibus
+affixi, aut flammandi_, atque, UBI _defecisset dies, in usum
+nocturni luminis urerentur_."
+
+These passages, of course, have, till this moment, been regarded
+as taken by Sulpicius Severus from the Annals, on the unquestioned
+assumption that that work was the composition of Tacitus. The
+passages, however, were taken from the Historia Sacra: they bear
+traces of having been so appropriated, from Sulpicius Severus
+composing with a harmony almost equal to Tacitus, and a
+grammatical correctness on a par with the Roman, while the author
+of the Annals mars that harmony, here by the change of a word, and
+there by the reconstruction of a sentence; and the grammatical
+correctness by substituting for "cum," which strictly signifies
+"when," "ubi," which strictly signifies "where": hence, from
+resembling Tacitus less than Sulpicius Severus, he seems, of two
+writers convicted of plagiarism, to be the one who purloined the
+passages from the other; and if he introduced but trifling
+alterations, it was because the accomplished presbyter of the
+fifth century was the master of a neat Latin style, which will
+bear comparison with that of the best classical writers. Indeed,
+Sulpicius Severus is likened for style and eloquence to Sallust;
+he is known as the "Christian Sallust"; and Leclerc in the
+twentieth volume of his Bibliothèque Choisie, is loud in praise of
+his Latin, which is, certainly, purer than could have been
+imagined for his time. He was, nevertheless the very last
+authority that the author of the Annals ought to have followed for
+authentic particulars with respect to Nero; for as that emperor
+was the first persecutor of the Christians, there was nothing too
+bad that the church-building ecclesiastical writer did not think
+it right to state of him, as (in his own language) "the worst, not
+only of princes, but of all mankind, and even brute beasts"; he
+went, in fact, to the extreme length of believing, being a
+ridiculously credulous Chiliast, that Nero would live again as
+Anti-Christ in the millennian kingdom before the end of the world.
+
+It is generally supposed that Jornandez,--whose works are so
+valuable for their history of the fifth and sixth centuries of our
+aera,--when speaking, in the second chapter of his History of the
+Goths, of one "Cornelius as the author of Annals," is speaking of
+Tacitus,--"Cornelius etiam Annalium scriptor." Camden in his
+Britannia questions whether Tacitus is meant by "Cornelius"; and,
+certainly the passage quoted, which is about Meneg in Cornwall, is
+nowhere to be found in any of the works written by the ancient
+Roman. But if Tacitus be meant, the passage is an interpolation,
+because the historical books ascribed to Tacitus bear in all the
+MSS. either the title "Augustae Historiae Libri," or "Ab Excessu
+divi Augusti Historiarum Libri," and so in all the first published
+editions--that of Vindelinus of Spire about 1470, of Puteolanus
+and Lanterius about 1475, of Beroaldus in 1515, and the early
+editions of Venice 1484, 1497 and 1512; of Rome in 1485; Milan
+1517; Basle 1519, and Florence (the Juntine Edition) 1527--it not
+being till 1533, that Beatus Rhenanus first gave those books the
+name "Annals" (it being Justus Lipsius who, close at the
+commencement of the last quarter of that century,--in 1574,--first
+divided the books into two parts, to one of which he gave the name
+"Annals," and to the other, "Histories"). Then how could
+Jornandez, who lived in the sixth century, have known any writings
+of Tacitus by the name of "Annals," when that title was not given
+to them until the sixteenth century?
+
+We may now, after close research, advance this with extreme
+caution, and certainty:--no support can be derived from citations
+or statements made by any writer till the fifteenth century that
+Tacitus wrote a number of books of the Annals. Should any one
+extensively read known authors, living between the second and the
+fifteenth century, besides those mentioned, who quote Tacitus, it
+will be found that their quotations are from the History, the
+Germany, or the Agricola; and this can be predicted with just as
+much confidence, as an astronomer predicts eclipses of the sun and
+the moon, and, for their verification, needs not wait to see the
+actual obscuration of those heavenly bodies.
+
+III. In turning to the different MSS., we find that the age of all
+of them confirms in an equally corroborative manner the theory
+that Tacitus did not write the Annals. Here let it be noted that
+the age of a MS. can easily be discovered; and that, too, in a
+variety of ways:--by the formation of the characters, such as the
+roundness of the letters; or their largeness or smallness;--the
+writing of the final l's; the use of the Gothic s's and the Gothic
+j's; the dotting, or no dotting of the i's; the absence or
+presence of diphthongs; the length of the lines; the punctuation;
+the accentuation; the form or size; the parchment or the paper;
+the ink;--or some other mode of detection. Those MSS. need only be
+examined which contain either the whole or the concluding books of
+the Annals.
+
+Of the seven MSS. in the Vatican, that numbered 1,864, (referred
+to by John Frederic Gronovius, and other editors of Tacitus as the
+"Farnesian," from its having been transferred from the Farnese
+Palace to the Vatican,) is supposed to be the oldest, for it is
+believed to be of the fourteenth century; but the vellum on which
+it is written is of the sixteenth; so is the vellum of No. 1,422.
+No. 1,863 was thought by Justus Lipsius to be almost as old as No.
+1,864, to have been of the close of the fourteenth century; but it
+is written on vellum of the middle of the fifteenth century.
+Nothing can be ascertained, either from its form or the substance
+on which it is written, of No. 2,965, but the Bipontine editors
+declared its date to be 1449. No. 1,958, which Puteolanus used in
+1475, for his edition (containing the concluding books of the
+Annals) was copied at Genoa in the year 1448. The two others,
+numbered 412 and 1,478, are both written on vellum of the
+fifteenth century.
+
+The oldest Paris MS. is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and is
+written on paper of the close of the fifteenth century. Nobody
+knows what has become of the MS., which is supposed to have been
+anterior to the editions at the end of the fifteenth century, and
+was in the library of the Congrégation de l'Oratoire, to whom it
+was presented by Henri Harlai de Sancy, who brought it from Italy
+and died in the Oratory in 1667.
+
+The MS. of Wolfenbuttel (Guelferbytana), used by Ernesti in his
+edition, was bought at Ferrara on the 28th of September, 1461;
+beyond that nothing is known of it. The MS. in the library of
+Jesus College, Oxford, is of the year 1458; the Bodleian, numbered
+2,764, is of the century after, though the great Benedictine
+antiquary, Montfaucon, in that monument of labour and erudition,
+Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum MSS. Nova, is of opinion that it is as
+old as 1463; and that in the Harleian collection of MSS. in the
+British Museum, also numbered 2,764, stated to date back to 1412,
+can scarcely be older than 1440 or 1450, from the diphthongal
+writing, first introduced by Guarino of Verona, who died in 1460.
+The MS. of Grenoble, written on very fine vellum, and containing
+the whole of the Annals, is of the sixteenth century. The three
+Medicean, the Neapolitan and the other Italian MSS. are all of
+very modern writing. As to the MSS. of Wurzburg and Mirandola, the
+former is not to be found, and the latter was not in existence
+even in the time of Justus Lipsius.
+
+The four most important MSS. are those known as the First and
+Second Florence, the Buda and that from which Vindelinus of Spire
+published the last six books. The two oldest are the "Second
+Florence" and the "Buda." It would seem that the "Second
+Florence", from the note at the end, dates back to the year 395,
+though the Benedictines in their Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique
+(vol. iii. pp. 278-9) thought they recognized in it a Lombard
+writing of the tenth or eleventh century; Ernesti modified that to
+the ninth; others again changed it to the seventh and even the
+sixth; but it will be shown to satisfaction in the course of this
+treatise that it belongs to the fifteenth century. So the Buda
+MS., believed by Justus Lipsius to be as ancient as the Second
+Florence (which he thought with the Benedictines was of the tenth
+or eleventh century) was considered by James Gronovius to be very
+modern; and very modern it is, being traceable to a little after
+the same period as the Second Florence, namely, the fifteenth
+century. The First Florence, which was stated to have been found
+in the Abbey of Corvey, and which furnished the opening six books
+of the Annals as first given to the world by Beroaldus, is of an
+age that has hitherto never been determined; but that age will be
+shown, towards the close of this work, to be the first quarter of
+the sixteenth century. The MS. from which Vindelinus of Spire
+published his edition, was in the Library of St Mark's, Venice,
+but,--according, to Croll and Exter,--it is no longer to be found.
+
+The case, then, stands thus with respect to the MSS.;--no MS. of
+the works of Tacitus, whose existence can be traced back further
+than the sixteenth century, contains the whole of the Annals; and
+no MS. of the works of Tacitus, whose existence can be traced back
+further than the first half of the preceding century, has the
+closing books of the Annals.
+
+Here let me briefly recapitulate;--it being very important for the
+reader to bear in mind that three things have now been shown:--
+first, that, from the chronological point of view, Tacitus could
+barely have written the Annals; secondly, that, from the silence
+preserved about that book by all writers for upwards of 1300 years
+from the death of Tacitus, there is cause for supposing it was not
+in existence from his time, that is, the second century to the
+fifteenth and sixteenth (the commencement of the fifteenth century
+being the time of the forgery of the last six books, and the
+commencement of the sixteenth the time of the publication of the
+forged first six books);--and thirdly, that there is nothing to
+contradict this theory of mine in the age of any of the known MSS.
+containing a part, or the whole of the Annals; but, on the
+contrary, to verify it, from the age of the oldest being limited
+to the fifteenth century; and that if there be, or ever have been
+others older, it is singular, and puzzling to account for, that
+one of two things should have occurred; either that they are lost,
+or else that their age cannot be determined,--both which latter
+things are actually the case with respect to the two MSS. from
+which the Annals was originally printed,--that which supplied the
+concluding books being lost, and that which contains the whole of
+it being of an age that nobody up till now has been able to
+determine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A FEW REASONS FOR BELIEVING THE ANNALS TO BE A FORGERY.
+
+
+I. The fifteenth century an age of imposture, shown in the
+invention of printing.--II. The curious discovery of the first six
+books of the Annals.--III. The blunders it has in common with all
+forged documents.--IV. The Twelve Tables.--V. The Speech of
+Claudius in the Eleventh Book of the Annals.--VI. Brutus creating
+the second class of nobility.--VII. Camillus and his grandson.--
+VIII. The Marching of Germanicus.--IX. Description of London in
+the time of Nero.--X. Labeo Antistius and Capito Ateius; the
+number of people executed for their attachment to Sejanus; and the
+marriage of Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, to the Elder Antonia.
+
+I. I have now so far cleared the way as to be in a fair position
+to enter with feasibleness into an investigation of the Annals,
+with the view of proving that it was not written by Tacitus.
+
+In beginning the investigation, I shall proceed on the assumption
+that it is a modern forgery of the fifteenth century, having as
+grounds for this assumption that it was the age when the original
+MSS. containing the work were discovered; that the existence of
+those MSS. cannot be traced farther than that century; that (which
+is of vast consequence in an inquiry of this description) it was
+an age of imposture; of credulity so immoderate that people were
+easily imposed upon, believing, as they did, without sufficient
+evidence, or on slight evidence, or no evidence at all, whatever
+was foisted upon them; when, too, the love of lucre was such that
+for money men willingly forewent the reputation that is the
+accompaniment of the grandest achievements of the intellect. Take,
+for example, the noble art of printing; for inventing it any man
+of genius might reasonably be proud. His name, if known, would be
+emblazoned on the scroll of imperishable fame; be displayed for
+ever on the highest pyramid of mind; and his country would receive
+an additional beam of splendor to its previous blaze of renown.
+But who, for a certainty, knows the inventor of printing? or the
+country of its origin? Was it Holland in the person of Coster of
+Haarlem? Or Germany in the person of Mentel, the nobleman, of
+Strasburg? Or Guttenberg, the goldsmith, of Mayence? Was it
+neither of these countries? or none of these men? And why this
+uncertainty? Because a few men possessing the secret, which they
+kept cautiously to themselves, of printing by means of movable
+blocks of wood, preferred accumulating enormous sums, equivalent
+to fair fortunes, by receiving five, six and even between seven
+and eight hundred gold sequins from a King of France or a Pope of
+Rome, a Cardinal or an Archbishop, for a bible, which, printed,
+was passed off as written. We all know how the whole imposture
+exploded, by the King of France and the Archbishop of Paris
+comparing the bibles which they had bought of Faust during his
+stay at the Soleil d'Or in the Rue St. Jacques, Paris. Each
+thought his bible so superb that the whole world could not produce
+such another for beauty,--the books being fine vellum copies of
+what are now known as the Mazarin Bible;--and what was their
+amazement on discovering, after a very close comparison, that
+everything was exactly alike in the two copies,--the flower-pieces
+in gold, green and blue, with grouped and single birds amid
+tendrils and leaves, the illuminated letters at the beginning of
+books with variegated embellishments and brilliant hues of scarlet
+and azure, the crimson initials to each chapter and sentence,
+along with astonishing and incomprehensible conformity in letters,
+words, pagination and lines on every page.
+
+II. The temptation was great to palm off literary forgeries,
+especially of the chief writers of antiquity, on account of the
+Popes, in their efforts to revive learning, giving money rewards
+and indulgences to those who should procure MS. copies of any of
+the ancient Greek or Roman authors. Manuscripts turned up, as if
+by magic, in every direction; from libraries of monasteries,
+obscure as well as famous; from the most out-of-the-way places,--
+the bottom of exhausted wells, besmeared by snails, as the History
+of Velleius Paterculus; or from garrets, where they had been
+contending with cobwebs and dust, as the Poems of Catullus. So
+long as the work had an appearance of high antiquity, it passed
+muster as an old classic; and no doubt could be entertained of its
+genuineness, if, in addition to its ancient look, it was brought
+in a fragmentary form. We have no history of the last six
+fragmentary books of the Annals--at least, up to this time; though
+I shall give it towards the end of this inquiry; but we are told
+all about the discovery of the fragmentary first six books by
+Meibomius, the Westphalian historian, and Professor of Poetry and
+History at Helmstädt at the close of the sixteenth century in his
+Opuscula Historica Rerum Germianicarum, while telling the story of
+the life of Witikind, the monk of the Abbey of Corvey; by Justus
+Lipsius in note 34 to the second book of the Annals; by Brotier,
+and other editors of Tacitus.
+
+John de Medici, that magnificent Pope, had been scarcely elected
+to the Pontifical chair by the title of Leo X. in the spring of
+1513, when he caused it to be publicly made known that he would
+increase the price of rewards given by his predecessors to persons
+who procured new MS. copies of ancient Greek and Roman works. More
+than a year, nearly two years elapsed; then his own "Thesaurum
+Quaestor Pontificius"--"steward," "receiver," or "collector",--
+Angelo Arcomboldi, brought to him a new MS. of the works of
+Tacitus, with a most startling novelty--THE FIRST SIX (or, as then
+divided, FIVE) BOOKS OF THE ANNALS! Everybody was amazed; and
+everybody was extremely anxious to know where and how it had been
+obtained. The story of Arcomboldi was that he had found the
+stranger among the treasures on the well-stored shelves in the
+Library of the Benedictine monastery on the banks of the Weser, at
+Corvey, in Westphalia, long famed for the high culture of its
+learned inmates. The MS. was given out as being of great
+antiquity, traceable to, at the very least, the commencement of
+the ninth century; for it was said to have belonged to one of the
+most distinguished and accomplished scholars of the abbey,
+Anschaire, whom Gregory IV. in the year 835 appointed his Legate
+Apostolic in Denmark and Sweden, and who Christianized the whole
+northern parts of Europe. The MS. was conned with care: it was
+musty, discoloured and antique-looking; furthermore, it was of the
+usual orthodox nature of recovered ancient MSS.--it was
+fragmentary: the genius of Tacitus was believed to be detected in
+the newly found books: 500 gold sequins were counted out from the
+Papal Treasury to the greedy discoverer: at the expense of Leo,
+the scholastic Philippo Beroaldi the Younger, who was Professor of
+the learned languages in the University of Rome, and who wrote
+Latin lyric poetry (in the opinion of Paulus Jovius) with the
+elegance and correctness of Horace, superintended the text; the
+celebrated Stephen Guilleret came all the way from Lorraine to
+print it; and the "Historiarum Libri quinque nuper in Germaniâ
+inventi" were ushered forth to the world in Rome _literis
+rotundis_ on the first day of March, 1515. From that day to
+this the imposture has slumbered; the counterfeit coin has passed
+current, nobody having noticed the absence of the true ring of the
+genuine metal.
+
+III. The books of the Annals must not merely be assumed to be
+forgeries; they must be proved to be so; for, if forgeries, they
+cannot be as invulnerable as walls of adamant. It is nothing that
+nobody has suspected they were forged;--nothing that the editors
+and commentators, who, for the most part possessed of remarkable
+perspicacity and discernment, have applied their minds to minute
+revision and close examination of these books, have, after such
+diligent attention never considered them to be spurious, but
+belonging to the domain of true history;--nothing that they have
+stood for close on four hundred years unchallenged, deceiving the
+wisest and the most learned as well as the best and the most
+experienced in matters of this description. The cause is obvious:
+the forger fabricated with the decided determination of defying
+detection. He did not rely upon his own sagacity alone: he called
+in the assistance of two of his cleverest friends: three of the
+astutest men in the most enlightened portion then of Europe,--
+Italy,--sat in conclave over the matter for nearly three years,
+deliberating in every possible way how to avoid suspicious
+management and faulty performance: consequently, the forgery is
+anything but plain and palpable; nay, it is wonderfully obscure
+and monstrously difficult: nevertheless, like all forged
+documents, it is bungled--ay, in spite of the pains taken to keep
+free from bad and blundering work, it is, occasionally (as will be
+seen in the present book, from this point until the close),
+clumsily, awkwardly, grossly, ridiculously bungled.
+
+In the last generation there was a famous trial for forgery in
+Edinburgh. A number of documents, thirty-three, were impounded as
+forged to obtain for the forger the title of a Scotch Earl and
+domains covering many millions of acres,--a larger area of square
+miles than were included in the whole united territories of the
+now dethroned Dukes of Tuscany, Parma and Modena, or all the
+possessions put together of the German Electors, Margraves and
+Landgraves. In such a number of legal documents executed by one
+man, and that man, too, a civilian, it was almost next to an
+impossibility that there should not be a good deal of bungling.
+One of the blunders was the King of Scotland giving away lands and
+provinces that never belonged to Scotland, for they were lands and
+provinces in New England; another was the name of Archbishop
+Spottiswoode as witness to a document executed by King James I. at
+Whitehall on the 7th of December, 1639, whereas Archbishop
+Spottiswoode had been dead eleven days, his monument in
+Westminster Abbey bearing as the date of his death, the 26th of
+November in that year. So the author of the Annals, who, as will
+be hereafter shown, lived in the fifteenth century, could not
+possibly write many books of ancient Roman History without, every
+now and then doing or saying something that was attended with
+dreadful fatality to his fraud; for he could not write them
+without palpable blunders; and some are so clumsy as to surpass
+conception what bungling can do.
+
+IV. He makes Tacitus commit an error about the contents of the
+Twelve Tables, which is really as monstrous as if we could fancy
+ourselves reading in the pages of a native historian of mark,
+Hume, Henry, or Lingard, some blunder, into which a schoolboy
+could not fall, about the contents of Magna Charta, the Bill of
+Rights, the Declaration of Rights, or any other well known English
+law, on which the constitution of the country is primarily
+founded. In a work given out as written by Tacitus we are told
+that the Twelve Tables first fixed interest for usury at an
+"uncia," or twelfth part of an as per hundred asses per month, or
+one per cent per annum:--"Primo Duodecim Tabulis sanctum 'ne quis
+unciario foenore amplius exerceret,' cum antea ex libidine
+locupletium agitaretur" (An. VI. 16). Into this error the Author
+of the Annals must surely have been seduced by some shocking
+mediaeval writer of ancient Roman history or antiquities, under
+whose guidance he again falls into another mistake when ascribing
+to tribunitian regulations the reduction of the interest to one-half
+per cent. per annum, or the sixth part of an as per hundred
+asses a month:--"dein rogatione tribuncia ad semuncias redacta"
+(L. c.). The truth is that, in the year of Rome 398, a hundred and
+four years after the Twelve Tables were composed,--the Tribunes
+Duillius and Moenius passed the original law of interest at one
+per cent: twelve years after,--in the year 410,--the interest was
+reduced to one half per cent. under the consulate of Lucius
+Manlius Torquatus and Caius Plautius;--as may be seen by referring
+to the seventh book (16, 27) of Livy,--or still better, the clear
+exposition of this error by Montesquieu in the 22nd chapter of the
+22nd book of his "Esprit des Loix." The author of the Annals is
+then only right when stating that originally the interest was one
+per cent. per annum, and afterwards reduced to half that amount.
+In everything else he blunders to an extent that is inexplicable
+in an ancient Roman. Were any staunch upholder of the authenticity
+of the Annals to be here called upon compulsorily to give a
+reason, unprepared or premeditated, plausible or probable, why,
+after this exposure of such an error, he still believed it
+possible that the blunder could have been made by Tacitus, who
+achieved a brilliant reputation as an historian writing truthfully
+of his countrymen, as a lawyer practising successfully among them,
+as a statesman filling with ability exalted offices, and thus
+possessed such pledges for being admirably informed and
+exceedingly cautious, he would be reluctantly forced to take
+refuge in the quibbling of Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff:
+--"I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on
+compulsion! If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would
+give no man a reason on compulsion, I!"
+
+The Twelve Tables are most fatal for the author of the Annals;
+they bring out his imposture so clearly to the broad glare of
+noonday. Tacitus is made to place on record for the enlightenment
+of posterity that, after those Tables were composed, his
+countrymen ceased making just and equal laws, only occasionally
+penal enactments; but more frequently, on account of the
+differences between the two orders, decrees for attaining
+illegitimate honours and for banishing distinguished citizens,
+along with other sinister legislation:--"Compositae Duodecim
+Tabulae, finis aequi juris; nam secutae leges, etsi aliquando in
+maleficos ex delicto, saepius tamen dissensione ordinum, et
+apiscendi illicitos honores, aut pellendi claros viros, aliaque ob
+prava, per vim latae sunt" (III. 27). The statement is about as
+contrary to fact as if an English historian were to assert that
+after Charles I. assented to the Petition of Rights, there was an
+end to all further enlargement in this country of the rights,
+liberties and privileges of the subject,--the only laws passed
+since then being for the repression of crime, the mitigation of
+the penal code, and the establishment of religious equality;
+because if we set aside all the laws that were passed by the
+Romans for the bettering of their State after the year 449 before
+our aera,--which is the date of the composition of the Twelve
+Tables,--and look only at those which extended social equality, we
+find enactments "aequi juris," such as the Lex Canuleia which
+allowed the intermarriage of patricians and plebeians, and the
+Leges Liciniae, which put both orders on a par in holding public
+offices. It is clear that these laws never came to the knowledge
+of the author of the Annals; and it is for the reader to decide
+for himself whether he thinks it likely that a lawyer and
+statesman of the stamp of Tacitus could have been ignorant of the
+removal of these weighty and vexatious class inconveniences.
+
+V. Had Tacitus written the Annals, he would have known more of the
+speech which Claudius spake in the Senate (XI. 24), when the
+inhabitants of Transalpine Gaul petitioned to be rendered eligible
+to the highest offices of the State, than to direct the eloquence
+of the Emperor in favour of all the extra-provincial Gauls in
+general, and the Aedui in particular. From the way in which he
+wrote harangues--that of Galgacus in his Agricola, for instance,
+--he would have caught in his alembic the essence of the original,
+and sublimated it; but he would not have placed before us an
+offspring that does not reflect one feature of its parent. Yet
+that is what the author of the Annals did with the speech of
+Claudius: he fabricated that which bears not the faintest
+resemblance to the original. If the assumption be considered as
+true that he forged the Annals, he could not have done otherwise;
+for when he was engaged in the business of forgery, the speech was
+not in existence, it not being until 1528, more than a hundred
+years after the Eleventh Book of the Annals was written by him,
+and considerably over half a century after it was first printed in
+Venice, that a copy of the speech of the Emperor Claudius, which
+had long been lost, was found again buried within the earth at
+Lyons, and as so discovered is still preserved, engraved on two
+brass plates in the vestibule of the Town Hall of Lyons, a lasting
+memento of the modern fabrication of the Annals.
+
+VI. The author of the Annals ascribes to Brutus the creation of
+the second class of nobility, which Brutus no more created than
+(as Famianus Strada observes,) "Pythagoras originated the idea of
+the transmigration of souls." The statement that "few were left of
+the families to which Romulus gave the title, the 'gentes
+majores,' or 'old clans,' and Lucius Brutus the 'gentes minores,'
+or 'young clans'":--"paucis jam reliquis familiarum, quas Romulus
+'majorum,' et Lucius Brutus 'minorum gentium' adpellaverant"
+(XI.25):--could never have been written by a Roman; because, in the
+first place, it was not Romulus who created the whole patrician
+body known as the "majores gentes"; the only senators whom he
+created were the "decuriones," or heads of the various "gentes" of
+the united Romans and Sabines; to these Tullus Hostilius added the
+most distinguished citizens of the Albans, when they were removed
+to Rome in his reign;--and it was the united descendants of these
+two sets of patricians who were called by subsequent generations
+"patricii majorum gentium": in the second place, it was Tarquinius
+Priscus who enlarged the patrician body by creating the 100
+representatives of the Luceres, or Etruscans, senators, and it was
+the descendants of these who were "called," by way of distinction
+from the others, "patricii minorum gentium." The new sort of
+nobility which originated with Brutus was a very different kind of
+thing: the new eminence or dignity conferred on the senators
+elected by Brutus was confined to themselves only, being strictly
+personal and purely titular: until then Roman senators had been
+styled simply "Patres," but from that time downwards they were
+denominated "Patres CONSCRIPTI." No Roman could have been ignorant
+of this; and if the author of the Annals did not know it, we ought
+not to be too severe upon him, when we shall see afterwards that
+he was a Florentine of the fifteenth century: then on account of
+his having lived so many centuries after the events of which he
+writes, it is quite excusable that he should fall into a state of
+confusion with respect to this rather out of the way matter,
+though into such a state of confusion no Roman could have fallen
+on account of his intimate acquaintance with the outlines of his
+constitution, the customs of his country, and the distinctions of
+rank in native society.
+
+VII. The author of the Annals takes the grandson of the great
+dictator Camillus to have been his son, when he observes: "after
+the illustrious recoverer of the city" (meaning Rome) "and his son
+Camillus": "post illum reciperatorem urbis, filiumque ejus
+Camillum," (II. 52). In that case what becomes of the exclamation
+of Spartian in his Life of the Emperor Severus, when speaking of
+great Romans who had no illustrious children: "What of Camillus?
+For had he children like himself?" "Quid Camillus? Nam sui similes
+liberos habuit?" Why, certainly, "he had children like himself,"
+if Marcus Furius had been his son, and not his grandson; for he
+was Consul and Dictator like the renowned and noble-minded Lucius
+Furius. The mistake is easily accounted for in a modern European
+writing Roman history from the famous Marcus Furius Camillus being
+Consul only eleven years after his grandfather, which makes it
+look as if it was the son who succeeded, and not the grandson. But
+it cannot be explained in a Roman, who must have taken so much
+pride in the second Romulus of his country as to have known all
+about his family relations. The error is only comparable to the
+extreme case of an Englishman being supposed to take such very
+little interest in Queen Victoria as to mistake her for a daughter
+of William IV.
+
+VIII. To be called upon to believe that these blunders could have
+been committed by Tacitus, is to ask one to believe that he, who
+made no such mistakes in his History, ceased to write like a Roman
+when composing the Annals. It is truly writing, not like an
+ancient Roman, but a modern European, when in the first book of
+the Annals Germanicus is represented consulting whether he will
+take a short and well known road, or one untried and difficult,
+though the reason is, that by going the longer, he would go the
+unguarded way, and really do things quicker: "consultatque, ex
+duobus itineribus breve et solitum sequatur, an impeditius et
+intentatum, eoque hostibus incautum. Delecta longiore via, cetera
+adcelerantur" (I. 50). Were it not for this passage, one would
+have thought that, in the days of Tiberius, Germany was almost as
+bare of roads as the present interior of Arabia and Chinese
+Tartary; and that each tribe in that enormous wilderness of wood
+and morass was approached, as the present people of Dahomey,
+Ashantee and Timbucto, by a single path; and that it was only,
+after the lapse of centuries, when, in the due course of things,
+Germany had assumed a more civilised character, that there were
+two, three, or more roads; so that we can quite understand it
+being said of the Bavarian general, John de Werth, in the
+seventeenth century, that he did this,--march out of the direct
+way, which was watched, by another road, which was longer because
+it was unguarded: thus pouncing on the enemy by night, and taking
+them so by surprise that they fled in alarm, he gained a bloodless
+victory, without the drawing of a sword from its scabbard. Any
+advantage that a modern general would gain in this way was not
+open to an ancient general, particularly when invading the country
+of a people like the Germans, mere savages, who knew no more of
+such arts of warfare, as guarding roads and sending out scouts,
+than Red Indians, Maoris and Hottentots of the present time. Sir
+Garnet Wolseley, making his way to Coomassie, as a crow would fly,
+is just about the manner in which we may be sure that Germanicus
+made his way into Germany--as straight as he could go. But
+military history is not the forte of the author of the Annals. He
+knew it and avoided it as much as he could,--very unlike Tacitus,
+who, practically acquainted with military as well as civil
+affairs, writes with an obvious liking, of combats and civil wars,
+and, according to military authorities competent to pass an
+opinion, shows everywhere familiarity with battles, marches,
+management of armies and conduct of generals.
+
+One cannot understand how Tacitus, whose youth was passed in a
+camp, should not have known the whole minutiae about the Roman
+army; and that he should, with respect to its ensigns, exhibit
+extraordinary ignorance. The fact stood thus:--the legions had
+"signa," or standards; the "socii," or allies, that is, the
+Latins, had "vexilla," or flags; so, perhaps, had the Romans when
+marching under arms to a new settlement, or "colony"; but,
+certainly, soldiers raised in the provinces had no ensigns at all,
+neither standards nor flags; yet in the first book of the Annals
+we hear of some "maniples," or "infantry companies" of the legions
+that had been raised in Pannonia, when the news reached them of
+the breaking out of a mutiny in the camp, tearing to pieces their
+_flags_: "manipuli ... postquam turbatum in castris accepere,
+_vexilla_ convellunt" (I. 20). The mistake is similar to that
+which would be made if any one among ourselves were to give
+colours to our volunteers or standards to our yeomanry.
+
+Here it may be noticed that the figures of speech of Tacitus are,
+like those of most ancient Romans, chiefly military. To be of the
+highest rank is, with him, "to lead the van,"--"primum pilum
+ducere" (Hist. IV. 3), or to set about a thing, "to be girt" (as
+with a sword),--"accingi" (Hist. IV. 79). The author of the
+Annals, though borrowing the latter phrase, goes anywhere but to
+the field of battle for his figures; he takes them mostly from the
+ways of ordinary civil life, selecting his metaphors, now from the
+trader's shop or the merchant's counting-house, as "ratio constat"
+(An. I. 6), used when the debtor and creditor sides of an account
+balance one another; now from seamen steering and tacking vessels,
+or coachmen driving horses, as "verbis moderans" (An. VI. 2),
+which Nipperdey says ought to be rendered, "touching-up and
+reining-in his words, and driving only at this."
+
+IX. When Julius Caesar came to this country, he found the Britons,
+without an exception, thorough barbarians, the best of them living
+in places that were fortified woods. The author of the Annals,
+only a century after this wild state of things in the barbarism of
+the inhabitants and the rudeness of their abodes, speaks of
+London, in the reign of Nero, in the year 60, as if it were the
+chief residence of merchants and their principal mart of trade in
+the civilized world. If there be one thing certain, it is that
+centuries after,--in the middle of the fourth,--the people of
+London were only exporters of corn;--no certainty that they
+carried on any other kind of commerce, except it might be doing a
+little business in dogs, and slaves whom they captured from
+neighbouring barbarians,--their imports being polished bits of
+bone, toys and horse-collars. Progressing, rapidly under the
+Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans, and in the time of the
+Plantagenets, they were in the fifteenth century a great and
+wealthy people, illustrious for their commercial transactions,
+dealing in every species of commodity, visited by merchants from
+every part of Europe, and envied by the most flourishing
+communities, such as the trading oligarchies of Italy. Any one
+living at that time,--especially in Italy (where many
+circumstances induce me to believe that the author or forger of
+the "Annals of Tacitus" lived),--and hearing a great deal of the
+wealth, greatness and immense antiquity of London, might easily
+fall into this mistake, grievous in its enormity as it is. But any
+one living about the time of Nero, as Tacitus did, could never
+have described London in this flourishing state of commercial
+greatness and prosperity. The chances are he never would have
+heard of London; for that would be supposing in a Roman at the
+close of the first or the commencement of the second century of
+our aera a geographical knowledge more minute than that of the
+President of the Royal Geographical Society, unless at the
+haphazard mention of any particular village in the newly annexed
+Fiji Islands, Sir Henry Rawlinson could enter into a correct
+account of its chief characteristic. But if we are to go to the
+extreme length of supposing that Tacitus had heard of London, he
+would know that it was a place of no repute, utterly insignificant,
+far inferior in importance to two now almost forgotten places in
+Essex and Hertfordshire,--Maldon and St. Alban's,--called then
+respectively Camelodunum and Verulamium,--the former being a
+"colonia," and the latter a "municipium,"--London being a mere
+"praefectura." It is then the height of absurdity to believe that
+if Tacitus wrote the Annals we should have heard in that work London
+spoken of as "remarkably celebrated for the multiplicity of its
+merchants and its commodities": "copia negotiatorum et commeatuum
+maxime celebre" (XIV. 33).
+
+X. The author of the Annals pretends to know more about prominent
+individuals in Rome than was known to their distinguished
+contemporaneous countrymen. He writes of Labeo Antistius, as if
+that jurisconsult were an example to the age in which he lived of
+all the virtues and all goodness, and possessed, to a masterly
+extent, accomplishments and acquirements; for thus he speaks of
+him in conjunction with Capito Ateius: "Capito Ateius ...
+principem in civitate locum studiis adsecutus--Labeonem Antistium,
+iisdem artibus praecellentem ... namque illa aetas duo pacis
+decora simul tulit; sed Labeo incorrupta libertate ...
+celebratior" (An. III. 75). Horace, who was a contemporary of
+Labeo's, says that he was a maniac, or, at any rate--"considered
+very crazy in the company of the sane":--
+
+    "Labeone insanior inter
+    Sanos dicatur." (Sat. I. III. 82.)
+
+
+Hitherto Horace by the side of "Tacitus" has been no better than a
+clay pitcher by a porcelain vase; thus his disparaging, but,
+doubtless, quite correct estimate of Labeo has been till now
+altogether disregarded, in consequence of this passage in the
+Annals, from its author being credited with having exceeded what
+the ancient Romans had left us in the way of history.
+
+So great is the repute of the Author of the Annals for supremacy
+in the historian's art that Justus Lipsius places no faith
+whatever in Suetonius when that, possibly, most veracious
+historian records in his Life of Tiberius (61) the number of the
+people who were executed for their attachment to Sejanus as
+amounting to twenty; the universally applauded, and, generally
+considered, most judicious Batavian critic of the sixteenth
+century, without a manuscript or edition for his authority, alters
+this number for One Thousand, because the author of the Annals
+speaks of a "countless" mass of slain of all ranks, ages, and both
+(he says "all") sexes, and further describes corpses as lying
+about singly or piled up in heaps: "jacuit _immensa_ strages,
+omnis sexus, omnis aetas, illustres, ignobiles, dispersi aut
+aggerati" (VI. 19).
+
+Hence, too, Dr. Nipperdey, in drawing up a table of the Augustan
+family, in order to guard the reader against being perplexed by
+the relationships of that house, treats the same Suetonius as of
+no account when he says,--and Suetonius twice says it (Cal. I.,
+Ner. 5),--that Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, married "the
+younger Antonia." "In default of other evidence on the question of
+fact," says the learned professor, "we must follow the better
+author, Tacitus,"--the better author being the writer of the
+Annals, who, on two occasions (I. 42; XII. 64), makes the "elder
+Antonia" the wife of Drusus.
+
+Examples of this description could be multiplied. But it is not
+necessary to pursue this line of argument farther,--at least, at
+present. What is required just now is not so much proof that the
+author of the Annals did not write like the Romans, but that he
+did not write like Tacitus, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts
+he made to imitate him, and be mistaken for him by contemporaries
+and posterity. To do this I must bring forward from the History
+and the Annals an accumulation of coincidences, seeing that the
+fabricator, being a most acute person, must have proceeded upon
+the same principle as a man who forges a cheque upon a banker, and
+who, in the prosecution of his design, endeavours to imitate, as
+closely as he can, the handwriting of his victim, and do
+everything carefully enough to escape immediate detection,
+whatever may afterwards ensue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER OF THE ANNALS FROM THE POINT OF TREATMENT.
+
+
+I. Nature of the history.--II. Arrangement of the narrative.--
+III. Completeness in form.--IV. Incongruities, contradictions and
+disagreements from the History of Tacitus.--V. Craftiness of the
+writer.--VI. Subordination of history to biography.--VII. The
+author of the Annals and Tacitus differently illustrate Roman
+history.--VIII. Characters and events corresponding to characters
+and events of the XVth century.--IX. Greatness of the Author of
+the Annals.
+
+I. Before proceeding to point out the imitations, and show where,
+in the efforts to write, and make history after the likeness of
+Tacitus, the author of the Annals fails; and, from the signal
+nature of his failures, his efforts are seen to be counterfeit, I
+may observe that a constant endeavour on his part to escape
+detection renders his imposture difficult to perceive and still
+more difficult to expose. A man of his penetration and power to
+enter far into subjects was, of course, deep enough to contrive
+every species of artifice to conceal his fraud; and as we have no
+record of his having been seen in the act of fabrication, or of
+his ever having been even suspected of so doing, I must prove the
+forgery by a detail of facts and circumstances. I can do this only
+by going through the Annals minutely,--examining the matter,
+manner, treatment, knowledge, views, sentiments, language, style,
+--in fact, a variety of circumstances,--everything that can be
+thought of;--for if it really be a forgery, it cannot be exactly
+like the History of Tacitus in any one thing, whatever that one
+thing be;--then I shall leave the reader to himself, to take into
+account the whole of the circumstances, and judge whether such a
+combination could have existed in a genuine work by Tacitus, and
+is compatible with such a production.
+
+We are to look, first, what the nature of the history purports to
+be;--whether there is nothing peculiar as to its character.
+
+It will be obvious to the least sagacious that the most paramount
+and absolutely necessary thing to be accomplished was a vast and
+comprehensive execution that should correspond to the vast and
+comprehensive execution of Tacitus. Here was something to be done
+seemingly insuperable; for how can any one hope to imitate the
+execution of another, with such marvellous nicety that no
+distinction can be discerned between the two on the minutest test
+of microscopic investigation? more especially if the execution to
+be imitated be that of a man of real genius, consequently
+unparalleled in its way, of a mighty nature, and, in addition to
+its mightiness, a thing of the purest individuality. Now, the
+History of Tacitus is an execution of this description; it is a
+work of real genius; therefore, it is a distinct essence,--a
+realization of all the special aptitude possessed by the master-spirit
+that penned it. But though this cannot be done, yet any one
+having genius,--and a powerful genius,--by following its bent
+directly, may expect to exhibit in the execution of a work an
+ability that shall be considered equal to the ability displayed in
+the execution of another, even though that other be a man of great
+genius; but it can only be upon this very sage precaution,--that
+he exercises his ability, which must necessarily be of a very
+different kind, in quite a different manner. The forger of the
+Annals had much too acute a discernment not to know this;--he was
+also well aware that he had a very strong forte. We know the
+department in which he excelled,--dealing with despotism,
+servility and bloodshed. But then, if he was to do this, he would
+do that, which would be a very strong proof that his work was a
+forgery; for if he was to do this, he could not take up the
+continuance of history as Tacitus intended to go on with it
+namely, with Nerva and Trajan;--that he could not do, because in
+dealing with those two rulers he would have to deal with men
+remarkable for mildness, generosity, leniency and good-
+heartedness;--thus he would have to deal with a subject which must
+be fatal to his attempt; for it would be opposed to the play of
+his peculiar gifts, which to be brought out properly required that
+he should write only of Emperors noted for cruel, unnatural,
+blood-thirsty tyranny. The plan of his undertaking, to be attended
+with success, therefore compelled him, whether he liked it or not,
+to go back to Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero.
+
+II. This must have been greatly against his will as a forger,
+because this difficulty must have risen up before his mental
+vision in colossal magnitude--that nobody, on careful
+consideration, could admit that Tacitus would have written the
+narrative of the half-century from the death of Augustus to the
+accession of Galba, after what he says at the commencement of his
+History, that the subject next to engage his attention would be
+the events that happened in the reigns of Nerva and Trajan. This,
+I repeat, is a point that brings forcibly before us the certainty
+of the Annals being forged, unless any one can believe with
+Niebuhr that, if Tacitus completed his History before the death of
+Trajan, and could not write of that Emperor as long as that
+Emperor lived, but "feeling a void," and "desiring to produce
+another work," he resumed History with the rule of Tiberius; but
+nobody can believe this, because it gets us into this enormous,
+nay, inexplicable difficulty--Why the writer, who, in the History,
+had shown an epic construction, with an epic opening and an epic
+story, should observe in the Annals quite another arrangement, and
+distribute the narrative in a studiously annalistic form? when,
+too, the disjointed record of the journalist was to be combined
+with the distinct arrangement of the historian who took the
+continued transactions of a nation in their multiplicity of
+details as they occurred at the same time in different places, and
+related them in clear and due unity in the subject.
+
+III. Out of this variance in the two works arises another
+tremendous difficulty which we have to look at:--The Annals and
+the History are intended, the one to be the complement to the
+other. Then two works, which are necessary to each other, ought to
+be, when separated, incomplete: if one man wrote them they would
+be incomplete when separated; but if two men wrote them, they
+would be complete in themselves. Now, are the History and the
+Annals incomplete, when separated? or complete in themselves?
+Everybody acknowledges that they are complete in themselves; each
+contains everything requisite for the full understanding and
+enjoyment of each; each has its peculiar force; each its distinct
+beauty; and for uniformity to exist in the two many passages in
+both must be destroyed; and the most ingenious can give no just or
+adequate cause for the destruction of the passages, even as he can
+give no just or adequate cause for their existence, except that
+which I am advancing that it was because two men wrote the two
+works.
+
+IV. This accounts at once for all the incongruities they owe their
+existence naturally enough to the following simple causes:--the
+different kinds of information possessed as well as the different
+views of things entertained by two different individuals; and,
+along with these, an occasional failing of the memory; for a man,
+who forges such a very long work as the Annals, must every now and
+then forget,--however tenacious his memory may be,--what the man,
+whom he simulates, has said, here and there, in this or that work,
+upon some minor point in Roman history, not associated with nor
+essential to the principal thing he has always to keep steadily in
+mind,--his main matter. Thus we find no end of little trips in the
+Annals, many of which we will point out in their proper places as
+we proceed with this investigation: at present it is sufficient
+for the illustration of our remark to call the reader's attention
+to this fact:--In the Annals Augustus is represented having as his
+successors in the first degree Tiberius and Livia; in the second
+degree his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and in the third
+degree the leading nobles, including even some of those whom he
+hated, such, we may presume, as Labeo, his detractor, Gallus
+Asinius, who was thirsting for empire, and Lucius Arruntius, who
+would have made the attempt to unseat him had the opportunity
+presented itself:--"Tiberium et Liviam haeredes habuit ... in
+spem secundam, nepotes pronepotesque: tertio gradu primores
+civitatis scripserat, plerosque invisos sibi, sed jactantia
+gloriaque ad posteros" (An. I. 8). Such an account of Augustus
+adopting these relations, and, after them, strangers and enemies,
+"out of vain-glory and for future renown,"--that is, to be admired
+by posterity for an unexampled display of humanity,--could not
+have been written by Tacitus, being different in every respect
+from what he relates,--and what he says, by the way, is also said
+by Suetonius,--that Augustus, looking for a successor in his own
+family, placed next to himself in dignity, so as to be prepared to
+be his successor, his nephew, Marcellus, then his son-in-law,
+Agrippa, next his grandsons, and lastly, his step-son, Tiberius
+Nero:--"divi Augusti, qui sororis filium, Marcellum, dein generum,
+Agrippam, mox nepotes suos, postremo Tiberium Neronem, privignum,
+in proximo sibi fastigio collocavit" (Hist. I. 15).
+
+Such disagreements, due,--in all probability, more than to
+anything else,--to the occasional failure of the memory,--are
+sufficient in themselves to prove that the Annals and the History
+did not proceed from the same source. Accordingly, the man who
+forged the Annals, having apparently, this overwhelming and
+troublesome difficulty ever uppermost in his mind, seems to have
+taken measures for guarding against it as well as he could, and
+with as much care as he could. This taking precautions against the
+failure of memory must have been one of the main reasons, why he
+elected writing of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, when, as
+Tacitus, he ought to have written of Nerva and Trajan. He was thus
+enabled to relate a series of events prior to, and entirely
+different from the series of events related by Tacitus; there was
+thereby no possibility of his narrative clashing with that of his
+archetype; the most trying difficulties were in this way got over
+with sufficient ease; the only danger was with regard to a few
+individuals who lived during the two periods, and a few facts,
+that trailed their circumstances from one period into the other;
+but his main history would have nothing in common with the main
+history of Tacitus.
+
+V. To borrow a phrase of Gualterius--he ran the risk of "falling
+into Scylla in trying to avoid Charybdis":
+
+ "Incidit in Scyllam, qui vult vitare Charybdin."
+
+How could he convince the world that Tacitus would act with such
+twofold inconsistency as to write of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius
+and Nero, when he had said that he would not do so, on account of
+the number of writers who had recorded the occurrences of their
+reigns, and that if he resumed the duties of an historian it would
+be with the reigns of Nerva and Trajan. The world,--and nobody
+knew it better than the author of the Annals,--is easily
+convinced; and there is no inconsistency, however monstrous, that
+it considers unaccountable. He, therefore, set about the task of
+convincing the world that Tacitus did this. Acting up to his own
+maxim, that "the way to get out of disgraceful acts that are
+evident is by audaciousness": "flagitiis manifestis subsidium ab
+audacia petendum" (An. XI. 26), he resorted to audacity in a
+trick, which has been hitherto eminently successful,--making the
+world believe from a single remark which he introduced into his
+narrative as the double of Tacitus, that that noble Roman was
+really guilty of this twofold inconsistency, so that
+changeableness, unsteadiness of purpose and self-contradiction
+should seem to be his leading characteristics. Without ever
+intending to write the history of Augustus,--or he never would
+have begun the Annals with an introduction in which he epitomizes
+principal events in the Roman State from its very foundation,
+otherwise what had he left to himself in a subsequent historical
+composition of a prior date for an appropriate exordium,--he says
+in his third book that he would make the memorable events in the
+reign of Augustus the subject of a new history, should his health
+and life continue:--"cetera illius aetatis memorabo, si plures ad
+curas vitam produxero" (An. III. 24)--evidently only because
+Tacitus had said at the commencement of his History, that he had
+reserved as the employment of his old age, should his life be long
+enough, the reigns of Nerva and Trajan:--"quod si vita suppeditet,
+principatum Divi Nervae et imperium Trajani ... senectuti seposui"
+(Hist. I. 1). There was then one and the same man saying in one
+place:--"I am going to write the History of Augustus when I am an
+old man;"--(and this being said in the Annals, the author of that
+book must have wanted the world to presume that the writer would
+have chosen the form of biography for it):--and in another place:
+"I am going to write the history of Nerva and Trajan when I am an
+old man"; (and this being said in the History, the author of the
+Annals must have supposed that the world might presume that the
+writer would have chosen the form of history for this continued
+production).
+
+The author of the Annals having done this, opened out before himself
+the very widest field for indulging in all sorts of contradictions;
+for, after this, who would not be, and who is not, prepared for any
+contradictions? The contradictions come; and they are strange and
+numerous.
+
+VI. There is a systematic subordination of history to biography
+throughout the Annals, in which imperial events are sacrificed to
+the prominence and effect of individual delineations: in the
+History there is a general, comprehensive review of the Empire at
+the time of Nero's death; Rome is the centre, and the subject
+matter the condition of a people affected by the imperial system
+of government. The History conveys political instruction; the
+Annals supplies materials for studying the human mind and the
+motives of human conduct: in imparting a knowledge of events
+respecting the Roman nation, the writer of the History, who is
+gifted with graphic power, places _images_ before us, whereas
+the writer of the Annals, aware that in picturesqueness he was
+inferior to Tacitus, gives us _impressions_, while he investigates
+social phenomena and elucidates the principles of human nature.
+One work is historic, the other philosophic. One man generalizes,
+the other particularizes. We are presented with one set of
+interests in the History, with another set in the Annals.
+In the History we see the struggles of an empire and the
+convulsions of the world; in the Annals we are shut out from such
+a prospect, to have our view limited to the deeds of one or two
+emperors, and a few renowned individuals.
+
+VII. Such differences, so striking and so essential, prove the
+Annals to be a forged book; for all these differences in the two
+works can only be ascribed to the entirely different turns of mind
+peculiar to two writers. Tacitus wrote as he did, from having a
+profounder knowledge of the springs of action in the political
+world than the author of the Annals. The author of the Annals,
+surpassing Tacitus with respect to the moral world, wrote as he
+did, from knowing better the motives that influence men's minds,
+and the passions that sway their hearts. The result of two such
+very different men composing two such very different works, is,
+that the contrast is almost as great when we turn from the History
+to the Annals, as when we turn from a general history of England
+by a Hume or a Lingard where we notice the origin of Englishmen's
+liberties and privileges, the chivalrous scenes of the past and
+the proud glories of the present, to the local record of some
+county, as Kent or Lancashire, by a Hasted or a Baines, embodying
+information of boroughs and parishes, town councils and
+corporations, where such things become of substantial importance
+as the clauses of charters, the collection of market dues,
+donations of maces and drinking cups to mayors, and gold or silver
+cradles to their ladies on the birth of babies during the year of
+office.
+
+If the Annals is really to be considered a forgery, this, instead
+of being a matter of surprise, ought to be just the thing to be
+expected; because a clever fabricator, foreseeing that he would be
+suspected, and eager to foil detection, would know that the
+curious inquirer into a research of the present description would
+thus become baffled at every turn from inability, if not to
+discover it himself, at least, to explain to the satisfaction and
+conviction of others, the incompatibility of the workings of one
+spirit in one book with the workings of the other spirit in the
+other book, when the two compositions were so differently
+contrived. But if the Annals is to be considered as genuine, then
+nobody can explain why the same individual should illustrate Roman
+history in this singular fashion,--both works being designed, as
+universally admitted, the one to be a complement to the other.
+What should be the inducement of the author of the Annals if he
+did not wish the world to deny that it was his handiwork to write
+his book so very differently from the History of Tacitus? For what
+was there in the times of Rome under Galba, Otho, Vitellius and
+Vespasian so very different from what the Roman Empire was under
+their immediate predecessors, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and
+Nero, that the part which has to do with events in the days of the
+first-named four emperors should treat of imperial transactions
+and be deficient in many of the memorials which claim notice in
+the part dealing with Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero; and,
+that the part which has to do with events in the times of the
+last-named four emperors should all but avoid what is amply
+recorded in the part, dealing with Galba, Otho, Vitellius and
+Vespasian, imperial occurrences finding but an occasional and
+almost accidental notice in the Annals, where the mind is
+encumbered with the minutiae of circumstantial details of
+individual deeds.
+
+VIII. The author of the Annals, who (as I shall convincingly show
+hereafter) lived in the XVth century, seems, on account of that,
+to have had a still stronger reason than those just given for
+selecting as his subject the half century after the death of
+Augustus: its characters and events corresponded closely to the
+characters of the princes who ruled, and the nature of the
+movements that were going on all over Europe in his time; for in
+forging history, that was to pass as written by Tacitus, it was
+incumbent that he should have the same advantage as the Roman,--be
+on the same level with him in the occupation of ground. Now, the
+ground occupied by Tacitus was the time of himself, which enabled
+him to give a complete and copious reflex of a period through
+which he had lived with thoughtful attention. Thus his colours are
+bright. Unless antiquity supplied the author of the Annals only
+the framework of his picture, and the events of the time when he
+lived gave the scenes for the painting, his colours would fail,
+and his outlines become unsteady. In other words, there could not
+be the scrupulous minuteness and the perfect freedom which make
+history live and breathe, unless, like Tacitus, he registered
+facts in which he took the deepest interest, from feeling their
+influence directly and powerfully exerted over himself, and the
+living and loved around him. Thus his hand, by being guided as the
+hand of Tacitus, would throw life into his work. And, truly, there
+is as much life in the Annals as in the History; but, instead of
+the air of the first century breathing around it, it is the air of
+the fifteenth.
+
+This can be tested by many a character; one will suffice, that of
+Caius Piso in the fifteenth book (48). Pliny and Juvenal tell us
+that Piso was consul suffectus under Claudius: the Tabulae Arvales
+add that he was a member of the College of Twelve who offered
+sacrifice when there was increase in the produce of the soil.
+Writers and records of antiquity say no more of Caius Piso, not
+even mentioning the name of his father. On such a little known man
+a forger of Roman history could safely expatiate; the author of
+the Annals does so in a portraiture that bears the stamp of the
+fifteenth century: this is particularly observable when Piso is
+spoken of as "of brilliant repute among the populace for virtues,"
+or, rather, "qualities that wore the form of virtues,"--"species
+virtutibus similes";--that he was "far from being morosely moral,
+or restrained by moderation in pleasures; mild in temper and soft
+in manners; given to pompous show and occasionally steeping
+himself in luxurious excesses,"--"procul gravitas morum, aut
+voluptatum parsimonia: lenitati ac magnificentiae et aliquando
+luxui indulgebat." This does not appear to be at all applicable to
+the character of any conspicuous personage belonging to the Roman
+Empire in the first century, when Romans were warriors still,
+preserving, amid some effeminacy, much of the hardy vigour of
+their Republican predecessors, ever and anon throwing aside the
+toga for the sagum, and rushing from the Forum to the field, to
+battle with ferocious and demi-nude savages, whom ever subduing
+they carried home captives chained to their triumphal chariots;
+but it does seem to be uncommonly applicable to a time when many a
+priest, whose writings manifest a lax habit of thinking and betray
+a levity, indeed, licentiousness, ill according with a religious
+turn of mind, rose to the position of a great dignitary of the
+Church and a powerful arbiter of the destinies of his kind. As
+that was an age when Alexander VI. was a Pope, and Lucretia Borgia
+the daughter of a Pontiff and consort of a reigning Duke of Italy,
+we can readily credit the author of the Annals, and laud him for
+admirable, life-like portraiture, when he says that a character
+and conduct, such as Piso's, "met with the approbation of a large
+number of people, who, indulging in vice as delightful, did not
+want at the head of affairs a strict practiser of the moral duties
+and an austere abstainer from vice:"--"pluribus probabatur, qui in
+tanta vitiorum dulcedine summum imperium non restrictum nec
+perseverum volunt."
+
+The character is too vague in its outlines to be any particular
+individual's; but as all its points fit many an Italian priest who
+became a Cardinal or a Bishop and a chief minister to a prince, in
+the time of the Renaissance, as well as in the period immediately
+before it, and that immediately after it,--it shows how men
+reflect the age they live in,--how the principal biographies in
+any certain time convey a pretty accurate idea of the tone of mind
+then prevailing; further, and above all, it shows to what a great
+degree the books of the Annals reflect the chief features of the
+period when they were written, and how deeply their author enters
+into the spirit of his age.
+
+As with characters so with events. Heaps of passages in the Annals
+read like incidents in the fifteenth century. It is more like a
+picture in an Italian court at that period than in a Roman
+Emperor's in the first century, when the arrest is made of Cneius
+Novius for being found treacherously armed with a dagger while
+mixing with the throng of courtiers bowing to the prince; and then
+when he is stretched on the rack, no confession being wrung from
+him as to accomplices; and the doubt that prevailed whether he
+really had fellow-conspirators. "Cneius Novius, eques Romanus,
+ferro accinctus reperitur in coetu salutantium principem. Nam,
+postquam tormentis dilaniabatur, de se non infitiatus conscios non
+edidit, incertum an occultans." (An. XI. 22.)
+
+IX. In this way do I fancy I perceive the author of the Annals
+chose his subject and worked his materials, so as to do most
+justice to his talents, and more easily reach the height attained
+by Tacitus. When he had apparently thus sketched the plan of his
+edifice, and set about struggling with the difficulties of the
+elaboration, he encountered these with such eminent success that
+the reality of his literary labour is one of the most surprising
+facts in the history of the human mind. He seems never to have
+once deviated from his design nor to have ever been perplexed by
+embarrassments in the course of his undertaking, notwithstanding
+the voluminousness of its nature. In such a procedure, where the
+time he chose to descant upon fits in with all he wanted to
+accomplish, we see the first indication of the vast judgment he
+possessed, as well as the correct notion he had formed of the
+extent of his superior powers. In detecting in the author of the
+Annals so much judgment and such an exact estimate of his great
+mental faculties, we see the difficulty to be coped with in
+distinguishing between him and Tacitus, and thus in distinguishing
+between the spurious and the genuine: but this distinguishing can
+be accomplished by a minute, and only a most minute examination of
+the two works.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+HOW THE ANNALS DIFFERS FROM THE HISTORY.
+
+
+I. In the qualities of the writers; and why that difference.
+--II. In the narrative, and in what respect.--III. In style and
+language.--IV. The reputation Tacitus has of writing bad Latin
+due to the mistakes of his imitator.
+
+I. Statesmen learn the things which are of use to them in
+government by reading the History, because Tacitus recounts the
+actions of the world under the imperial rule of Rome. All men can
+profit in the choice of morals from reading the Annals, on account
+of its writer relating principally the actions of sovereign
+princes and illustrious persons in their private capacity.
+
+This diversity of treatment results from the difference in the
+qualities of the writers. Tacitus possessed a consummate knowledge
+of the true policy of States, and the use and extent of
+government. Accordingly, he reveals measures necessary for the
+successful carrying on of war, or the proper and equitable
+administration of affairs in peace, while he places before us a
+graphic and presumably true picture of the mode in which the
+Romans ruled their Empire in the first century of the Christian
+aera. The author of the Annals was acquainted with an entirely
+different form and order of statesmanship and politics. Hence he
+immerses us in crooked turnings of false policy and dark intrigues
+of bad ambition, forcibly reminding us of what made the greatest
+portion of the European art of government in the fifteenth century
+towards the close of the mediaeval and the commencement of the
+modern periods. He favours us with a paucity of maxims relating to
+government in general, or the different branches and offices which
+make up the body politic; but enters, with tedious fulness, into
+the rise, operation, consequences and proper restraint of the
+genuine passions and natural propensities of mankind in
+individuals, public and private.
+
+We search in vain in the History for any trace of the melancholy
+that we find in the Annals; and in vain do we look in the Annals
+for any pictures of virtue and lessons of wisdom which in the
+History are taught us by bright examples and illustrious actions.
+Had the same hand that wrote the Annals written the History, we
+should have had in the latter work a very different treatment. The
+record would have been dark and dismal, even to repulsion, the
+opportunities being ample for an historian of gloomy disposition
+to indulge his humour, when the character of the History is thus
+described with truth in the Preface to Sir Henry Saville's
+translation of it:--"In these four books we see all the miseries
+of a torn and declining state; the empire usurped; the princes
+murdered; the people wandering; the soldiers tumultuous; nothing
+unlawful to him that hath power, and nothing so unsafe as to be
+securely innocent." Then, after stating what we learn from the
+examples of Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian, the writer adds:
+"In them all, and in the state of Rome under them, we see the
+calamities that follow civil war, where laws lie asleep, and all
+things are judged by the sword." In going over such a dreary
+period of human history, Tacitus is as composed and cheerful as if
+he was dwelling on the gayest and brightest of themes.
+
+The cause of this is to be found in the fact that there was
+nothing to overshadow the soul of Tacitus with gloom. However
+painful and dire may have been the constraint to other Romans
+during the fifteen years' rule of Domitian, he had no ground of
+complaint: far from that; for he says that he was advanced by that
+Emperor further in dignity than by Vespasian and Titus. In the
+reign of Trajan he must have been supremely happy; for he speaks
+of it himself as "a time of rare felicity,"--"rara temporum
+felicitate,"--when men might "think what they pleased and express
+what they thought." His domestic life must have been blest by the
+perfect devotion and tender attachment of a wife, who, then in her
+prime, had surely verified the brilliant hopes of the promising
+bride. (Agr. 9.) In the maturity of his days he lived again in his
+children; for that he had children we know from the Emperor
+Tacitus, a century and a half after, boasting of being his
+descendant, a pride that was shared in the fifth century by
+Polemius, a Prefect of Gaul, as we learn from a remark of the
+Prefect's friend, Sidonius Apollinaris. He enjoyed the most
+brilliant of literary reputations, as the anecdote sufficiently
+reveals of a stranger, who, addressing him at a public spectacle,
+and being informed that he must know him well from his writings,
+remarked: "Then you must be either Tacitus or Pliny." He was happy
+in the friendship of Pliny the Younger, and men as good, eminent
+and distinguished as that elegant disciple of Cicero's.
+
+There was then nothing, in the fortunes of Tacitus to make him
+trenchant, biting and cynical; but, on the contrary, most gentle,
+as he was, and most placid and benign. Such being his character, a
+kind interpretation and a candid sense of actions and individuals
+meet us on every page of his History. Still in enumerating the
+virtues of eminent persons he does not omit their vices or
+failings: his way of doing this is peculiar. He tells us Sabinus
+served the State for five and thirty years with great distinction
+at home and abroad, and was of unquestionable integrity, but adds
+jestingly "he talked too much."--"Quinque et triginta stipendia in
+republicâ fecerat, domi militiaeque clarus; innocentiam
+justitiamque ejus non argueret: _sermonis nimium erat_."
+(Hist. III. 75.) Otho and Vitellius quarrel and charge each other
+with debaucheries and the grossest crimes; the historian then,
+with dry humour, remarks, "neither was wrong":--"Mox, quasi
+rixantes stupra et flagitia invicem objectavere: _neuter
+falso._" (Hist. I. 74.) This witty and ridiculing vein does not
+prevent him from being always kindly. The benignity of his nature
+is seen in all his portraitures (which look, by the way, like the
+portraitures of real men); it is observable in his character of
+Licinius Mucianus (I. 10), Cornelius Fuscus (II. 86), Helvidius
+Priscus (IV. 5), and others;--lovely portraits where defects or
+peccadilloes are given along with real and positive virtues, and
+in an antithetical manner. His antithetical manner is preserved in
+the Annals; but, instead of blandness, we come across a propensity
+to form unfavourable opinions of character and conduct, as when
+the Athenians are designated "that scum of nations":--"colluviem
+illam nationum" (II. 55); and Octavia, "the sprig of a gipsy
+fiddler" [Endnote 074]:--"tibicinis Aegyptii subolem." (XIV. 61)
+There is wit and ridicule in both works, but it is not the wit and
+ridicule of the same individual; it is sprightly and amusing in
+the History; it is ungracious and actually cruel in the Annals.
+
+This difference in the writing of Tacitus and the author of the
+Annals may be accounted for in many ways,--perhaps in none better
+than this:--When Tacitus lived no one despaired of public cares
+being attended to, or the plans of the wise being employed in
+advancing the national welfare; but when the author of the Annals
+lived, everybody despaired; private profligacy was as rampant as
+public misery, and, amid the universal degeneracy, scheming
+politicians disregarded the good and greatness of their country to
+be intriguers at court for the improvement of their position.
+
+Those were the times when Louis XI. supplied the places of the
+ministers and marshals, the generals and admirals of France, the
+Dunois, the La Tremoilles, the Brézés and the Chabannes with mere
+creatures--new and obscure men who aided him in his artful schemes
+and plans of government: he made his barber an ambassador, his
+tailor a herald at arms, and his phlebotomist a chancellor: he
+imposed enormous taxes on the people, and when the people
+revolted, he ordered some of the ringleaders to be torn to pieces
+alive by horses, and the others to be beheaded, as occurred at
+Rheims, Angers, Alençon and Aurillac. Francis of Carrara, the Lord
+of Padua, cruelly murdered the Venetian General, Galeaz of Mantua,
+when the Doge and Council of Venice refused to ratify the terms of
+a capitulation. Suspicion attached to the peace in which Ivan
+Basilowitch lived and ruled in his palace at Moscow, surrounded
+completely by a wooden wall. Enclosed, too, by a very large tract
+of land, and in a most magnificent mansion which he built for
+himself and his companions at Ripaglia, a place pleasantly
+situated on the Lake of Geneva, Amedeus, the last Count and first
+Duke of Savoy, so abandoned himself in his unobserved private and
+solitary life, to all kinds of debaucheries, that Desmarets says
+in his "Tableau des Papes" (p. 167) that from that originated the
+phrase "to feast and make merry,"--"faire repaille"; yet this very
+Amedeus afterwards acted the part of the only true Pope at Tonon
+during the greater portion of the two years, 1440 and 1441, having
+been elected to the Pontificate by the Fathers of Basle during the
+Papacy of Eugenius IV. When the throne of Don Carlos, the Infant
+of Navarre, was usurped, on the death of his mother, Blanche of
+Navarre, by her husband, John I. of Aragon, a disgraceful quarrel
+and a prolonged war ensued between father and son, when the son,
+being repeatedly defeated in battle, was finally captured and cast
+into prison by the father, and poisoned by his mother-in-law;
+although he was deserving of a better fate, being an enlightened
+prince who wrote a History of the Kings of Navarre, which is still
+preserved in the archives of Pampeluna. A blind and feeble old
+monarch, Muley Albohaçan, King of Granada, ordered the massacre of
+a number of children by his first marriage; Ziska destroyed 550
+churches and monasteries in Germany alone; and, for attempting
+reforms in religion, Huss and Jerome of Prague were cruelly burnt
+alive at the stake. These and similar horrors of those distressful
+times, which find fit counterparts in revolting incidents in the
+Annals, could not but deeply affect the soul of a man ardently
+loving liberty and devoted to humanity as, unquestionably, was the
+forger of that work: hence throughout his book the sting which
+misfortune gives, and the moodiness which melancholy begets.
+
+A spirit of liberty runs through his work; but the spirit is not
+the same as that which pervades the History of Tacitus any more
+than that his merits are like the Roman's in precision of
+delineating actions and characters. The good temper of Tacitus
+causes him to differ from other writers in the estimation of
+character. He gives a better account of Galba and Vitellius than
+Suetonius; of Vitellius and Nero than the abbreviator of Cassius
+Dio, Xiphilinus, of Otho than Juvenal; and of Vinius than
+Plutarch. Galba, who, in Suetonius, puts to death, with their
+wives and children, the Governors in Spain and Gaul who did not
+side with his party during the life of Nero, is, with Tacitus, a
+prince remarkable for integrity and justice, and such faults as he
+has are not, strictly speaking, his own, but those of worthless
+friends who abuse his confidence, for we are told that it is the
+pernicious counsels of Titus Vinius and Cornelius Laco, the former
+depraved and profligate, the other slothful and incapable, which
+first lose him the popular favour and ultimately prove his ruin:
+"Invalidum senem Titus Vinnius et Cornelius Laeo, alter deterrimus
+mortalium, alter ignavissimus, _odio flagitorum oneratum,
+contemptu inertiae destruebant_." (Hist. I. 6 _in._) Vitellius,
+who, according to Suetonius, puts one of his sons to death, and
+poisons his mother, or starves her to death, is, in Tacitus, a
+tender father doing all for his offspring that fortune permits him
+to do in his excess of adversity (Hist. II. 59), and a respectful,
+sensitive son seeking to abdicate his empire in order to rescue
+his parent from impending evils. (Hist. III. 67.) Juvenal shows us
+Otho carrying into the tumult of the battle-field the effeminacy
+that disgraces him in time of peace; Tacitus represents Otho as an
+active warrior (Hist. II. 11); and convinces us that there was
+more of good than evil in that emperor. Xiphilinus paints the wife
+of Vitellius as wickedly dissolute; Tacitus as a respectable woman
+of whom the State had no complaint to make in her misfortune. He
+can find virtues even in Vinius (Hist. I. 13), whom the Roman
+people execrated and whom Plutarch castigates in terms of
+unmeasured reprehension.
+
+The Author of the Annals brings before our vision quite opposite
+reflections from the mirror of life: his pictures are quite horrid
+of revolting crimes unrelieved by virtuous actions in Tiberius,
+Claudius, Nero, Sejanus, Agrippina, Messalina, Albucilla, and
+other men and women. His character of Tiberius is the wonderfully
+drawn portrait of the most absolute and artful tyrant that was
+ever created by the fancy of man; and we may be as certain that
+such a character never existed as we may be assured that that the
+wise maxims and fine things were ever uttered which he tells us
+passed the lips in private of Emperors and Ministers of State.
+Though not a single virtue relieves the vices of Tiberius in the
+Annals, Suetonius speaks of him as showing clemency when a public
+officer; Cassius Dio describes him as so humane that he condemned
+nobody for his estate, nor confiscated any man's goods, nor
+exacted money by force; and Velleius Paterculus makes him all but
+a pattern of the virtues,--if Velleius Paterculus is an
+authority,--it being just possible that his "Historiae Romanae ad
+Marcum Vinicium Consulem" may some of these days be as clearly
+proved to be as glaring a modern forgery, as I am now attempting
+to prove the Annals of Tacitus to be: certain it is that what we
+have of Velleius Paterculus is supplied by only one MS., which was
+found under very suspicious circumstances in very suspicious
+times.
+
+II. The general train of the narrative may be as nervous in the
+Annals as in the History; but the latter is proof against all
+objections to imperfection and hurry of narrative: every now and
+then errors of this description mar the workmanship of the Annals,
+showing at once that it was not composed by Tacitus. From what he
+did in the History, he never would have abruptly dropped the
+proceedings in the Senate with regard to Tiberius and the honours
+paid to his family: there would have been a measure of time and
+place in the campaigns of Germanicus: he would have told us what
+urged Piso to his acts of apparent madness; and whether he was
+guilty or innocent of poisoning Germanicus: we should have known
+whether the adopted son of Tiberius came to a violent end; whether
+Agrippina perished on account of food withheld from her in her
+dungeon; and how Julia, the granddaughter of Augustus died. This
+habit of occasionally neglecting to impart complete information,
+which is not at all in the manner of Tacitus, cannot be due to the
+difference of arrangement in the two works; which, in itself, is a
+very suspicious difference; for the plan in the Annals is to give
+the transactions of every year in chronological order, whereas
+that in the History is not to keep each year distinct in itself,
+but allow occurrences to find their proper place according to
+their nature, before the time when they happen. [Endnote 081]
+
+In addition to this very suspicious difference, there is another
+producing so much doubt that alone it seems to stamp with truth
+the theory of the Annals being a forgery.
+
+Tacitus passes over in silence men renowned for learning who took
+no part in the historical events related by him. The author of the
+Annals, at the end of one historic year, before passing on to
+record the events of that which follows, mentions their deaths, as
+of the two famous juris-consults, Capito Ateius and Labeo
+Antistius. (III. 74.) In this style of writing we detect two men
+differing from each other as widely as De Thou differs from
+Guicciardini: De Thou, confining himself to his own times,
+descends into minutiae, so as to record the deaths of the great
+men of his day; Guicciardini, with his eye fixed on his country,
+passes over memorials of individuals to dwell on the various
+causes which brought about the great changes in the civil and
+ecclesiastical policy of his stirring period.
+
+Another thing extremely suspicious is that nowhere in his History,
+nor even in his biographical work, Agricola, does Tacitus
+introduce a whole letter. All that he does is to give the
+substance, and not the contents, as the letter from Tiberius to
+Germanicus in Germany. (Hist. V. 75.) Elsewhere he refers merely
+to the contents of letters, as in the second book of the History (64).
+Speeches are found in his works, for this reason:--Speeches form
+no small part of what is transacted in the senate, at the army
+and before the emperor; they issue to the public, they pass
+through the mouths of men, and they form much weighty matter.
+Tacitus then seems to have thought that if he inserted speeches,
+he would be maintaining the majesty of history by attending to
+great matters, but that if he inserted letters, as they refer
+generally to private affairs, he would be faulty as an historian,
+by ceasing to be grave and becoming trifling. There is no
+accounting, then, for the letter that is found in the Annals (III. 53),
+if we are to assume that that work was the composition of
+Tacitus, except we are ready to admit that he was capable of
+descending from the accustomed gravity of his lofty historical
+manner to be a rival for supremacy in the small style of such
+indifferent memoirists, as Vulcatius Gallicanus, who has almost as
+many letters as there are pages in his very short life of the
+Emperor Avidius Cassius. [Endnote 083]
+
+Nobody can satisfactorily explain why, or how it was possible
+that, Tacitus should have contradicted in the Annals what he says
+in the History of the Legions of Rome and the Praetorian and Urban
+Cohorts. He tells us in his History that his countrymen had
+legions in Britain, Gaul, and Italy; in the Annals we are told
+that the Romans had no troops in those countries. We gather from
+the Annals, that there were eight legions in Germany, three in
+Spain, and two each in Moesia, Africa, and Pannonia; from the
+History we find that there were seven legions in Germany, three in
+Moesia, two in Spain, and one each in Africa and Pannonia. We are
+told in the History that the Praetorian Cohorts were nine, in the
+Annals ten. So we are told in the History that the Urban Cohorts
+were four (_quatuor urbanae cohortes_ scribebantur) (Hist. II. 93), and
+in the Annals three (insideret urbem proprius miles, _tres urbanae_).
+(An. IV. 5.) It matters not what are the right statements in these
+several instances; all that concerns us in our inquiry is that,
+here beyond all question are two different men, possessing quite
+a different knowledge, informing us about the same things; and
+the disagreements would be mighty puzzling on any other theory
+than that which we are advancing,--that two different men wrote
+the History and the Annals.
+
+So, again, with respect to the twenty-one, and afterwards twenty-five
+priests of Apollo, the "Sodales Augustales," otherwise styled
+"Sacerdotes Titii," the latter name being given to them, according
+to Varro, after birds similarly called, whose motions it was their
+duty to watch in certain auguries (though what the ancients called
+the "titius," by the way, is about as little known as what Pliny
+calls the "spinthurnyx,"--Servius and Isidorus thinking they might
+have been "doves," from such fowls being styled by the common
+people "tetas" and "tetos"). Livy makes no mention of these
+priests; neither does Dionysius of Halicarnassus, though Dionysius
+was very fond of entering into details of Roman antiquities.
+Tacitus gives one origin to this priesthood, the author of the
+Annals another; Tacitus, describing the gladiatorial shows by
+which the birthday of Vitellius was celebrated in the year 15,
+says, that the Emperor Tiberius consecrated those priests to the
+Julian House, in imitation of their first institutor, Romulus, who
+consecrated them to King Tatius: (facem Augustales subdidere: quod
+sacerdotium, ut _Romulus Tatio regi_, ita Caesar Tiberius
+Juliae genti, _sacravit_.) (Hist. II. 95.) The author of the
+Annals, as if this passage had entirely slipped his attention, or
+dropped from his memory, or forgetting that he was engaged in the
+forgery of a work by Tacitus, corrects that view by making quite a
+different statement, that it was King Tatius, and not Romulus, who
+first instituted, and apparently consecrated that order of
+priesthood to himself, his exact words being: "that same year saw
+established a new religious ceremony, by the priesthood being
+added of the 'Augustales Sodales,' as of yore Titus Tatius, to
+retain the holy rites of the Sabines, had instituted the 'Sodales
+Titii'":--Idem annus novas caermonias accepit, addito sodalium
+Augustalium sacerdotio, ut quodam _Titus Tatius_ retinendis
+Sabinorum sacris _sodales Titios instituerat_. (An. I. 54.)
+As many writings bearing upon the remote time of Romulus and the
+Sabine kings may be lost, and the author of the Annals may have
+had, in the fifteenth century, authorities not extant now, to
+warrant him in writing history so very differently from Tacitus;
+and as that Roman in such matters must have taken what he said on
+trust from others, we cannot here decide who was right and who
+wrong; but what is most important in this investigation is that
+the disagreement is quite sufficient to convince us that Tacitus
+did not write the Annals.
+
+We shall hereafter more particularly distinguish the two works by
+other differences in their matter and form, the manner of their
+authors, and the substance of the things treated of: for the
+present we may proceed to distinguish them by some differences in
+their style and language.
+
+III. In these respects nothing is easier than to detect two
+writers, no matter how careful they may be in endeavouring to
+imitate the style and language of each other: there will always be
+some shade,--and indeed, a very strong shade,--whereby to
+distinguish their manner of thinking and their choice and
+arrangement of words; there will be more or less purity,
+simplicity, grace and propriety in their choice of language; more
+or less beauty, precision, cadence and harmony in their
+collocation of words: their cogitative faculty will vary in
+measure of thought--in force or tenuity; nor will they resemble in
+their train of ideas,--be that regular, methodical and uniform, or
+unsteady, scattered and disorderly. There must ever be these
+important differences; they spring out of individual idiosyncrasy;
+their exercise is involuntary, being dependent upon the native
+taste and turn of mind of the writer; from such influence he can
+no more escape, than he can avoid in his physical qualities a
+peculiar gait or tone of voice, look, laugh, or mode of bearing.
+If any one question this, let him take up any of the dramas
+written conjointly by members of the School of Shakespeare in the
+reign of James the First. They all tried to shape themselves in
+the same mould; they served apprentices to one another in
+constructing and composing the drama; Cartwright strove to write
+like his instructor, Ben Jonson; Massinger like his master,
+Shakespeare; Shakespeare, too, like Marston and Robert Green (for
+Marston taught him how to write tragedy, and Green taught him how
+to write comedy): they believed that they eminently succeeded in
+catching each other's manner, and to such a nicety, that they
+could write together, without the handiwork of one being
+distinguishable from the handiwork of the other. In this spirit
+Shakespeare wrote with Fletcher; Dekker with William Rowley; Ford,
+too, with Dekker; numerous others similarly composed in
+companionship, Middleton, Marston, Day and Heywood; but any one
+acquainted with their separate productions, consequently, with
+their style and language can hardly fail to point out what this
+one wrote, and what was written by the other. Test this by
+Shakespeare, who, it would be supposed, is the most difficult to
+detect because it is generally stated and believed that he wrote
+in a variety of styles; it is only a seeming variety; his mode of
+versification certainly differs--he changed his measures with his
+subjects; still the same fancy is always at work, impressing
+images with strength on the mind; there is no change in the
+weightiness of the style, the quaintness of the language, the
+justness of the representations, the depth of the reflections,
+whether he be writing the two worst plays in which he took part
+(for portions only seem to have been supplied by him), Pericles
+and Titus Andronicus, or his two best, conceived so massively and
+executed in such a masterly manner, Macbeth and Othello. In the
+Two Noble Kinsmen, which he wrote with Fletcher, any body familiar
+with his acknowledged dramas, can trace him as easily as a
+traveller follows with his finger the course of the Rhone while
+that river is traversing the Lake of Geneva; for one can tell with
+as much certainty, as if assured of it, that he wrote the whole
+opening of that tragedy, or First Act, while his light, airy and
+more sprightly collaborator wrote all the closing part, or last
+Act.
+
+Now, the author of the Annals seems to have displayed remarkable
+diligence in a careful study of the style and language of Tacitus
+with the view of reproducing them in the multiplicity and variety
+of expressions that would necessarily occur in the course of the
+very long work he meditated forging. To judge from his handiwork,
+he was specially struck by certain peculiarities:--such as
+dignified and powerful expression, with extraordinary conciseness
+joined to loftiness of diction;--hence, his brevity, being
+dissembled, and altogether foreign to his own natural diction,
+which was most copious, has a hardness and obscurity, of which the
+brevity of Tacitus is totally void. He seems to have furthermore
+observed how the language of Tacitus has a poetical complexion, is
+figurative, nor altogether free from oratorical tinsel with
+mixture of foreign, especially Greek construction, and the most
+peculiar, new and unusual turns of expression, alliterations and
+similar endings of words. Yet notwithstanding all this care and
+diligence he was utterly incapable of approaching in language and
+style so close to the great original he pretended to be as to be
+confounded with him; he was, indeed, not a bit more successful in
+approaching his prototype, than that emulous imitator of Tacitus,
+Ammianus Marcellinus.
+
+Much might be taken from the Excursus of Roth and the Prolegomena
+of Döderlein and Bötticher greatly to strengthen this part of my
+argument; but, their treatises being well known, I abstain, merely
+observing that, from their remarks, it will be seen that only in
+the Annals are verbs constructed in a very uncommon and frequently
+archaic manner, as the ancient perfect, _conpesivere_ (IV. 32), of
+which there is no example in Tacitus, as there is in Catullus:
+
+    O Latonia, maximi
+    Magna progenies Jovis,
+    Quam mater prope Deliam
+   _Deposivit_ olivam. XXXIV. 5-8.
+
+It will be also seen in the above-mentioned most able production
+of Döderlein that the infinitive and the particles _ut, ne_
+and _quod_ are joined with many verbs; that there is an
+interchange of _ad_ and _ut_ (An. II. 62); a joining of
+the present and the perfect, and a joining of the infinitive with
+those two tenses. In the midst of this damaging criticism
+Döderlein quotes Walther, who has also commented upon the Annals,
+but in terms of enthusiastic commendation, for he praises such
+writing as first-rate workmanship--"adjustments by design," says
+the ingenious German; not, of course, the unconscious errors, that
+a modern European might make in a case of forgery: the discovery
+reminds me of Mr. Ruskin's unqualified eulogies of everything done
+by the brush of Turner, which caused the great artist to observe:
+--"This gentleman has found out to be beauties what I have always
+considered to be blemishes."
+
+Professor Hill, also, in his "Essay upon the Principles of Historical
+Composition" has noticed in the Annals some modes of construction
+not to be met with in any Roman writer, such as a wrong case after
+a verb,--a genitive after _apiscor_ which governs an accusative:
+"dum _dominationis_ apisceretur" (VI. 45); and an accusative after
+_praesideo_ which governs a dative: "_proximum_ que Galliae _litus_
+rostratae naves praesidebant" (IV. 5).
+
+IV. Here let me pause for a moment to glance at a prodigious thing
+that has been done to Tacitus: it really has no parallel in
+literature: a number of foreigners have impugned his knowledge of
+his native tongue. The learned German, Rheinach (Beatus Rhenanus),
+began, for he could not admit in his Basle edition in 1533 of the
+works of Tacitus that the language of that Roman was equal to the
+language of Livy, being florid, affected, stiff and unnatural; his
+observation being, that "though Tacitus was without elegance and
+purity in his language, from Latin in his time being deteriorated
+by foreign turns and figures of speech; yet there was one thing he
+retained in its entirety, and that was blood and marrow in his
+matter": "Quamvis Tacitus caruerit nitore et puritate linguae,
+abeunte jam Romano sermone in peregrinas formas atque figuras;
+succum tamen et sanguinem rerum incorruptum retinuit." Eight years
+after the famous Tuscan lawyer and scholar, Ferretti, followed by
+accusing Tacitus in the preface to the edition of his works
+published at Lyons in 1541, of writing with inelegance and
+impurity: "consequently," he says, "in the estimation of eminent
+literary men Tacitus is not to be ranked after, but rather before
+Livy; and yet his style, which was florid, though smacking of the
+thought and care that pleased in the days of Vespasian and his
+son, and which, from that time,--on account of the Latin language
+gradually declining in purity,--steadily degenerated into a kind
+of affected composition, ought not to be placed on a par with nor
+preferred to Livy's, whose language flows naturally and agreeably,
+for his was the age of the greatest purity": "Unde factum, ut
+praestantium in literis virorum judicio Livio non sit postponendus
+Tacitus, quin potius anteferendus: non quod hujus floridum, ac
+meditationem et curam olens dicendi genus, quale sub Vespasianis
+placuit, ac indies exin degeneravit in affectatam quandam
+compositionem, exolescente paulatim sermonis latini puritate,
+Livianae dictioni, illi naturaliter amabiliterque fluenti (nam id
+seculum purissimum fuit), aequari debeat, aut praeferri." Next
+came the Milanese schoolman, Alciati, who preferred the certainly
+sometimes elegant and polished phrases of Paulus Jovius (in his
+letter to Jovius himself prefixed to the edition of 1558 of the
+renowned Bishop of Nocera de' Pagani's principal production, the
+45 books of Historia Sui Temporis):--"they will not ask of you the
+reason why you have not reached the soft exuberance of Livy, after
+you have thoroughly regretted imitating the calm solemnity of
+Sallust, and been satisfied with only the few flowers you have
+plucked with a discriminative hand out of the gardens of Quintus
+Curtius more frequently than the thorny thickets of Cornelius
+Tacitus": "Non reposcent a te rationem, cur lacteam Livii
+ubertatem non sis assecutus; postquam et te omnino piguerit
+Sallustii sobrietatem imitari, et satis tibi fuerit pauculos
+tantum flores ex Quinti Curtii pratis, soepius quam ex Cornelii
+Taciti senticetis arguta manu decerpsisse." Then succeeded, as
+fast as flakes falling in a snow-storm, a long string of acute
+critics, each with his just objections, and each more pointed than
+his predecessors in his animadversions, down to the present day,
+when, I suppose it may be said that the eminent Dr. Nipperdey
+stands foremost amongst the exposers of the bad Latinity of
+Tacitus. The Tacitus, thus universally proclaimed, and for nearly
+a dozen generations, not to be a competent master of his own
+tongue, is not the Tacitus of the History, it is the "Tacitus" of
+the Annals; and when hereafter I point out who this "Tacitus" of
+the Annals was,--an Italian "Grammaticus," or "Latin writer" of
+the fifteenth century,--the reader will not be at all surprised
+that he every now and then slips and trips in Latin;--on the
+contrary, the reader would be amazed if it were not so; because he
+would regard it as a thing more than phenomenal,--as a matter
+partaking of the miraculous;--he must consider himself as coming
+in contact with a being altogether superhuman;--if the "Tacitus"
+of the fifteenth century, who, as a Florentine, may have been a
+complete master of the choicest Tuscan, had written with the
+correctness of the Tacitus of the first century, who, as befitted
+a "civis Romanus" of consular rank, was perfectly skilled in his
+native tongue;--aye, quite as much so as Livy, Sallust, or any
+other accomplished man of letters of ancient Rome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE LATIN AND ALLITERATIONS IN THE ANNALS.
+
+
+I. Errors in Latin, (_a_) on the part of the transcriber;
+(_b_) on the part of the writer.--II. Diction and
+Alliterations: Wherein they differ from those of Tacitus.
+
+I.--An anecdote is told of our present sovereign that, on one
+occasion, conversing with the celebrated scene painter and naval
+artist, Clarkson Stanfield, her Majesty, hearing that he had been
+an "able-bodied seaman," was desirous of knowing how he could have
+left the Navy at an age sufficiently early to achieve greatness by
+pursuing his difficult art. The reply of Stanfield was that he had
+received his discharge when quite young in consequence of a fall
+from the fore-top which had lamed him,--and for the remainder of
+his life,--whereupon the Queen is stated to have exclaimed: "What
+a lucky tumble!" In a similar strain the author of the Annals,
+after he had handed over his work, according to the custom of his
+time, for transcription, must have been induced to exclaim, when
+he marked how the monk who had put his thoughts on vellum, had
+made him write nonsense in almost every other sentence: "What a
+lucky transcriber!" The knowledge that he would have a transcriber,
+who was no adept in Latin, must have been one of the greatest
+factors in his calculations as a forger. Otherwise how could
+he entertain the shadow of a hope that his book could pass current,
+when, in order that it should take its place in the first rank
+of Roman classics, it was imperative that he should write Latin
+to perfection. That was impossible; and his fabrication must
+have been detected immediately upon its publication, even though
+his age was destitute of philological criticism, unless everybody
+had known that the scribes in convents who copied the classics
+were famous for committing endless blunders in their transcriptions.
+Thus, his good fortune stood steadfastly by him all through his
+extraordinary forgery; at its initiation as well as during the
+subsequent stages of it.
+
+There was in his time a regular profession of transcribers, who
+may be looked upon as the precursors of printers. Numbered among
+them were some who had great fame for transcribing;--learned men,
+who knew Latin almost, if not quite, as well as they knew their
+mother-tongue, Cosimo of Cremona, Leonardo Giustiniani of Venice,
+Guarino of Verona, Biondo Flavio, Gasparino Barzizza, Sarzana,
+Niccoli, Vitturi, Lazarino Resta, Faccino Ventraria, and some
+others;--in fact, a host; for nearly all the literary men, in
+consideration of the enormous sums they obtained for copies of the
+ancient classics carefully and correctly written, devoted
+themselves to the occupation of transcription, as, in these times,
+men of the highest attainments in letters, some, too, of the
+greatest, even European, celebrity, give their services, for the
+handsome remunerations they receive, to the newspaper and
+periodical press. But, in the fifteenth century, the vast majority
+of writers of manuscripts,--those who were in general employment
+from not commanding the high prices obtained by the "crack"
+transcribers, and might be compared to "penny-a-liners" among us,
+suppliers of scraps of news to the papers,--were still to be found
+only in convents, knowing more about ploughs than books, and for
+literary acquirements standing on a par with professors of
+handwriting and dancing masters of the present day. These monkish
+transcribers wrote down words as daws or parrots articulate them;
+for just as these birds do not know the meaning of what they
+utter, so these scribes in monasteries did not understand the
+signification of the phrases which they copied. We can easily
+understand how to these manipulators of the pen an infinite number
+of passages in the Annals, which are still "posers" to the most
+expert classical professors in the leading Universities of Europe,
+must have been as dark as the Delphic Oracle,--or the Punic
+speech of the Carthaginian in Plautus's Comedy of Poenulus to
+everybody (except, of course, the great Oriental linguist, Petit,
+who knew all about it, for in the second book of his
+"Miscellaneorum Libri Novem" he explains the whole speech, without
+the slightest fear of anybody correcting the mistakes into which
+he fell).
+
+The jumble occasioned by the interminable blunders of the monastic
+writers (for there were two of them, as will he hereafter seen)
+causes both the codices of the Annals to be phenomena for
+confusion. Unique as literary gems, and preserved in the
+Laurentian Medicean Library in Florence, they are the greatest
+attraction to literary sightseers visiting the lucky library in
+which they are carefully deposited; and, I believe, have a fancy
+value set upon them as a fancy value is set upon the Koh-i-noor.
+
+Any member of the medical faculty, even the latest licentiate of
+the Apothecaries Hall, who knows the fatal effect of wear and tear
+upon the system caused by ceaseless worry, can explain why
+Philippo Beroaldi the Younger departed this life five years after
+undergoing the labour of preparing for the press at the order of
+Leo X. the MS. found in the Westphalian Convent, containing the
+first six books of the Annals. When we consider the chaos in which
+that dismal MS. presented itself to the eyes of the unfortunate
+Professor in the University of Rome, we can readily conceive how
+he must have consulted, as he told us he did, "the learned, the
+judicious and the subtle" about the correction of errors of the
+knottiest nature which came upon him so fast that, to express
+their abundance, he instinctively borrows his figure of speech,
+from water gushing from a fountain or coming down in a cataract:--
+"the old manuscript," says he, "from which I have undertaken to
+transcribe and publish this volume, _gushes forth_ with a multiplicity
+of blunders:"--"vetus codex, unde hunc ipsum describendum atque
+invulgandum curavi, pluribus mendis _scatet_." One example, out
+of a legion, will suffice:--In the passage in the eleventh book
+where Narcissus is represented begging pardon of Claudius for not
+having told him of Messalina's intrigue, the MSS. at Florence and
+Rome run thus (according to the report of James Gronovius):
+"Is veniam in praeteritum petens quod ci CIS V&CTICIS PLAUCIO
+DIMU-lavisset." Half a century before, Vindelinus of Spire,--
+who distributed books to all the inhabitants of the world as
+Triptolemus of old distributed corn,--broke the back-bone of
+this gibberish, when first publishing the concluding books (from
+that Vatican MS. which is no longer to be found), by editing
+"quod _eicis Vecticis Plautio dissimu_ lavisset." Beroaldi altered
+this to "quod _ei cis Vectium Plaucium dissimu_ lavisset." This
+was retained in all editions, as the best that could be thought of,
+till Justus Lipsius, who collated the MSS. of Tacitus in the
+Vatican Library, as he collated the MSS. of other ancient authors
+in that and the Farnese and Sfortian Libraries, during his two
+years stay in Rome, changed it to "quod _ei cis Vectium cis
+Plautium dissimu_ lavisset." So for a century that remained as
+the latest improvement till again amended by John Frederic
+Gronovius, who, seeing the Vatican and Florentine MSS. while
+searching the treasures of literature in Italy during his tour in
+that country, edited _cis Vectios cis Plautios_. Most editors
+adopt, according to fancy, the rendering of Lipsius or Gronovius,
+on account of Vectius Valens and Plautius Lateranus being two
+distinguished Romans in the days of Claudius who intrigued with
+Messalina. For my own part, I prefer the conjectural emendation of
+the Bipontine editors who, giving up as hopeless the corrupted
+passage, edit "quod _incestae uxoris flagitia dissimu_ lavisset,"
+which, if not precisely what was written, carries with it the
+recommendation of being intelligible, and doing away with
+the unmeaning _cis_.
+
+On account of the corruption of the text in the two oldest MSS.
+that supply the Annals,--the First and Second Florence,--I am
+aware what care must be taken, when touching upon the Latin in the
+Annals, not to ascribe to the author faults that were the errors
+of other people. One ought to be guarded when coming across
+"reditus," which ought to be "rediturus" (II. 63), and "datum,"
+which ought to be "daturum" (II. 73).
+
+I must pause to observe that, here as elsewhere, in examining the
+Latinity of the Annals, I cite from the original editions of the
+last six books by Vindelinus of Spire published in 1470, and the
+first six books by Beroaldus published in 1515, all editions now
+in use having "rediturus" and "daturum," but without the authority
+of a single MS.
+
+These blunders we may fairly father on the monkish transcribers,
+the more so as their handiworks abound with faults, arising from
+one of these four causes,--inability of perceiving propriety of
+expression; which people call "stupidity"; disinclination to the
+requisite exertion; known as "laziness";--misunderstanding the
+meaning of the author, or destitution of knowledge.
+
+The errors that spring from ignorance are the most striking; they
+show the purely negative state of the transcribers' minds; how
+uninformed they were of facts, and how uninstructed in arts,
+literature or science. Evidently the transcriber of the first Six
+Books had never heard of the "Sacerdotes Titii," and seeing that
+the author had mentioned Tatius in the first portion of the clause
+in a passage in the First Book (54), he writes "Sodales _Ta_tios,"
+instead of "Sodales _Ti_tios";--"ut quondam Titus _Tatius_ retinendis
+Sabinorum sacris sodales _Tatios_ instituerat"; just as evidently,
+from ignorance of the language, having no notion what the author
+was saying in another passage in the Second Book (2), but seeing
+that he had used the word "majorum" in the previous sentence, he
+writes nonsensically "ipsorum _majoribus_" for "ipsorum _moribus_"
+(II. 2); nor knowing what the "propatulum" was in a Roman house,
+but misled by the author having almost immediately before (IV. 72)
+spoken of "soldiers being fastened to the patibulum"--or, as we
+should say, "hanged on the gallows,"--he writes (IV. 74), "in
+_propatibulo_ servitium" instead of "in _propatulo_ servitium,"
+the "propatulum" being an open uncovered court-yard, differing
+from the "aedium," as being in the forepart of the dwelling.
+
+How illiterate he and the transcriber of the last Six Books were
+will be seen in examples and remarks by Kritz in his Prolegomena
+to Velleius Paterculus; by Döderlein in his Preface to his edition
+of Tacitus; by Ernesti in his Notes to the Annals; by Sauppe, the
+able editor of the Oratores Attici, in his Epistolae Criticae,
+addressed to his learned relation, Godfrey Hermann, and, above
+all, by Herä, in his "Studia Critica," or elaborate treatise on
+the Florentine Manuscripts of Tacitus. Both transcribers seem to
+have had a taste for rhyming and to have thought that the beauty
+of writing Latin consisted in obtaining jingles, to get which they
+mix up two words into one, as "san_us_ repert_us_," for "san_e_ is
+repertus" (VI. 14); or coining, as "_templores flores_," for
+"_templorum fores_" (II. 82); or changing the termination of a word,
+in order that it may resemble in sound, the word that follows, as
+"don_aria_ mili_taria_" for "_dona militaria_" (I. 44); or the
+word that precedes, as "potu_isset_ tradi_disset_" for "potuisset
+tradi" (XII. 61).
+
+The same bungling is shown with respect to adjectives, the number,
+gender and case of which are changed, as "tris_tios_ primordio,"
+for "tris_tiores_ primordio" (I. 7); "amore an odio incert_as_"
+for "amore an odio incert_um_" (XIII. 9), and "conqueren_tium_
+irritum laborem," for "conqueren_te_ irritum laborem" (XV. 17).
+The number, mood and tense of verbs are also changed as "quotiens
+concordes agunt sper_nun_tur: Parthus," for "quotiens concords
+agunt, sper_ni_tur Parthus" (VI. 42); "nationes promptum habe_re_"
+for "nationes promptum habar_et_," and "neque dubium habe_retur_"
+for "neque dubium ha_betur_." (XII. 61).
+
+They sometimes succeed, from their stupidity or laziness, in
+completely puzzling the reader by omitting syllables, and transposing
+and substituting consonants and vowels, thus producing the most
+confounding gibberish, as "_pars nipulique_" for "Pharasmani
+Polemonique" (XIV. 26); or adding a letter, as "m_orte_m" for
+"m_ore_m" (III. 26), or omitting a syllable, as "eff_unt_" for
+"eff_und_unt" (VI. 33). From the same fault they every now and
+then double a letter, as "Ami_ss_iam" for "Ami_s_iam", or omit
+one of the double letters, as "antefe_r_entur" for "antefe_rr_entur"
+(1. 8); or, when two words occur, one ending, and the other beginning
+with the same letter, they either omit the last letter of the
+preceding word, as "event_u_ Suetonius" for "event_us_ Suetonius"
+(XIV. 36), or the first letter of the following word as "quipped
+_l_apsum" for "quippe _e_lapsum" (V. 10). But it is in single
+syllables or words or letters that they most abound in errors,
+frequently omitting them without the mark of a _lacuna_, or any
+defect; now they omit single letters, when the second word begins
+with the same letter as that with which the first ends; at times
+in the first word, as "victori_a_ sacrari," for "victoria_s_ sacrari"
+(III. 18); at times in the second word, as "ad _e_os" for "ad _d_eos"
+(I. 11) now they add single letters as "vitae ejus" for "vit_a_ ejus"
+(I. 9), or "a_u_diturus" for "aditurus" (XV. 36); or voluntarily
+add a syllable, that the termination of one word may correspond
+to the commencement of another, as "Stratonicidi_ve_ _ve_neri" for
+"Stratonicidi Veneri" (III. 63), or repeat syllables or words
+(what is called "dittography"), as "Cujus adversa pravitati _ipsius_,
+prospera ad fortunam _ipsius_ referebat" (XIV. 38). Puteolanus
+was the first to throw out the second _ipsius_, and substitute
+for it "reipublicae," which most of the editors of Tacitus have
+retained, though Brotier edits, I cannot help thinking properly,
+on account of the antithesis in which the Author of the Annals
+delighted:--"whose adversity he ascribed to his depravity, and
+whose prosperity to his good fortune":--"cujus adversa, pravitati
+ipsius; prospera, ad fortunam referebat" (XIV. 38); so that the
+second _ipsius_ in the MS. is not wrong, only inelegant and unnecessary.
+
+Having thus seen the nature of the errors committed by the transcribers,
+we may now pass on to what we must consider as the errors of the
+writer. There is very little doubt that he alone is responsible
+for the following: using the poetic form "celebris" for the prose
+form "celeber"--Romanis haud perinde _celebris_ (II. 88, in fin.),
+which so startled Ernesti that he is almost sure the author must
+have written "celebratus;" still he would not dare to alter it on
+account of its being repeated on two other occasions--Pons Mulvius
+in eo tempore _celebris_ (XIII. 47): Servilius, diu foro, mox
+tradendis rebus Romanis _celebris_ (XIV. 19);--so merely contents
+himself with the observation that "those who are desirous of writing
+elegant Latin will not imitate it:" "studiosi elegantiae in scribendo
+non imitabuntur." Those desirous of attaining an elegant style
+would not write as in the Annals, "exauctorare," with the meaning
+of "putting out of the ranks and into the reserve," as when we find
+it stated that "a discharge should be given to those who had served
+twenty years, and that those should be _put out of the ranks and
+into the reserve_, who had gone through sixteen years' service,
+there to be kept as auxiliary troops, free from the other duties
+which it was customary to render to the State, except that of
+repelling the invasion of an enemy":--"missionem dari vicena stipendia
+meritis; _exauctorari_, qui senadena fecissent, ac retineri sub
+vexillo, ceterorum immunes nisi propulsandi hostis" (An. I. 36);--
+here we have a meaning of the word "exauctorare" very different
+from its sense of "a final discharge," in which it is understood
+by Tacitus towards the opening of his History, when he is
+describing the distracted state of Rome, and continues: "during
+such a crisis tribunes were _finally discharged_, Antonius
+Taurus and Antonius Naso, from the body guard; Aemilius Pacensis
+from the troops garrisoned at Rome, and Julius Fronto from the
+watch": "_exauctorati_ per cos dies tribuni, e praetorio
+Antonius Taurus et Antonius Naso; ex urbanis cohortibus Aemilius
+Pacensis; e vigiliis Julius Fronto" (Hist. I. 20);--nor would a
+person desirous of writing graceful Latin use "destinari" for
+being "elected" to an office, as "_destinari_ consules" (An. I. 3)
+where Tacitus uses "designari,"--"consule _designato_"
+(Hist I. 6).
+
+Grammatical mistakes of the most extraordinary character are
+sometimes made. There is neglect of indispensable attraction; "non
+medicinam _illud_" (I. 49) for "_illam_," and "non enim, preces
+sunt _istud_" (II. 38) for "_istae_;"--proper Latinity requires
+that, in "nihil reliqui faciunt quominus invidi_am_, misericordi_am_,
+met_um_ et ir_as_ _per_mov_erent_ (I. 21), the four nouns should
+be in either the ablative or genitive, and the verb in the present,
+with (as Dr. Nipperdey says) _moveant_ in preference to _permoveant_.
+"An" is used as an equivalent to "vel;"--"metu invidiae, _an_ (vel)
+ratus" (II. 22,) and as if synonymous with "sive," "sive fatali
+vecordia, _an_" (seu, or sive) "imminentium periculorum remedium"
+(XI. 26.) In the sentence where Tiberius is described as, according
+to rumour, being pained with grief at his own and the Roman people's
+contemptible position for no other "reason" more than that Tacfarinas,
+a robber and deserter, would treat with them like a regular enemy:--
+we have the only instance in a classical composition reputed to be
+written by an ancient Roman, of "alias" conveying the idea of _cause_,
+instead of being an adverb of _time_:--"Nec _alias_ magis sua
+populique Romani contumelia indoluisse Caesarem ferunt, quam quod
+desertor et praedo hostium more agerat" (III. 73).
+
+These errors we must believe to be the author's; considering their
+gravity, we are compelled to ask ourselves the question: "Could
+this writer have been an ancient Roman?" If we answer in the
+affirmative, how can we explain coming repeatedly across this sort
+of writing, "lacu IN ipso" (XII. 56), that is, a monosyllabic
+preposition placed between a substantive and an adjective or
+pronoun, a kind of composition found in the poets, but disapproved
+by the prose-writers, who, if so placing a preposition, used a
+dissyllable and put the adjective first. Independently of a
+monosyllabic preposition thus standing frequently between a
+substantive and an adjective or pronoun (judice _ab_ uno:
+III. 10--urbe _ex_ ipsa: XII. 56--senatuque _in_ ipso and
+urbe _in_ ipsa: XIV. 42 & 53.--portu _in_ ipso XV. 18); there
+are other occasional abnormal collocations of the preposition,
+such as, after two words combined by a copulative particle,
+or two of them: diisque et patria _coram_ (IV. 8), Poppaea
+et Tigellino _coram_ (XV. 61) and between two words connected
+by apposition: montem _apud_ Erycum (IV. 43), uxore _ab_ Octavia
+(IV. 43--XIII. 12). These usages are not found in the other
+works ascribed to Tacitus, nor any of the ancient Latin
+prose-writers; though common enough in the poets, the three
+instances being found in Virgil;--the first in the Aeneid:--
+
+   "Cum litora fervere late
+    Prospiceres arce _ex_ summa:"
+    Aen. IV. 409-10;
+
+   "Vespere _ab_ atro
+    Consurgunt venti:" Aen. V. 19-20
+
+And--
+
+   "Graditur bellum _ad_ crudele Camilla:"
+    Ib. XI. 535;
+
+The second in the Georgics:
+
+   "Si non tanta quies iret frigusque caloremque
+   _Inter_:"
+    Georg. II. 344;
+
+And shortly after,
+
+   "Pagos et compita _circum_:"
+    Ib. 382;
+
+And the third in the Aeneid:
+
+   "Duros mille labores
+    Rege _sub_ Eurystheo, fatis Junonis iniquae,
+    Pertulerit:"
+    Aen. VIII. 291-3.
+
+The Latinity, therefore, is good; but though good, it can scarcely
+be said to be that of an ancient Roman; for an ancient Roman never
+resorted to such inflexions in prose, only when writing poetry to
+get over the difficulties of rhythm; hence a modern European would
+easily fall into the error, from taking the Latin of Virgil to be
+most perfect; and from deeming that what was done in verse could,
+with equal propriety, be done in prose.
+
+Though nothing could be more natural than for a modern European to
+think that the right Latin for "good deeds," was "bona facta"
+(III. 40), an ancient Roman would have written "_bene_ facta,"
+just as he would have used for the expression "if bounds were
+observed," "si modus _adhiberetur_," not "si modus _adjiceretur_"
+(III. 6). He would have followed "inscitia" with a genitive,
+as Tacitus, "inscitiam ceterorum" (Hist. I. 54), and not with
+a preposition, as "finis inscitiae _erga_ domum suam" (XI. 25),
+for "an end of ignorance of his family"; nor have used that noun
+absolutely, as "quo fidem _inscitiae_ pararet" (XV. 58); "in order
+that he should create a belief in his ignorance." Instead of
+"hi _molium objectus_, hi proximas scaphas scandere" (XIV. 8),
+for "some clambered up the heights that lay in front of them,
+some into the skiffs that were nigh at hand," he would have used
+the participle, "_moles objectas_"; and written "_loca_ opportuna"
+instead of "_locorum_ opportuna permunivit" (IV. 24), for "he fortified
+convenient places."
+
+Ancient writers among the Romans, such as Cicero and Livy, used
+the comparative in both clauses with quanto and tanto; the more
+recent writers, such as Tacitus and Sallust, used the comparative
+with them in, at least, one clause. We find in the Annals these
+ablatives of quantus and tantus, as if their real force was not
+known, used with the positive in both clauses. A European putting
+into Latin: "the more closely he had at one time applied himself
+to public business, the more wholly he gave himself up to secret
+debaucheries and vicious idleness;" would think his language quite
+correct when he wrote: "quanto _intentus_ olim publicas _ad_ curas"
+(mark the place of the monosyllabic preposition), "tanto occultos
+_in_ luxus" (again), "et malum otium _resolutus_" (IV. 67).
+
+A Roman did not use the verb "pergere" in the sense of "continuing
+or proceeding" in a _matter_, only of "continuing or proceeding"
+where there is _bodily motion_. Yet the author of the Annals for
+"things would come to a successful issue, that they were going on
+with," has "prospere cessura, quae _pergerent_" (I. 28); an ancient
+Roman would have written "per_a_gerent," as may be seen from Livy,
+who expresses "I will go on with the achievements in peace and war":
+"res pace belloque gestas _peragam_" (II. 1); Pliny, "let us now go
+on with the remainder": "reliqua nunc _peragemus_" (N.H. VI. 32, 2);
+and Cornelius Nepos, "but he went on, not otherwise than one would
+have thought, in his purpose": "tamen propositum nihilo secius
+_peregit_" (Att. 22). As many will believe, contrary to myself,
+that this was a blunder of the copyist (notwithstanding that it
+is not in the style of his blundering), I will not insist upon it;
+though I must insist upon the following being an error on the part
+of the writer for "giving praises and thanks":--"laudes et grates
+_habentem_" (I. 69): A Roman could not have said that: had he used
+"laudes et grates," his phrase would have been "laudes et grates
+_agentem_";--had he used "habentem," his phrase would have been
+"laudes et grat_iam_" (or grat_ias_) "habentem." "Diisque et
+_patria_ coram)" (IV. 8), is much more in keeping with the ragged
+language of St. Jerome in his Vulgate than the precision of Tacitus
+in his History:--There are two mistakes: the first is the collocation
+of the preposition which has been already noticed; the second is the
+phrase "standing before the _eyes_ of a country," which is the real
+meaning of "patria _coram_"; it is akin to "looking a matter in the
+_face_," which is met with,--(and which I almost deem elegant,)--
+in the cumbrous oratory of Lord Castlereagh, but which I should be
+very much astonished to discover had originated from the lips of
+another statesman, the very opposite in speech of the renowned
+Foreign Secretary,--the ornate and correct rhetorician, so famed
+for the concinnity of his phrases, the Earl of Beaconsfield.
+
+II. From the diction point of view, the Annals could not have been
+written by Tacitus, as the language at times is anybody's but his.
+When "ubi" signifies "where" (at the place itself), and not
+"whither" (to a distance from the place where a person stands),
+"Answer me, Blaesus, _whither_ have you thrown the corpse?"
+"Responde, Blaese, _ubi_" (quo?) "cadaver abjeceris?" (I. 22)
+it is the language of Suetonius in that passage in the life of
+Galba, where he speaks of Patrobius casting the Emperor's head
+into that place, where by Galba's order Patrobius's patron had
+been assassinated; "eo loco, _ubi_" (quo) "jussu Galbae
+animadversum in patronum suum fuerat, abjecit" (Galb. 20). When
+two words are coupled with que--que we have the language of the
+poets, Virgil, Ovid, Terence, Silius Italicus, Manilius, and among
+prose writers, Sallust (exempli gratia) "meque regnumque" (Jug. 10)
+when "infecta" is used in the sense of "poisoned," "infected":
+"the times were so infected and soiled with sycophancy"--"tempora
+illa adeo _infecta_ et adulatione sordida fuere" (III. 65),
+we have the language of Pliny the Elder, when speaking of honey
+"not being infected with leaves," that is, not having the taste of
+leaves--"minime fronde infectum" (N.H. XIII. 13); and when "que,"
+as if it were "et," means "too," or "also,"--"till that was _also_
+forbidden": "donec id_que_ vetitum" (IV. 74), and "his mines of
+gold, _too_": "aurarias_que_ ejus"(VI. 19), we have the language
+of Pliny the Younger, "me, _too_, from boyhood," "me_que_ a pueritia"
+(Ep. IV. 19). Just as Cicero uses "domestic" for "personal;"--"exempla
+domestica, "_my own_ speeches" the author of the Annals uses "at home"
+for "personal," and "personally";--"_domi_ artes" (III. 69),
+"_personal_ qualities;"--"_domi_ partam" (XIII. 42), "_personally_
+acquired." When he desires to put into Latin: "How honourable
+their liberty regained by victory, and how much more intolerable
+their slavery if again subdued," he writes: "quam decora victoribus
+libertas, quanto _intolerantior_ servitus iterum victis" (III. 45),
+misapplying "intolerantior" for "intolerabilior" with Florus (IV. 12),
+who is clever in committing errors in grammar and geography. There
+is ringing the changes with Livy, when we read in the Annals (II. 24)
+"_quanto_ violentior, _tantum_" (for tanto) "illa," and in the great
+Roman historian, "_quantum_" (for quanto) "laxaverat, _tanto_ magis"
+(Livy XXXII. 5). It is using, too, in the sense of Livy (XLI. 8, 5)
+the verb "differere," instead of the customary expression, "rejicere."
+The language is peculiar to himself when he uses "differre" for
+"spargere" in the phrase "and to be spread abroad among foreigners":
+"differique etiam per externos" (III. 12), as the style is peculiar
+to himself in omitting the past time (fuisse) when no doubt is left
+by the preceding context or the immediate sequel in the same sentence,
+that the past time is referred to in the passage where Silius
+boasts that "his soldiers continued to be loyal, while others fell
+into sedition; and that his empire would not have remained to
+Tiberius, if there had been a desire for revolution also in those
+legions of his": "suum militem in obsequio duravisse, cum alii ad
+seditiones prolaberentur: neque mansurum Tiberio imperium, si iis
+quoque legionibus cupido novandi fuisset" (IV. 18), where after
+"mansurum," according to Dr. Nipperdey, there should be "fuisse."
+
+Further proof is afforded by the use of the word "imperator," that
+the diction in the Annals is not that of Tacitus. Having lived in
+the time of the Caesars, he never could have heard a countryman in
+speech or writing use "Imperator" other than as signifying one
+individual, not the commander in chief of the army, but the
+occupant of the supreme civil authority, "Imperator" being the
+noun proper of "imperium." In this restricted sense Tacitus always
+uses the word, because it was understood with that signification
+by every Roman of his time. For example, in his Agricola (39), he
+means by "imperatoria laus" "the renown in arms of the Emperor,"
+who was then Domitian. The author of the Annals, who was not aware
+of this nice distinction, uses Imperator, not as it was used in
+the time of Tacitus, but as it was used in the days of the
+Republic. He, too, like Tacitus, uses the noun in its adjectival
+form, but he does not apply it, as Tacitus does, to that which
+belongs to the Emperor, but to that which belongs to a general;
+for he means by "imperatoria laus" (II. 52), "the fame of a
+general," even of Germanicus. He seems to have thought that it
+could be given to any member of the imperial house, for he applies
+it without distinction to Germanicus, who was the son of an
+Emperor, as to the Emperors Caligula, Claudius and Nero, when
+speaking of the daughter of Germanicus, Agrippina, who was the
+mother of Nero, wife of Claudius and sister of Caligula: "quam
+_imperatore genitam_, sororem ejus, qui rerum potitus sit, et
+conjugem et matrem fuisse" (XII. 42); he applies it even to the
+wife of an Emperor's son, for he styles Agrippina, the wife of
+Germanicus, "imperatoria uxor" (I. 41); he gives the title to the
+barbarian generals among the Germans (II. 45), which no Roman in
+the time of the Empire, or, perhaps, even of the Republic, could
+have possibly done; and, further, to military chiefs, who
+corresponded then to our present generals of division, for, when
+speaking of Caractacus as "superior in rank to other _generals_
+of the Britons," he expresses himself: "ceteros Britannorum
+_imperatores_ praemineret" (XII. 33).
+
+That a modern European wrote the Annals is also very clear from
+the undistinguishing use in that work of the cognate word,
+"princeps," which, like "imperator," had two different meanings at
+two different periods of Roman history, meaning, in the time of
+the Republic, merely "a leading man of the City," and, in the time
+of the Empire, the Emperor only. This every Roman, of course,
+discriminated; hence Tacitus everywhere uses the word in its
+strictly confined sense of "Emperor" (Hist. I. 4, 5, 56, 79 _et al._).
+For "the leading men of the Country," his phrase is not, as a
+Roman would have expressed himself in the Republican period,
+"principes viri urbis," but "primores civitatis." The author of
+the Annals, who was in the dark as to this, uses "principes" in
+the Republican sense of "leading men," as occurs in the
+observation: "the same thing became not the _principal
+citizens_ and imperial people" (meaning, the aristocracy and
+freemen), "as became humble" homes (meaning, the dregs of the
+populace), or, "States" (meaning, the occupants of thrones): "non
+cadem decora _principibus viris_ et imperatori populo, quae
+modicis domibus aut civitatibus" (III. 6). He also misapplies the
+word to the sons of Emperors, as if he were under the impression
+that they were styled "princes" by the ancient Romans as by modern
+Europeans, for thus he speaks of the sons of Tiberius, Drusus and
+Germanicus: "except that Marcus Silanus out of affront to the
+Consulate sought that office for the _princes_": "nisi quod
+Marcus Silanus ex contumelia consulatus honorem _principibus_
+petivit" (III. 57).
+
+The author of the Annals is quite as remarkable as Tacitus for
+antithesis: sometimes two antitheses occur together in Tacitus in
+the same clause. He is as remarkable for an equal balancing of
+phrases. But only in the Annals is the style of Tacitus mingled
+with the manner of some other Roman writer, as the easy and
+flowing redundance of Livy (I. 32, 33); the peculiar
+alliterations, triplets, ring of the sentences and flow of
+narrative of Sallust (XIV. 60-4), the antiquated expressions, new
+words, Greek idioms, and concise and nervous diction throughout of
+that historian; along with words and phrases, borrowed from the
+poets, especially Tibullus, Propertius, Catullus, above all,
+Virgil.
+
+There is neither in Tacitus, nor the author of the Annals, the
+strength and sublimity of expression found in that great master of
+rhetoric, Cicero. The eloquence of Tacitus is grave and majestic,
+his language copious and florid. The language of the author of the
+Annals is cramped; and he maintains a dignified composure, rather
+than majesty; occasionally he has an inward laugh in a mood of
+irony, as when commending Claudius for "clemency," in allowing a
+man,--whom he has sentenced to execution, to choose his own mode
+of death. His close, dry way, too, of saying things savours of
+harshness, and differs widely from the Greek severeness of manner
+observable in Tacitus. The crucial test is to be found in a few
+trifling matters of style. So far from displaying the same care as
+Tacitus to avoid a discordant jingle of three like endings, he
+will write bad Latin to get at the intolerable recurrence. Rather
+than have a similar ending to three words Tacitus will depart from
+his rule of composition which is to balance phrases,--"dissipation,
+industry"; "insolence, courtesy";--"bad, good";--but to avoid
+a jingle he writes "luxuria, industria"; _comitate, arrogantia"_;
+"malis bonisque artibus mixtus" (Hist. I. 10), his usual style
+of composition requiring "luxuri_a_, industri_a_; arroganti_a_,
+comitate." He prefers incorrect Latin to such sounds. He writes,
+"coque Poppaeam Sabinam--deposuerat" (Hist. I. 13), instead of
+what the best Latinity required, "coque j_am_ Poppae_am_
+Sabin_am_." The author of the Annals, not having his exquisite
+ear, nor abhorrence of inharmonious concurrence of sounds,
+actually goes out of his way, by disregarding grammar, carefully
+to do Tacitus, also by disregard of grammar, as carefully avoided,
+to procure three like endings, as "uter_que_ opibus_que_ at_que_
+honoribus pervignere" (An. III. 27), when Tacitus would have
+unquestionably written, "uterque opibusque _et,_" and, moreover,
+have written correctly, because the Romans never followed "que"
+with "atque," always with "et."
+
+The author of the Annals falls into the opposite fault of having
+three like beginnings as "_a_dhuc Augustum _a_pud" (I. 5), which
+is in the style of Livy or Cicero, but not Tacitus. At the same
+time no writer is so fond of alliteration as Tacitus; yet he
+resorts to it with so much judgment, that it never grates on the
+ear, and with so much art that it all but passes notice. It is
+perceptible in the Germany and the Agricola as well as the
+History; though in the latter work it is carried to greater
+perfection, and is more systematically used, being found in almost
+every paragraph. The rule with Tacitus is this:--When he resorts
+to alliteration in the middle of a sentence where there is no
+pause, he uses words that differ in length, as "_justis
+judiciis_ approbatum" (Hist. I. 3), "_tot terrarum_ orbe"
+(I. 4), "_pars populi_ integra" (6); and so throughout the
+History, till at the close, we find the same thing uniformly going
+on:--"_miscebantur minis_ promissa" (V. 24); "_poena
+poenitentiam_ fateantur" (V. 25); "_Vespasianum vetus_
+mihi observantiam" (V. 26). But--and particular attention is
+called to this--when the alliteration is found at the end of a
+sentence, or (where there is a pause) in the middle of a sentence,
+he prefers words of the same length, but different quantities, as,
+at the beginning of the History;--_senectuti seposui_ (I. l);
+"_plerumque permixta_; "_sterile saeculum_" (ibid); and so
+throughout the work to the end, where we still find the same
+regularity of identical alliteration: "_clamore cognitum_"
+(V. 18); "_coeptâ coede_" (V. 22); "_oequoris electum_"
+(V. 23); "_merito mutare_" (V. 24). This peculiarity of
+composition, so distinctive of Tacitus, unfortunately for his
+forgery, ENTIRELY escaped the attention of the author of the
+Annals; he seems to have thought that any kind of alliteration, so
+long as it was constantly carried on, would sufficiently mark the
+style of Tacitus. Accordingly he has all kinds of alliterations,
+except the right ones, for they are quite different from, and,
+indeed, the very reverse of those of Tacitus; sometimes they are
+twofold (I. 6); sometimes threefold (I. 5); sometimes even four
+together--"posita, puerili praetexta principes" (I. 8);--from
+which last Tacitus would have shrunk with horror at the sight, as
+Mozart is stated to have rebounded and swooned at the discordant
+blare of a trumpet. As to using in the middle of sentences words
+that differ in length as a rule they do not, from the first of the
+kind, "_ortum octo_" (I. 3), to the last of the kind, "_voce vultu_"
+(XVI. 29); at the end of sentences, he uses words that, instead of
+not differing, do differ in from the first of the kind, "_Augustum
+adsumebatur_" (I. 8), to the last of the kind "_sortem subiret_"
+(XVI. 32) and "_sestertium singulis_" (XVI. 33).
+
+After this overwhelming proof of forgery, I need not press another
+syllable upon the reader. If not convinced by this, he will be
+convinced by nothing; for here is just that little blunder which a
+forger is sure to make: so far from being insignificant it is all-
+important; it swells out into proportions of colossal magnitude,
+at once disclosing the whole imposture, it being absolutely
+impossible that Tacitus should have so systematically adhered to a
+particular kind of alliteration in that part of his history which
+deals with Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian, and have so
+suddenly and utterly neglected or ignored it in that part of the
+history which deals with Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero.
+
+
+END OF BOOK THE FIRST.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE SECOND.
+
+BRACCIOLINI.
+
+
+    Si per se virtus sine fortuna ponderanda sit, dubito an hunc
+    primum omnium ponam.
+     CORNELIUS NEPOS. _Thrasybulus._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BRACCIOLINI IN ROME.
+
+
+I. His genius and the greatness of his age.--II. His qualifications.
+--III. His early career.--IV. The character of Niccolo Niccoli, who
+abetted him in the forgery.--V. Bracciolini's descriptive writing
+of the Burning of Jerome of Prague compared with the descriptive
+writing of the Sham Sea Fight in the Twelfth Book of the Annals.
+
+Though I have dwelt on the harshness of style and manner, and the
+occasional inaccuracies in grammar and language of the author of
+the Annals, it must not be supposed that I fail to appreciate his
+merit. In some of the qualities that denote a great writer he is
+superior to Tacitus; nor can anyone, not reading him in his
+original form, conceive an adequate notion of how his powers
+culminate into true genius,--what a master he is of eloquence, and
+how happy in expressing his very beautiful sentiments, which,
+sometimes having the nature of a proverb or an epigram, please by
+the placing of a word. His general ideas are scarcely retained in
+a translation: such a reproduction deprives them of the train of
+images and impressions which cluster round them in his language of
+poetry and suggestion, giving them spirit and interest, and
+imparting to them strength and ornament:--As winter is thrown over
+a landscape by the hand of nature, so coldness is thrown over his
+page by the hand of a translator: the student who can familiarize
+himself with his thoughts as expressed in the tongue in which he
+wrote, and reads a translation, is in the position of a man who
+can walk in summer along the bank of a majestic river flowing
+beautifully calm and stately by meadows pranked with flowers and
+woods waving in varied hues of green, yet prefers visiting the
+scene in winter when life and freshness are fled, the river being
+frozen, the flowers and greenness gone from the fields, and the
+leaves fallen from the trees.
+
+The question arises,--Who was this wonderful man? If unknown, can
+he not be discovered?
+
+John Leycester Adolphus, famous for his History of George the Third,
+discovered the author of the Waverley Novels in Sir Walter Scott,
+when the Wizard of the North was styled "The Great Unknown," by
+pointing out coincidences in the pieces and poems, known to be
+the productions of Scott, in such matters as the correct morals,
+the refined manners, the Scotch words and idioms, the descriptive
+power, the picturesque and dramatic fancy, the neat, colloquial
+turns in dialogue, the quaint similes, the sprinkle of metaphors,
+the love of dogs, the eloquent touches with regard to the pure
+and tender relations of father and daughter; and clinched the
+investigation by showing the freedom and correctness in the use
+of law-terms and phrases, which indicated clearly that the author
+was a lawyer. It being easy when a way has been shown to follow
+in the track, I turned to the period in question, which, I knew,
+must be the first half of the fifteenth century, to look for a writer,
+whose qualities, literary and moral,--or rather immoral,--could win
+for him the triumphal car of being the Author of the Annals--if
+triumph can, in any way, be associated with such ingloriousness
+as forgery,--and, after a little looking about, I found him in
+one whose compositions display, not to a remote, but in a close
+degree the energy, the animation, the feeling, the genius, the
+true taste, the deep meaning, and glimpses, ever and anon, of that
+signal power, which, rising into truly awful magnificence, of
+looking deeply into the darkest recesses of the human heart,
+runs through the Annals like the shining waters of a river in
+whose rich sands roll grains of gold.
+
+The age of that writer was instinct with mental power: men were
+giants of intellect: Italy had soared to the highest pinnacle in
+the domain of mind, unequalled by preceding ages, except those of
+Pericles and Augustus: beginning in the fourteenth Century with
+Dante and Petrarch, and ending at the beginning of the sixteenth
+with the father of the modern political system, Machiavelli, it
+rose to the highest point of its altitude, and remained there
+through the whole of the fifteenth, when such bright lights shone
+constantly in the meridian of mind, as that Prince of the Church,
+Cardinal Sadoleti, great as a poet, equally great as a philosopher,
+whose poems on Curtius and the Curtian Lake and the Statue of Laocoon
+would have done honour to Virgil, while in his "De Laudibus Philosophiae"
+Cicero lives again in style and manner of thinking.
+
+During that long interval of splendour, achievements of the
+intellect are upon record that fully establish the existence of
+the most remarkable genius. Poliziano in a letter (Ep. XII. 2) to
+Prince Pico of Mirandola tells of one of these marvellous feats
+that was done by a youthful prodigy, only eleven years old, of the
+great family of Orsini (Fabius Ursinus). First young, Fabio Orsini
+sang; then recited verses of his own: requested to turn the verse
+into prose, he repeated the same thoughts unfettered by measure in
+an unassuming manner, and with an appropriate and choice flow of
+expression. After that subjects were proposed to him for
+epistolary correspondence, on which he was to dictate ex tempore
+to five amanuenses at once, the subjects given being "of a nature
+so novel, various, and withal so ludicrous that he could not have
+been prepared for them": after a moment's pause he dictated a few
+words to the first amanuensis on one subject; gave his
+instructions on a different theme to the second; proceeded in like
+manner with the rest, then returning to the first, "filled up
+every chasm and connected the suspended thread of his argument so
+that nothing appeared discordant or disjointed," and, at the same
+instant, finished the five letters. "If he lives," concluded
+Poliziano, "to complete the measure of his days," and "perseveres
+in the path of fame, as he has begun, he will, I venture to
+predict, prove a person, whom, for admirable qualities and
+attainments, mankind must unite to venerate as something more than
+human."
+
+In that age some men had such an enthusiastic predilection to
+antiquity that they were animated by an ardent zeal for collecting
+ancient manuscripts, medals, inscriptions, statues, monumental
+fragments, and other ancient and classical remains. Others, again,
+were suspected of the intention to impose their own productions on
+the public as works of antiquity; one man, who never ceased to
+regret that it had not been his lot to live in the days of Roman
+splendour, Peter of Calabria, styled himself in his Commentaries
+on Virgil, Julius Pomponius Sabinus, and in his notes to
+Columella, Julius Pomponius Fortunatus, his object in both
+instances being that he should be mistaken for some Roman who had
+flourished in the purest ages of Latinity; and Foy-Vaillant, the
+celebrated numismatist of the seventeenth century, actually places
+him, in one of his numismatical works, in the list of ancient
+authors, while Justus Lipsius and Pithaeus both took him to have
+been a "Grammaticus", or "writer in Latin," of the earlier middle
+ages, all the time that he was an Italian academician, who
+flourished in the fifteenth century, having been born in 1425 at a
+place that has been called "The Garden of Almond Trees,"--
+Amendolara, in Upper Calabria.
+
+It would be idle to suppose that the author of the Annals was
+actuated by the simple purpose of Peter of Calabria; there is
+ground for believing that some deeper, and less pure, motive
+instigated him to commit forgery. Though no Peter of Calabria, he
+was a matured Fabio Orsini; and the only drawback from his
+fabricated work is that it is not to be looked upon as Roman
+history, always in the most reliable shape, but rather as a form
+of the imagination which he selected for expressing his views on
+humanity;--to paint crime; to castigate tyranny; to vindicate
+honesty; to portray the abomination of corruption, the turpitude
+of debauchery and the baseness of servility;--to represent
+fortitude in its strength and grandeur, innocence in its grace and
+beauty, while standing forth the sturdy admirer of heroism and
+freedom; the tender friend of virtue in misfortune; the austere
+enemy of successful criminality, and the inflexible dispenser of
+good and evil repute.
+
+That a man of such great parts and extensive learning, with such
+fine thoughts, beautiful sentiments and wise reflections;--such a
+cool, abstracted philosopher, yet such an over-refined
+politician;--such a gloomy moralist, yet such an acute, fastidious
+observer of men and manners, was a cloistered monk or any obscure
+individual whatever was an idea to be immediately dispelled from
+the mind, for that the Annals was composed by such a man would
+have been about as incomprehensible an occurrence, as it would be
+impossible to conceive that an acrobat who exercises gymnastic
+tricks upon the backs of galloping horses in an American circus
+could discharge the functions of a First Lord of the Treasury or a
+Justice in the High Court of Judicature, or that a pantaloon in a
+Christmas pantomime could think out the Principia of Sir Isaac
+Newton or the Novum Organum of Lord Bacon. The fact was, the
+author was a conspicuous, shining light of his generation; the
+associate of princes and ministers; who, from the commanding
+position of his exalted eminence, cast his eyes over wide views of
+mankind that stretched into sweeping vistas of artifice and
+dissimulation; and who, for close upon half a century,
+participated prominently in the active business,--the subdolous
+and knavish politics,--of his time.
+
+II. Everybody knows the fable of the old man, the boy and the ass;
+but not one in a thousand knows that it was written nearly four
+hundred years ago by a man who for forty years was a member of the
+Secretariate to nine Popes, from Innocent VII. to Calixtus III.
+First in the Bugiale of the Vatican, where the officers of the
+Roman Chancery, when discussing the news of the day, were making
+merry with sarcasms, jests, tales and anecdotes, one of the party
+having observed that those who craved popularity were chained to a
+miserable slavery, it being impossible from the variety of
+opinions that prevailed to please everybody, some approving one
+course of conduct, and others another, the fable in question was
+narrated in confirmation of that statement.
+
+Poggio Bracciolini was not only the author of that fable, I am now
+about to bring forward reasons for believing, and with the view of
+inducing the reader to agree with me, that he,--and nobody else
+but he,--was the writer of the Annals of Tacitus.
+
+He was in every way qualified to undertake, and succeed in, that
+egregious task. He was one of the most profound scholars of his
+age, more learned than Traversari, the Camaldolese, and if less
+learned than Andrea Biglia, superior to the Augustinian Hermit in
+a more natural, easy and cultivated style of composition and in a
+wider knowledge of the world: acquainted somewhat with Greek and
+slightly with Hebrew, he possessed a masterly and critical
+knowledge of Latin which he had carefully studied in his native
+city, Florence, with the most accomplished Latinist of the day,
+Petrarch's valued friend, the illustrious Giovanni Malpaghino of
+Ravenna.
+
+Bracciolini was not of a character to have revolted at the
+baseness of fabrication;--an inordinate love of riches, more
+devouring in his breast than his next strongest passion, love of
+knowledge, was sufficient to egg him on to it. Throughout life,
+his moral conduct was unfavourably influenced by the scantiness of
+his means. It was to beguile the anxiety occasioned by his narrow
+circumstances that he devoted himself to intense study, from
+knowing that superior attainments combined with splendid talents
+would secure for him great offices of trust and profit: he saw how
+those who were esteemed the most learned as well as the most able
+gained the best lucrative posts under the governments of the Popes
+and Princes of his day: he, therefore, employed himself in the
+pursuit of knowledge for the sake of attaining high rank and great
+wealth; knowledge was, accordingly, only so far pursued by him as
+it would be productive of money, and get him through the world in
+honour and affluence. Up to the age of twenty-six he had the run
+of, what was then considered,--when good manuscripts were
+uncommonly costly and very scarce,--a magnificent library of 800
+volumes, that belonged to his veteran friend, Coluccio Salutati,
+Chancellor of the Republic of Florence; amid those stores of
+knowledge he courted the Muses ardently, all the while cultivating
+diligently the acquaintance of the leaders of society, uniting the
+character of the scholar with that of the man of the world, and
+becoming as accomplished in politeness and as profound in mastery
+of the human heart as in scholarship and learning;--qualities
+conspicuous in his acknowledged writings, no less than in that
+extraordinary masterpiece, the Annals of Tacitus.
+
+Notwithstanding that the period in which he flourished was
+remarkable for its number of men, who, by their genius and
+learning revived the golden ages of ancient literature, he was
+admitted by all to be without his equal, be it in erudition or
+intellect, power of writing or intimacy with Latin. Guarino of
+Verona, in spite of the severity with which he was treated by him
+in his controversies, likens him, in one of his Epistles (Ep.
+Egreg. Viro Poggio Flor. 26 Maji 1455), to "the purest models of
+antiquity," and commends him for his "vigorous eloquence and
+encyclopaedic stores of information": "pristini socculi floret, et
+viget eloquentia, virtutisque thesaurus." Another of the best
+spirits of that age, Benedotto Accolti of Arezzo, in his work on
+the Eminent Men of his Time, puts him on a level with, if not
+superior to any of the ancient historians, Livy and Sallust alone
+excepted; for he says, "some of whom" (he is speaking, along with
+Bracciolini, of Bruni, Marsuppini, Guarino, Rossi, Manetti, and
+Traversari) "so wrote history, that, with the exception of Livy
+and Sallust, there were none of the ancients to whom they might
+not justly be considered as equal or superior"--"quorum aliqui ita
+historias conscripserunt, ut Livio et Sallustio exceptis, nulli
+veterum sint, quibus illi non pares aut superiores fuisse recte
+existimentur" (Benedict. Accoltus Arez. in Dial. de Praest. Viris
+sui aevi. Muratori. t. XX. p. 179). L'Enfant does not make this
+exception, for, speaking of Bracciolini's History of Florence, he
+says, that in "reading it one is reminded of Livy, Sallust and the
+best historians of antiquity":--"A légard de son Histoire, on ne
+sauroit le lire sans y reconnoître Tite Live, Salluste, et les
+meilleurs historiens de l'antiquité" (Poggiana, Vol. II. p. 83).
+Sismondi, too, in the opening pages of the 8th volume of his
+"Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du Moyen Age," says in a
+footnote (p. 5) that Bracciolini, in common with Leonardo Bruni
+and Coluccio Salutati carried off the palm as a Latin writer from
+all his predecessors in the fourteenth century:--"à la fin du
+siècle on vit paroitre Leonardo Bruni, dit d'Arétin, Poggio
+Bracciolini, et Coluccio Salutati, qui devoient l'emporter, comme
+écrivains Latins, sur tous leurs prédecesseurs." Although Sismondi
+is quite right as to the date when Bruni and Salutati flourished,
+he is altogether wrong in supposing that Bracciolini made an
+appearance before the public at any time in the fourteenth
+century; quite at the end of it he was only in his twentieth year:
+the next century had well advanced towards the close of its first
+quarter before (with the exception of some Epistles) he began to
+write, which was not until after he had passed his fortieth year.
+
+Along with these superior merits of an intellectual writer thus
+freely accorded to him by some of his more distinguished
+contemporaries and by illustrious historians, Bracciolini
+possessed the plastic power that makes the forger. He wrote in a
+great variety of styles and manners; sometimes treating subjects
+with condensation, and sometimes with diffusiveness. His language
+is elevated and his sentences are rounded and smooth in his
+Funeral Orations, in which there is no inflation, nothing
+declamatory, a perfect absence of straining after effect, yet a
+rising with ease into veins of sublime rhetoric, while he is
+close, severe and antique:--hence the principal position that is
+given to him as an orator by Porcellio in a poem where Marsuppini
+is called upon to chaunt the praises of Ciriano of Ancona (see
+Tiraboschi, VI. 286): in ascribing to Marsuppini the place of
+honour, Porcellio leaves others who are inferior in verse-making
+to follow; such as, he says, "_the_ Orator Poggio, the
+sublime Vegio, and Flavio, the Historian":--
+
+    Tuque, Aretine, prior, qui cantas laude poetam,
+    Karole, sic jubeo, sit tibi primus honos.
+    Post alii subeant: Orator Poggius ille,
+    Vegius altiloquus, Flavius Historicus.
+
+Then it would seem that, as Vegio and Biondo Flavio were, in the
+opinion of Porcellio, unsurpassed, the first, for the sublimity of
+his diction, and the second, by his historical writing, so
+Bracciolini was lifted by his oratory above all his
+contemporaries. Wit, polish, and keen sarcasm, with abundance of
+acute observations on the human character, distinguish his Essay
+on Hypocrisy, published at Cologne in 1535 by Orthuinus Gratius
+Daventriensis in his "Fasciculus Rerum Expetendarum et
+Fugiendarum." His Letters are written in an easy, agreeable style,
+with constant sportiveness and endless felicity of expression. In
+his Dialogues he is delicate, lively, and careful. Facility and
+happiness of diction are conspicuous in his "Description of the
+Ruins of the City of Rome," along with accuracy and
+picturesqueness in representation of objects. But whatever he did,
+all his writings (including the Annals), bear the stamp of one
+mind: they indicate alike the predominance of three powers
+exercised in an equal and uncommon degree, and without which no
+one can stand, as he does, on the loftiest pedestal of literary
+merit,--sensibility, imagination and judgment, working together
+like one compact, indivisible faculty.
+
+In addition to this versatility in composition, which enabled him
+to imitate any writer, his career fitted him for the production of
+the Annals by instilling into his mind the peculiar principles of
+morals and behaviour which find apt illustration in that work. No
+one could have written that book who had not been admitted within
+the veil which hides the daily transactions of the great from the
+profane eyes of the vulgar; and who had not come into frequent
+personal contact with courts that were corrupt, and with princes,
+ministers and leading men of society who were objects of
+unqualified abhorrence.
+
+III. Young Bracciolini who as the son of a notary of Florence in
+embarrassed circumstances, inherited no advantages of rank or
+fortune, when he had attained, at the age of 23, a competent
+knowledge of the learned languages under the instruction of
+Malpaghino, Chrysolaras [Endnote 136] and a Jewish Rabbi, made his
+first entry into life by receiving admission, perhaps,--it being
+the common custom in the fifteenth century,--by purchase, into the
+Pontifical Chancery as a writer of the Apostolic Letters. At that
+early age the scene that opened itself to his eyes was calculated
+to destroy all faith in the goodness of human nature. He found in
+the occupant of St. Peter's Chair, in Boniface IX., a man,
+ambitious, avaricious, insincere in his dealings, and guilty of
+the most flagrant simony, bestowing all Church preferments upon
+the best bidder, without regard to merit or learning, and making
+it his study to enrich his family and relations.
+
+Bracciolini did not come into the closest communion with the Popes
+till he became their Principal Secretary, which was when he was
+between forty and fifty years of age, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini,
+afterwards Pius II., stating in the 54th chapter of his History of
+Europe that he "dictated" (or caused to be written) "the
+Pontifical Letters during the time of three Popes";-"Poggium ...
+qui Secretarius Apostolicas tribus quondam Romanis Pontificibus
+dictarat Epistolas";--and though Aeneas Sylvius does not mention
+the names of the Pontiffs, he must have meant Martin V. (1417),
+Eugenius IV. (1431) and Nicholas V. (1447). Nevertheless, as one
+of the writers of the Apostolic Letters, Bracciolini was in a
+position to have seen a great deal that left a lasting impression
+on his mind of the wickedness of a corrupt court, the Papal one at
+this period being thus described by Leonardo Bruni, to Francis,
+Lord of Cortona:--"full of ill-designing people, too apt to
+suspect others of crimes, which they themselves would not scruple
+to commit, and some, out of love for calumny, taking delight in
+spreading reports, which they themselves did not credit"; so that
+when Innocent VII. died suddenly of apoplexy, the rumour gained
+belief that he had been poisoned, a violent death seeming quite a
+natural end to a life of leniency to murder.
+
+Not one star of light shone across the long and dreary gloom of
+the papal court experiences of Bracciolini. On the deposition of
+Gregory XII. for that Pope's duplicity and share in the intrigues
+and dissensions which disgraced the Pontifical palace for three
+years, Bracciolini seems to have retired from Rome, and to have
+remained a resident in Florence during the greater part of the ten
+months' reign of the mild, pious and philosophical Alexander V.,
+the only able and virtuous divine, who sat in those dark times on
+St. Peter's throne.
+
+IV. For losing that one glimpse of light in public life,
+Bracciolini was more than compensated by a beam of beneficent
+Fortune in his private career, which threw such lustre on his
+path, that it rescued him from what must have been his inevitable
+fate, morbid cynicism: it was one of the happiest incidents that
+ever occurred to him:--he formed the acquaintance of a man,
+seventeen years his senior--who, in the lapse of a very short
+time, became to him a father and adviser, to whom present or
+absent he imparted every one of his schemes, thoughts, cares,
+sayings and doings; who was the unfailing allayer of his
+anxieties, alleviator of his sorrows, and most constant support of
+all his undertakings,--Niccolo Niccoli,--of whom I must take
+notice, as he was one of the most active stimulators of the
+forgery of the Annals.
+
+Though by no means affluent, and frequently straitened in
+circumstances ("homo nequaquam opulens, et rerum persaepe inops,"
+says Bracciolini of him, Or. Fun. III.), nevertheless, he made
+enough money, as well as possessed the munificent spirit to build
+at his own expense, and present to the Convent of the Holy Spirit
+in Florence an edifice in which to deposit the books bequeathed to
+the Brothers by Boccaccio; and, at his death, he left to the
+public in the same City his own manuscripts, which he had
+accumulated at great cost and with much pains. He was one of the
+few laymen, not to be found out of Italy, who had learning and a
+knowledge of Latin, which he had acquired with that eminent
+scholar, philosopher and theologian, about half a dozen of whose
+works have come down to us, Ludovicus Marsilius; but learning and
+Latin were essential to the carrying on of his very pleasant and
+most lucrative occupation;--that of amending and collating
+manuscripts previous to their disposal for coin; a business, in
+which, we are told by Bracciolini, that he surpassed everybody in
+excessive expertness ("solertissimus omnium fuit in emendis ac
+comparandis libris fructuosissima ac pulcherrima omnium
+negotiatione," Or. in Fun. Nic. Nic.); we can, consequently,
+conceive what immense sums he must have received for manuscripts
+of the best ancient Greek and Roman classics, when properly spelt,
+correctly punctuated, and freed from errors.
+
+His qualities, as enumerated by his friend, Bracciolini, in a most
+enthusiastic Funeral Oration over his remains (Pog. Op. 273-4),
+were such as to show, if there be no exaggeration in the
+description of him, that he was as much a wonder as any of the
+great Oracles of his age. His attainments were varied; his
+information extensive; his judgment sound, and to be relied upon,
+being given not for the mere sake of assent nor for flattery, but
+for what he believed to be true; "he got into a considerable
+sweat," says Bracciolini, "when he read Greek," ("in Graecis
+literis plurimum insudavit"), but was enabled to range over every
+department of literature in Latin, of which his knowledge was
+critical and most masterly, for the same authority assures us "not
+a word could be mentioned, the force and etymology of which he did
+not know"--"nullum proferebatur verbum cujus vim et originem
+ignoraret" in geography he stood without a rival; for, his memory,
+being like a vice, retaining everything he read, even to names, he
+knew the minutiae, of every country better than those who had been
+residents in them; though he rarely practised the art, he was a
+master of rhetoric; as a conversationist he held his company in
+entranced silence from the wisdom of his remarks, the dulcet flow
+of his words, and his transcendent memory bringing together from
+all quarters, with appropriateness to every subject under
+discussion, the valuable stock of his miscellaneous reading.
+Nothing could be more natural than that such a wonderful instance
+of the human intellect should court the congenial society of
+lovers of learning; he made his house the resort for them; and he
+placed at the disposal of the studious his library, which was the
+best in Florence, now that Salutati's, after his death, had been
+disposed of by his sons at auction.
+
+Bracciolini was so struck by the attainments and captivated by the
+character of this man, that an acquaintance casually formed
+speedily ripened into an intimacy of the most confidential,
+cordial and communicative kind. Bracciolini, during his stay in
+Florence, was a guest in the house of Niccoli; and there, for
+nearly a year, he resumed and pursued his studies with ardour amid
+the rich stores of the large and select assortment of manuscripts,
+amounting to not far from a thousand in number. He was thus adding
+to the treasures of his lore with daily assiduity, when the news
+reached Florence that Cardinal Cossa had (notwithstanding the
+well-known virtues of Alexander V.) poisoned his predecessor, and
+had been elected to the pontifical chair by the title of John XXIII.
+
+Behold Bracciolini once more in the palace of the Pontiffs of
+Rome; and now acting, in the capacity of Secretary, or, more
+properly, writer of the Apostolic Letters, to a Pope who was a
+poisoner. John XXIII. was even worse than that: he was a most
+atrocious violator of laws, human and divine; and some crimes he
+committed were so heinous that it would be indecent to place them
+before the public. One can imagine how agreeable must have been
+the occupation to that Pope of a military rather than an
+ecclesiastic turn, and fonder of deeds of violence and bloodshed
+than of acts of meekness and Christianity, when he was presiding
+at Constance over that General Council, which sent to the stake
+those Bohemian followers of the Morning Star of the Reformation,
+Huss and Jerome of Prague, to be burnt alive, according to general
+belief, with their clothes and everything about them, even to
+their purses and the money in them, and their ashes to be thrown
+into the Rhine; but, as will be immediately seen, from the account
+of an eye-witness, in a state of perfect nudity.
+
+V. Bracciolini, who witnessed the burning of Jerome of Prague,
+gives a description of it in one of his Epistles, in a manner
+equal to anything that may be found in the Annals;--indeed, many
+of his contemporaries thought that his Epistles reflected the
+style and spirit of antiquity,--Beccadelli of Bologna, for
+example, who says, writing to Bracciolini: "Your Epistles, which,
+in my opinion, reflect the very spirit of the ancients, and,
+especially, the antique style of Roman expression":--"Epistolae
+tuae, quae veterum sane, et antiquum illum eloquentiae Romanae
+morem, prae ceteris, mea sententia exprimunt" (at the end of Lusus
+ad Vencrem, p. 47). The style is simpler, more unambitious, and
+more flowing and smooth than is usually found in the Annals; but,
+(as in the descriptive passages in that work), free play is given
+to the fancy which works unclogged by verboseness; and judgment
+marks the circumstances in a description which progresses,
+apparently without art, to the close of the beautiful climax, and
+strongly moves the compassion of the reader:--"When he persisted
+with increased contumacy in his errors, he was condemned of heresy
+by the Council, and sentenced to be burnt alive. With an unruffled
+brow and cheerful countenance he went to his end; he was unawed by
+fire, or any kind of torture, or death. Never did any Stoic suffer
+death with a soul of so much fortitude and courage, as he seemed
+to meet it. When he came to the place of death, he stripped
+himself of his clothes, then dropping on his bended knees clasped
+the stake to which he was to be fastened: he was first bound naked
+to the stake with wet ropes, and then with a chain, after which
+not small, but large logs of wood with sticks thrown in among them
+were piled around him up to his breast; then when they were being
+set on fire he began to sing a sort of hymn, which the smoke and
+the flames hardly put a stop to. This was the greatest mark of his
+soul of fortitude: when the executioner wanted to light the fire
+behind his back, so that he should not see it, he called out,
+'Come here, and set fire to it before my eyes; for if I had been
+afraid of it, I never should have come to this place, which it was
+in my power to have avoided.' Thus did this man, perish, who was
+excellent in everything but faith. I saw the end of him; I watched
+every scene of it. Whether he acted from conviction or contumacy,
+you would have pronounced his the death of a man who belonged to
+the school of philosophy. I have laid before you a long narrative
+for the sake of occupation; having nothing to do I wanted to do
+something, and give an account of things very different, indeed,
+from the stories of the ancients; for the famous Mutius did not
+suffer his arm to be burnt with a soul so bold, as this man his
+whole body; nor Socrates drink poison half so willingly as he
+endured burning."
+
+I shall now place the passage before the reader in the Latin, as
+it was written by Bracciolini, with some words in Italics, upon
+which I shall afterwards comment:--
+
+"_Cum pertinacius_ in erroribus perseveraret, per Concilium
+haeresis damnatus est, et _igni_ combustus. Jucunda fronte et
+alacri vultu ad _exitum_ suum _accessit_, non _ignem_ expavit,
+non tormenti genus, non _mortis_. Nullus unquam Stoicorum fuit
+_tam constanti animo, tam_ forti _mortem_ perpessus, quam iste
+_oppetiisse_ videtur. _Cum_ venisset ad _locum mortis, se ipsum
+exuit vestimentis, tum_ procumbens, flexis genibus, veneratus est
+_palum_, ad quem ligatus fuit: primum funibus manentibus, _tum_
+catena undus ad _palum_ constrictus fuit; ligna deinde circumposita
+pectore tenus non minuscula, sed grossa palaeis interjectis,
+_tum_ flamma adhibita canere coepit hymnum quendam, quem fumus
+et _ignis_ vix interrupit. Hoc maximum _constantis animi_ signum:
+_cum_ lector _ignem_ post tergum, ne id _videret_, injicere vellet:
+--'huc,' inquit, '_accede_, atque in conspectu accende _ignem_;
+si enim illum timuissem, nunquam ad hunc _locum_ quem effugiendi
+facultus erat, _accessissem_.' Hoc modo vir, praeter fidem,
+egregius, consumptus est. _Vidi_ hunc _exitum_, singulos _actus_
+inspexi. Sive perfidia, sive _pertinacia_ id _egerit_, certe
+philosophiae schola interitum _viri_ descripsisses. Longam tibi
+cantilenam _narravi_ ocii causa, nihil _agens_ aliquid _agere_
+volui, et res tibi _narrare_ paulum similes histories priscorum.
+Nam neque Mutius ille _tam_ fidenti _animo_ passus est membrum
+uri, quam iste universum corpus; neque Socrates _tam_ sponte
+venenum bibit, quam iste _ignem_ suscepit." [Endnote 145]
+
+It will be seen, as a peculiarity in composition, that, in this
+not very long sentence, several words are re-introduced, and
+sometimes over and over again, when the repetition could have been
+avoided, as: "accedere," "agere," "videre," "narrare," "pertinacia,"
+"constans," "animus," "mors," "exitus," "ignis," "vir," "locus,"
+"palus," "cum," "tum," "tam," &c. As this runs through the whole
+of Bracciolini's compositions with much frequency, it is to be
+expected that it would be found to some extent in the Annals;
+because a man who so writes, writes thus unconsciously and
+unavoidably, and even when engaged in a forgery, striving to
+imitate the style and manner of another, he could not escape
+from so marked and distinctive a mannerism. Bracciolini,
+accordingly, is found adhering in the Annals to this uniformity of
+manner: many passages more forcibly illustrative of this
+peculiarity might be quoted; but I select the sham sea-fight in
+the XIIth book, for two reasons, because it is pretty much of the
+same length as the burning of Jerome of Prague, and because it is
+of a similar nature,--descriptive:--
+
+"Sub idem _tempus_, inter _lacum_ Fucinum amnemque Lirin perrupto
+monte, quo magnificentia _operis_ a pluribus _viseretur, lacu_ in
+ipso navale _proelium_ adornatur; ut quondam Augustus, structo cis
+Tiberim stagno, sed levibus navigiis et minore copia _ediderat._
+Claudius triremes quadriremesque et undeviginti hominum millia
+armavit, cincto _ratibus_ ambitu, ne vaga effugia forent; _ac_
+tamen spatium amplexus, ad _vim_ remigii, gubernantium artes,
+impetus _navium_, et _proelio_ solita. In _ratibus_ praetoriarum
+cohortium manipuli turmaeque adstiterant, antepositis propugnaculis,
+ex quis catapultae ballistaeque tenderentur: reliqua _lacus_
+classiarii tectis _navibus_ obtinebant. Ripas et colles, _ac_
+montium _edita_, in modum theatri _multitudo_ innumera complevit
+_proximis_ e municipiis, et alii urbe ex ipsa, _visendi cupidine_
+aut officio in _principem_. Ipse insigni paludamento, neque procul
+Agrippina chlamyde aurata, praesedere. _Pugnatum_, quamquam inter
+sontes, fortium virorum animo; _ac_, post multum vulnerum, occidioni
+exempti sunt. Sed perfecto _spectaculo_ apertum _aquarum_ iter.
+Incuria _operis_ manifesta fuit, haud satis depressi ad _lacus_
+ima vel media. Eoque, _tempore_ interjecto, altius effossi specus,
+et contrahendae rursus _multitudini_ gladiatorum _spectaculum editur_,
+inditis pontibus pedestrem ad _pugnam_. Quin et convivium effluvio
+_lacus_ adpositum, magna formidine cunctos adfecit; quia _vis aquarum_
+prorumpens _proxima_ trahebat, convulsis ulterioribus, aut fragore
+et sonitu exterritis. Simul Agrippina, trepidatione _principis_ usa,
+ministrum _operis_ Narcissum incusat _Cupidinis ac_ praedarum. Nec
+ille reticet, impotentiam muliebrem nimiasque spes ejus arguens."
+(An. XII. 56-7).
+
+In this passage it will be observed that the same thing takes place
+in the repetition of words:--"lacus," "ratis," "vis," "navis," "ac,"
+"multitudo," "Cupido," "princeps," "tempus," "spectaculum," "edere,"
+"proelium," "visere," "proximus," "aqua," "opus" and "pugna." The
+conjunctive particle "ac," is more particularly to be noted as an
+out of the way word for the ordinary copulative "et": "_ac_ tamen
+spatium amplexus"; "_ac_ montium edita"; "_ac_ post multum vulnerum,"
+occurring so frequently in such a brief sentence is just like the
+monotony of composition in the extract from Bracciolini with respect
+to "cum": "_cum_ pertinacius in erroribus perseveraret"; "_cum_
+venisset ad locum mortis"; "_cum_ lictor ignem post tergum," &c.
+
+But this is not all as to the resemblance which the passage from
+Bracciolini bears to the writing in the Annals. The expression
+"quam iste _oppetiise_," i.e. mortem, "videtur," has its
+exact counterpart in the Second Book of the Annals in the phrase:
+"vix cohibuere amici, quo minus eodem mari _oppeteret_," i.e.
+mortem (II. 24). When, too, Bracciolini says of Jerome of Prague,
+"_se ipsum exuit_ vestimentis," "_strips himself_ of his clothes,"
+instead of simply, "takes off his clothes,"--"exuit vestimenta,"--
+we have an expression precisely like that in the Annals, "_neutrum_
+datis a se praemiis _exuit_," that is, "_strips neither_ of the
+rewards which he had given him" (XIV. 55), instead of "takes away
+the rewards,"--"praemia exuit."
+
+But I will go by-and-bye more fully into matters of this kind. At
+present it is necessary that I should still pursue the career of
+Bracciolini,--or rather so much of it as is absolutely needed, in
+order that the reader may see how curiously it prepared and formed
+him to be the author of such a peculiar work as the Annals, which
+in its characteristic singularity, could have proceeded from him
+only, and by no manner of means from Tacitus.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+BRACCIOLINI IN LONDON.
+
+
+Gaining insight into the darkest passions from associating with
+Cardinal Beaufort.--II. His passage about London in the Fourteenth
+Book of the Annals examined.--And III. About the Parliament of
+England in the Fourth Book.
+
+I. In the autumn of 1418, after the breaking up of the Council of
+Constance, Bracciolini left Italy and accompanied to England a
+member of the Plantagenet family, the second son of John of Gaunt,
+Duke of Lancaster, Henry Beaufort, whose placid and beardless face
+the great Florentine seems to have first seen at the Ecumenical
+Council which that princely prelate had turned aside to visit in
+the course of a pilgrimage he was making to Jerusalem. Henry
+Beaufort was then Bishop of Winchester, but afterwards a Cardinal,
+and though there was another Prince of the Roman Church, Kemp,
+Archbishop of York and subsequently of Canterbury, Beaufort was
+always styled by the popular voice and in public acts "The
+Cardinal of England," on account, perhaps, of his Royal parentage
+and large wealth, more enormous than had been known since the days
+of the De Spencers: he had lands in manors, farms, chaces, parks
+and warrens in seven counties, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire,
+Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Somersetshire, Hampshire and Surrey,
+besides having the Customs of England mortgaged to him, and the
+cocket of the Port of Southampton with its dependencies,--an
+indebtedness of the State which is so far interesting as being the
+foundation of our National Debt.
+
+Bracciolini had now an opportunity of watching and unravelling the
+wiles of this august prelate and patron of his; he thus gained
+still more insight into the ways of the worldly and the feelings
+of the ambitious; acquired a masterly knowledge of the dark
+passions and became versed in the crooked policy of court
+intrigue. He had quitted provinces at home laid waste by hostile
+invasions and cities agitated by the discord of contending
+parties; Genoa sending warships to ravage in the Mediterranean,
+Venice reducing to subjection the smaller States along the
+Adriatic, and Florence warring with Pisa, still to fix his eyes on
+darkness and the degradation of humanity; for he was visiting a
+country,--as England was in the fifteenth century,--buried in the
+gloom of barbarism, and forlorn in its literary condition, with
+writers, unworthy the name of scholars, Walsingham and
+Whethamstede, Otterbourne and Elmham, inditing bald chronicles;
+students applying their minds to scholastic philosophy; divines
+confounding their wits with theological mysteries; and men with
+inclinations to science, as Thomas Northfield, losing themselves
+in witchcraft, divination and the barbarous jargon of astrology,
+while rendering themselves, at any moment, liable to be
+apprehended by order of the doctors and notaries who formed the
+Board of Commissioners for the discovery of magicians, enchanters
+and sorcerers; for it was the age when invention framed the lie of
+the day, the marvellous military leadership of Joan of Arc, and
+credulity stood as ready to receive it as little boys in nurseries
+the wondrous tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. Through this mist the
+figure of Cardinal Beaufort loomed largest, unsociable,
+disdainful, avaricious, immeasurably high-stomached (for he deemed
+himself on an equality with the king); and, in spite of immoderate
+riches, inordinately mean: along with these unamiable qualities,
+he upheld the policy of Martin V., which was to destroy the
+independence of the National Church of England: he was treacherous
+to his associates, and murderous thoughts were not strangers to
+his bosom.
+
+Bishop Milner, in his History of Winchester under the Plantagenets
+(Vol. I. p. 301), denies that there is solid ground in history for
+representing Beaufort as depraved, and condemns Shakespeare for
+having endowed Humphry, Duke of Gloucester, with merit of which he
+deprived the memory of Cardinal Beaufort. The late Dean Hook, too,
+in his elegantly written life of Archbishop Chicheley (p. 97) is
+of opinion that Beaufort "has appeared in history with his
+character drawn in darker colours than it deserves." Those two
+distinguished dignitaries, one of the Roman Catholic and the other
+of the English Church, do not then seem to have heard of the
+anecdote related by Agnes Strickland, in her Life of Katherine of
+Valois (p. 114), that Henry V., when Prince of Wales, was narrowly
+saved from murder by the fidelity of his little spaniel, whose
+restlessness caused the discovery of a man who was concealed
+behind the arras near the bed where the Prince was sleeping in the
+Green Chamber in the Palace at Westminster, and a dagger being
+found on the person of the intruder, he confessed that he was
+there by the order of Beaufort to kill the Prince in the night,
+showing that the Cardinal was guilty of a double treachery, for he
+was setting on the heir-apparent at the time to seize his father's
+crown; nor do Milner and Hook seem to have known that the death of
+the Duke of Gloucester was principally contrived by Wykeham's
+successor in the See of Winchester, and that, whether poisoned or
+not, the Duke was hurried out of the world in a very suspicious
+manner, one of the first acts of Margaret of Anjou after her
+coronation being, in conjunction with the Wintonian diocesan to
+bring about the death of that Prince after arresting him in a
+Parliament called for the purpose at St. Edmund's Bury;
+Shakespeare, accordingly, had historic truth with him, when he
+represented the Cardinal suffering on his death-bed the tortures
+of a murderer's guilty conscience, from being implicated in taking
+away by violence the life of Humphry, Duke of Gloucester:--
+
+    "Alive again! Then show me where he is,
+    I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him.
+    He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.
+    Comb down his hair. Look, look! it stands upright
+    Like lime twigs set to catch my winged soul.
+    Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary
+    Bring the strong poison that I bought of him":--
+
+to which a looker-on observes:--
+
+    "O! thou Eternal Mover of the Heavens,
+    Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch."
+
+It could have been with no gentle eye that Bracciolini looked on
+Cardinal Beaufort, whose "bad death," as Shakespeare makes the
+Earl of Warwick observe, "argued a monstrous life."
+
+Repeatedly in letters to his friend Niccoli, during two years and
+more of anxiety and discontent passed by him from 1420 to 1422 in
+the Palace of the Prince Prelate, Bracciolini complained bitterly
+of the magnificent promises not being fulfilled that the Cardinal
+had held forth to him on condition of his accompanying him to
+England. In vain he looked forward to considerable emolument; day
+after day he found himself doomed to the common lot of those who
+depend on the patronage of the great;--"in suing long to bide":--
+
+    "To lose good days that might be better spent;
+    To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
+    To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
+    To feed on hope; to pine on fear and sorrow;
+    To fret the soul with crosses and with cares;
+    To eat the heart through comfortless despairs;
+    To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
+    To spend, to give, to want, to be undone."
+
+And, really, Bracciolini may be said to have been "undone"; for
+when he got what he had bargained to purchase, the frivolous
+goodwill of his master, it was, as he expressed it, "the birth of
+the mouse after the labour of the mountain": he obtained a
+benefice of 120 florins a year, with what he did not anticipate
+would be attached to it,--hard work.
+
+In order to have a precise and not a vague and confused idea of
+the galling effect produced on his feelings by this offer, it is
+necessary to turn to two paragraphs (37, 38), in the Second Book
+of the Annals;--for I cannot divest myself of the suspicion that
+this incident in his life is there indirectly referred to, where
+an account is given that has no historical basis of the "nobilis
+juvenis, in paupertate manifesta," Marcus Hortalus, whose noble
+parentage and straightened circumstances closely corresponded to
+the birth and means of Bracciolini. When seeking recompense from
+Tiberius for his four sons, he calls on the Emperor to behold in
+them "the scions and offspring of what a multitude of consuls!
+what a multitude of dictators! which he says not to mortify, but
+to excite commiseration."--"En! stirps et progenies tot consulum!
+tot dictatorum! nec ad invidiam ista, sed conciliandae
+misericordiae refero;" commenting on which Justus Lipsius bursts
+into the angry exclamation: "What a braggart, lying speech on this
+man's part! For where was this multitude of consuls, this
+multitude of dictators? Why, I can find only one dictator and one
+consul in the Hortensian family; the dictator in the year of Rome,
+467, when the Commons revolted; and the Consul, Quintus
+Hortensius, the grandfather of the speaker,--who, perhaps,
+however, reckoned in the ancestors also in his mother's line":
+--"Vaniloqua hominis oratio et falsa! Ubi enim isti tot consules,
+tot dictatores? Certe ego in Hortensia gente unum, dictatorem
+reperio, et Consulem unum; dictatorem anno urbis 467 secessione
+plebis; consulem, Q. Hortensium hujus avum. Sed intellegit
+fortasse majores suos etiam ex gente materna."
+
+Lipsius would have spared himself the trouble of inditing this
+indignant note and throwing out this useless suggestion had he
+known that Bracciolini forged the Annals, and playfully
+interspersed his fabrication occasionally with fanciful characters
+and fictitious events. The picture of Marcus Hortalus, who had
+received from Augustus the munificent gift of a million sesterces,
+being in the days of Tiberius once more poor, married, with
+children, and seeking aid from the State for his four sons, seems
+to be all purely imaginary, introduced merely as a photograph from
+life, the feelings and conduct of Hortalus, after the treatment of
+his sons by Tiberius, being such a faithful reflex, as far as can
+be judged from his own confessions, of the feelings and conduct of
+Bracciolini himself after the way in which his hopes of preferment
+were blasted by Cardinal Beaufort. Just as Hortalus, if he had
+been left to himself, would have remained a bachelor, and only
+from pressure on the part of Augustus, became a husband, and,
+while incapable of supporting children, a father, so Bracciolini
+would have remained in Italy and never visited this country, had
+it not been for the importunities of the Cardinal, and never
+turned his thoughts to preferment in the Church, which he is
+invariably telling us he disliked, had not Beaufort given
+assurance that he would put him in the way of holding some high
+and lucrative post in England; and then when he received a paltry
+benefice, instead of expressing thanks like the other dependents
+on the Prince Prelate, he was silent, from fear of the power
+possessed by Beaufort, or from retaining even in his contracted
+fortunes the politeness which he had inherited from his noble
+forefathers:--"egere alii grates; siluit Hortalus, pavore, an
+avitae nobilitatis, etiam inter angustias fortunae, retinens"
+(An. II. 38).
+
+II. We are indebted to Bracciolini's stay among us for one or two
+matters that are interesting about our country. His two years'
+residence here filled him with a marked admiration of London as
+well as with the most confused ideas of the antiquity and
+greatness of its commerce; and though comments have already been
+made on his description of it as eminently absurd, the passage is
+too curious not to be examined again; the more so as it has misled
+good historians of London, who believing that the account actually
+proceeded from Tacitus, have taken it to be incontrovertibly true,
+whereas it is only true, if it be applied, as it is applicable
+only to the advanced state of society and the large commercial
+town of which Bracciolini was the eye witness towards the close of
+the reign of Henry V., and the commencement of that of his infant
+son and successor. The slightest investigation will carry
+conviction of this.
+
+A hundred years before the birth of Tacitus, Britain was so
+monstrously barbarous and obscure, that Julius Caesar, when
+wanting to invade it and wishing for information of its state and
+circumstances, could not gain that knowledge, because, as he tells
+us, "scarcely anybody but merchants visited Britain in those
+times, and no part of it, except the seacoast and the provinces
+opposite Gaul": ("neque enim temere praeter mercatores illo adiit
+quisquam, neque iis ipsis quidquam, praeter oram maritimam, atque
+eas regiones, quae sunt contra Gallias." (Caesar De Bell. Gall. IV. 20).
+From this we see that, in the middle of the century before the
+Christian era, the only trade with Britain was then confined
+to the shores, and the southern parts, from Kent to Cornwall: it
+is then, against every probability that, in a period extending
+over no more than about a hundred years, this trade should have
+extended up the navigable rivers and have reached London enough
+for it to have risen up, by the year 60 of our era, into an
+immense emporium and be known all over the world for its enormous
+commerce. That this was not the case we know from Strabo, who
+lived in the time of Augustus, and who, though saying a great deal
+about our island and its trade, has not a word about London,
+howbeit that the author of the Annals does record in his work that
+it was exceedingly famous for the number of the merchants who
+frequented it and the extent of its commerce; but it is not likely
+that it was so, if the whole island did no more trade than Strabo
+informs us, the articles exported from all Britain being
+insignificant and few;--corn and cattle; such metals as gold,
+silver, tin, lead and iron; slaves and hunting dogs (Strabo III.
+2. 9.--ib. 5. 11.--IV. 5. 2), which Oppian says were beagles.
+Musgrave, in his Belgicum Britannicum adds "cheese," from some
+wretched authority, for Strabo says that the natives at that time
+were as ignorant of the art of making cheese, as of gardening and
+every kind of husbandry:--[Greek: "Mae turopoiein dia taen apeirian,
+apeirous d'einai kai kaepeias kai allon georgikon."] (IV. 5. 2).
+
+The statement, then, that London had the very greatest reputation
+for the number of its merchants and commodities of trade in Nero's
+time is utterly unfounded--nothing more nor less than outrageously
+absurd; the picture, however, is quite true if London be considered
+at the time when Bracciolini was here. Its merchants then carried
+on a considerable trade with a number of foreign countries, to
+an extent far greater, and protected by commercial treaties much
+more numerous than previous to investigation I could have been
+led to suppose. The foreign merchants who principally came to the
+Port of London were those of Majorca, Sicily, and the other islands
+in the Mediterranean; the western parts of Morocco; Venice, Genoa,
+Florence and the other cities of Italy; Spain and Portugal; the
+subjects of the Duke of Brabant, Lorraine and Luxemburgh; of the
+Duke of Brittany, and of the Duke of Holland, Zealand, Hanneau
+and Friesland; the traders of the great manufacturing towns of
+Flanders; of the Hanse Towns of Germany, 64 in number, situated
+on the shores of the Baltic, the banks of the Rhine, and the other
+navigable rivers of Germany; the people of the great seaport towns
+of Prussia and Livonia, then subject to the Grand Master of the
+Teutonic Order of Knights, along with the traders of Sweden,
+Denmark, Norway and Iceland.
+
+In addition to these bringing their goods here in their own
+bottoms, a great number of other foreign merchants were
+established in London for managing the trade of their respective
+States and Cities, performing, in fact, the duties now attached to
+the office of Consul, first instituted by the maligned but
+enlightened Richard III. These foreign merchants being as powerful
+as they were numerous, formed themselves into Companies:
+independently of the German merchants of the Steel Yard, there
+were the Companies of the Lombards; the Caursini of Rome; the
+Peruchi, Scaldi, Friscobaldi and Bardi of Florence, and the
+Ballardi and Reisardi of Lucca. The Government protected them,
+and, as they were viewed with intense jealousy by the native
+traders, they were judged, in all disputes, not by the common law,
+but the merchant law, which was administered by the Mayor and
+Constables; and of the mediators in these disputes, two only were
+native, four being foreigners, two Germans and two Italians.
+
+The Londoners had made prodigious advances upon their forefathers
+in the commodities of merchandize in which they dealt. Their most
+valuable articles of exportation were wool and woollen clothes in
+great varieties and great quantity; corn; metals, particularly
+lead and tin; herrings from Yarmouth and Norfolk; salmon, salt,
+cheese, honey, wax, tallow, and several articles of smaller value.
+But their great trade was in foreign imports and that was entirely
+in the hands of foreign merchants who came here in shoals,
+bringing with them their gold and silver, in coin and bullion;
+different kinds of wines from the finest provinces in the south of
+France, and from Spain and Portugal; also from the two last
+countries (to enter into a nomenclature that's like the catalogue
+of an auctioneer for monotony of names and unconnectedness of
+things), figs, raisins, dates, oils, soap, wax, wool, liquorice,
+iron, wadmote, goat-fell, red-fell, saffron and quicksilver; wine,
+salt, linen and canvas from Brittany; corn, hemp, flax, tar,
+pitch, wax, osmond, iron, steel, copper, pelfry, thread, fustian,
+buckram, canvas, boards, bow-staves and wool-cards from Germany
+and Prussia; coffee, silk, oil, woad, black pepper, rock alum,
+gold and cloth of gold from Genoa; spices of all kinds, sweet
+wines and grocery wares, sugar and drugs, from Venice, Florence
+and the other Italian States; gold and other precious stones from
+Egypt and Arabia; oil of palm from the countries about Babylon;
+frankincense from Arabia; spiceries, drugs, aromatics of various
+kinds, silks and other fine fabrics from Turkey, India and other
+Oriental lands; silks from the manufactories established in
+Sicily, Spain, Majorca and Ivica; linen and woollen cloths of the
+finest texture and the most delicate colours from the looms of
+Flanders for the use of persons of high rank; the tapestries of
+Arras; and furs of various kinds and in great quantities from
+Russia, Norway and other northern countries. The native merchants
+of London, the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans, carried on an
+enormous inland trade. They supplied all parts of the kingdom with
+corn from the many granaries which filled the City of London.
+There was a constant buying and selling of live horned cattle and
+sheep. Trade was great among goldsmiths, jewellers, gilders,
+embroiderers, illuminators and painters; and makers of all kinds
+of commodities sent their goods from every part of the provinces,
+knowing that they were wanted and would meet with immediate
+purchasers.
+
+If those were the days when Florence had its Cosmo de' Medici, who
+spent millions of florins in building palaces, churches and
+charitable foundations to beautify his native town; and when
+Bourges had its Jean Coeur who was rich enough to furnish Lewis
+VII. with sufficient gold crowns to support the armies with which
+that monarch recovered his possessions from the English, London,
+too, had its Hende, Whittington and Norbury affluent and
+magnificent enough to lend their sovereign immense sums of money,
+and adorn the city in which they had amassed their stupendous
+fortunes with useful and ornamental buildings--Bridewells,
+Colleges, Hospitals, Guildhalls and Public Libraries. Well might
+Bracciolini, without the slightest particle of exaggeration, say
+of London, as he saw it, that it was "COPIA negotiatorum et
+commeatuum MAXIME CELEBRE" (An. XIV. 33).
+
+In leaving this passage I cannot help remarking that the
+expression, "copia negotiatorum et commeatuum," has a turn that is
+frequently found in the Annals; it is a cast of phrase not
+affected by Tacitus; but it is exactly the manner of arranging
+words in a sentence to which Sallust is partial: "frequentiam
+negotiatorum et commeatuum," he says in his "Jugurtha" (47); it is
+obvious that in this passage Sallust means by "commeatuus,"
+"supplies of corn and provisions," as it is equally obvious that
+Bracciolini (though following the phraseology of his favourite
+Latin author,) gives it, in the sentence quoted from the
+Fourteenth Book of the Annals, a wider meaning, "commodities of
+merchandize."
+
+III. If Bracciolini erred with respect to London, in magnifying it
+into a town of superlative commercial splendour in the days of
+Nero, which, I repeat, is wildly ridiculous, he more grossly erred
+with respect to our form of government; for when he decried it,
+and prophesied its decadence and downfall, his sagacity and
+judgment were impugned.
+
+When he was here our country was in the infancy of its example as
+a land ruled by the most admirable political arrangements. It can
+readily be believed with what interest and surprise the proud
+Italian, who had seen nothing of the kind in his own land of high
+civilization, must have witnessed our parliaments regularly
+meeting, as had been the case for generations, since the reign of
+Edward I. in 1293, knights and burgesses popularly elected by the
+inhabitants of the counties and boroughs sitting in council with
+the king, surrounded by his barons and bishops, priors who were
+peers and abbots who had mitres. With an outspoken contempt of
+England, and an overweening admiration of Italy, he avails himself
+of an opportunity of sneering covertly at our harmonious
+combination of the three forms of government, the monarchy, the
+oligarchy and the republic.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to say that, as reference is made to the
+English Parliament, the editors of Tacitus have all been puzzled
+as to the meaning of the phrase, "delecta ex his et consociata,"
+in the following passage, where the author of the Annals speaks of
+"the commonalty, or the aristocracy, or a monarch ruling every
+nation and community"; and that "a form of government based on a
+SELECTION AND CONJUNCTION OF THESE is easier praised than
+realised; or if it is realized, cannot last":--"cunctas nationes
+et urbes populus, aut primores, aut singuli regunt: DELECTA EX HIS
+ET CONSOCIATA reipublicae forma laudari facilius, quam evenire;
+vel si evenit, haud diuturna esse potest" (IV. 33). Now the
+phrase, "delecta ex his," selected from these, that is, the
+monarchy, the oligarchy and the republic, and meaning that the
+selections were of all the excellences and none of the faults of
+each, is in every way applicable to only one form of government,--
+our Parliamentary government, which is at once legislative and
+executive, and, as it is now, it almost was in the days when
+Bracciolini was on a visit to us in the opening days of the infant
+king, Henry VI. Then not only was the "populus," or "commonalty,"
+represented by knights, citizens and burgesses of their own
+choosing; but the "primores," or "aristocracy," had their
+representatives also in the larger barons, bishops, priors who
+were peers and mitred abbots; priors who were not peers, and
+abbots who had not mitres, as well as many of the smaller barons,
+not receiving writs of summons: the king himself, being an infant
+at the breast, had his representative, the "selection" being from
+his own family, in the person of his uncle Humphry, Duke of
+Gloucester, who was his substitute in the Parliament as the
+Protector or Regent; and even when the king was an adult, and
+absent in wars, as Edward I. when engaged in the conquest of
+Wales, he was represented in Parliament by Commissioners, as our
+sovereign is to this day.
+
+But Bracciolini not only said that the selections were from the
+monarchic, aristocratic and popular elements, but that they were
+"associated" or "conjoined"--"consociata." Here all the editors of
+Tacitus by their silence or otherwise fairly admit that the
+passage is utterly beyond their comprehension,--"one of those
+things," in fact, "which," in the words of Lord Dundreary, "no
+fellow is supposed to understand." As for the word, "consociata,"
+James Gronovius was of opinion that Tacitus must have written
+"concinnata"; but not having the boldness, after the fashion of
+Justus Lipsius of making alterations, according to his own sweet
+pleasure, without the authority of manuscript or edition, he
+followed Beroaldi, who, as much puzzled as any of the subsequent
+editors, had substituted "constituta" for the nonsensical word in
+the blundering MS. "consciata," though common sense should have
+told him that "consociata" was meant, it being evident that the
+transcriber, infinitely more puzzled than the editors, for he
+could not have had the remotest conception of what he was doing,
+had merely omitted a vowel in his usual careless way. It was not
+till Ernesti's time, 1772, that the proper word was restored.
+Ernesti, too, fancied that he had discovered something in the
+Roman government, according to the description by Polybius, which
+justified the language in the Annals. "I have no doubt," he says,
+"but that Tacitus had in his mind (along with other historians)
+Polybius, who, in the 9th and following chapters of the 6th book
+of his History, praises the Roman Republic for combining the
+excellences of all the three forms of government, while avoiding
+the faults of each, and he speaks of that system of government as
+being alone perfect which is compounded of these three." "Neque
+dubito, Tacitum in animo habuisse cum alios historicos, tum
+Polybium qui 6. 9 sqq. rempublicam romanam laudat hoc nomine, quod
+omnium illarum trium formarum commoda complexa sit, vitatis
+singularum vitiis, eamque solam rempublicam perfectam esse dicit,
+quae sit e tribus istis temperata."
+
+Let us then see exactly what it is that Polybius does say. After
+speaking of a balance between the three forms of government in the
+Roman administration being so fine that it was no easy matter to
+decide whether the government was aristocratic, democratic or
+monarchical (VI. 11), he proceeds to point out the several powers
+appropriated to each branch of the constitution;--the apparently
+regal rule of the Consuls, the aristocratic authority of the
+Senate, and the share taken by the people in the administration of
+affairs (_ibid._ 12, 13, 14). This done, his endeavour is to
+show not that there was any "selection and conjunction" as stated
+in the Annals, of the several forms, but quite on the contrary,
+"counteraction and co-operation": to this he devotes an entire
+chapter, with these remarks by way of preface:--"With respect,
+then, to the several parts into which the government is divided,
+the nature of every one of them has been shown; and it now remains
+to be pointed out how each of these forms is enabled to COUNTERACT
+the others, and how, on the other hand, it can CO-OPERATE with
+them:--[Greek: "Tina men oun tropon diaergaetai ta taes politeias
+eis ekaston eidos, eirgaetai tina de tropon ANTIPRATTEIN
+boulaethenta, kai SYNERGEIN allaelois palin hekasta ton mergan
+dunatai, nun phaethaesetai."] (VI. 15.)
+
+After this, it cannot be supposed that reference is made to the
+Commonwealth of Rome. Still less so, when, in the very next
+sentence the author of the Annals attempts to show that an equally
+blended administration cannot endure, because of the example
+afforded by Rome (proving how well he knew that the Romans had
+mixed together in their government the elements of the three
+forms); he says, that when the Plebeians had the principal power,
+there was submission to the will of the populace; when the
+Patricians held the sway, the wishes of the aristocratic section
+of the community were consulted; and when Rome had her emperors,
+the people fared no better than during the reign of the kings:
+here are his words:--"Therefore as in the olden time" (during the
+Republic), "when the plebeians were paramount, or when the
+patricians were superior in power," (in the first instance) "the
+whim of the populace was ascertained and the way in which their
+humour was to be dealt with, and" (in the second instance) "those
+persons were accounted astute in their generation and wise who
+made themselves thoroughly conversant with the disposition of the
+Senate and the aristocracy; then when a change took place in the
+Government" (from the Republic to the Empire), "there was the same
+state of things as when a King was the ruler":--"Igitur, ut olim,
+plebe valida, vel cum patres pollerent, noscenda vulgi natura et
+quibus modis temperanter haberetur, senatusque et optimatium
+ingenia qui maxime perdidicerant, callidi temporum et sapientes
+credebantur; sic, converso statu, neque alia rerum quam si unus
+imperitet." (l.c.)
+
+What he is striving in his usual dark way to establish is this:--
+Here was the failure of the Roman form of administration; the
+Romans were the most accomplished people in the art of government;
+the English, who are semi-barbarous, can know nothing about
+government; it is then idle on their part to imagine that they are
+endowed with such a vast amount of political knowledge as to be
+qualified by their own reflections alone to build up a new and
+magnificent form of government; when, too, that form of government
+is essentially different from our superb oligarchies in Italy, the
+most civilized and cultivated part of the world in everything,
+especially politics; the English style of government is, also,
+strictly based on the old Roman mode of administration, and when
+that failed, how can any sensible man deem that the English method
+of administration will ever work successfully. Hence his remarks:
+"raking up and relating this," (namely, how the Roman government
+never worked well at any time,) "will be of benefit," (to whom?
+forsooth, the English,) "because few" (in matters of statesmanship),
+"by their own sagacity distinguish the good from the very bad,
+the practicable from the pernicious; the many gain their wisdom
+from the acts of others; yet as examples bring benefit so do they
+meet least with a probation." If that be not the meaning of his
+words, then they must remain, as in all translations, without meaning.
+Yet the Latin, crabbed as it is, (and it is always crabbed in the Annals),
+seems to me to be simple enough:--"haec conquiri tradique in rem fuerit;
+quia pauci prudentia honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis,
+discernunt; plures aliorum eventis docentur; ceterum ut profutura
+ita minimum oblectationis adferunt" (l.c.).
+
+That he does not mean the Roman form of government is further seen
+by his remark that the kind of administration spoken of is "easier
+to be commended than _realized_"--"laudari facilius, quam _evenire_";
+just as it is easy to see from his language that he has before him
+an instance of some government framed like that which he says will
+not exist for any length of time; for whenever he employs the
+hypothetical particle, "_si_" about anything that is absolute and
+beyond doubt, he always uses it with the indicative and not the
+conditional. As he then writes, "si _evenit_," (not "si _eveniat_"),
+"if it _is_ realized," (not "if it _be_ realized,") he really has
+in his mind some State constituted according to his description.
+
+It should now be borne in mind that he was in this country before
+he forged the Annals, and was in the household of Cardinal
+Beaufort, who had repeatedly filled the office of Chancellor, on
+whom devolved the duty of issuing the writs to the members of the
+Parliament, Commoners as well as Peers; for that great officer the
+Speaker, was not yet invested with the authority so to do with
+respect to the Lower House; not only, then, had Bracciolini heard
+of the English Parliament, but the precise nature of it must have
+come frequently under his cognizance. In fact, it was no other
+than the English Parliament to which he refers.
+
+That being accepted, there were several reasons to induce him to
+doubt the durability of our Parliament: the Crown possessed too
+great power in those assemblies: it was with difficulty that the
+great barons could be got to attend, their delight being to reside
+at their castles in the country, and take no part in political
+affairs; it was also difficult to get the representatives of the
+counties and boroughs to attend, on account of the long distances
+that many had to come, and the great expenses of their attendance;
+sometimes in a county the properly qualified person,--an actual
+knight,--could not be found, and there was no representative from
+a county, until upwards of twenty years after Bracciolini had left
+us, when esquires and gentlemen could be returned; sometimes a
+city or borough would not send a member, either by pleading
+poverty in not being able to pay the wages of the two
+representatives, or from not finding among their townsmen two
+burgesses with the qualifications required by the writ, that is,
+sufficiently hale to bear the fatigue of the journey, and
+sufficiently sensible to discharge the duties of close attendance
+on Parliament; for every member was then required to be present at
+the Parliament; hence each small freeholder from a county and each
+burgess had to find three or four persons of credit to be sureties
+for him that he would attend; and the constituents of each were
+forced to bear the cost of his attendance.
+
+In addition to these difficulties there were other drawbacks that
+seemed to threaten a speedy termination to these Parliaments. The
+session was very short; the business was prepared beforehand, the
+laws being drawn up by the bishops, earls, barons, justices, and
+others who formed the king's council; and several statutes and
+laws were thus hastily and ill considered.
+
+In spite of all these excuses for Bracciolini, experience has
+proved that his observation was shallow; and it is possible that,
+with his profound insight into the human mind, he might not have
+made it had he gone deeply into English character; but it seems
+that he deemed it unworthy of his study, England being "a country,
+which," as he says, "he did not like at all,"--"hujus patriae,
+quam parum diligo" (Ep. I. 2). With such an aversion to us it is
+no wonder that he had no faith in the continuance of our
+Parliament, for no stronger reason, probably, than that it was an
+English institution; but had he foreseen its durability he would
+have been a greater wonder than he was from having his eyes more
+fully opened than were the eyes of any man at that period to the
+rare qualities possessed by Englishmen; their unpretending
+magnanimity; their fine talents for business; their keen views in
+policy; the great things they had done in the arts of peace and
+war, as well as their capability of continuing to accomplish still
+greater achievements in both; the solidity of their understandings
+and their reflective spirits, which, when directed and applied to
+political schemes, devise and consummate sound and lasting reforms
+of the State.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+BRACCIOLINI SETTING ABOUT THE FORGERY OF THE ANNALS.
+
+
+I. The Proposal made in February, 1422, by a Florentine, named
+Lamberteschi, and backed by Niccoli.--II. Correspondence on the
+matter, and Mr. Shepherd's view that it referred to a
+Professorship refuted.--III. Professional disappointments in
+England determine Bracciolini to persevere in his intention of
+forging the Annals.--IV. He returns to the Papal Secretaryship,
+and begins the forgery in Rome in October, 1423.
+
+I. About this period Bracciolini commenced the forgery of the
+Annals. In noticing the preliminary steps to that fabrication, and
+then glancing back at a few circumstances peculiar to his age,
+while touching upon some incidents hitherto passed over in his
+biography, we shall have all the necessary lights and shades in
+his life that will be of use to us in the maintenance and
+illustration of our theory.
+
+Although he received in exchange for the living of 120 florins a
+year another of the annual worth of £40 with slighter duties
+attached to it, he still continued to express dissatisfaction at
+his fortunes, and desire a sinecure canonry in England that would
+enable him to live in literary ease at home. When, however, an
+alternative was presented to him of returning to the Pontifical
+Secretariate, through the intercession of one of his powerful
+Italian friends, Cardinal Adimari, Archbishop of Pisa, he rudely
+scouted the overture upon these grounds: that he would "rather be
+a free man than a public slave"; that he had "a smaller opinion of
+the Papacy and its limbs than the world believed"; that "if he had
+thought as highly of the Secretaryship to the Pope, as many did,
+he would long before have gone back to it; and that if he lost
+everything, from what he now had, he would not want."--"Video quae
+Cardinalis Pisanus scribit de Secretariatu. Sane si ego illud
+officium tantum existimarem, quantum nonnulli, ego jamdudum istuc
+rediissem: sed si omnia deficerent, hoc quod nunc habeo, non
+deerit mihi. Ego minus existimo et Pontificatum et ejus membra
+quam credunt. Cupio enim liber esse, non publicus servus"
+(Ep. I. 17).
+
+Just as he was in this bad humour, disgusted with his patron and
+the world, and in the most cynical of moods, a proposal reached
+him from Florence, which, as set forth to view by himself in
+communications to his friend Niccoli, is so dimly disclosed as to
+be capable of two interpretations: The Rev. William Shepherd in
+his Life of him understands his ambiguous terms as having
+reference to a professorship, the words of Mr. Shepherd being:
+
+--"Piero Lamberteschi ... offered him a situation, _the nature of
+which is not precisely known_, but which was probably that of
+public professor in one of the Italian Universities" (Life of
+Poggio Bracciolini, p. 138). Now I conceive, and shall attempt to
+prove that the proposal was not about a "situation," but to forge
+additional books to the hopelessly lost History of Tacitus.
+
+Niccolo Niccoli seems to have been at the bottom of the business;
+at any rate, he appears to have advised his bosom friend to
+undertake the task; for Bracciolini says that he "thinks he will
+follow his advice, while writing to him from the London Palace of
+Cardinal Beaufort, in a letter dated the 22nd of February, 1422,
+respecting "a suggestion" and "an offer" made by his fellow-
+countryman, Piero Lamberteschi, who, he says, "will endeavour to
+procure for me in three years 500 gold sequins. If he will make it
+600, I will at once close with his proposal. He holds forth
+sanguine hopes about several future profitable contingencies,
+which, I am inclined to believe, may probably be realized; yet it
+is more prudent to covenant for something certain than to depend
+on hope alone." "Placent mihi quae Pierus imaginatur, quaeque
+offert; et ego, ut puto, sequar consilium vestrum. Scribit mihi se
+daturum operam, ut habeam triennio quingentos aureos: fient
+sexcenti, et acquiescam. Proponit spem magnam plurium rerum, quam
+licet existimem futuram veram, tamen aliquid certum pacisci satius
+est, quam ex sola spe pendere" (Ep. I. 17).
+
+Speaking further on in the letter about Lamberteschi, he says: "I
+like the occupation to which he has invited me, and hope I shall
+be able to produce something WORTH READING; but for this purpose,
+as I tell him in my letters, I require the retirement and leisure
+that are necessary for literary work." "Placet mihi occupatio, ad
+quam me hortatur, et spero me nonnihil effecturum DIGNUM LECTIONE;
+sed, ut ad eum scribo, ad haec est opus quiete et otio literarum."
+
+II. The expression of his hope that he would "produce something
+worth reading," and the mention of his want, in order that he
+should accomplish what was required of him, "retirement and
+leisure for literary work," quite set at rest Mr. Shepherd's
+theory that the proposal had reference to a Professorship. In the
+first place, professors in those days did not collect their
+lectures and publish them for the behoof of those who had not the
+privilege of hearing them delivered. They did not give their
+addresses an elaborate form, nor introduce into them the novel
+views and profound and accurate thought with which Professors now
+dignify their vocation from chairs in Universities, especially
+those of Oxford and Cambridge, or places of public instruction, as
+the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street, with its Professor
+Tyndall, or the Royal School of Mines and Museum of Practical
+Geology in Jermyn Street, with its Professor Huxley. They could
+not then "produce something worth reading." In the second place
+they did not require the "retirement and leisure necessary for
+literary work"; they talked about what they knew in the most
+simple and artless manner; made no preparations beforehand; walked
+into a class room, and, book in hand, Greek or Roman classic,
+discoursed to their pupils about the meaning of this or that
+passage or the rendering of this or that word benefiting the
+juvenile class with the spontaneous harvest of their cultivated
+minds, and giving the opinions of others a great deal more freely
+than they gave their own: all that they said, too, was detached
+and trite; and if books are valuable, as consisting of perfectly
+combined parts, and new or extraordinary contents, the lectures of
+the fifteenth century professors would not have been worth the
+paper on which they were written. Bracciolini, then, would never,
+in the contemplation of turning a professor, have spoken of
+"producing something worth reading"; nor, for the discharge of
+professorial duties, would he speak of requiring "retirement and
+leisure for literary work." It is clear that Mr. Shepherd is
+altogether wrong in his conjecture.
+
+And now as to mine. If the dim revelations concerned a plan about
+forging the Annals, then "something worth reading" Bracciolini
+certainly did produce; for the Annals is,--taking the
+circumstances under which it was composed into consideration--
+about one of the most wonderful literary creations that we have;
+on every page there is indication of the "labour limae,"--the
+filing and polishing that are the result of the "retirement and
+leisure necessary to literary work"; and, though not bearing a
+very striking resemblance to the History of Tacitus, of which it
+is intended to be the supplement, it was, nevertheless, contrived
+with so much artfulness that, for more than four hundred years, it
+has deceived the scholars of Europe: yes, indeed, the author
+
+    "Gave out such a seeming
+    To seal their eyes up,--close as oak,--
+    They thought 'twas Tacitus."
+
+The more the passages in these interesting letters are considered,
+the stronger becomes the impression that they are all about a
+scheme for forging the Annals of Tacitus. Even those which seem to
+give a colouring to Mr. Shepherd's view in reality favour mine.
+
+A part of the original scheme appears to have been that
+Bracciolini was to go to Hungary: what for is not mentioned. It
+then becomes a matter of conjecture. Mine is, that, on account of
+the belief current in those days that singular treasures of
+ancient history were to be found more readily than elsewhere in
+barbarous countries, and that the more barbarous the country the
+greater the chance of recovering an ancient classic, so
+Bracciolini was to go, or feign that he had gone to Hungary, and
+then on returning give out that he had there found some of the
+lost books of the History of Tacitus. If this be not the right
+conjecture, it can barely be understood why Bracciolini should
+make a mystery about this visit. "If I undertake a journey to
+Hungary," he says, "it will be unknown to everybody but a few, and
+down the throats of these I shall cram all sorts of speeches,
+since I will pretend that I have come from here," that is, from
+England. "Si in Hungariam proficiscar, erit ignotum omnibus,
+praeter paucos; quin simulabo me huc venturum, et istos pascam
+verbis." (Ep. I. 18). This intention to keep the journey to
+Hungary a secret looks as if his going there were connected with
+the wrong act suggested, seeing that men usually resort to
+concealment when they commit a wrong act, and endeavour to lead
+people astray with respect to it (as Bracciolini showed an
+inclination to do) by misstatements and falsehoods: then
+Bracciolini knew well that the commission of a forgery would be
+immediately suspected were it bruited abroad that he had come from
+Hungary where he had found a long-lost classic because those were
+days when book-finders were in the habit of first forging works,
+and then visiting far distant lands to report on their return that
+they had there recovered MSS. which they themselves had written.
+
+Another passage strengthens my view, though, at a first glance, it
+favours Mr. Shepherd's. After observing that his friend "knew well
+how he preferred liberty and literary leisure to the other things
+which the vast majority held in the highest estimation and made
+the objects of their ambition," Bracciolini proceeds thus: "And if
+I were to see that I should get that which our friend Picro
+expects, I would go not only to the end of Europe but as far as to
+the wilds of Tartary, especially as I should have the opportunity
+of paying attention to Greek literature, which it is my desire to
+devour with avidity, were it but to avoid those wretched
+translations, which so torment me that there is more pain in
+reading than pleasure in acquiring knowledge."--"Id primum scias
+volo, me libertatem et otium litterarum praeponere rebus caeteris,
+quae plures existimant permaximi, atque optant. Sique videro id me
+consecuturum, prout sperat Pierius noster, non solum ad Sarmatas,
+sed Scythas usque proficiscar, praesertim proposita facultate
+dandi operam Graecis litteris, quas avide cupio haurire, ut fugiam
+istas molestas translationes, quae ita me torquent, ut pluris sit
+molestiae in legendo, quam in discendo suavitatis." (Ep. I. 18.)
+
+This is the passage that must have particularly induced Mr.
+Shepherd to think that what was offered to Bracciolini was a
+Professorship; and as Bracciolini spoke of the opportunity that
+would be afforded to him of studying Greek literature, that the
+Professorship was of Greek. But Mr. Shepherd ought not to have
+conjectured that the Professorship must have been in some Italian
+University; it is clear that if Bracciolini was to carry out the
+proposal of Lamberteschi, he was, from the original plan, to have
+gone to Hungary. The Professorship must, therefore, have been in
+Hungary. But in 1422 no professor was wanted in that country,
+because it had no university: Hungary then was, and remained a
+wilderness of unlettered barbarism for nearly half a century
+after, it not being until 1465, half a dozen years from the death
+of Bracciolini, that Matthias Corvinus established in Buda the
+first Hungarian University, filling it with valuable works which
+he got copied from rare manuscripts in the principal cities of
+Italy, especially Rome and Florence, and inviting to it men as
+learned as Bracciolini, not only from Italy, but also France and
+Germany. What Bracciolini really alludes to is not a
+professorship, but the money he was to get for his forgery,--the
+500 or 600 gold sequins; and as money was then worth about twenty
+times more than it is now, it was a moderate fortune of ten or
+twelve thousand pounds; and when he should have such means at his
+disposal, he would have quite sufficient for his purpose; he could
+then forsake the clerical duties which were so onerous and
+distasteful to him, to devote himself in peace and comfort to his
+favourite study of Greek literature, with which he became
+specially captivated just at this period of his life from reading
+for the first time in the magnificent library of Cardinal Beaufort
+the works of the Greek fathers, above all, Chrysostom, whom he
+looked upon as the greatest of all writers; for writing to Niccoli
+from the London palace of Cardinal Beaufort in the summer of 1420,
+he speaks of "preferring Chrysostom to everybody else whom he had
+ever read,"--"Joannes Chrysostomus, quem omnibus, quos ego unquam
+legerim, praefero" (Ep. I. 7); and, on another occasion, in a
+letter to the same friend, again referring to Chrysostom, he
+bursts into the enthusiastic exclamation: "this man by a good
+shoulder, or more, overtops everybody":--"hic vir longe humero
+supereminet omnes" (Ep. I. 8). A still greater, nay, "the greatest
+reason for his desire of returning to Greek literature," he gives
+in a letter to Niccoli dated London, the 17th of July, 1420, that,
+in "skimming over Aristotle during the spring of that year, not
+for the purpose of studying him then, but reading and seeing what
+there was in each of his works,"--he had found that sort of
+"perusal not wholly unprofitable, as he had learnt something every
+day, superficial though it might be, from understanding Aristotle
+in his own language, when he found him in the words of translators
+either incomprehensible or nonsensical." "Ego jam tribus mensibus
+vaco Aristoteli, non tam discendi causa ad praesens, quam legendi,
+ac videndi, quid in quoque opere contineatur: nec est tamen omnino
+inutilis haec lectio; disco aliquid in diem, saltem superficie
+tenus, et haec est causa potissima, cur amor graecarum litterarum
+redierit, ut hunc virum quasi elinguem, et absurdum aliena lingua,
+cognoscam sua."
+
+III. As Bracciolini gave his assent to the fabrication of
+additional books to the History of Tacitus, his friends Niccoli
+and Lamberteschi as well as himself were of opinion that his
+presence was required in Italy, in order that the three should
+take counsel together, and, discussing the matter in concert,
+deliberate fully what was best to be done: "nam maturius
+deliberare poterimus, quid sit agendum," he says in a letter
+addressed to Niccoli from London on the 5th of March, 1422; and as
+he left England for Italy in the summer, and did not begin his
+forgery till the autumn of the next year, he spent the interval of
+some eighteen, nineteen or twenty months in continually holding
+cabinet councils with his two friends, and secretly devising with
+them on what plan he could best execute the addition to the
+History of Tacitus; no doubt, he thought they had so cleverly
+arranged matters in providing against all mishaps that he never
+would be found out. "Veniam ad vos," he continues in the same
+letter; "et tunc propositis in unum conditionibus, discussisque in
+utramque partem rationibus, meliorem, ut spero, eligemus partem."
+
+Bracciolini was, notwithstanding, undesirous of leaving England
+just yet, from keeping his eye fixed upon the main chance. There
+was the pleasant prospect before him of his living, which had such
+heavy duties attached to it, being exchanged for a sinecure worth
+£20 a year, "all," he said, "he coveted, and no more"; but it
+being uncertain when such good fortune would attend him, he knew
+not what to do,--whether, as things now stood, he should return to
+Italy, and lose all chance of getting the free benefice, or stay a
+little longer in England and wait the possible exchange. "Credo me
+inventurum pro hac beneficium liberum, et sine cura XX librarum:
+hoc si fieri poterit, satis est mihi, nec opto amplius; veruntamen
+nescio quando hoc inveniam; neque scio, an sit melius isto venire,
+prout res nunc se habent, an expectare paulum, quaerens an possem
+hanc facere permutationem" (Ep. I. 18). Three months passed
+without the exchange being effected, whereupon as time progressed,
+his hopes, like the courage of Bob Acres, "oozed out at his
+fingers' ends." Still he was unwilling to lose what had cost him a
+great deal of importunity, as well as much time and anxiety of
+mind by any fault on his part, such as being in too great a hurry
+over the matter; so he told his friend Niccoli when writing to him
+in June; as that "there was nothing else which detained him in
+England but the business of effecting the exchange of his
+benefice, which from the badness of the times was a much worse
+living than it was considered to be:" he also came to the definite
+determination that if in two months what he had been looking for
+turned up, he would make his arrangements immediately and be off
+to his two friends at home; and even if he got nothing, still he
+would start for Italy in August at the latest. "Ut alia epistola
+ad te scripsi, nihil aliud me hic tenet, nisi cura permutandi hoc
+beneficium, quod defectu temporum multo tenuius est, quam
+ferebatur. Nollem enim, id quod tanto et temporis impendio
+quaesivi, et animi sollicitudine, nunc amittere vitio festinandi.
+Si his duobus mensibus emerserit aliquid, quod cupio, concludam
+statim, atque ad vos veniam; sin autem nihil invenero, etiam
+veniam ad vos." (Ep. I. 22 in.)
+
+Cardinal Beaufort had in the April of 1422 promised to get him a
+prebend for his church,--a simple, as distinguished from a
+dignitary prebend. If without a dean and chapter inducting him
+into a prebendal stall, which he did not want, he could go to
+Italy and there draw every year the stipend granted for the
+maintenance of a prebendary out of the estate of an English
+collegiate church, possibly in the diocese of Winchester, he would
+not have visited England in vain. But when he reminded the
+Cardinal of his promise, and claimed its performance, Beaufort
+receded from his position. "To trust the speeches of such
+persons," said Bracciolini, "is like holding a wolf by the ears,"
+(quoting what the old Greeks used to say, [Greek: ton oton echein
+ton lukon] when they wanted to denote the awkward position of a
+man holding on to something when it was difficult for him to cling
+to it, and still more dangerous for him to let it go). From that
+moment Bracciolini ceased to place any further trust in Cardinal
+Beaufort, and turned with redoubled zest to the proposal of
+Lamberteschi as one on which he alone relied: "Quidam me duobus
+jam mensibus suspensum tenet promittens mihi daturum praebendam
+quandam pro hac ecclesia: nunc autem cum rem urgerem, et ad calcem
+cuperem pervenire, recessit a promissis suis. Credere verbis
+istorum est, ac si auribus lupum teneas. Tu vero da operam, et cum
+primum Petrus responderit, me de eo facias certiorem: nam hoc
+solum expecto" (Ep. I. 21). From this time his mind was made up:
+he would leap the Rubicon: he would go in for the forgery, and his
+friend must have confidence in him. So speaking of his powers for
+the great task which he meditated he proceeds thus interestingly
+in the letter to Niccoli bearing date London, the 10th of June,
+1422: "I want you to have no distrust: give me the leisure and the
+time for 'writing that HISTORY'" (the nearest approach this to a
+disclosure of the grand secret so frequently hinted at by him in
+the London letters of the spring and summer of 1422), "and I will
+do something you will approve. My heart is in the work, though I
+question my powers." Then quoting the sentiment from Virgil about
+"labour overcoming everything," he proceeds with unabated
+interest: "I have not for four years devoted any attention to
+literature, nor read a single book that can be considered well-
+written,--as you may judge from these letters of mine which are
+not what they used to be; but I shall soon get back into my old
+manner. When I reflect on _the merits of the ancient writers of
+history, I recoil with fear from the undertaking_" (mark that);
+"though when I consider what are the writers of the present day, I
+recover some confidence in the hope that if I strive with all my
+might, I shall be inferior to few of them." He then implores his
+friend to let him know the reply of Lamberteschi as soon as
+possible. "Nec dubites volo; si dabitur otium et tempus
+DESCRIBENDI GESTA ILLIUS, aliquid agam quod probabis. Cor bonum,
+adest mihi; nescio an vires aderint: tamen 'labor omnia vincit
+improbus.' Quatuor his annis nullam dedi operam studiis
+humanitatis, nec legi librum, quod ad eloquentiam spectaret; quod
+ex ipsis litteris meis potes conjicere. Non sunt enim quales esse
+consuevere; sed tamen brevi tempore redigar in priorem statum.
+_Cum priores rerum scriptores considero, deterreor a scribendo_;
+cum vero nostri temporis, nonnihil confido, sperans me paucis
+inferiorem futurum, si omnino nervos intendero. Tuum vero sit
+studium, ut quam primum certior fiam responsionis Petri" (Ep. I. 21).
+
+IV. He did not remain in England long after this; soon after the
+midsummer of 1422 he left this country. His motive for taking this
+step may have been that he ended by giving up all hope of
+exchanging his laborious living for a sinecure free benefice, or
+of obtaining a permanent appointment to a prebend that was without
+any jurisdiction attached to it; or, what may be far more likely,
+he resolutely abandoned every object he had in view in England for
+the far brighter prospects that opened out before him at home if
+he undertook the forgery which had been proposed to him by
+Lamberteschi, and to which he had been invited by the promise of,
+in the first instance, a magnificent pecuniary reward, and
+afterwards the possibility of many rare advantages.
+
+Only a fortnight after the last letter to Niccoli he addressed to
+him another, the last he wrote from London, on the 25th of June,
+1422, couched in language which showed how deeply involved his
+Florentine friend was in the plot of the forgery: "If Lamberteschi
+would only place something certain before us, which we could adopt
+or approve," he wrote; and "How heartily I hope that Lamberteschi
+will do what would be so agreeable to us both." "Si Petrus certum
+quid responderit, quod sequi ant probare possimus"--"Quam maxime
+exopto, ut Petrus perficiat, quae vellemus" (Ep. I. 22).
+
+From this day we hear no more of him in London. Sometime during
+the summer of 1422 he returned to Rome, and, following the advice
+of the Cardinal Archbishop of Pisa, went back to his old
+employment in Rome at the Secretariate, but now, it would appear,
+as the Principal Secretary to the Pope,--a post which he obtained
+with little or no intercession, as borne testimony to by himself:
+--"Ego effectus sum Secretarius Pontificis, et quidem nullis
+precibus, vel admodum paucis" (Ep. II. 2).
+
+Here then was Bracciolini again in Rome, not then a city of saints
+and sacred things, but of scoffing priests and absolved sinners:
+we all know what Luther said on returning to Wittenberg, after his
+first visit to Rome: "everything is permitted there except to be
+an honest man." If that was true at the commencement of the
+sixteenth century, it was much more true at the commencement of
+the fifteenth.
+
+Count Corniani, in his "Ages of Italian Literature," is of opinion
+that Bracciolini had been in Hungary (II. 76). If so, it must have
+been after he left England; he could not then have been so soon,
+as I have stated, in Rome: he was there, however, for a certainty,
+as some of his letters now extant show, in the earlier portion of
+the spring of the following year; even this is against his having
+been in Hungary, except on the ground that almost immediately
+after he had arrived there, he found that whatever it was that
+Lamberteschi had offered to him was neither practicable nor
+agreeable; therefore he relinquished it and accepted the office of
+Secretary in the Papal Court. Bracciolini, however, does not seem
+to have gone to Hungary; nor was there any necessity that he
+should have done so, if my theory be correct; for then, so far
+from Lamberteschi's offer being neither practicable nor agreeable,
+it was both so feasible and pleasant, that it was in order to
+accomplish it, he expressly accepted the Secretary's post in the
+Court of Rome. He could not have carried out the forgery had he
+remained in England, because he would not have had the necessary
+leisure, on account of the heavy duties attached to his cure; and
+we have seen how he could get neither a sinecure nor a simple
+prebend; but to be in the Secretariate of the Papacy was to be the
+holder of an office with little or nothing to do, which gave him
+ample leisure for literary pursuits. He, therefore, became
+reconciled to accepting the Papal Secretaryship; "it being the way
+with a wise man," he observed in a philosophic spirit, "to do the
+best he can under circumstances, and be satisfied." If by being
+Secretary to the Pope he saw he could procure what he wanted,
+which was "obtaining a support," stick to the Secretariate he
+would; accordingly, he staid in Rome, devoting himself to his
+books. "Parere temporis semper sapientis est habitum. Si videro me
+hac via consecuturum, quod cupio, hoc est aliquod sustentaculum,
+tum adhaeream: quiescens in studiis, hic manebo" (Ep. II. 2).
+
+As if preparing for some great literary undertaking connected with
+antiquity, he wrote from Rome on the 15th of May, 1423, to his
+friend Niccoli to let him have without the least delay all his
+notes and extracts from the various books (and they not a few and
+miscellaneous) which he had read; here it may be observed that
+what Cortese, Bishop of Urbino, says of the Camaldolese General,
+Traversari, is strictly applicable to him:--"Such was his
+inexhaustible love of reading, he regretted a moment spent away
+from his books; and every day, when not engaged in writing,
+devoured the compositions of the ancient Greeks and Romans":
+("Erat in hoc homine inexhaustus quidem legendi amor; nullum enim
+patiebatur esse vacuum tempus. Quotidie aut scribebat, aut aliquid
+ex Graecis Latinisque litteris mandabat"):--"Mittas ad me, rogo,
+singula commentariola mea, hoc est, excerpta illa ex variis
+libris, quos legi, quae sunt plurima, ac dispersa; collige simul
+omnia, oro te, et ad me quamprimum mittas" (Ep. II. 2).
+
+Having, no doubt, obtained in due time the notes and extracts
+wanted, apparently in the autumn of 1423, he then set about the
+commencement of his immortal and wonderful forgery, or, as he
+styles it in the fabrication itself, his "condensed and inglorious
+drudgery,"--"nobis in arto et inglorius labor" (Annal. IV. 31);
+for in a letter written from Rome in the night of the 8th of
+October that year he makes a reflection about "beginnings of any
+kind being arduous and difficult," following up the remark with
+these striking words: that "what the ancients did pleasantly,
+quickly and easily was to him troublesome, tedious and
+burdensome"; a remark which he could not have made unless he was
+attempting something in the way of the ancients; unless, moreover,
+he was just setting about it; then he consoles himself by again
+repeating his favourite sage old saw from Virgil: that "hard work
+gets over everything":--"In quibusvis quoque rebus principia sunt
+ardua et difficilia; ut quod antiquioribus in officio sit
+jucundum, promptum ac leve, mihi sit molestum, tardum, onerosum.
+Sed 'labor omnia vincit improbus'" (Ep. II. 5).
+
+A month after this significant declaration he was hard at work
+forging the Annals of Tacitus; for we find him earnestly plying
+for books that were indispensable for any one writing the history
+of the early Roman Emperors. In a letter to Niccoli dated Rome,
+the 6th of November, 1423, he begs his friend to do all he can to
+get him some map of Ptolemy's Geography; to bear it in mind in
+case one should happen to fall in his way; also not to forget
+Suetonius and the other historians, and, above all, Plutarch's
+Lives of Illustrious Characters: "Vellem aliquam Chartam Ptolemaei
+Geographiae, si fieri posset; in hoc cogita, si quid forte
+inciderit; ac etiam Suetonium, aliosque Historicos, et praesertim
+Plutarchi Viros Illustres non obliviscaris" (Ep. II. 7).
+
+If it be said that Bracciolini wrote a History of Florence, and
+that these remarks which, unquestionably, refer to some "history"
+from the expression "describendi gesta illius," apply to that
+work, it must be borne in mind that he did not write that history
+until towards the close of his life, that is, more than thirty
+years after these letters which passed between him and Niccoli,
+for the events recorded in his History of Florence are carried
+down to as late as the year 1455; that that historical work is the
+only one he wrote under his own name; that it is no more written
+in imitation of the ancients, than any other of his acknowledged
+productions; and that even if it were, he would not have required
+for its composition such maps as Ptolemy's, nor such works as
+those of Suetonius and Plutarch. In fact, the most acute ingenuity
+cannot rescue Bracciolini from the charge that in October 1423 he,
+then resident in Rome, began to forge a work with the intention of
+palming it off upon the world as written by an ancient Roman: as I
+proceed I shall convincingly show that that ancient Roman was
+Tacitus, and that that work was the Annals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+BRACCIOLINI AS A BOOKFINDER.
+
+
+I. Doubts on the authenticity of the Latin, but not the Greek
+Classics.--II. At the revival of letters Popes and Princes offered
+large rewards for the recovery of the ancient classics.--III. The
+labours of Bracciolini as a bookfinder.--IV. Belief put about by
+the professional bookfinders that MSS. were soonest found in
+obscure convents in barbarous lands.--V. How this reasoning throws
+the door open to fraud and forgery.--VI. The bands of bookfinders
+consisted of men of genius in every department of literature and
+science.--VII. Bracciolini endeavours to escape from forging the
+Annals by forging the whole lost History of Livy.--VIII. His
+Letter on the subject to Niccoli quoted, and examined.--
+IX. Failure of his attempt, and he proceeds with the forgery of
+the Annals.
+
+I. When we thus see Bracciolini setting to work in this quiet,
+business-like manner to forge the Annals of Tacitus, as if it were
+a general, common-place occurrence, a grave suspicion enters the
+mind whether it was not a thing very ordinarily done in his day;
+if so, whether we may not have a wholesale fabrication of the
+Latin classics; which is very annoying to contemplate when we
+remember the number of works we shall have to reject as not having
+been written by ancient Romans but by modern Italians, of the
+fifteenth, and possibly the close of the fourteenth centuries. The
+suspicion becomes all the stronger with the fact before us that
+the literature of the ancient Romans was totally extinguished in
+Europe in the very opening centuries of the Christian aera; and
+that their language would have been also lost had it not been
+preserved till the age of Justinian (527-565) by the pleadings and
+writings of the leading lawyers; after which it is generally
+believed that it was continued to be preserved, along with the
+literature of the ancient Romans, in the buildings founded by the
+various monastic orders of Christians. Here again we are met by
+another equally vexing circumstance, it being excessively
+questionable whether monasteries ever really conserved, to any,
+even the least extent, the interests of human knowledge. Monks
+never had any love for learning; did not appreciate the volumes of
+antiquity; in fact, could not read them; for the Latin was not
+their Latin; and they are not likely to have preserved what they
+did not appreciate and could not read: the libraries they founded
+were for bibles, missals and prayer-books: the schools they
+established were for teaching children to read the Testament and
+prayer book, and to sing hymns and psalms, while the ancient
+manuscripts they transcribed were, at best, the hagiological
+productions of the Fathers of the Christian Church.
+
+But even if the works of the ancient Romans were preserved by the
+monks in their convent libraries, that was only till the approach
+of the last quarter of the sixth century. Then came the dark
+period of the conquest of Italy by the last swarm of the northern
+barbarians from their native settlements in Pannonia: Italy
+continued under the iron yoke of the dominion of these illiterate
+Lombards till their final overthrow towards the commencement of
+the last quarter of the eighth century by the great conqueror,
+warrior, Christian and devoted admirer of learning, Charlemagne:
+during that period literature became entirely extinguished, for in
+all the vigour and savage freedom of their fresh and unworn
+barbarism these Pannonian dunces were as diligent for two whole
+centuries (568-774) in demolishing monasteries and destroying
+books as in levelling fortresses and ravaging cities. For six
+centuries after, a confused assemblage of different races of
+boors, Franks, Normans and Saracens, occupied Italy; they cared
+not a fig for knowledge; they did not know what a book was, for
+they did not know the alphabet, engaged as they were, like those
+kindred spirits in after ages, the Ioways, Mohicans and
+Ojibbeways, in perpetual wars and bloodshed: all this time the
+light of literature never once broke in upon the scene: at length
+traces of it were discerned in the revival of learning during the
+age of Petrarch and the Father of modern Italian prose, Boccaccio,
+in the middle of the fourteenth century. Thus for eight hundred
+years there was a moral eclipse of all that was excellent in human
+knowledge in Italy and the whole West of Europe.
+
+Fortunately there was no such middle age of darkness in Greece:
+there the light of science and literature remained unextinguished:
+the knowledge of the works of antiquity was cultivated in the East
+with enthusiasm; and while we may be confident that we possess the
+works of all those high and gifted spirits who adorned that bright
+period which extends from Homer and Hesiod to Plato and Aristotle,
+and again the works of all those Greeks who flourished from the
+death of Alexander the Great to the death of Augustus Caesar, the
+brightest of whom were Menander, Theocritus, Polybius, Strabo, and
+a gorgeous array of philosophers, sophists and rhetoricians, we
+can be by no means sure that we have the real works of the Roman
+classics; there must even be the gravest doubt as to the
+probability; for, though during the close of the fourteenth
+century, throughout the fifteenth, and at the commencement of the
+sixteenth, books purporting to be of their writing were constantly
+being recovered, it was invariably under distressingly suspicious
+circumstances; exactly the Roman author that was wanted turned up;
+and always for a certainty that Roman author for whom the highest
+price had been offered; the monastery was rarely famous, seldom in
+Italy, but obscure and situated in a barbarous country; the
+discoverer, too, was not, as is generally supposed, an ignorant,
+unlettered monk or friar, who could not read what he found, and
+who could not, therefore be suspected of having forged what he
+stated he had discovered; it was invariably a most cultured
+scholar, nay, a man of the very highest literary attainments, an
+exquisitely accomplished writer, to boot; a "Grammaticus,"
+forsooth, who possessed a masterly and critical knowledge of the
+Latin language.
+
+II. The unlettered gloom in which Italy had been immersed for ages
+was effectually dissipated by the great number of learned and
+illustrious Greeks who took refuge in the West of Europe, in order
+to escape from Ottoman Power long before the fall of
+Constantinople. On account of their enlightenment, literature
+revived in Florence, Venice and Rome; it speedily spread from the
+Cities of the Great Merchants and of the Popes into the provincial
+and inferior towns; thus Italy was the first country in the West
+where good taste, enlightened views, and generous emulation in the
+sciences and the fine arts took the place of the ignorance, the
+avarice and the venality which for centuries had held sole sway in
+that civilized portion of the world. Princes and nobles vied with
+Popes and Cardinals in the restoration of letters; and now the
+best way for a man to advance himself was to show a desire for the
+promotion of letters; above all, for the discovery of manuscripts
+of the ancient classics, which, when long looked for, and not
+found, were usually,--from the too tempting reward, which was a
+fortune,--forged by some unscrupulous "Grammaticus," or writer of
+Latin.
+
+III. At the commencement of the fifteenth century, a little band
+of men lived in Rome: some were Apostolic Secretaries; all were
+famous for their abilities; five were scholars endowed with
+sterling talents, Antonio Lusco Cincio de Rustici, Leonardo Bruni,
+and two others from Florence, Bracciolini, and Dominici, afterwards
+Cardinal Archbishop of Ragusa. (Pog. Vita p. 180 from Joannes Baptista
+Poggius in Orat. Card. Capranicae (Miscell. Ballutii Tom. 3.) They
+were all friends; and their delight was, like their masters, the Popes,
+to retire in summer from the heat of Rome into the cool air of the
+Campagna; there, after a frugal repast, they held discourse daily,
+like men of mind, on a variety of engaging topics: "sumus saepius
+una confabulantes variis de rebus," says Bracciolini in a letter
+to Francesco Marescalcho of Ferrara (Op. Pog. 307), and continues:
+"incidit inter nos sermo de viris doctis et eloquentibus." Thus
+
+    "Oft unwearied did they spend the nights,
+    Till the Ledaean stars, so famed for love,
+    Wondered at them from above--
+    They spent them not in toys, or lust, or wine;
+    But search of deep philosophy,
+    Wit, eloquence, and poetry,
+    Arts which they loved."
+
+Of these men, the most extraordinary for superlative qualifications,
+and, apparently that inseparable companion of the highest order of
+genius, indefatigable energy, was Bracciolini. Muratori, in his
+"Annali d'Italia" (anno 1459) speaks of him as "letterato insigne
+di questi tempi," and, as leaving behind him when he died on the
+30th of October, 1459, "molte opere e gran nome" (Vol. XIII. 481).
+
+When Bracciolini first joined the Papal Court, Guarino of Verona,
+Aurispa and Filelfo were making continuous voyages to Greece in
+order to fetch home manuscripts of Greek authors yet unknown in
+Italy; at this time were found and first brought to the West of
+Europe the poems of Callimachus, Pindar, Oppian and Orpheus; the
+Commentaries of Aristarchus on the Iliad; the works of Plato,
+Proclus, Plotinus, Xenophon and Lucian; the Histories of Arrian,
+Cassius Dio, and Diodorus Siculus; the Geography of Strabo;
+Procopius and some of the Byzantine historians; Gregory of
+Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and other Greek Fathers of the Church. In
+emulation of these men Bracciolini and a band of bookfinders,
+assisted and rewarded by the wealth of Princes and Popes, went up
+and down the countries of Europe to find manuscripts of the
+ancient works of the Romans that were supposed to be lost; and it
+is generally believed that the republic of letters is more
+indebted to him than to anybody else of his manuscript finding age
+for the numerous books that were found, and which without such
+timely recovery we are given to understand, from the decaying
+state of the manuscript and the pernicious place where it was
+lighted on, would very soon, in almost every instance, have been
+irrecoverably lost.
+
+When Bracciolini accompanied the Papal Court in the capacity of
+Secretary to the Council of Constance in 1414, he, one day, went
+with two friends, Cincio, the Roman gentleman and scholar of
+fortune, of the family de Rustici, and the eminent schoolman and
+finished writer Bartolommeo de Montepulciano to the monastery of
+St. Gall about twenty miles distant from Constance for the purpose
+of finding new manuscripts; his companions found Lactantius, "De
+Utroque Homine," Vitruvius on Architecture and the Grammar of
+Priscian, while he himself found, in addition to the Commentaries
+of Asconius Pedianus on eight of Cicero's Orations,--the three
+first books, and half of the fourth of the Argonauticon of
+Valerius Flaccus. On this discovery being communicated to
+Francesco Barbaro, the latter in his reply spoke of other
+discoveries of Bracciolini's, of some of which we have no account
+as to where they were found, nor when, except before 1414:
+Tertullian, Lucretius, Silius Italicus, Ammianus Marcelinus,
+Manilius (his unfinished poem on "Astronomy," clearly a forgery),
+Lucius Septimius Caper, Eutychius and Probus; and, adds Barbaro,
+"many others,"--"complures alios," among which Aulus Gellius may
+be included. All these were found not by Bracciolini alone, but
+always in the company of very remarkable characters, and more
+frequently than any other, Bartolommeo de Montepulciano, of whom
+nothing is known, except that he was a splendid scholar, and great
+bookfinder, or forger (the terms are synonymous), and that he
+resided in Rome in a pleasant villa situated near the Lateran
+Church (Pog. Op. p. 2).
+
+In the oration which he delivered over the remains of his friend
+Niccoli (Op. 272) Bracciolini says that he found in French and
+German monasteries, besides Quintilian, Silius Italicus, and part
+of the poem of Lucretius, some orations of Cicero and Nonius
+Marcellus. In his Treatise "de Infelicitate Principum" (p. 394),
+and in one of his Letters (II. 7), he mentions having found
+Cicero's Orations along with Columella in the Monastery of Cluny
+in the Maconnois district of Burgundy; he gives the number of the
+Orations of Cicero, which were eight (Ep. IV. 2), and which are
+generally supposed to have been those for Caecina, Rubirius and
+Roscius, against Rullus and Lucius Piso, and those relating to the
+Agrarian Laws. He also found Cicero's two treatises De Legibus and
+De Finibus. In his Descriptio Ruinarum Urbis Romae he states that
+he found in the Monastery of Monte Casino, near Naples, Frontinus
+on the Aqueducts of Rome, and it was, as we know from one of his
+letters (III. 37), in July 1429. The Abbé Méhus, in the preface to
+his edition of the works of Traversari, adds that he found the
+eight books of the Mathematics of Firmicus, which is confirmed by
+himself (Ep. III. 37). While in England he recovered the poems of
+Julius Calpurnicus who wrote pastorals in the reign of the Emperor
+Carus; he also lighted in the monasteries on part of Petronius
+Arbiter (Ep. IV. 3), also part of Statius, and book XV. in Cologne
+in 1423 (ib.); six years after he found the following twelve plays
+of Plautus: Bacchides, Mostellaria, Mercator, Miles Gloriosus,
+Pseudolus, Poenulus, Persa, Rudens, Stichus, Trinummus and
+Truculentus. In fact, he was occupied nearly all his days, as long
+as he was in the vigour of life, in traversing Germany and other
+lands in search of ancient manuscripts, which he recovered in
+monasteries at different times and in different places; nor was he
+to be deterred from these toils, which have been likened to the
+labours of Hercules, by any stress of weather, length of journey
+or badness of roads.
+
+IV.--The account which he gives in his Dialogue "De Infelicitate
+Principum," while dwelling upon a custom of his of going from one
+country to another in far distant and barbarous parts for Latin
+books, opens our eyes to a very strange state of belief which
+obtained at the beginning of the fifteenth century with respect to
+the refined works of the ancients;--that, because a number of
+these manuscripts were discovered by him, and his band of
+bookfinders, in obscure monasteries in barbarous countries, there
+was to be deduced therefrom a definite conclusion that many more
+were to be discovered in that way; and that this conclusion was so
+firmly lodged in the minds of men it prevented Popes and Princes
+from continuing to offer that pecuniary aid and those other
+rewards which they had been for a long time in the habit of
+tendering for the recovery of such manuscripts:--"When these,"
+says he in the above-mentioned treatise, "had been brought to
+light by him, and when the very sanguine and certain hope was held
+forth of more being found, never after that did either a Pope or a
+Prince give the slightest attention or assistance to the recovery
+of those most illustrious men out of the convents of barbarians:"--
+"haec cum ab eo fuissent in lucem edita, cumque uberior et certa
+spes proposita esset ampliora inveniendi, nunquam postea aut
+pontifex aut princeps vel minimum operae aut auxilii adhibuit ad
+liberandos praeclarissimos illos viros ex ergastulis barbarorum"
+(p. 393). This statement is so remarkably curious that it requires
+a little consideration.
+
+We can easily understand how the valuable works of the Greeks and
+Romans, from the importance attached to them and the appreciation
+in which they were held, were safest and longest preserved in
+their respective countries, and that, therefore, they could have
+been found, sooner than elsewhere, in Greece and Italy; but after
+those countries had been thoroughly ransacked, it is not so clear
+to comprehend how it should follow that their works were to be
+just as rapidly and easily found in other, and those barbarous
+countries, nay, indeed, more rapidly and more easily. To put this
+forth was to endeavour to prepare people's minds for the numbers
+of discoveries that were made, or, perhaps, more properly,
+pretended to be made in foreign parts. It was, in fact, to pursue
+this course of reasoning:--If those works had remained in
+civilized hands, centuries would not have elapsed without the
+world being cognizant of their existence; the learned could not
+have lost sight of them; the select few would have transmitted
+copies from generation to generation; but when they passed into
+the possession of unlettered men living in barbarous countries,
+they would then be altogether hidden from view; such people would
+treat them as swine treat pearls; spurn them; not keep them in
+libraries, but throw them away as useless lumber into cellars,
+pits, dark holes, dirty passages, dry wells; fling them away as
+refuse into dustbins or upon dungheaps. Nearly as much says
+Bracciolini by these shadowy phrases: "in darkness"; "in a blind
+dungeon"; "in a dirty dungeon;" "in dismal dungeons," and "in many
+dens," as for instance, "for the sake of finding books that were
+kept by them in their convents shut up _in darkness_ and
+_in a blind dungeon_" (Op. 393)--"He had rescued renowned
+authors out of _the dismal dungeons_ in which, against their
+will and without being used, they had been kept concealed (for
+they were shut up in _many a den_ and _foul dungeon_" (ib.):--
+"in tenebris"; "carcere caeco"; "foedo carcere"; "diris
+carceribus," and "multis vinculis," e.g.:--"librorum
+perquirendorum gratia, qui in ergastulis apud illos reclusi
+detinentur _in tenebris_, et _carcere caeco_" (Op. 393)--
+"Autores praeclaros ... _ex diris carceribus_ quibus inviti
+obsoletique opprimuntur eruisset (sunt enim _multis vinculis_
+et _foedo carcere_ abstrusi" (ib.). Books thrown away in such
+places must be regarded, when recovered, as found by the purest
+accident; hence it was at once comprehensible how they had
+remained unknown to the world for hundreds of years; for who would
+think of looking for books in such places?
+
+Yet it was precisely in such places that Bracciolini and his
+companions looked for the books that they wanted; what is still
+stranger, they always found in such queer places the exact books
+they were in search of. It was so, for example, when they
+recovered the books in the monastery of St. Gall; the books were
+not found where, Bracciolini admits, they ought to have been, on
+account of their excellence, on the shelves of the library, but
+where slugs and toads are more frequently looked for and found
+than books and manuscripts, in an exceedingly dirty and dark
+dungeon at the bottom of a tower and one of these books,
+Quintilian, though described as "sound and safe," is also
+described as being "saturated with moisture and begrimed with
+mire," as if it had been made dirty expressly for the occasion of
+the recovery: "Quintilianum comperimus, adhuc salvum et incolumem,
+plenum tamen situ et pulvere squalentem. Erant non in bibliotheca
+libri illi, ut eorum dignitas postulabat, sed in teterrimo quodam
+et obscuro carcere, fundo scilicet unius turris." (From a letter
+of Bracciolini to Guarino of Verona, preserved in St. Paul's
+Library, Leipzic--printed at the end of Poggiana, and dated Jan. 1,
+1417).
+
+V. This kind of reasoning, when admitted, throws the door open to
+fraud and forgery; but it cannot be admitted, because it is
+fallacious in reality, sound in appearance only, as will be seen
+by only putting a few natural questions:--How came these books
+into such places? Who took them from Italy, Greece, or other
+enlightened parts of the globe? If some learned monk, made abbot
+or prior of a convent of Germany or Hungary? or some equally
+learned priest sent as bishop to christianize the heathen in still
+more barbarous lands in the North in a far distant age, why should
+succeeding monks, fonder, be it granted, of ploughing and reaping
+than reading and writing, treat as refuse books which, though not
+deemed by them of any value, as far as their own tastes and
+inclinations were concerned, they, nevertheless, knew were held in
+the very highest esteem by the studious in more civilized parts;
+and that these studious people, understanding the language in
+which they were written, and considering their contents most
+precious, would willingly give in exchange for them at any time
+not large, but enormous sums of money?
+
+These are questions that cannot be answered with satisfaction:
+they seem to give the highest colouring of truth to what has been
+suggested, that there was a wholesale forgery of these books; and
+one is almost inclined to give Father Hardouin credit, for being
+quite right, when he expressed as his belief that, perhaps, not
+more than two or three of the ancient Latin classics were really
+written by the old Romans. [Endnote 208]
+
+VI. The clause in the passage just quoted from the "De
+Infelicitate Principum":--"never after" (Bracciolini had found a
+great many books abroad, in Germany and elsewhere) "did either a
+Pope or a Prince give the slightest attention or assistance
+towards the recovery of those most illustrious men out of the
+convents of barbarians."--"nunquam postea aut Pontifex aut
+Princeps vel minimum operae aut auxilii adhibuit ad liberandos
+praeclarissimos illos viros ex ergastulis barbarorum," shows that
+before the time of Bracciolini the custom prevailed of valuable
+assistance and large money rewards being given by Popes and
+Princes for the recovery of ancient classics; and therefore
+confirms what was stated in the first portion of this inquiry that
+the custom was not confined to the age of Leo X., but ranged back
+to, at least, a hundred, if not, half as many more years. In that
+way men, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, made large
+fortunes. In that way Bracciolini made his.
+
+The finding of any ancient Latin MSS. was a distinct profession in
+those days, and Bracciolini may be said to have studied the art,
+of which he was one of the greatest experts, so carefully, and to
+have practised it with such ability and diligence as to have
+elevated it into a science. Many enterprising scholars before him
+had devoted themselves with indefatigable perseverance to
+traversing, sometimes singly, but more frequently in bands of two,
+three, or more, Italy, Greece, Spain, and the more civilized
+countries of Europe for the purpose of ransacking,--or pretending
+to ransack,--the shelves of convent libraries of their treasures.
+As scarcely anything was more profitable than searching for MSS.,--
+particularly when it was certain that, after the looking for,
+they would be found, if not of the particular authors wanted, yet
+of others that would repay for the searching;--and as Emperors and
+Popes, Kings, Princes, Cardinals, Ministers and Bishops paid
+fabulous prices for the literary treasures of ancient Rome,
+Bracciolini improved upon this plan by extending the area of
+search into the woods of Germany, the wildernesses of Bohemia and
+Hungary, and the not then over civilized fastnesses and forests of
+England and marshes and bogs of France: the great thing with him
+and his companions was, when they could not find, to forge; all
+they had to ascertain was simply which ancient Roman was
+particularly wanted and would fetch the highest price; and as the
+band consisted of men of genius of different tastes or faculties,--
+poetical, historical or narrative, philosophical, grammatical or
+critical, and scientific or mathematical, if the reward was
+sufficiently munificent to pay for the time and labour, the highly
+valued work that was wanted, no matter to what department of
+literature or science it belonged, was sure to turn up, sooner or
+later; and if the man who was to forge was not in the proper mood
+of inspiration for the business, some other fabricated writer was
+put forward on the ground that he was quite equivalent in merit to
+the author that was desiderated, as when a thief or other vagabond
+is wanted by a London Detective, he is certain to turn up in due
+time, and if not the actual delinquent, at any rate somebody else
+as bad, who serves equally well for the culprit.
+
+VII. Bracciolini now engaged in forging an addition to the History
+of Tacitus, impelled to it from his intolerable and restless
+passion for the acquisition of a fortune, greater even than his
+constantly increasing avidity for knowledge, soon saw that it was
+a task beset by enormous difficulties; nay, difficulties of an
+apparently insuperable nature. We have no record that he was aware
+of this; but we require no record to know it; his proceedings
+pointed to it: We have already speculated as to the reasons which
+must have induced him to forge the Annals so strangely as he did,
+but before those reasons could have entered his mind, they must
+have been preceded by others: it is to be presumed that he
+endeavoured, in the first instance, to continue the History of
+Tacitus, as Tacitus himself would have continued it, by following
+up the history of Domitian with that of Nerva; but the few
+materials that were left rendered it impossible for him to record
+the events in that Emperor's reign on the broad and expansive plan
+adopted by Tacitus, which was to spread out the events of one year
+so that they should fill four lengthy books. He therefore gave up
+the notion as utterly impracticable; but in trying to get out of
+the forgery of the Annals he suggested another scheme of
+fabrication just as audacious, and which he seems to have imagined
+would have been just as remunerative.
+
+Two months after he had written for Ptolemy's maps, Plutarch's
+Lives, and the works of Suetonius and other historians of the
+first Roman Emperors, he addressed another letter to his
+Florentine friend, Niccoli, dated the 8th of January, 1424, in
+which he hinted at no less a forgery than the whole of Livy's
+History, and if circumstances had been favourable to it, we should
+have, doubtless, had a composition so like the original,--even so
+much more like than even what was afterwards honourably and
+admirably done by Freinshemius,--as to have defied detection. His
+statement was that a learned Goth, who had been a great traveller,
+had told him he had seen the Ten Decades of Livy's History in the
+Cistercian Abbey of Sora, near Roschild, about a day's journey
+from Lubeck. He wrote in the highest spirits, as gay as a
+butterfly, as playful as a kitten, and as light as a balloon; he
+implored his friend to lose no time in seeking out Cosmo de Medici
+and get his consent for the finding of these volumes, which he
+described as written in two large, oblong volumes in Lombard
+characters. He added that the man who had brought the news was not
+to be relied upon, yet he wished to believe him in a matter "out
+of which coin could be made to such an amount as to be absolutely
+incredible,"--"ex qua tantum lucrum fieri posset, quam esse omnino
+incredulus" (Ep. II. 9).
+
+He wished it to be further communicated to Leonardo Bruni who had
+just been appointed Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, in
+hopes, no doubt, that Bruni would further the scheme by money
+assistance; he also wrote about it to Leonello d'Este;--all which
+eagerness on his part with respect to forging the lost books of
+Livy can be easily accounted for, when, in exchange for a mere
+copy of Livy's imperfect history he got from Beccadelli of
+Bologna, the minister of King Alphonso I. of Arragon, a sum
+sufficient wherewith to purchase a landed estate:--"Poggio
+vendette un codice di Tito Livio per acquistarsi un podere, e il
+Panormita vendette un podere per acquistare il codice di Tito
+Livio" (Corniani, tom. II. p. 122). Although, for the purpose of
+making a statement with a telling or striking effect, these are
+the words of Count Corniani in his "I Secoli della Letteratura
+Italiana," it was not exactly "a farm" that was taken and given by
+the accepter and disposer of a manuscript copy of Livy; Count
+Corniani himself is immediately his own contradicter by quoting in
+a note a passage from one of Beccadelli's Letters (Lib. V.), to
+the effect that the "farm" in Bracciolini's case was a "villa at
+Florence," as Beccadelli thus wrote to King Alphonso: "But I also
+want to know who in your judgment acted wiser, Poggio or myself;
+he, that he might buy a _villa at Florence_, sold a Livy
+which he had written with his own hand and was a most beautiful
+copy; I, that I might buy a Livy, sold a farm by auction":--"Sed
+et illud a prudentia tua scire desidero, uter ego an Poggius
+melius fecerit: is ut _Villam Florentiae_ emerit, Livium
+vendidit, quem sua manu pulcherrimus scripserat; ego ut Livium
+emam, fundum proscripsi." If Bracciolini could get so much for an
+incomplete copy of Livy's History, what might he not hope to get
+for a complete one? Imagination wanders into the realms of fairy.
+I am confident that if he had received the requisite encouragement
+from Niccolo Niccoli, or Leonardo Bruni, or Cosmo de Medici, or
+that munificent patron of letters, Leonello d' Este, afterwards
+that enormously wealthy prince, the Marquis of Ferrara, and had
+undertaken the task, he would have been more successful as an
+imitator of Livy than he proved himself to be (marvellous though
+he was) as an imitator of Tacitus. The genius of Livy, and also of
+Sallust, was more in accord with his own than the staid majestic
+coldness and the solemn curt sententiousness of Tacitus. Indeed,
+he was such a devoted admirer of Livy and Sallust, that he reminds
+the reader of them throughout his History of Florence; in the
+Annals, too, he goes out of his way to lavish praises upon them,
+and upon them only of all the Roman historians: he speaks of
+Sallust as the "finest writer of Roman history": and of Livy, as
+"famous, above others, for eloquence and fidelity":--"Caius
+Sallustius, rerum Romanarum florentissimus auctor" (III. 30):--
+"Titus Livius, eloquentiae ac fidei praeclarus in primis" (IV.
+34). Tacitus nowhere expresses such very lofty opinions of his,
+two fellow and rival historians; on the contrary, he does not seem
+to have so thoroughly approved their style and manner; at any
+rate, he carefully avoided their mode of treating history. It is
+true that in his Agricola he speaks well of Livy, but at the same
+time he places Fabius Rusticus exactly upon the same level with
+him:--for he says "that Livy among the ancients, and Fabius
+Rusticus among the modern authors were the most eloquent": "Livius
+veterum, Fabius Rusticus recentium, eloquentissimi auctores" (10);
+he, therefore, never could have spoken of Livy, as Bracciolini
+speaks of him in the Annals, as "famous, _above others,_"--
+"praeclarus _in primis_." This is another of those little
+slips of Bracciolini's, which, without question, at once, bring
+his forgery to light.
+
+VIII. After these remarks, it cannot but be highly interesting to
+the reader if I now place before him the whole of the very
+remarkable, and what should be ever-memorable letter about the
+contemplated forgery of Livy, not only for the subject on which it
+touches, but as exhibiting Bracciolini in his most playful, and,
+it may also be added, most roguish mood:--
+
+"A learned man who is a Goth in race, and has travelled over a
+great part of the world, has been here; he is a man of a good
+understanding, but unreliable. He said that he had seen the X.
+Decades of Livy, in two big and oblong volumes written in Lombard
+characters, and there was on the title page of one volume a note
+that the codex contained the ten decades of Titus Livy, and that
+he had read some parts of these volumes. This he asserts with an
+air of truth that commands belief; he told the same tale to
+Cardinal Orsini, and to many more, and to all in the very same
+words, so that I think this is no fib of his. What more do you
+want? This statement of his, and his serious countenance, cause me
+to give some credence to him. For it is a very good thing to be
+misled in a matter of this kind, out of which coin can be made to
+such an amount as to be absolutely incredible. Therefore I have
+wanted to write to you about this, that you may talk over it with
+Cosmo, and anxiously set to work for these volumes to be searched
+for; it will be an easy job for you. The books are in the
+Monastery at Sora that belongs to the Cistercian Order, about two
+German miles from Roschild, that is, a little more than a day's
+journey from Lubeek. Prick up your ears, Pamphilus. Two volumes
+big, oblong, in Lombard characters, are in the monastery at Sora
+that belongs to the Cistercian Order, about two German miles from
+Roschild, and to be reached from Lubeek in two days or so. See
+then that Cosmo writes as soon as possible to Gherard de Bueri,
+for him to betake himself there when he has the opportunity,--aye,
+betake himself at once to the Monastery. For if this is true, it
+will be a triumph over the Dacians. The Cardinal will send
+somebody there, or commission a person to start post-haste. I
+don't want such a big pill as this to slip out of our own throats;
+therefore, be on the stir, look alive, and don't sleep over it.
+For this is just what the man has stated, and though he might seem
+to talk too fast, yet there is no reason why he should tell an
+impudent lie, especially as he can gain nothing by telling lies.
+Therefore, I, who am such a sort of man as scarcely to believe
+what I see, am induced to think that this is not entirely false,
+and in a matter of this kind it is a proper thing to be deceived.
+Run then to Cosmo,--press him,--importune him to make an advance
+for these books to be brought to you safe and sharp. Adieu. Rome,
+the 8th of January, 1424. What you do, mind you let me know. In
+haste. Tell this to our Chancellor, Leonardo. In that monastery
+nearly all the kings of the Dacians are buried:"--
+
+"Venit huc quidam doctus homo natione Gothus, qui peragravit
+magnam partem orbis; homo quidem est ingenio acuto, sed
+inconstans. Idem retulit se vidisse X. decades Livii, duobus
+voluminibus magnis, et oblongis, scriptas litteris Longobardis, et
+in titulo esse unius voluminis, in eo contineri decem decades Titi
+Livii, seque legisse nonnulla in iis voluminibus. Hoc ita verum
+esse asserit, ut credi possit; retulit hoc Cardinali de Ursinis,
+multisque praeterea, et omnibus eisdem verbis, ut opinor, non esse
+haec ab eo conficta. Quid quaeris? Facit assertio sua, et constans
+vultus, ut credam aliquid. Melius est enim peccare in hanc partem,
+ex qua tantum lucrum fieri posset, quam esse omnino incredulus.
+Itaque volui hoc ad te scribere, ut loquaris cum Cosmo, desque
+solicite operam, ut haec volumina quaerantur; nam facile erit
+vobis. Libri sunt in Monasterio de Sora, ordinis Cisterciensium,
+prope Roschild ad duo milliaria theutonica, hoc est, prope Lubich
+paulo amplius quam est iter diei unius. Arrige aures, Pamphile.
+Duo sunt volumina, magna, oblonga, litteris Longobardis, in
+Monasterio de Sora, ordinis Cisterciensium, prope Roschild, ad duo
+milliaria theutonica, quo adiri potest a Lubich biduo amplius.
+Cura ergo, ut Cosmus scribat quam primum diligenter ad Gherardum
+de Bueris, ut, si opus sit, ipse eo se conferat; imo omnino se
+conferat ad Monasterium. Nam si hoc verum est, triumphandum erit
+de Dacis. Cardinalis mittet illuc nescio quem, aut committet uni
+propediem discessuro. Nollem hunc tantum bolum de faucibus nostris
+cadere; itaque matura, ac diligenter; ne dormias. Nam haec vir
+ille ita affirmavit, ut quamvis verbosior videretur, tamen nulla
+esset causa, cur ita impudenter mentiretur, praesertim nullo
+proposito mentiendi praemio. Ego igitur ille, qui vix credo quae
+video, adducor, ut hoc non omnino esse falsum putem, et hac una in
+re honestum est falli. Tu igitur curre, insta, preme Cosmum, ut
+aliquid expendat, quo litterae cito tutae deferantur. Vale. Romae
+die VIII. Januarii 1424. Quid autem egeritis, cura, ut sciam. Manu
+veloci. Dicas haec Leonardo nostro Cancellario. In eo monasterio
+omnes fere Dacorum reges sepeliuntur." (Lib. II. Ep. 9.)
+
+I cannot pass away from this singular letter without some comment.
+It is very certain that there never was known to have been any
+such copy of Livy in the Monastery of Sora, though Tiraboschi, who
+is simple enough to believe in the sincerity of Bracciolini,
+speaks of these volumes as having shared the same fate as other
+manuscripts, that is, being lost:--"questo si raro codice ha avuta
+la stessa sorte degli altri" (Vol. I. p. 452 n.). We may be
+assured that the "two big, oblong volumes" never had an
+existence:--the two volumes, like Sir John Falstaff's men in
+buckram, increase in number in the telling, for in a subsequent
+letter addressed by Bracciolini to Leonello d'Este, the "two"
+become "THREE": what is more, the learned Goth's "serious
+statement" is "a sacred oath"; the "Lombard characters" are
+intermixed with some "Gothic" ones, and "another person" is found
+who declares that he has also seen the whole of the Decades of
+Livy:--"Nicolaus quidam, natione Gothus ... _sancte juravit_
+esse ... TRIA praegrandia volumina, et oblonga, conscripta literis
+Longobardis et nonnullis praeterea _Gothicis_ intermixtis ...
+nunc quoque _alius testis_ horum librorum reperiatur, qui se
+quoque decades omnes vidisse asseveret" (Pog. Ep. XXX., post lib.
+De Variet. Fortun.). After this one is almost inclined to exclaim
+with Shakespeare's Prince Hal: "Prithee, let him alone: we shall
+have more anon." Where there is such inconsistency in the putting
+of a statement, the account looks uncommonly like a figment. We
+may be equally sure that the learned Goth never had an existence,
+any more than the "two" volumes, or the "three" volumes; (for,
+with the different statements, it is difficult to determine their
+number), nor, consequently, can there be any truth about the
+communication made by the Goth to Cardinal Orsini, and many
+others.
+
+It will have been observed also that Bracciolini himself insists
+on the probable myth of the whole tale; the learned Goth is
+"unreliable"; he maintains that he is "telling no fib";
+Bracciolini doubts himself whether what he hears is "true," but he
+can "see no reason why the man should lie": thus repeatedly in a
+very short letter he strongly suspects the veracity of the story--
+he only believes it because he wishes to believe it.
+
+The whole thing was trumped up by himself for a very obvious
+reason: he wanted to ascertain whether Cosmo de' Medici (or any
+other rich man) would give money (in fact, a fortune,) for the
+recovered portion of the whole History of Livy: that being
+ascertained, he had his own scheme of further procedure; he kept
+that to himself; it has died with him, and, never having been
+revealed, it can only be divined:--my conjecture (looking at the
+character of Bracciolini) is that he would have played upon the
+credulity of Cosmo de' Medici, Leonardo Bruni, Leonello d'Este (or
+any other man whom he could have duped) till he had had time,
+which would have been years, to forge what he would have continued
+to assert, until the completion of the forgery, was in existence
+somewhere in Germany, a mistake only having been made by the
+"learned Goth" as to the name and site of the monastery. Hence his
+speaking of that imaginary individual as "unreliable,"--or
+whatever else he may mean by "inconstans,"--a word that he uses to
+denote a man who might fall into mistakes, as, for example, in not
+recollecting the exact name or precise situation of a monastery,
+but who could not possibly err as to the nature of a book which he
+had seen, handled, opened and read, and had learning to understand
+what he read.
+
+IX. Notwithstanding the enthusiasm and energy, as well as the
+craft and force, with which he laid the foundation for its
+acceptance, nothing came of this grand determination--this
+indirect proposal of his to produce by imposture the whole lost
+portion of the history of Livy; so whether he liked it or not, if
+he wanted to get a sum equivalent in these days to a little
+fortune of £10,000 at the least, he had to return to the
+fabrication of the Annals of Tacitus; and get through the
+ungrateful task as best he could. So, "hanging down his ears," as
+Horace says,
+
+    "ut iniquae mentis asellus,
+    Cum gravius dorso subiit onus,"
+
+he steadily set to work in the January of 1424, with a patient
+soul and an iron will to the completion of the dolorous drudgery
+from which he had ascertained to his sorrow there was no escape.
+
+All went on for months,--for years in silence and secresy, as the
+case always is when mischief is brewing. Upwards of three years
+and a half thus elapsed; then the low and hidden rumblings of the
+volcano were again heard; once more vague and mysterious
+utterances with respect to Tacitus passed in their correspondence
+between Bracciolini and Niccoli. Two years,--or nearly that time,--
+again passed: then followed the pangs of labour from the womb of
+forgery: through the hands of Bracciolini came a hitherto
+thoroughly unknown MS. of Tacitus, which he said had been brought
+to him by a monk from a far distant convent in the easternmost
+corner of Saxony, on the borders of Bohemia; (the reader will be
+pleased to observe not "Hungary" although the country adjacent to
+it;--so circumstances shift and vary, in the lapse of years, and
+owing to the inconstancy of men's intentions). The new codex was
+an affair at once startling and gratifying: it was such a triumph
+over darkness in the progress of knowledge that it rivalled a
+conquest over the Dacians in the march of civilization: for the
+first time it brought to light as the opening portion of the
+History of Tacitus what are now known as "The Last Six Books of
+the Annals." These I shall now endeavour to point out were the
+handiwork of Bracciolini, to whose wondrous power of assimilating
+his literary abilities to those of another I must pay this just
+tribute;--that in those six books of the Annals he mastered the
+simplicity, though he came far short of the elegance of Tacitus.
+
+
+END OF BOOK THE SECOND.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE THIRD.
+
+THE LAST SIX BOOKS OF THE ANNALS.
+
+
+    Quum itaque multa ex Taciti operibus deessent, ut Nicoli
+    voluntati morem gereret Poggius, nil omisit intentatum, ut per
+    Monachum nescio quem è Germania Tacitum erueret.
+     MEHUS, _Praefat. ad Lat. Epistol. Traversarii._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE CHARACTER OF BRACCIOLINI.
+
+
+I. The audacity of the forgery accounted for by the mean opinion
+Bracciolini had of the intelligence of men.--II. The character and
+tone of the last Six Books of the Annals exemplified by what is
+said of Sabina Poppaea, Sagitta, Pontia and Messalina.--III. A few
+errors that must have proceeded from Bracciolini about the
+Colophonian Oracle of Apollo Clarius, the Household Gods of the
+Germans, Gotarzes, Bardanes and, above all, Nineveh.--IV. The
+estimate taken of human nature by the writer of the Annals the
+same as that taken by Bracciolini.--V. The general depravity of
+mankind as shown in the Annals insisted upon in Bracciolini's
+Dialogue "De Infelicitate Principum".
+
+I. There is a great difference between the first six books of the
+Annals and the last six books; the latter portion is more historical,
+and less biographical than the first portion: there is an obvious
+attempt to assimilate it as closely as possible to the work of
+Tacitus; and any material difference in the character of the two
+productions is not to be detected at a superficial glance.
+Hence many most intelligent readers are led astray in believing
+that the Annals and the History of Tacitus proceeded from the same
+hand, from not sufficiently bearing in mind that whatever a
+history may be, the general character must always be the same;
+plots and intrigues being alike, as well as stratagems and
+revolutions; also persons and passions: the reason is clear: man
+ever remains the same, affording the same examples of virtues and
+vices, and carrying on wars in the same way, according to interest
+and ambition, while the most important events in which he plays a
+part resemble in having their origin from trivial causes, as
+rivers, even the mightiest, take their source from insignificant
+springs.
+
+But while nobody discerns any such material difference in the
+character of the Annals and the History of Tacitus as to be struck
+with wonder, everybody is filled with amazement at there being in
+the two works two such very different conceptions of historical
+composition. In the History only full light is thrown on important
+events and leading characters: that this may shine the brighter
+every common action is thrown into the shade, and every small
+individual passed over unmentioned. But the pages in the last six
+books of the Annals are crowded with incidents, great and small,
+and figures, good, bad and indifferent. Contrary also to Tacitus,
+who disposes materials in a just order, arranging those together
+that refer to the same thing at different times, the writer of the
+Annals speaks of cognate things, that should be associated,
+separately, as they occur from year to year, thus reducing his
+narrative from the height of a general history to the level of a
+mere diary.
+
+The audacity of the forgery is here something absolutely
+marvellous;--and it never would have been attempted by any one who
+was not made of the stuff of Bracciolini: it was the stuff that
+makes a forger: anyone with proper appreciation of men's
+intelligence would not have dared to do this; but, instead of
+regarding the majority of his kind as sagacious, or even more so
+than they are, and knowing much, or more than they do,--as is the
+case with well-disposed people,--Bracciolini, who was far from
+being of a benevolent nature, fell into the very opposite extreme,
+of looking upon men as remarkably stupid and ignorant. Nothing is
+more common than meeting in his works with contemptuous
+disparagements of his kind; he scoffs at human nature for its
+deficiency of understanding; he does not hesitate decrying its
+want of thought, as in his Essay "De Miseriâ Humanae Conditionis":
+"we must at times recollect," says he, "that we are men, silly
+and shallow in our nature":--"aliquando nos esse homines meminerimus,
+hoc est, imbecillis fragilisque naturae" (p. 130); or, "I admit
+the silliness of mankind to be great": "fateor--magnam esse humani
+generis imbecillitatem" (p. 90); or, "Knowledge is cultivated
+by a few on account of the general stupidity": "quoniam communi
+stultitia a paucis virtus colitur" (p. 9l): pretty well this for
+one work. Then opening his "Historia Disceptativa Convivalis,"
+the reader lights on him sneering at the "shallowness and silliness
+of his age":--"haec fragilis atque imbecilla aetas" (p. 32). As in
+his elaborate and carefully conned works, so in his Epistles thrown
+off on the spur of the moment,--as when he is inviting his friend
+Bartolomeo Fazio to stay with him in Florence, he continues: "Though
+I have lived in this city now for a great many years, from my youth
+upwards, yet every day as if a fresh resident I am overcome with
+amazement at the number of the remarkable objects, and very often
+am roused to enthusiasm at the sight of those public buildings which
+fools, from the stupidity of their understandings, speak of as erected
+by supernatural beings":--"quamvis in ea jam pluribus annis ab ipsa
+juventute fuerim versatus, tamen quotidie tamquam novus incola
+tantarum rerum admiratione obstupesco, recreoque persaepe animum
+visu eorum aedificiorum, quae stulti propter ingenii imbecillitatem
+a daemonibus facta dicunt" (Ep. IX. Bartol. Facii Epist. p. 79, Flor.
+Ed. 1745).
+
+II. With such a low notion of men's intelligence and the stupidity
+of his age (though it was a clever one,--at least, so far as Italy
+was concerned, the country of which he had the closest knowledge
+and with which he had the most constant intercourse), it is to be
+expected,--quite natural, in fact, that he should have regarded
+lightly the difficulties he had to encounter in his endeavours to
+imitate Tacitus; and though he must have been thoroughly conscious
+that it was not in his power victoriously to surmount them, yet he
+cared not, for he did not fear detection, viewing, as he did, with
+such withering and lordly disdain the want of perspicacity which,
+in his fancy, characterized his species. He worked on, then, as
+best he could, with courage and confidence; every now and then
+doing things that never would have been done by Tacitus: the
+story, for example, of Sabina Poppaea in the 14th book; Tacitus
+would have surely passed it over as, though having some relation
+to the public, coming within the province of biography.
+Unquestionably, Tacitus would have rejected as strictly
+unhistorical the dark tale of murder and adultery of the tribune
+of the people, Sagitta, and the private woman, Pontia, which has
+no more to do with the historical affairs of the Romans, than a
+villainous case of adultery in the Divorce Court, or a monstrous
+murder tried at the Old Bailey is in any way connected with the
+public transactions of Great Britain. [Endnote 231]
+
+What history, then, we have in the last six books of the Annals
+does not remind us in its character of the history taken note of
+by Tacitus.
+
+The tone and treatment, too, are not his.
+
+The Jesuit, Réné Rapin, in his Comparisons of the Great Men of
+Antiquity (Réflexions sur l'Histoire, p. 211), may, with a violent
+seizure of ecstacy, fall, like a genuine Frenchman, into a fit of
+enthusiasm over the description, as "exquisite in delicacy and
+elegance" ("tout y est décrit dans une délicatesse et dans une
+élégance exquise" says he), of the lascivious dancing of Messalina
+and her wanton crew of Terpsichorean revellers when counterfeiting
+the passions and actions of the phrenzied women-worshippers of
+Bacchus celebrating a vintage in the youth of the world, when the
+age was considered to be as good as gold: the gay touches in the
+lively picture may be introduced with sufficient warmth to
+enrapture the chaste Jesuit priest, and judiciously enough to
+contrast boldly with the dreadful, tragic details of the shortly
+ensuing death of the Empress; but they are not circumstances that
+would have ever emanated with their emotional particularities from
+the solemn soul of Tacitus. The passage is only another powerful
+proof how absolutely ineffectual was the attempt of Bracciolini to
+render history after the style of the stern, majestic Roman.
+
+III. Every now and then, too, the most extraordinary errors with
+respect to facts cannot be explained by the hypothesis that
+Tacitus wrote the Annals; for there could not have been such
+deviations from truth on the part of any Roman who lived in the
+time of the first Caesars: on the other hand, the errors are just
+of the character which makes it look uncommonly as if they were
+the unhappy blunders of a mediaeval or Renaissance writer such as
+Bracciolini. An instance or two will best illustrate what is
+meant.
+
+In the Twelfth Book Lollia Paulina is made to consult the
+Colophonian Oracle of Apollo Clarius respecting the nuptials of
+the Emperor Claudius: "interrogatumque _Apollinis Clarii
+simulacrum_ super nuptiis Imperatoris" (An. XII. 22). How could
+this be? when Strabo, who lived in the time of Augustus, tells us
+that in his day that oracle no longer existed, only the fame of
+it, for his words are: "the grove of Apollo Clarius, in which
+there used to be the ancient oracle":--[Greek: "alsos tou Klariou
+Apollonos, en ho kai manteion aen pote palaion"] (XIV. I. 27).
+This is quite convincing that Tacitus could not have written those
+words.
+
+There is another reason against Tacitus having made the statement:
+he must have been aware from personal knowledge that his
+countrymen obtained all their oracular responses from water.
+Bracciolini might have known that this custom prevailed among the
+Romans during the time of the Caesars, had he consulted Lucian's
+Alexander or Pseudomantis, Melek (better known as Porphyry), and,
+above all, Jamblicus, who, in his book upon Egyyptian, Chaldaean
+and Assyrian Mysteries, speaks (III. 11) of the habit among the
+Romans of "interpreting the divine will by water": [Greek: di
+hudatos chraematizesthai], and explains the manner how, "for in a
+subterraneous temple" (by which, I presume, Jamblicus means a
+"sanctified cave or grotto") there was a fountain, from which the
+augur drank," [Greek: einai gar paegaen en oiko katageio, kai ap
+autaes pinein ton prophaetaen.] How can we believe that Tacitus
+was ignorant of such an ordinary native ceremony, and one, too,
+that must have come repeatedly within his ken?
+
+Another error is, apparently, very trifling, but it becomes quite
+startling when we are to suppose that it was made by Tacitus, an
+accepted authority upon the people in question,--the ancient
+Germans of the first century of our aera:--that people who
+(according to Sanson's Maps and Geographical Tables) inhabited
+what was then known as "Germany," namely, the country between the
+Danube and the Rhine, with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the western
+portion of Poland and some part of the kingdom of Hungary,--are
+represented as having HOUSEHOLD GODS, for we are told that if
+Italicus had had the spirit of his father (Flavius, brother of
+Armin), he would have done what his parent did, wage war more
+rancorously than any man, against his country and his "Household
+Gods"; "Si paterna Italico mens esset, non alium infensius coutra
+patriam ac _Deos Penates_, quam parentes ejus exercuisse"
+(An. XV. 16). Into this mistake Tacitus could not possibly have
+fallen, from being thoroughly acquainted with the manners of the
+Germans, as he has shown in his work on that subject: he knew that
+that people had only one set of gods whom they worshipped publicly
+in sacred groves and woods, but none corresponding to the Roman
+Dei Penetrales, privately worshipped at home.
+
+We have read scarcely more than a page from the commencement of
+that portion of the Annals where the forgery began,--the Eleventh
+Book,--before we find that a mistake is made about Gotarzes being
+the brother of Artabanus: for he is described as having
+"compounded poison for the particular purpose of killing his
+'brother' Artabanus and his wife and son": "necem fratri Artabano
+conjugique ac filio ejus praeparaverat" (An. XI. 8). Artabanus was
+the father, as may be seen in Josephus: "not long after Artabanus
+died, leaving his kingdom to his son Vardanes: [Greek: "Met' ou
+polun de chronon Artabanos telueta, taen Basileian to paidi
+Ouardanae katalipon"] (Antiq. Jud. XX. 3, 4 in init). Vardanes
+(according to Josephus), but (according to other writers) Bardanes
+was the brother of Gotarzes; as was known to Bracciolini who
+speaks of "Gotarzes revealing to his brother," meaning Bardanes,
+"a conspiracy of their countrymen which had been disclosed to
+him": "cognitis popularium insidiis, quas Gotarzes _fratri_
+patefecerat" (An. XI. 9). It cannot be said that Bracciolini was
+unacquainted with Josephus; for he follows him closely in the last
+six books of the Annals; further he mentions him in his letters,
+for he says that he has been "a long while waiting for his works,"
+(to make use of them in his forgery): "Jamdiu expectavi Josephi
+libros," &c. (Ep. III. 28): his memory, notwithstanding, entirely
+failed him with respect to the passage in question, or else he
+paid no heed to it.
+
+While he makes this misstatement about Gotarzes and Artabanus he
+falls into another blunder with respect to Bardanes: he circumscribes
+the limit of his reign to less than one twelvemonth,--the year when
+the Secular Games were celebrated which, according to his own account,
+was the year 800 from the Foundation of Rome, or the year 47 of the
+Christian Aera ("Ludi Saeculares octingesimo post Romam conditam ...
+spectati sunt." An. XI. 11).
+
+Soon after his accession Bardanes, (according to the narrative we
+have of him in the Annals), found a rebel in his brother Gotarzes,
+who waged war against him, defeated him, and, gaining his kingdom,
+had him assassinated by a body of Parthians, who "killed him in
+his very earliest youth while he was engaged in hunting and not
+anticipating any harm:" "incautum venationique intentum interfecere
+primam intra juventam" (An. XI. 10). All these circumstances are
+made to occur in such rapid succession to each other that they
+occupied only one year, if so much; for they are all shown as
+taking place during the consulship of Valerius Asiaticus and
+Valerius Messalla.
+
+Now let the reader turn to the Life of Apollonius of Tyana by
+Philostratus. He will there see that the Magician of Cappadocia on
+his arrival in Babylon was told that Bardanes had been reigning
+two years and as many months; Apollonius stopped in the palace of
+the king twenty months; then he started on a tour to India; he
+travelled about the Asiatic Peninsula for a considerable time;
+next he went on a visit to the Brahmins with whom he staid four
+months; after that he returned to Babylon, where he found Bardanes
+as he had left him, still king and in the enjoyment of excellent
+health. It is necessary that I should substantiate this by
+extracts from Philostratus. In a conversation with one of the
+king's courtiers Apollonius asks the question: "What year that was
+since Bardanes had recovered his kingdom?" and received the reply
+that it was "the third, two months of which they had already
+reached": [Greek: "poston de dae touto etos tae anaktaetheisae
+archae; pritou, ephae, haptometha duo aedae pou maenes"] (I. 28):
+in another conversation with Damis Apollonius says that he "is off
+to India"; that he has been staying at the court "already a year
+and four months"; though "the king will not let him take his
+departure until the completion of the eighth month": [Greek: age,
+o Dami, es Indous iomen ... eniautos gar haemin aedae, kai
+tettares ... oude anaesei haemas ... ho Basilaeus proteron, ae ton
+ogdoon telesai maena]: the biographer then speaking of the visit
+to the Brahmins, says that Apollonius spent four months with
+them": [Greek: maenon tettaron ekei diatripsanti]: and "on his
+return to Babylon he found Bardanes as he had left him," that is,
+on the throne and in the enjoyment of health: [Greek: es Babylona
+... anapleusai para ton Ouardanon, kai tuchontes auton oion
+egignoskon] (III. 58).
+
+We have proof positive here that Bardanes sat on the throne of
+Babylon for at least four years and a half; quite contrary to the
+account in the Annals. Philostratus is generally regarded as a
+most reliable writer of antiquity; we may be, therefore, tolerably
+certain, from the look out given us in the pages of the historian
+of Lemnos, that Bardanes did not die, as we are told in the
+Annals, in his earliest youth by assassination after a short reign
+of less than one year, but that he reigned long, lived to a good
+old age, and died a natural death.
+
+One more example of this kind, which almost seems to bring home
+the forgery to Bracciolini; and then we will pass on to other
+matters (for the present).
+
+Nowhere in his works do I find that Bracciolini makes any
+reference to Lucian or Strabo, or even mentions their names. I
+think if he had read them, he would have known better than to have
+spoken of Nineveh being in existence in the reign of the Emperor
+Claudius, because this is the reverse of what we are told by
+Lucian and Strabo. For all that, we hear in the Annals of troops
+"along their march capturing the City of Nineveh, that most
+ancient capital of Assyria": "Capta in transitu urbis Ninos
+vetustissima sedes Assyriae" (An. XII. 13). In Lucian's amusing
+Dialogue, entitled "Charon," when Mercury points out the tomb of
+Achilles on Cape Sigaeum and that of Ajax on the Rhoetaean
+promontory, Charon wants to see Nineveh, with Troy, Babylon,
+Mycenae, and Cleone, the following being the conversation; "I want
+to point out to you," says Mercury, "the tomb of Achilles: you see
+it on the sea? That's Cape Sigaeum in the Troad: and on the
+Rhoetaean promontory opposite Ajax is buried. CHAR. Those tombs, O
+Hermes, are no great sights. Rather point out to me those renowned
+cities, of which I have heard below,--Nineveh, the capital of
+Sardanapalus, Babylon, Mycenae, Cleone and that famous Troy, on
+account of which I remember ferrying across there such numbers
+that for ten whole years my skiff was never high and dry and never
+caught cold," (that being Charon's fun, according to Lucian's
+conception, in conveying that all that long time his boat was
+_in the water_ (hence "catching cold") from being perpetually
+used: [Greek: "Thelo soi deixai ton tou Achilleos taphon, horas
+ton epi tae thalattae; Sigeion men ekeino to Troikon, antikru de
+ho Aias tethattai en to Rhoiteio. CHAR. Ou megaloi, o Hermae, oi
+taphoi tas poleis de tas episaemous deixon moi aedae, has kato
+akouomen taen Ninon taen Sardanapalou, kai Babulona, kai Mukaenas,
+kai Kleonas, kai taen Ilion autaen, pollous goun memnaemai
+diaporthmensas ekeithen, hos deka oloneon maede neolkaesai, maede
+diapsuxai to skaphidion."] The reply that then follows of Mercury
+shows that not a remnant was left of Nineveh in the very ancient
+time of Croesus, and that nobody even then knew of its site:
+"Nineveh, O Ferryman, is quite destroyed, and not a trace of it is
+left now, nor can you tell where it used to be": [Greek: "Hae
+Minos men, o porthmen, apololen aedae, kai ouden ichnos eti loipon
+autaes oud an eipois hopou pot' ae"] (Charon 23). Strabo says the
+same with respect to the destruction of Nineveh: "The city of
+Nineveh was thereupon demolished simultaneously with the
+overthrowal of the Syrians: [Greek: Hae men oun Ninos polis
+aephanisthae parachraema meta taen ton Suron katalusin"] (XVI. I.3),
+--though to speak of the inhabitants as "Syrians," at such a
+juncture is hardly correct language on the part of Strabo; it
+should have been "_Assyrians_," if Justin is right in saying
+that that people only took the name of _Syrians_ after their
+empire was at an end: "for thirteen hundred years," says he, "did
+the Assyrians, who were _afterwards called the Syrians_,
+retain their empire": "Imperium Assyrii, qui _postea Syri dicti
+sunt_, mille trecentis annis tenuere" (Justin I. 2).
+
+Had Bracciolini been acquainted with these things, they would have
+made such an impression upon his mind that he could never have
+forgotten them. But as he wrote ancient history in the fifteenth
+century, and did not know what Lucian and Strabo had said of
+Nineveh, he took as an authority for his statement a most
+indifferent historian who flourished towards the close of the
+fourth century of our aera, Ammianus Marcellinus; for I know of
+nobody but Marcellinus, who makes this statement; nor is there
+likely to be anybody else, because the statement is ridiculous. It
+will be remembered that Bracciolini recovered the work of Ammianus
+Marcellinus: it is then reasonable to presume that he had read, if
+not studied his history. Indeed, there can be very little doubt
+that it was Marcellinus who misled him: for when he was setting
+about the forgery and importunately soliciting Niccoli to supply
+him with books for that purpose in the autumn of 1423, Ammianus
+Marcellinus was one of these authorities: in the letter dated the
+6th of November that year, he says he was "glad that his friend
+had done with Marcellinus, and would be still more glad if he
+would send him the book": "Gratum est mihi te absolvisse
+Marcellinum, idque gratius si me librum miseris" (Ep. II. 7). We
+may be certain the book, being "done with" by Niccoli, was sent to
+him on account of the importance of his having it, for the
+carrying out of his undertaking; thus he makes Tacitus commit the
+same mistake as Marcellinus committed,--that Nineveh was in
+existence in the time of the Roman Emperors: "In Adiabena is the
+city of Nineveh, which in olden time had possessed an extensive
+portion of Persia"; "In Adiabena Ninus EST civitas quae olim
+Persidis magna possederat" (XXIII. 6). Tacitus lived a good three
+hundred years before that historical epitomist of not much note or
+weight; and could not, on his authority, have been dragged, like
+his "discoverer" and student, Bracciolini, into this monstrous
+error.
+
+IV. But it is in the estimate of human nature, and the invariable
+disparagement pervading the delineation of the character of every
+individual, in the last six books of the Annals, that the Italian
+hand of Bracciolini is unmistakably detected, and the Roman hand
+of Tacitus not at all traceable. Shakespeare makes Iago say of
+himself: "I am nothing if not critical,"--meaning censorious.
+Bracciolini might have said the same of himself. He was never so
+much "at home," (by which I mean that he never seemed to have been
+so completely "happy"), as when lashing the anti-pope Felix,
+Filelfo, Valla, George of Trebizond, Guarino of Verona, or some
+other great literary rival of whose fame he was jealous; carping
+at others, whose intellectual attainments were at all commensurate
+to his own, and accusing of foul enormities persons who were
+possessors of rhetorical merit, as he accused the "Fratres
+Observantiae," for no other reason that one can see except that
+those interlopers in the monastic order (the "Brothers of
+Observance" being a new branch of the Franciscans) preached
+capital sermons.
+
+There is no getting at any insight as to his nature from the
+biographies of him; they are all such faint and imperfect
+sketches: we learn nothing of him from that curiosity of
+literature, L'Enfant's astonishing performance, "Poggiana"--in
+which the pages and the blunders contend for supremacy in number,
+and the blunders get it,--nor from that bald, cold business,
+entitled "Vita Poggii," which Recanati, flinging aside brilliancy
+and clinging fast to fidelity in facts and plainness of speech,
+prefixed to his edition of Bracciolini's "Historia Florentina,"
+published at Venice in 1715, and which Muratori, sixteen years
+after, reprinted at Milan along with the said "History of
+Florence, in the 20th volume of his "Rerum Italicarum
+Scriptores;"--nor from the Rev. William Shepherd's innocent
+affair, "The Life of Poggio Bracciolini"; but the deficiencies of
+the biographers have been supplied by a true man of genius,
+Poliziano, who has hit off his character in a noun substantive and
+an adjective in the superlative. In his History of the Pazzi and
+Salviati Conspiracy against Lorenzo de' Medici,--which plot to
+overthrow the government Bracciolini's third son, Jacopo, joined,
+and was hanged for his pains in front of the first floor windows
+of that Prince's palace,--Poliziano says that Jacopo Bracciolini
+was "specially remarkable for calumny," in which respect," adds
+the historian, "he was exactly like his father, who was a MOST
+CALUMNIOUS MAN:"--"Ejus praecipua in maledicendo virtus, in qua
+vel patrem HOMINEM MALEDICENTISSIMUM referebat" (Politiani Opera,
+p. 637).
+
+Such being the character of Bracciolini, I may glance aside for a
+moment to observe that nothing can be more incongruous than that
+his statue, which his countrymen originally placed in the portico
+of the Church of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence (because he had
+praised them in his history of their city and abused all
+foreigners), should have been transferred in 1560 by the reigning
+Duke of Tuscany into the interior of the sacred building and
+placed among the figures of the Twelve Apostles, where it still
+remains, the ungodly "Poggio" forming a grotesque portion of the
+saintly group.
+
+If the son was such an exact counterpart of the father in evil-
+speaking, as borne testimony to by that admirable and accurate
+historian, Poliziano, it follows that Bracciolini confirmed by his
+tongue and pen the words put by Shakespeare into the mouth of the
+Duke in "Measure for Measure":
+
+    "Back-wounding calumny
+    The whitest virtue strikes: What king so strong
+    Can tie the gall up in a slanderous tongue?"
+
+Indeed, if faith is to be placed in what Poliziano says, then
+Bracciolini was, like Thersites in the Iliad, a "systematic
+calumniator of kings and princes, while at the same time he must
+have indiscriminately inveighed against the characters of private
+individuals, run down the productions of all learned men, and, in
+fact, vilified everybody"; for that is exactly the estimate formed
+of him by Poliziano:--"Semper ille aut principes insectari passim,
+aut in mores hominum sine ullo discrimine invehi, aut eujusque
+docti scripta lacessere: nemini parcere" (Polit. Op. 1. c.).
+
+If this was, really, the distinguishing characteristic of
+Bracciolini, we have then another very strong point in evidence
+that he forged the Annals, for the spirit of detraction stands
+forth in the boldest relief on every page of that production. From
+the beginning to the end of the last six books (with which we are
+at present dealing, as we shall hereafter deal separately with the
+first six books), there is scarcely such a thing as a good man.
+Now though we are all perfectly conscious of our shortcomings and
+those of our kind, so that we spontaneously acknowledge the
+truthfulness of the smart, though not altogether decorous remark
+of Ovid's, that "if Jupiter were to strike men with lightning as
+often as they committed sins, he would in a short time be without
+his thunderbolts":--
+
+    "Si quoties peccant homines, sua fulmina mittat
+    Jupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit;"
+
+there is, nevertheless, no necessity for exaggerating those faults
+with the persistency met with in the Annals. Scandal without
+contradiction is admitted of all persons who are either thought
+good or who act properly. Every infamous slander is accepted that
+is cast on the eminent statesman and philosopher, Seneca (XIII. 20
+and 42.--XIV. 52-3). Piso, who has the reputation of being a good
+man, is described as a hypocrite, pretending to have virtues (XV.
+48). Fenius Rufus draws no gain nor advantage from his office of
+superintendent of the stores (XIV. 51), and is held in general
+esteem for his course of life (XIV. 51.--XV. 50); but he is
+described as immeasurably severe (XV. 58), harsh towards his
+associates (ib.), and wanting in spirit (XV. 61). Sylla's
+innocence is ascribed to despicable pusillanimity and cowardice
+(XIII. 47). Corbulo, though he took "the shortest route," and
+"sped his march day and night without intermission" (XV. 12), to
+relieve Poetus when distressed from the approach of Vologeses and
+the Parthian army, is said, contrary to these statements, to "have
+made no great haste in order that he might gain more praise from
+bringing relief when the danger had increased" (XV. 10). Because
+Flavius, the brother of the German hero, Armin, takes up his abode
+in Rome, he is accused of being a "spy." (XI. 16). This is,
+certainly, the writing of a malicious, altogether spiteful man,--a
+man, too, irrational in his calumny,--revelling, in short, in the
+spirit of detraction.
+
+V. It is, of course, (if there be any truth in the present
+theory), a thing by no means strange, but, on the contrary, to be
+thoroughly expected, when this temper and turn of mind are
+strongly enforced by Bracciolini in his Dialogue "De Infelicitate
+Principum"; his friend, Niccoli, one of the interlocutors, when
+asked "why he was more prone to blame than praise," replies that
+"there was no difficulty at all in giving an explanation, because
+he had been taught it by the experience of advanced age and the
+antecedents of a long life: he had too often been wrong in
+praising men, because he had found them worse than he had thought
+them; yet he had never been wrong when he had abused them, for
+there was such a multitude of rogues amongst men, such an amount
+of vices and crimes, such a superabundance of hypocrites, from
+people preferring to seem rather than be good, so many who threw
+such a veil of honesty over their rascalities, that it was
+perilous, and akin to falsehood, to bestow laudation on anybody."
+"'Cur in vituperando sis quam in laudando proclivior.' 'Hoc facile
+est ad explicandum,' Nicolaus inquit, 'quod longa aetas et ante
+acta vita me docuit. Nam in laudandis hominibus saepius deceptus
+sum, cum hi deteriores essent quam existimarem, in vituperandis
+vero nunquam me fefellit opinio. Tanta enim inter homines versatur
+improborum copia,--ita sceleribus omnia inficiuntur, ita
+hypocritae superabundant, qui videri quam esse boni malunt,--ita
+quilibet sua vitia aliquo honesti velamento tegit, ut periculosum
+sit et mendacio proximum quempiam laudare'" (Pog. Op. 394). Though
+these words are ascribed to his friend Niccoli, they exactly
+expressed his own sentiments, as may be seen in the letter to his
+friend, Bartolommeo Fazio, from which we have already quoted,
+where he speaks of himself as being "always excessively averse to
+the language of praise," and further reproves it as "a species of
+vice":--"non adulandi causa loquor, nam abfuit a me longissime
+semper id vitii genus" (Ep. IX. Bartol. Facii Epistol).
+
+In that strongly expressed sentiment of the world being filled
+with so many knaves that it was dangerous, and all but destructive
+of truth, to believe in honesty, we have the keynote to the whole
+of the Annals; and the last six books are marked by a universal
+cynical disbelief in human honesty; for from the first character,
+Asiaticus, who is accused of every kind of corruption and
+abomination (XI. 2), down to Egnatius, with his perfidy,
+treachery, avarice, lust, and superficial virtues (XVI. 32), all
+are patterns of the vices, few, except the aged Thrasea, being
+bright examples of virtue. I have no doubt this description of the
+general depravity of Adam's descendants, the dwelling on which was
+so delectable to the disposition of Bracciolini, was a very
+correct portraiture of the human race in the fifteenth century,
+when, in Italy especially, and, above all, in Rome, the light from
+the lamp of Diogenes was, I suspect, very much wanted to find an
+honest man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+I. The intellect and depravity of the age.--II. Bracciolini as its
+exponent.--III. Hunter's accurate description of him.--IV.
+Bracciolini gave way to the impulses of his age.--V. The Claudius,
+Nero and Tiberius of the Annals personifications of the Church of
+Rome in the fifteenth century.--VI. Schildius and his doubts.--
+VII. Bracciolini not covetous of martyrdom: communicates his fears
+to Niccoli.--VIII. The princes and great men in the Annals the
+princes and great men of the XVth century, not of the opening
+period of the Christian aera.--IX. Bracciolini, and not Tacitus, a
+disparager of persons in high places.
+
+I. The fifteenth century was the most curious of all ages: it has
+never been properly depicted, except on its darker side,
+indirectly, in the Annals. It is usually regarded as an age of
+barbarism; it was not that; it must ever be memorable for
+splendour of genius and the promotion of letters. A proof of the
+esteem in which literary excellence was held is afforded by the
+conduct of the Sultan of Turkey, Mahomet II., who deemed a mere
+ode by Filelfo a sufficient ransom for that scholar's mother-in-law,
+Manfredina Doria, and her two daughters. Astronomers were
+treading for the first time in the right track after two thousand
+years, since the days of Pythagoras, as may be seen by the
+hypothesis of Domenico Maria, about the variability of the axis of
+the globe, and by the labours of Mueller, better known by the
+Latin name derived from his native town of Koenigsberg,
+Regiomontanus, who almost anticipated Copernicus in discovering
+the true system of the universe. Few before or since have so
+excelled in mathematics and mechanics as Peurbach. Divinity had a
+profound and subtle exponent in the mild and gentle Thomas à
+Kempis. The age nursed the man who first philosophized in
+politics, Machiavelli. Italy was ablaze, like the galaxy, with a
+countless number of brilliant lights that shone in classical lore
+and accomplishments. Alberti shewed by his Gothic church dedicated
+to St. Francis (now the Cathedral at Rimini), that the genius of
+architecture was again abroad as much inspired as when Hermogenes
+reared the temple of Bacchus at Teos. Chaucer, the morning star of
+poetry in England, briefly preceded one greater, and even more
+learned, Rowley, whose few fragments recovered, as asserted by the
+sprightly boy-finder, Chatterton, in a chest in the muniment room
+of the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, reveal to us what we
+have unfortunately lost; his Battle of Hastings, though far away
+from the power and grandeur of the poetry, recalls, if not the
+tramp and march of the verse, attempts at the subdued tone, ease
+of manner, effect and picturesqueness of thoughts and figures,
+along with frequent, rich similes drawn from nature, which meet us
+at every turn in the Iliad, then newly brought to Europe, and with
+which the delighted poet had evidently saturated his astonished
+soul, a few of his expressions being close copies and some of his
+language a literal translation from Homer. [Endnote 251] All over
+Europe princes and nobles signalized themselves in martial
+achievements and the art of war: some revived memories of the
+mightiest: the great hero of antiquity, Cyrus, had not a history
+more obscured with fable than the great hero of the Tartars,
+Tamerlane; the tale of George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg, for
+his acts of valour and feats of strength, is as mythical as the
+tale of Ninus: Francis Sforza, Duke of Milan, could have stood by
+the side of Pausanias, having as signally defeated at Mont Olmo
+the great general Francis Piccinino as the King of Sparta crushed
+at Plataea the brilliant chief, Mardonius; the Hungarian
+sovereigns, John Corvinus Hunniades and his son Matthias occupied
+the ground that was held by the Theban princes, Pelopidas and
+Epaminondas; for the two Woiwodes of Transylvania kept their
+country free from the enslavement of the Turk, as the two
+Boeotarchs preserved Thebes in independence from the rule of the
+Lacedaemonians. Never did Athens produce a general superior to our
+own gallant and magnanimous Henry the Fifth:--
+
+    "quo justior alter
+    Nec pictate fuit, nec bello major et armis."
+
+Still the age, though distinguished for intellect and valour, was
+degraded by the most monstrous villainies that were ever
+perpetrated, and the most detestable characters who ever existed;
+and a becoming procreation of such an intellectual and depraved
+age was that revolting monster in letters,--the Annals.
+
+The Muses were courted more than the Graces: talents were held in
+higher esteem than the virtues. Men were unremitting,
+indiscriminate worshippers of money; they were not trained in the
+school of good morals; and when people, brought up without the
+pale of the precepts of probity, are congenitally cursed with a
+greed for pelf and a legion of evil and rascally proclivities,
+they become easily pervious to the promptings of all sorts of
+knavery.
+
+Profligacy was so wide-spread that it extended to men usually
+supposed to be most pious and exemplary in their lives: Bishops,
+Archbishops, Cardinals and the Pope himself, though celibats and
+holders of ecclesiastical dignities, did not arrive at Delphi
+without touching at Cythera: indirect evidence is afforded of this
+by the treatises which physicians, shortly after the commencement
+of the next century, wrote on the disease then called "Morbus
+Gallicus," when Gaspard Torella wrote his for the purpose of
+benefiting the manners of the Bishop of Avranches, Ulrich von
+Hutten his as a safeguard for the perils that attended the habits
+of the Cardinal Archbishop of Mayence, and Peter Pintor his to
+warn that gay pope, Alexander VI., of the danger of his ways, the
+Spanish physician even expressing the kind hope (which may not
+have been fulfilled) that the Holy Father would be preserved
+"morbo foedo et occulto his temporibus affligente": there is
+direct evidence of this state of abandonment to vice on the part
+of consecrated men from Bracciolini, who, during his excursion to
+the Baths of Baden in 1416, gave an account of that favourite
+watering place of the fifteenth century, where abbots, monks,
+friars and priests comported themselves with more licentiousness
+than the laity, laid aside all thoughts of religion, and sometimes
+bathed with women, whose hair they decked with ribbons and wreaths
+of flowers: "hic quoque virgines Vestales, vel, ut verius loquar,
+Florales: hic abbates, monachi, fratres, sacerdotes majori
+licentia quam caeteri vivunt, et simul quandoque cum mulieribus
+lavantes, et sertis quoque comas ornantes, omni religione abjecta"
+(Ep. I. 1). Joanna II., Queen of Naples, when a Doctor of Laws of
+Florence was sent to her court on an embassy from his fellow-
+citizens, and, seeking a private interview, made a coarse
+declaration of love, could look with a pleasant smile upon him,
+and ask mildly "If that was also in his instructions?" At the
+wonderfully numerous assembly that attended at Constance on the
+22nd of April, 1418, on the formal dismissal of the Ecumenical
+Council by the newly elected Pope, Otto Colonna, who took the name
+of Martin V., there were present no fewer (according to one
+account) than 1,500 courtezans, many of whom heaped up a great
+mass of money, one accumulating 800 gold sequins, equivalent now
+to a little fortune of £16,000, not so much, it appears, from
+among the 80,000 married laymen, who were Emperors, Kings,
+Princes, Dukes, Counts and Knights, bankers, shop-keepers, bakers,
+tailors, barbers and merry-andrews, as from among the 18,000
+celibats, who were the Pope, the prelates, the priests, the
+presbyters, the monks and the friars, grey, white and black.
+
+II. As a notable informer in the Annals of the exact spirit of his
+age, Bracciolini necessarily places before his reader not a few
+pictures of the deterioration of moral principles in the
+aphrodisiac direction; his book reflects in the most vivid light
+the strange and very wonderful depravities of his period, some so
+huge as to deviate greatly out of the common course of nature.
+From time to time the historic and philosophic gravity of the last
+six books of the Annals suffers great eclipses by his leaving
+aside weighty affairs of State to descend into petty descriptions
+of the erratic conduct of Messalina, with her extravagant lewdness
+(XI. 26-8), Nero, with his abominable pollutions (XVI. 37), and
+that Emperor's mother, Agrippina, with her monstrous incest (XIV. 2).
+These matters, even if true of the ancient Romans in the first
+century of our aera, Tacitus, we may be certain, would have
+avoided as not coming within the scope of the historian's
+province, and as being altogether uncongenial to his sublime tone
+of elevated sentiments and high-minded refinement. But anyone
+conversant with the writings and temper of Bracciolini will know
+well that such passages, instead of being in any way distasteful,
+would be altogether agreeable. To be convinced, one has only to
+glance at the collection of anecdotes, styled "Facetiae," at the
+end of his works, which even a frequenter of the Judge and Jury
+Society would consider justly liable to objection, howbeit that a
+pious gentleman in holy orders who wrote a Life of Bracciolini,
+the Reverend William Shepherd, can find words of palliation for
+them as sprightly pleasantries. They show us Bracciolini in his
+merry mood; they give us a fresh glimpse into the fifteenth
+century; they may be considered the best jokes or Joe Millerisms
+of the fifteenth century, such as the one commencing "Homo è
+nostris rusticanus, et haud multum prudens" (Pog. Op. 423), the
+one that follows entitled "De Vidua accensa libidine cum paupere"
+(ibid); and that which begins "Adolescens nobilis et forma
+insignis" (p. 433).
+
+The taste of Bracciolini which is shown by these "Facetiae," is
+still more forcibly exhibited in a letter to Becadelli of Bologna
+(Ep. II. 40), in which he gloats over a book of indecent epigrams
+which his friend had written; he describes it as a "work at once
+waggish and luxuriating in voluptuousness," "opus et jocosum et
+plenum voluptatis," and as "a most sweet book," "liber est
+suavissimus." With respect to his own feelings on reading it, he
+observes, "that he was delighted beyond measure at the variety of
+the subjects and the elegance of the poetry; at the same time he
+wondered how things so improper and so obscene could be
+represented by his friend so gracefully and so neatly, and" he was
+of opinion that "the many excessive obscenities were expressed in
+such a manner that they seemed not only to be depicted but to have
+been actually committed; for he could not help thinking that they
+must be considered as facts, and not as fictions merely for the
+sake of entertaining the reader":--"Delectatus sum, mehercule,
+varietate rerum et elegantia versuum: simulque admiratus sum res
+adeo impudicas, adeo ineptas tam venuste, tam composite a te dici,
+atque ita multa exprimi turpiuscula, ut non enarrari, sed agi
+videantur: neque ficta a te jocandi causa, ut existimo, sed acta
+aestimari possunt." Such was his extravagant commendation, and,
+consequently, his hearty approbation of a most unnatural
+production, "Hermaphroditus," which ultimately received the
+censure of the author himself, who was ashamed that he had written
+it, as shown in the following epigram preserved by Cardinal
+Quirini in his "Diatriba in Epistolas Francisci Barbari":--
+
+    "Hic faeces varias Veneris, moresque prophanos,
+    _Quos natura fugit_, me docuisse _pudet_."
+
+III. We shall now see how accurately a writer in the middle of the
+last century, the Reverend Thomas Hunter, in his "Observations on
+Tacitus" (p. 51), hit off the character of Bracciolini, all the
+while that he fancied he was venting objurgations on the staid old
+Roman: "If he is anywhere happy in his description, it is in the
+display of ... luxury refined and high-flavoured ... Never writer
+had a happier pen at describing wickedness ... Were we to give
+room to suspicions ... we should say that he might have been ... a
+party in every lewd scene he represents."
+
+Mr. Hunter proceeds: "Messalina's guilty amours with Silius are
+described with a gay and festive air, with that pride of
+voluptuousness, and feeling taste of pleasure, as show the writer
+well versed in court intrigue. The description is too luscious,
+and may lead to a perpetration of the crime, rather than an
+abhorrence of the criminals."
+
+Only one fault is to be found with this criticism, which is both
+excellent and curious,--excellent, because remarkable for its
+simple truthfulness,--curious, because it looks as if Hunter, who
+knew nothing about Bracciolini, had the eyes of a cat and could
+see in the dark;--the fault is that the writer applies the
+criticism to one eminently undeserving of its causticity;--because
+though we have quoted "If he is," Hunter wrote, "If Tacitus is";
+now Tacitus never wrote any descriptions of the nature commented
+on by the Vicar of Wrexham; they are not to be found in any of the
+works that pass under his name except the Annals; there is this
+excuse to be found for Hunter, that, at the time when he wrote, he
+was compelled to take the majestic Roman Consul to be the author
+of the Annals; but though his criticism is not applicable in a
+single syllable to Tacitus, it is strictly applicable in every
+word to Bracciolini, whom he never dreamt of as the composer of
+the Annals.
+
+IV. It matters not what a man may attempt in literature, what
+style he may adopt, or what old pattern imitate,--he cannot get
+away from the impulses of his own time, strive he ever so hard:
+the tone and colour of his work will be modified by actual history
+and current politics; his strongest impressions will be influenced
+by the deeds that are being transacted and the lives that are
+being passed around him; so that however wide, searching and
+vigorous may be his powers of observation, thought and intellect,
+he cannot liberate these from contemporary associations; any
+endeavour to do that must end in failure, ending, as it must, in
+artificial coldness and unemotional lifelessness. Bracciolini
+never made the attempt; he gave way to Nature, and never did his
+genius shine so brightly, and never was it more prolific, than
+when dealing with the diversity required of it by the history
+embraced in the Annals.
+
+V. I am now about to make some remarks which I am glad to say,
+will get for this book a place in the "Index Expurgatorius" in
+Rome; and which will do a great deal more than that,--considerably
+amaze the shade of Bracciolini (supposing that he has a shade),
+perhaps as much as M. Jourdain was astonished when told that he
+had been talking prose all his life.
+
+Every student of the Annals, in order rightly to understand its
+meaning and properly to appreciate its greatness, should bear in
+mind that the Emperors who play a part in it, Claudius and Nero in
+the last six books, and Tiberius in the first six, are intended to
+be the representatives or personifications of the Church of Rome
+in the fifteenth century. Hence it is that Claudius, Nero and
+Tiberius are depicted as superhuman in monstrosities,--colossal in
+crime,--perpetrators of enormities that never yet met, and never
+will meet, in combination in any single man. Each is, in fact, a
+fiend, and not a human being. It was thus only that Bracciolini
+could show us in its true light the Church of Rome as it acted in
+his day. In the language of Wickliffe it was the "Synagogue of
+Satan." A mere trifle was it that reprobates in the form of
+bishops and priests ordained, consecrated and sacrificed. See the
+Church at an Oecumenical Council; then it capped the climax of
+cruelty and crime; it resorted to demoniacal subterfuge to condemn
+good men as heretics and burn them alive, believing that death by
+fire would inflict the most exquisitely excruciating tortures; at
+the Council of Constance it sought to condemn Wickliffe, by making
+an inference from some of his principles that he propagated the
+doctrine,--"God is obliged to obey the Devil,"--nowhere to be
+found in the Trialogue, Dialogue, and all the other works,
+treatises, and opuscles or small pieces bearing the name of that
+honoured and most pious divine: it consigned to the flames those
+two intimate friends and associates, John Huss and Jerome of
+Prague, for holding just and virtuous views about the degradation
+of the priestly office, and for nobly and fearlessly inveighing
+against the corruptions of the pontifical court, the pomp and
+pride of prelates, and the dissipated habits and abuses of the
+clergy.
+
+When we read in the Annals of men, who, in spite of their
+nobility, innocence and virtues, were put to death by the sword of
+the executioner or the poisoned bowl, we must not think that we
+are reading of real Romans who thus actually suffered: the whole
+is a fabrication placing before us fictitious pictures, meant to
+be life-like, of what the DOMINATING POWER CAN DO IN SOCIETY: they
+are not pictures intended to show with truthfulness monstrosities
+positively done by Emperors of Rome in the first century: they are
+pictures that reflect with fidelity the atrocities that stained
+the Church of Rome in the beginning of the fifteenth century.
+
+Those were the closing days of the ancient period of the most
+abominable of all the Inquisitions, that of Spain, before the
+establishment by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1481 of the modern
+Inquisition in the Iberian Peninsula: that terrible jurisdiction
+extended to everybody, dead as well as living, absent as well as
+present, princes and subjects, rich and poor,--all were liable
+alike on the bare suspicion of such an insignificant matter as
+heresy, to corporal punishment, pecuniary fines, confiscation of
+property, and loss of life, by being burnt at the stake, or,--as
+occurred to Savonarola, towards the close of the century,--first
+strangled by the hangman, and then committed to the flames. Only
+the Nero of the last part of the Annals, or the Tiberius of the
+first six books of that work, can properly stand forth, in his
+persecuting spirit, as the counterpart of the Dominican, John de
+Torquemada, who, in the performance of his duty, as the Inquisitor
+General in Spain, proceeded against upwards of 100,000 persons,
+6,000 of whom he condemned to the flames.
+
+VI. So far, then, from being surprised with Professor Schildius
+(Professor of History and Greek, and afterwards of Hebrew in the
+University of Bremen at the commencement of the seventeenth
+century), and induced to doubt with him, the veraciousness of the
+Annals, I should have been very much astonished indeed, and,
+certainly, called in question its fidelity as representing the
+spirit of the fifteenth century, if it had not recorded (to borrow
+the language of Schildius) "a number of the most honourable and
+innocent men, the prides and ornaments of the State, coming to an
+ignominious end, and for no other crime, forsooth, than that which
+we call treason-felony": "Quod si non omnium judiciis superior
+esset Cornelius Tacitus, laboraret Annalium fides, tot
+nobilissimos et innocuos viros, tot decora et ornamenta Civitatis,
+indignissimo fine cecidisse crederemus, idque non aliud hercle ob
+crimen, quam illum, quem diximus, obtentuin laesae majestatis"
+(Schildi Exercitationes in C. Taciti Annal: XV. p. 29). Substitute
+for "treason felony" "heresy," and we have the strictest truth
+with regard to the unutterable ferocity of the Church of Rome in
+the fifteenth century.
+
+VII. Had any man then living been bold enough to tell the world of
+the Church of Rome's ferocity in primitive terms, he must have
+been particularly desirous of being roasted alive: had he even so
+represented it as to render himself comprehensible by the most
+quick-witted, he must still have had the martyr's liking for
+instruments of torture and the blazing faggot: Bracciolini, whom
+nature had not gifted with the taste of Huss and Jerome of Prague,
+was so conscious of the perilous position in which he placed
+himself by undertaking a composition of this description, that he
+communicated his alarm to Niccoli about the care he must take as
+to the expression of his views lest he should give offence to
+princes, in that memorable letter, from which I have already
+quoted, dated Rome, October 8, 1423, in which he indirectly
+informed his friend that he had commenced his forgery of the
+Annals, by confessing that he was engaged on a certain work (or,
+as he puts it, "certain tiny occupations" ("occupatiunculae
+quaedam") in the style of Lord Byron, who would speak meanly of
+any of his marvellous poems, Childe Harold or Manfred, as "a
+thing"). "Besides," said he, "there are certain tiny occupations
+in which I am engaged, which do not so much impede me in
+themselves, as the way in which I tarry over them; for it is
+necessary that I should be on my guard with respect to the
+inclinations of princes, that their susceptibilities be not
+offended, as they are much more ready to vent their rage than to
+extend their forgiveness if anything be done amiss";--he then
+ended by making an observation which we have already noticed to
+the effect that beginnings were always difficult, especially when
+an attempt was made to imitate the ancients: "Sunt praeterea
+occupatiuculae quaedam, in quibus versor, quae non tantum ipsae me
+impediunt, quantum earum expectatio. Oportet enim paratum esse
+etiam ad nutum, ne offiendatur religio principum, quorum
+indignatio promptior est, quam remissio, si quid omittatur. In
+quibusvis quoque rebus principia sunt ardua ac difficilia; ut quod
+antiquioribus in officio sit jucundum, promptum ac leve, mihi sit
+molestum, tardum, onerosum" (Ep. II. 5). Therefore, Bracciolini,
+in the most strained detortions from literal meaning,--in the
+darkest nimbus of far-fetched elaboration of mystical allegory,
+--placed before us the unparalleled cruelty of the Church of Rome
+in the tiger-like thirst for blood of the Tiberius and the Nero of
+the Annals.
+
+VIII. In the same manner as we have in the Annals a true and life-
+like picture of the savage and ravenous fierceness of the Church
+of Rome in the fifteenth century, so we have the likenesses,
+drawn, too, with the spirit and vigour of life about them, of the
+persons who flourished at that period as Princes, Ministers, and
+their agents and servants, though the likenesses may have been
+reproduced with some partial poetical exaggeration with regard to
+the peculiar characters, vices and singular debasement of
+individuals: this, however, is very certain; people, then, were
+altogether abnormal. We have already seen how historians tell us
+that Cardinal Beaufort by his intrigues and those of the Queen of
+Henry IV. hastened the ruin and untimely fate of Humphry, Duke of
+Gloucester. Kings so troubled their subjects by their tyranny and
+excesses, they were deposed, imprisoned, or put to death: in
+England Richard II. was stripped of his kingdom; in Bohemia
+Wenceslaus was twice thrown into prison; in Germany, Frederick,
+Duke of Brunswick, was murdered only two days after he had been
+elected Emperor; and in France, Jean Sans Peur, Duke of Burgundy,
+had his life taken on the bridge of Montereau. In the East things
+fared even worse: sovereigns trampled on sovereigns: Tamerlane,
+the victor, treated with contumely the once proud conqueror, the
+vanquished Bayazid, Sultan of Turkey, used his body as a footstool
+or ladder by which to mount his horse; forced him to lie on the
+ground while he fed and to pick up the crumbs that fell from his
+table, and finally shut him up in an iron cage, where he died of a
+broken heart: if these things be false, as they may be, or
+exaggerated, as unquestionably they were, yet they point to the
+spirit of the age, in the simple fact of their having been
+recounted, and in the still more remarkable fact of their having
+been believed.
+
+There were no such emperors and persons in high places during the
+opening period of the Christian aera; or Tacitus in his "History"
+gives us a very wrong account of them; his views of them are, if
+not favourable, lenient or apologetic: they do not seem to have
+had the vices and faults of most men; Tacitus has otherwise
+successfully thrown a veil over them. Were the whole truth known,
+it might be found that there is a shameful exaggeration of the
+vices of Roman Emperors: this looks most probable when we consider
+the significant reflections made about Princes in one of his
+miscellaneous productions, by the historian, David Hume,--not the
+David Hume, _minor_, who, living a long time among the English,
+and becoming fascinated with their ways, manners, customs and
+civilization, mooted the union of England and Scotland, more
+than a hundred years before the great event came off, in that
+famous historical essay printed in London in 1605 and entitled
+"De Unione Insulae Britanniae Tractatus;" nor David Hume _minimus_,
+who wrote the "History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus" but
+the David Hume, _major_, who wrote the "History of England"--that
+"there are, perhaps, and have been for two centuries nearly two
+hundred absolute princes, great and small in Europe; and allowing
+twenty years to each reign, we may suppose that there have been
+in the whole two thousand monarchs, or 'tyrants,' as the Greeks
+would have called them, yet of these there has not been one, not
+even Philip of Spain, so bad as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero or Domitian,
+who were four in twelve among the Roman Emperors." When we find
+David Hume thus putting the matter, in his Essay on "Civil Liberty,"
+it makes us at once see how highly unlikely it is that all the
+badness of human nature should have been concentrated in a few
+individuals who lived at a particular period and in a particular
+country, those individuals being Emperors, that particular period
+the commencement of the Christian aera and that particular country
+ancient Rome. Somewhere or other there must have been a great deal
+of maligning; nor is it difficult to discover who the maligner was
+as far as the characters in the Annals are concerned.
+
+IX. No one will accuse Tacitus of disparaging Princes and persons
+in high places; but everybody will admit, who is acquainted with
+the productions of Bracciolini, that he speaks trumpet-tongued of
+their delinquencies. When in his Dialogue, "De Infelicitate
+Principum," an attempt is made by Cosmo de' Medici to uphold some
+of them as "worthy of all praise and commendation for their
+learning and estimable qualities," the passage follows, as the
+reply of Niccoli (already quoted), of the hypocrisy and rascality
+of all men, consequently, of the hypocrisy and rascality of kings,
+ministers and their agents and servants. Nay, more: Cosmo de'
+Medici is made to express his astonishment at the spirit of
+detraction in Niccoli, but is not surprised as he lashes private
+individuals, to find him bitterly inveighing against princes,
+being ever ready and fluent in his abuse of the latter, even when
+they do no harm, and cannot be reproached for their lives: Cosmo
+de' Medici is, therefore, of opinion that exceptions ought to be
+made in their favour, and wants to know why Niccoli should be so
+strongly given to vituperate them:--"Tum, Cosmus, graviter ut
+assolet, "Facillime," inquit, "Nicolae, (qui mos tuus est),
+laberis ad detrahendum. Equidem minime miror, si quando es in
+privatos dicatior, cum in ipsos principes tam facile inveharis,
+et tamen nullius injuria, aut vitae contumelia facit, ut tam sis
+promptus, aut copiosus in eorum objurgationem. Novi nonnullos qui
+abs te excipi deberent ab reliquorum caterva viri docti, egregii,
+omnique laude et commendatione dignissimi. Unde mecum saepius
+cogitans addubitare cogor quaenam sit potissimum causa, cur in
+vituperando sis quam, &c." (Pog. Op. p. 394)
+
+We who live in these days and know how exemplary, as a rule, for
+piety and excellent conduct, are Popes, Cardinals, Bishops and, in
+fact, the clergy in the Church of Rome, as well as the dignitaries
+and pastors in all the other ecclesiastical establishments of
+Europe, and who, at the same time, honour and admire crowned heads
+and princes, ministers and great men for their position and
+virtues, cannot realize to ourselves how there ever could have
+been such hatefully contemptible personages in the sovereign and
+loftiest places as are depicted in the Annals, page after page,
+nor can we bring ourselves to believe that there ever existed such
+a bevy of brilliant malefactors, except in the judgment and fancy
+of one who did not shine among the most amiable of mankind as he,
+certainly, shone among the most able.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+FURTHER PROOFS OF FORGERY.
+
+
+I. "Octavianus" as the name of Augustus Caesar.--II. Cumanus and
+Felix as joint governors of Judaea.--III. The blood relationship
+of Italians and Romans.--IV. Fatal error in the _oratio
+obliqua_.--V. Mistake made about "locus".--VI. Objections of
+some critics to the language of Tacitus examined.--VII. Some
+improprieties that occur in the Annals found also in Bracciolini's
+works.--VIII. Instanced in (_a_) "nec ... aut", (_b_)
+rhyming and the peculiar use of "pariter".--IX. The harmony of
+Tacitus and the ruggedness of Bracciolini illustrated.--X. Other
+peculiarities of Bracciolini's not shared by Tacitus: Two words
+terminating alike following two others with like terminations;
+prefixes that have no meaning; and playing on a single letter for
+alliterative purposes.
+
+I. If there be one man more than another who might easily fall
+into the error of supposing that an ancient Roman could take in
+the most capricious and arbitrary way any name he pleased,
+Flavius, or Julius, or Pius, it would be a man like Bracciolini,
+who, as Secretary of the Popes for forty years, was in the habit
+of seeing every now and then, and that, too, at very brief
+intervals, a Cardinal, on being raised to the dignity of the
+Papacy, take any name from whim or fancy, and, sometimes a very
+queer name, too, as a Cossa taking the name of John, or a Colonna
+the name of Martin. This being admitted, it seems quite consistent
+that Bracciolini should speak of Augustus Caesar, before he was
+Emperor, as "Octavianus." When we read in the XIIIth book of the
+Annals (6), "imperatori" (Bracciolini's word for "General,"
+Tacitus would have written "duci"), "quantum ad robur deesse, cum
+octavo decimo aetatis anno Cneius Pompeius, nono decimo Caesar
+OCTAVIANUS civilia bella sustinuerint, we may be assured that we
+are reading words which were not written by Tacitus, and, as for
+the matter of that, any Roman, because he would have known that
+Augustus Caesar, before he was called Augustus, did not bear and
+never could have borne, the name of Octavianus: the son of
+Octavius, he was himself Octavius, not Octavianus, as his sister
+was Octavia (so Pliny the Elder writes, "Marcellus _Octavia_"
+not Octaviana, "sorore Augusti genitus" N.H. XIX. 6, 1.)
+Shakespeare knew better than Bracciolini the name of Augustus,
+before he was Emperor, by making Antony say to him:
+
+    "And now, _Octavius_,
+    Listen great things."
+    _Julius Caesar_, Act IV. sc. 1.
+
+Whenever we find a Roman's name ending in "_ianus_," we know
+one of three things: either that he had taken his name from his
+wife who was an heiress, as Domitianus; or that he was the eldest
+son of a man who had taken his mother's name, which he was himself
+allowed to assume by the marriage contract, as Titus Vespasianus;
+or, when we find a repetition of the same name ending in "ius" and
+"ianus," as "Aemilius Aemilianus," or in "ianus" and "ius" as
+"Licinianus Licinius," we know that the individual was of the
+Aemilian or Licinian family, and had married the heiress of
+another great Roman house. This was the rule among that ancient
+people, unless I have been misled by Father Hardouin (See
+Harduinus. Praef. ad Histor. August. ex Nummis Antiq. Opera Sel.
+p. 683). The termination, then, "ianus," always indicated marriage
+with an heiress, just as such a marriage among ourselves is
+heraldically marked by the husband and wife's coats of arms being
+placed alongside of each other; and just as we never depart from
+this custom in escutcheons, so the Romans never varied their rule
+with respect to such names; then as Augustus Caesar neither
+married an heiress, nor was the eldest son of a man who had formed
+such a marriage; and as this custom of changing the termination of
+the name was familiar to all the Romans,--if not to every ignorant
+or ill-bred man, at least, to every well-informed, well-bred man
+among them,--it follows as clearly, as that 2 and 2 make 4, that
+Tacitus, the high-born gentleman and consul, could never have
+written Caesar _Octavianus_.
+
+I am exceedingly sorry to have made these remarks for the sake of
+the writers of classical biographies, whose reputation is at
+stake, for one and all, from Lemprière to Dr. William Smith,
+mislead those who consult their pages as to the names of Augustus,
+among which figures "Octavianus"; this is their own fault; they
+will persist in regarding the Annals as the best and most
+authentic history we have of the ancient Romans during the period
+embraced in its records; they reject all other testimony, when all
+other testimony is far more reliable.
+
+I also grieve very much for the authorities of the British Museum
+on account of the inscription they have had graved in the Roman
+Gallery of Antiquities under the bust numbered 3 which represents
+Augustus in his youth,--"_Octavianus_ Caesar Augustus"; I have been
+compelled to point out this error in examining a work given out as
+the production of the ancient Roman, Caius Cornelius Tacitus, when
+it is the glaring forgery of a bungling mediaeval European
+"grammaticus," that bungling mediaeval European "grammaticus" being
+(as I am showing, and the reader is, I trust, becoming more and more
+convinced as he proceeds) no other than Poggio Bracciolini.
+
+II. I am also extremely sorry for Dr. Adam Clarke that his
+accuracy in research and his extensive and extraordinary learning,
+which have hitherto been indisputable, should be now called in
+question; but they are jeoparded: in his valuable Commentary on
+the Bible, he says in one of his notes to the Acts of the Apostles
+(Ch. XXIV. v. 10): "Cumanus and Felix were, for a time, joint
+governors of Judaea; but, after the condemnation of Cumanus, the
+government fell entirely into the hands of Felix";--this is not
+history. In the first place, Cumanus and Felix were never joint
+governors of Judaea; in the second place, when Cumanus was
+punished, his government did not "fall" to Felix; Felix succeeded,
+for Felix was appointed to it. Dr. Clarke could have made this
+statement on no other authority than that of Bracciolini, who in
+the 54th chapter of the XIIth book of the Annals, says that Judaea
+was under the government of Cumanus conjointly with Felix, the
+province being so divided that Cumanus was governor of Galilee and
+Felix of Samaria:--"Ventidio Cumano, _cui pars provinciae
+habebatur_: ita divisis, ut huic Galilaeorum natio; Felici
+Samaritae parerent" (An. XII. 54). Justus Lipsius was rather
+startled at the number of mistakes he found in those words: in
+addition to Felix and Cumanus never being joint governors, Judaea
+was not a divided province, and Cumanus was, certainly, governor
+over the Samaritans, as may be seen by reference to Josephus, who
+can always be relied upon, for what Julius Caesar Scaliger, one of
+the most learned and famous men of the sixteenth century, said of
+him everybody knows, from Whiston (quoting it from Bishop Porteus),
+placing it at the commencement of his admirable popular translation
+of the Hebrew historian, that "he deserved more credit than all
+the Greek and Roman writers put together." Well, Josephus, who
+"deserved more credit than all the Greek and Roman writers put
+together," says that a disturbance broke out between the Jews
+and the Samaritans, whereupon "the former burnt and plundered
+the villages of the latter, and when what had been done reached
+Cumanus, he _armed the Samaritans_ and marched against the Jews,"
+clearly showing that by "arming the Samaritans," he was governor
+of Samaria, and not Felix:--[Greek: Komas tinas ton Samareon
+empraesantes diarpazousi. Koumanos de, taes praxeos eis auton
+aphikomenaes ... tous Samareitas kathoplisas, exaelthen epi tous
+Ioudaious] (Antiq. Jud. XX. 6). Having said this in his "Antiquities
+of the Jews", Josephus more distinctly says in his "Wars of the Jews"
+that the Emperor Claudius banished Cumanus, "after which he sent
+Felix, the brother of Pallas, to be the governor of Judaea, Galilee,
+Samaria and Peraea": [Greek: meta tauta Ioudaias men epitropon
+Phaelika ton Pallantos adelphon ekpempei, taes te Galilaias kai
+Samareias kai Peraias] (De Bello Jud. II. 12. 8).
+
+Cardinal Baronius, in one of the forty folio volumes of his
+"Annales Ecclesiastici" (A.C. 50. Tom I. p. 355), has fallen
+exactly into the same mistake as Dr. Adam Clarke, and, from the
+very same cause, placing implicit confidence in what is stated in
+the Annals. He says that "the same Josephus is, nevertheless,
+guilty of an evident mistake when he asserts that Cumanus was
+convicted in Rome, and that Claudius thence sent to Judaea the
+brother of his freedman Pallas,--Felix; for Felix was sent along
+with Cumanus to that province, which was so divided between them,
+that Felix ruled Samaria, but Cumanus the remainder of the
+province":--"Sed patentis erroris nihilominus idem Josephus
+arguitur, dum ait esse damnatum Romae Cumanum ac inde Claudium
+Felicem Pallantis liberti Claudii Augusti germanum missum esse in
+Judaeam. Nam Felix simul cum Cumano in eam provinciam missus est,
+sic ea inter eos divisa, ut Felix Samariam administraret, Cumanus
+vero reliquam provinciae partem."
+
+Another Cardinal, Noris, who has the credit of being one of the
+most accurate and learned antiquaries, chronologists and
+historians of his age (the close of the seventeenth century), for
+Zedler says of him (_sub vocibus_, "Heinrich Noris"), that he
+was "einer der gelehrtesten Leute seiner Zeit, ein vollkommener
+Antiquarius, Chronologus und Historicus," maintains, in his
+Commentary on the Two Monumental Stones erected at Pisa in honour
+of the two grandsons of the Emperor Augustus, ("Cenotaphia
+Pisana",) that Cardinal Baronius was wrong when he made that
+statement on the authority of the Jewish historian, because
+"Josephus has nowhere said that Felix was sent from Rome as the
+successor of Cumanus, but on the contrary, as may be clearly
+gathered from the 11th," (it should be the 12th) "chapter of his
+second book of the war, for that immediately after he has spoken
+of the condemnation of Cumanus by the Emperor Claudius, he says
+that that Emperor 'sent Felix, the brother of Pallas, to the Jews,
+to administer their country along with Samaria and Galilee, while
+he transferred Agrippa from Chalcis to a larger government, giving
+him the province also which had been Felix's': now that was
+Trachonitis, Bethanea and Gaulanitis: therefore Felix, before the
+condemnation of Cumanus, was placed over Judaea, having been the
+governor, according to Josephus, of that part of Galilee which lay
+between the river Jordan and the hills of Coelesyria and
+Philadelphia; and, consequently, he did not go to Judaea from
+Rome, as that learned man wrongly ascribes to Josephus, but from
+Galilee beyond the Jordan":--"Verum Josephus nusquam dixit Felicem
+Roma missum Cumano successorem, immo aperte ex lib. 2. belli cap.
+11 oppositum colligitur; siquidem cum dixisset Cumanum Romae
+damnatum a Claudio Imperatore, statim ait:--'Post haec Felicem
+Pallantis fratrem misit ad Judaeos, qui eorum provinciam cum
+Samaria et Galilaea curaret. Agrippam vero de Chalcide in regnum
+majus transtulit, tradens ei illam quoque provinciam, quae Felicis
+fuisset.' Erat autem ista Trachonitis, Bethanea, Gaulanitis.
+Igitur Felix, antequam damnato Cumano, Judaeae imponeretur,
+Galilaeam transamnanam quae Jordane ac montibus Coelesyriae, ac
+Philadelphiae includitur, auctore Josepho, regebat; ac proinde in
+Judaeam non ex Urbe, ut minus recte vir eruditus Josepho imponit,
+sed ex Galilaea transamnana advenit." (Cenotaphia Pisana. Diss.
+sec. p. 333 ed. Ven. 1681.)
+
+Of course, if Josephus wrote thus, the whole matter is settled;
+Felix was governor with Cumanus, for the province over which he
+had ruled, Peraea, or Galilee to the eastward of the Jordan, was
+transferred to Agrippa: but "litera scripta manet:" on turning to
+Josephus it is found that it was Philip, and not Felix, who held
+the country that was given to Agrippa:--"And he" (the Emperor
+Claudius) "transfers Agrippa from Chalcis to a larger government,
+by giving him the tetrachy that had been PHILIP'S":--[Greek: ek de
+taes Chalkidos Agrippan ein meizona Basileian metatithaesi, dous
+auto taen te PHILIPPOI genomenaen tetrarchian.] (De Bello Jud. II. 12).
+For such dishonesty in attempting to carry his point against another
+Eminence Cardinal Noris ought to have blushed as scarlet as his
+stockings.
+
+Ernesti, quite puzzled at the singular statement that a Roman
+province had two governors, is of opinion that the error was
+occasioned by statements to be found in the New Testament: "There
+is," he says, "the additional testimony of St. Luke, or rather
+St. Paul, who says that Felix was many years set over the Jews, in
+the third or fourth year after Cumanus had been condemned": "Accedit
+Lucae auctoritas, vel potius Pauli, qui Felicem multos annos
+Judaeis praefuisse dicit, anno, postquam Cumanus damnatus est,
+tertio aut quarto." It is just possible that the passage about
+Felix being "many years a judge unto that nation," which occurs in
+the Acts of the Apostles (c. XXIV. v. 10), was what actually
+misled Bracciolini; the more so, as when he was in this country,
+he discharged what Dean Hook called "the heavenly occupations of a
+parish priest" (Life of Becket, p. 359), and for the very reason
+that he was a consecrated man he must have taken a much greater
+interest and placed far more trust in St. Paul, than Tacitus or
+any other heathen among the ancient Romans was likely to have
+done; but an error so extraordinary about the contemporary
+government of his country could barely have been committed by such
+an eminent public man and politician as Tacitus: this is the
+reason why Cardinal Baronius convicted Josephus of "an evident
+mistake," for as he properly observed parenthetically in the
+passage we have quoted, that "we ought to attach faith to Tacitus,
+whom, certainly, any learned man would clearly prefer to Josephus
+in matters especially which appertain to Roman magistracies": "si
+Tacito fidem praebemus, quem certe, in his praesertim quae ad
+Romanos pertinent magistratus, quivis eruditus Josepho facile
+anteferat" (l.c.). But as Tacitus did not write the Annals,
+Josephus is to be preferred to Bracciolini; when, too, it is just
+the kind of mistake which a writer of the XVth century, as
+Bracciolini, however learned and careful he might be, would be
+likely to fall into, from the testimony of St. Paul conflicting
+with that of Josephus.
+
+III. Another blunder is made by Bracciolini with regard to the
+Italians and Romans, whom he looks upon as blood relations, fellow
+countrymen, and possessors of a common capital in the City of
+Rome. The Italians were not of the same descent as the Romans; and
+when they were all brought under subjection to Rome in the first
+half of the third century before the Christian aera, they beheld
+themselves inhabitants of towns, some of which were "municipia",
+(having their own laws and magistracy, enjoying the privilege of
+voting in the comitia and soliciting for public offices in Rome),
+others "coloni," (conquered places ruled over by poor Romans sent
+to keep the inhabitants in subjection, having the jus Romanum,
+Latinum or Italicum, and ceasing to be citizens of Rome); but in
+either set of towns the freedom and the sacred rites, the laws of
+race and of government, the oaths and the guardianship of the
+Romans did not prevail; in fact, the Italians had not the private
+rights of the Romans, and, therefore, in the language of Livy,
+"they were not Roman citizens":--"non eos esse cives Romanos"
+(XXXIV. 42). Even the privileges they enjoyed, such as immunity
+from the tribute raised in the Roman provinces, they participated
+with other people, to whom the privilege had been accorded at
+various periods;--for example,--the inhabitants of Laodicaea in
+Syria and of Beyroot in Phoenicia in the time of Augustus;--of
+Tyre in the time of Severus;--of Antioch and the colony of Emissa
+in Upper Syria in the time of Antonine, and of the colonies in
+Mauritania in the time of Titus. Tacitus, therefore, as a Roman
+citizen, could not, by any possibility, have spoken of Rome being
+the "capital" of Italy, and the Italians and Romans being people
+of the "same blood," as the author of the Annals does when he
+writes: "non adeo aegram Italiam ut senatum suppeditare _urbi
+suae_ nequiret; suffecisse olim indigenas _consanguineis
+populis_" (XI. 23).
+
+Nobody can understand those last five words; they have not been
+understood by the editors, from Justus Lipsius and John Frederic
+Gronovius to Ernesti and Heinsius: they are capable of more than
+one interpretation on account of the brevity and obscurity of the
+expression: I take it that Bracciolini meant to imply that "in the
+ancient days the natives of Italy were quite on a par with their
+'brethren' in Rome," referring to the time when Romans, Latins,
+Etruscans and Sabines stood on the same level; and in order to
+make out that Italians are still in the same position, he adds:
+"there is no regretting what was anciently done in the State,"
+"nec poenitere veteris reipublicae."
+
+An Italian of the fifteenth century, and a Florentine like
+Bracciolini, was glad to think, and proud to say, nay, ready to
+believe, and to perpetuate the belief, that Italy and Rome were
+identical, and the people consanguineous. We see how that pleasing
+delusion is still cherished fondly by the living countrymen of
+Bracciolini: General Garibaldi, to wit, as well as the late Joseph
+Mazzini, always looked upon the City of Rome as the "natural"
+capital of the Kingdom of Italy; and we can easily believe, with
+what joy, pride, and confidence in its veracity the gallant
+general or the devoted patriot, or any other Italian warrior or
+politician, would have written, as Bracciolini wrote, the passage
+that we have quoted from the eleventh book of the Annals.
+
+IV. Nor is this the only time when Bracciolini does not maintain
+the character he assumes of an ancient Roman. Narcissus,
+addressing Claudius in the eleventh book of the Annals says: "he
+did not _now_ mean to charge him"--that is, Silius, "with
+adulteries": "nec _nunc_ adulteria objecturum" (XI. 30). The
+language used seems to be very good language. A Roman historian,
+though, would have written, "nec _tunc_": he could not have
+fallen into the error of failing to define time in reference to
+himself when ascribing words to persons, any more than he could
+have failed to vary the grammar to the accusative and infinitive.
+This elementary principle in Latin composition is known, (as Lord
+Macaulay would have said,) "to every schoolboy." It was,
+certainly, well known to such an accomplished "grammaticus" as
+Bracciolini; and for the very simple reason that he adheres to it
+on all other occasions. His neglect of it in this instance is as
+strong a proof as any that can be advanced, of his forgery: it
+makes that forgery the more obvious, his slip not being
+accidental, but intentional: it is a deliberate violation of a
+rule that must never be infringed; but as a countryman will
+sometimes run after a jack-a-lantern, till running after it he
+finds himself in a burying-ground, so Bracciolini suffered himself
+to be misled by his literary will-o'-the wisp,--alliteration:
+therefore he preferred writing "_n_ec _n_unc," instead
+of "nec tunc;" he therefore did that which was fatal to the work
+that he wanted to palm off upon the world as the composition of a
+Roman, because a Roman would not have done this, because he could
+not have done it. Definition of time in reference to himself was a
+necessity of expression; he could not have sacrificed it for
+alliteration or any other trick of composition, because he would
+not have dreamt of changing the time in ascribing words to
+persons. A modern, on the other hand, would think that a mere
+trifle; left to himself, he would prefer it; he would also know
+that his readers, being moderns like himself, would very much
+admire his composition for the alliteration, whilst finding
+definition of time in reference to the position of the speaker,
+much more agreeable to their ears, from their being accustomed to
+native historians who wrote in the vernacular so defining time in
+all passages of the kind spontaneously, without art or
+affectation, and not, as the ancient Romans, stiffly adopting the
+harsh, unnatural fashion of defining it in reference to the
+position of the writer.
+
+V. Our word "box" (apart from three technical meanings, one in
+botany, and two in mechanics), has six different significations for
+things that have nothing in common with each other;--"a slap on
+the chaps"; "a coffer or case for holding any materials"; "seats
+in a theatre"; "a Christmas present"; "the case for the mariner's
+compass," and "the seat on a coach for the driver." The Roman
+word, too, "locus," has just the same half-dozen meanings for
+things as unconnected;--"a passage"; "a country"; "an argument";
+"a place"; "a sentence," and "a seat." In five instances "box" is
+a primitive noun; when it means "a blow on the cheek with the palm
+of the hand," it is a verbal substantive. Exactly the same number
+of curiosities distinguished "locus." In five instances it was
+masculine; when it signified "a seat in a theatre" it was neuter;
+this was familiar to every Roman with a lettered education:
+unfortunately it slipped the memory of Bracciolini when he wrote:
+An. XV. 32: "equitum Romanorum _locos_ sedilibus plebis
+anteposuit apud Circum." Tacitus would have written "loca."
+
+VI. This brings me again to consider the Latin of Tacitus; no
+reasonable objection can be found with it; severely captious
+critics who carp at trifles, and look at language microscopically,
+point out errors; but they are not so great as the mistakes
+sometimes made by Cicero and Caesar, Sallust and Livy. As a
+specimen of the objections we may give the following: a critic has
+been bold enough to say that in the phrase "refractis palatiis
+foribus, ruere intus" (Hist. I. 35), Tacitus uses the adverb for
+_in_ a place instead of the adverb for _to_ a place. "Intus"
+means "into" or "within," just as well as "in," as may be seen
+from numerous instances in Cicero, Caesar, Ovid, Plautus, and
+other writers of inferior reputation in prose and poetry. The
+phrase then is: "having broken open the palace doors, to rush
+_within_." Where is the mistake?
+
+Another objection raised is that Tacitus wrongly writes "quantum"
+as the corresponding adverb to "tanto," "_quantum_que hebes
+ad sustinendum laborem miles, _tanto_ ad discordias promptior"
+(Hist. II. 99). It was a common custom among the Romans to use
+"quantum," if they preferred it, to "quanto," and to follow
+it with "tanto": at any rate it occurs in Livy twice, if not
+oftener: _quantum_ augebatur, _tanto_ majore (V. 10);--_quantum_
+laxaverat, _tanto_ magis (XXXII. 5). The objections to the
+grammar of Tacitus are, as a rule, all on a par with these two;
+it is not, however, without some pleasurable feeling that one
+comes across charges made against him of using incorrect forms
+of speech, were it only from perceiving how extremely happy the
+fault-finders seem to be in having such an opportunity of gratifying
+their natural malice.
+
+VII. Vossius, the Canon of Canterbury in the seventeenth century,
+adopts an entirely different tone in his agreeable treatise on the
+Roman historians--"De Historicis Latinis." Commenting on the
+statement made by Alciati and Emilio Ferretti that Tacitus wrote
+bad Latin, he bursts into an exclamation that may be considered
+rather uncourteous when applied to His Eminence a Cardinal and to
+an eminent Jurisconsult, that they were both silly and absurd:
+"they say," exclaims Gerardus Johannes, "that he did not write
+Latin properly: how silly is this! how absurd!"--"aiunt, eum non
+Latine satis scribere: quam, hoc insubidum! quam insulsum!" (I.
+30). Perhaps Vossius was of opinion that if Tacitus wrote
+incorrectly, it must be upon the principle alleged by Quintilian
+that "one kind of expression is grammatical, another kind Latin,"
+"aliud esse grammatice, aliud Latine loqui" (I. 16) after the
+accommodating fashion of that kind gentleman of etymology and
+syntax, Valerius Probus, who in Aulus Gellius (XIII. 20. 1), said
+"has urb_e_s" or "has urb_is_" was the more correct according
+to metrical convenience when writing verses, or sonorous
+utterance when delivering a set oration, which (without being
+Romans), we can easily understand, when some of our poets rhyme
+"clear" to "idea," and a Clerkenwell Green orator prefers
+"obstropalous" to "obstreperous." On some such grounds alone can
+excuse be found for some anomalous expressions in the Annals; they
+are irreconcilable to the common rules of grammar; and what may
+seem strange to the reader, though to me it is quite natural, the
+very same improprieties that occur in the Annals of words and
+phrases not according with the established principles of writing
+occur also in the acknowledged works of Bracciolini.
+
+VIII. (_a_). When the Romans used the disjunctive particle,
+"nec," in the first branch of a negative sentence, the same word
+(or its equivalent "neque,") was used in the subsequent branch of
+the proposition. To couple "aut" with "nec" was a wrong correlative.
+The rule was so absolute that I know but of one Roman writer who
+infringed it; and that was because he was a poet,--Ovid:
+
+    "_Nec_ piget, _aut_ unquam stulte elegisse videbor."
+    Her. XVI. 167.
+
+    "_Nec_ plus Atrides animi Menelaus habebit
+    Quam Paris; _aut_ armis anteferendus erit."
+    Ib. 355-6.
+
+It will be seen that the error, which is committed twice, occurs
+in the same poem, the XVIth Heroic, or The Epistle of Helen to
+Paris, and under the same circumstance of pressure,--the want of a
+word that began with a vowel,--because a word beginning with a
+consonant could not, of course, follow the last foot of a dactyle
+ending with a consonant;--therefore Ovid took refuge in what is
+called "poetical license," which is a gentle term for expressing
+departure from syntax. Ovid never again committed the offence,
+quite sufficient to convince us that it went against his grain to
+have so written in his XVIth Heroic; he knew that it was not
+elegant; it was not, in fact, correct, nor in his style; and he
+would not have done it but that he was cramped by verse. But why,
+uncramped by verse, the author of the Annals should have written:
+"hortatur miles, ut hostem vagum, _neque_ paci _aut_ proelio paratum,"
+instead of "_neque_ proelia," is difficult to determine, except
+that he was desirous of imitating Bracciolini, who writes in the
+letter to his friend Niccoli from which we have already quoted
+(Ep. II. 7): "muta igitur propositum, et huc veni, _neque_ te
+terreat longitudo itineris, _aut_ hiemis asperitas." The imitation
+is, besides, so very close that we find in both cases "neque" is
+preferred in the first clause to the more usual form of "nec."
+
+VIII. (_b_.) In order to show how closely the expressions
+peculiar to Bracciolini and his artifices of composition resemble,
+(as he did not mean them to do, though they did), the style of
+writing and the language in the Annals, I need, without wandering
+over the whole work, simply confine myself to the remainder of the
+sentence from which this fragment is taken; and beg the reader to
+mark carefully the italicized syllables and words "hortatur miles,
+ut hostem vagum, _neque_ paci _aut_ proelio paratum, sed perfidiam
+et ignaviam fuga confitentem exu_erent_ sedibus, gloriaeque _pariter_
+et praedae consul_erent_" (An. XIII. 39).
+
+First, there is the correspondence of the two last syllables of
+the words at the end of two almost equally balanced clauses, with
+more syllables in the first than the second clause: "sed perfidiam,
+et ignaviam fuga confitentem exu_erent_ // sedibus, gloriaeque
+pariter et praedae consul_erent_ //. It will be seen, (without
+multiplying examples), that the very same thing occurs in the
+passage quoted in the preceding chapter from Bracciolini's letter
+about the Baths of Baden: "et simul quandoque cum mulieribus
+lav_antes_, // et sertis quoque comas orn_antes_" // (Ep. I. 1).
+
+There is the altogether peculiar use of "pariter" in the sense of
+equality of association or time--"gloriaeque _pariter_ et
+praedae consulerent," just as in Bracciolini's Treatise "De
+Miseria Humanae Conditionis" (Pog. Op. p. 121): "Victis postmodum
+_pariter_ victoribus imperarunt." Three things ought to be
+noticed: first, "pariter" is the equivalent of "simul"; secondly,
+it is placed between the connected words; and, thirdly, the phrase
+ends with a four-syllabled verb--"imperarunt,"--"consulerent."
+That this is not only Bracciolini's individual phraseology, but
+his stereotyped cast of expression, is at once seen in the
+extraordinary sameness of the three things occurring when he again
+uses it in the Annals: "vox _pariter_ et spiritus
+_raperentur_" (An. XIII. 16).
+
+IX. The composition of any writer can be easily detected from
+examining his affinities of language as displayed not only in his
+use of words, but in his construction of sentences and combination
+of words.
+
+Nobody can read Tacitus, and not come to the conclusion that if
+any man ever wrote harmoniously, it is he; but any one reading the
+Annals must come to the very opposite conclusion, that Bracciolini
+is the very prince of rugged writers. By varying the accents,
+Tacitus manages to please the ear even when ending sentences with
+ugly polysyllabic words, as (taking the instances from the opening
+of his work): "suspectis sollicitis, adoptanti placebat" (I. 14);
+"deterius interpretantibus tristior, habebatur" (ib.); "Lusitaniam,
+specie legationis, seposuit" (I. 13). This is the unmusical way
+in which Bracciolini ends sentences with long words (taking the
+instances, also, from the commencement of the forgery): "victores
+longinquam militiam aspernabantur" (An. XI. 10):--"potissimum
+exaequaebantur officia ceremoniarum" (An. XI. 11):--"Claudio
+dolore, injuriae credebatur" (An. XII. 11). Almost the same ring
+and ruggedness are to be found in:--"marmorea tabula epigramma
+referente" (Ruin. Urb. Rom. Descript. Op. Pog. p. 136);
+--"magistratus, officia, imperia deferuntur" (Mis. Hum. Cond. I.
+Op. Pog. p. 102); "homines amplissimam materiam suppeditarunt"
+(De Nobil. Op. Pogg. p. 77).
+
+X. Tacitus avoids, as much as the genius of his native tongue will
+permit, two words following each other with the same terminations;
+Bracciolini is not only much given to this, but very partial to a
+reduplication of sounds, as if the jingle, instead of being most
+disagreeable, was excessively pleasant to the ear, as in his Letter
+describing the trial and death of Jerome of Prague (Ep. I. 2):
+--"_rerum_ plurim_arum_ sci_entiam_, eloq_uentiam_"; and in the
+Annals (XI. 38) "od_ii_, gau_dii_, ir_ae_, tristiti_ae_."
+
+Bracciolini is fond of using prefixes that have no meaning, as in
+his Funeral Oration on the death of his friend Niccoli: "moneta
+_ob_signari est coepta concipiebant" (Op. Pog. p. 278), where
+he uses "_ob_signari" for "signari," "ob" being without meaning:
+so in the Annals: "testamentum Acerroniae requiri, bonaque
+_ob_signari jubet" (XIV. 6).
+
+Another peculiarity of Bracciolini's is (for alliterative
+purposes) the playing upon a single letter that is repeated again
+and again at the beginning, in the middle, and, if the letter will
+allow it, at the end of words. "P" will not permit of being used
+in Latin at the end of words; but we find Bracciolini thus playing
+with it in the very first of his letters:--"_p_rojicit eam _p_ersonam
+sibi acce_p_tiorem, cum illam multi _p_etant _p_orrectis manibus,
+atque i_p_se," &c. (Ep. I. 1). But "m" does admit of being used
+at the end of words, and thus we find him, with a friskiness that
+the staid Tacitus would have in vain essayed to imitate, frolicking
+with it as a juggler with balls; for the rapidity of the repetition
+can be compared only to the rapidity of conveyance displayed by a
+conjuror when he receives into and passes out of his hands a number
+of balls with which he is playing: "_m_ox, ut o_m_itteret _m_aritum,
+e_m_ercatur, suu_m m_atri_m_oniu_m_ pro_m_ittens" (An. XIII. 44).
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE TERMINATION OF THE FORGERY.
+
+
+I.--The literary merit and avaricious humour of Bracciolini.
+--II. He is aided in his scheme by a monk of the Abbey of Fulda.
+--III. Expressions indicating forgery.--IV. Efforts to obtain a
+very old copy of Tacitus.--V. The forgery transcribed in the Abbey
+of Fulda.--VI. First saw the light in the spring of 1429.
+
+I. We have pointed out in the preceding chapter some of the more
+glaring errors committed by Bracciolini in style and syntax,
+customs and history, not with the view of showing that Niccoli
+made any mistake when he recommended him to take the task in hand
+of forging the Annals; for in no way did Niccoli overrate the
+merit of his friend. The Latin of Bracciolini, though not equal in
+its elegance to that of his splendid successor, Poliziano, was,
+nevertheless, superior to the Latin of any of his great
+contemporaries, none of whom, besides, had his versatility and
+varied attainments nor his wisdom and philosophy. The world now
+knows, as his Florentine friend then knew, that he had the
+requisite splendour of genius to undertake the daring task of
+writing history as eminently as Tacitus, that is, with as powerful
+a conception, and as superior an expression: he had already
+written nobly, sensibly, purely and simply; he had acquired in the
+Court of Rome, and, what we may call, the Court of the Royal
+Prelate, Beaufort, the necessary experience of public affairs and
+leading individuals, which fitted him to pass sovereign judgment
+on great men and public events, and he was gifted with the
+acuteness, the understanding and the prudence to lay down lessons
+of instruction for mankind.
+
+We have seen with what modesty he approached the immortal
+production that was fated to lift the name of Tacitus, where it
+was not before, above even those of Herodotus, Thucydides and
+Xenophon, Caesar, Sallust and Livy: yet he hesitated, questioning
+much whether he could clothe himself in the garb of an
+authoritative ancient speaking in lofty tones to the whole world
+and to all mankind. He had, too, to take as his model a writer who
+had not his fluency, and who is never great but when concise. This
+is the case with himself in the Annals, from his striving to do
+what his prototype did; with this exception, that when he is great
+he is never natural. In imitating this conciseness, he is the
+happiest instance of a writer illustrating the Horatian adage of
+"striving to be brief, and becoming obscure":
+
+   "Brevis esse laboro,
+    Obscurus fio."
+    _De Arte Poet._ 25-6:
+
+ever and anon he falls into a graceless obscurity from compressing
+into a few words what he ought to have said in a more expanded
+form: his great fault is that he outdoes Tacitus in conciseness:
+hence he keeps his reader in ignorance of things which would have
+been known if he had only more fully disclosed them.
+
+His avarice swayed his will stronger than his compunctions. The
+five hundred gold sequins, which were to be counted out to him on
+the completion of the work, which it was calculated would occupy
+three years, was too tempting an offer; and yet the offer was not
+sufficiently liberal in his opinion: as we have seen, he suggested
+that it should be increased one-fifth; he was right; for in those
+days as much, and even twice as much, was sometimes given for a
+mere translation: Lorenzo Valla got five hundred gold sequins for
+his Latin translation of Thucydides; Filelfo would have received
+twice as much, and, in addition to the thousand gold pieces, a
+handsome town house in Rome and a good landed estate if he would
+have translated the Iliad and the Odyssey into Latin verse.
+Bracciolini may, therefore, have succeeded in obtaining the
+increased price of six hundred sequins. Still he was not the kind
+of man to have been satisfied with this only: when he translated
+Diodorus Siculus, he required to be supported while engaged in its
+execution; and supported he was by the liberality of the Popes.
+The proposal of Lamberteschi included board and lodging, and in
+the house of the Florentine; Bracciolini expressed his willingness
+to accept that; but on the condition that Lamberteschi did not
+move about, for he wanted, as a prime necessity, to remain quite
+quiet, as the great literary undertaking in which he was about to
+be engaged would call for a more than usual amount of patient
+attention and labour: "libenter vivam cum Piero, nisi Scythae
+simus, libenter enim quiesco" (Ep. I. 17). We have seen that
+Bracciolini did not avail himself of what was proffered to him in
+this matter on account of his re-appointment to the Papal
+Secretariate: had it not been so he would have unquestionably
+called upon his friend Lamberteschi to fulfil this part of the
+contract; as before his appointment to an ecclesiastical living in
+England, he had been boarded and lodged by Cardinal Beaufort, and
+that too, on a scale of regal magnificence. He tells us himself in
+one of his Letters (Ep. I. 6), that, while the Cardinal, as
+vagrant as a Scythian, was continually absent from home, (it must
+have been on his episcopal visitations or in the discharge of his
+State duties), he staid behind in the Palace in London, passing
+his time peacefully and pleasantly in a splendid library, and
+vying at the expense of his princely patron with the magnificence
+of the king himself in the sumptuousness of his fare and the
+costliness of his apparel: "Dominus meus, quasi continuo abest,
+vagus ut Scytha, ego autem hic dego, in quiete libris involvor.
+Providetur mihi pro victu et vestitu, idque est satis, neque enim
+amplius vel Rex ex hoc tanto apparatu rerum capit." [Endnote 297]
+
+When we bear in mind his strong desire for gain, we may consider
+it not unlikely that, adhering to his bargain, he exacted from
+Lamberteschi some equivalent in lieu of the board and lodging: be
+that as it may, after the lapse of three years, (as may be seen
+from letters that passed between himself and Niccoli), he had then
+completed, as had been rightly calculated, the first instalment of
+his forgery.
+
+II. In those days when so many valuable works ascribed to the
+ancients were being constantly recovered, there was a very general
+(though as I have shown, very silly) belief abroad, that any
+ancient work, consequently, the lost History of Tacitus, might yet
+be found in some dark corner of Europe,--some barbarous country
+such as Germany, Hungary, or Bohemia. Accident decided that
+Bracciolini chose a place for the asserted recovery of what he had
+forged different from what had been arranged between himself and
+his friends in 1422, while they were devising the fabrication,
+namely, Hungary: when Bracciolini said that, "if he did go to
+Hungary he would pretend that he had come from England," the
+object must have been that no one should know the country where
+the MS. had been recovered; any busybody would be thus effectively
+foiled in visiting the right spot, and there prying about, making
+inquiries and ascertaining all the particulars with respect to the
+alleged discovery of some recent rare manuscript. The place thus
+decided on by accident was a town in Saxony at the farthest
+eastern extremity of that country on the borders of Bohemia, named
+Hirschfeldt, formerly the capital of Hesse Cassel, but which,
+after the peace of Westphalia, when it was secularized, became
+only a part of that principality. In the far-away times, it was
+famous for an Abbey of the Benedictine monks, which had been
+founded on the banks of the Fulda in the first half of the eighth
+century, in the year 737, in the reign of King Pepin, by a
+disciple of St. Boniface, St. Lul, who became Boniface's successor
+in the Bishopric of Mayence. The accident which caused Bracciolini
+to choose this convent, the most famous in Germany, as the place
+whence his forgery was to emanate, was his forming the
+acquaintance of a member of the abbey, who attended in the name of
+his brother Benedictines to watch a case that was being litigated
+for the monastery in the ecclesiastical courts of Rome. From some
+reason unexplained this monk was under obligation to Bracciolini,
+who determined that this holy man should be the medium of his
+forgery being placed before the world. The monk had the necessary
+qualifications for the tool that was wanted; he was needy and
+ignorant; above all things, he was stupid. "The good fellow," says
+Bracciolini in his scornful way to Niccoli, "who has not our
+attainments, thought that we were equally ignorant of what he
+found he did not know himself"--"Vir ille bonus, expers studiorum
+nostrorum, quicquid reperit ignotum sibi, id et apud nos
+incognitum putavit" (Ep. III 12).
+
+He gave this booby monk a long list of books that he was to hunt
+out for him on the library shelves of the Abbey of Fulda,
+including in the catalogue the works of Tacitus; and as he wanted
+a copy of the latter in the very oldest writing that could be
+procured, he enjoined the monk to give him a full description of
+certain books that were carefully put down in a list; these being
+very numerous, the monk could not possibly divine that the book
+particularly wanted was a Tacitus in the oldest characters that
+could be found.
+
+III. These instructions were given in May, 1427; and, notwithstanding
+the care and wisdom shown in the matter, something before the close
+of the summer that year oozed out which seemed to menace a disclosure
+of the imposture: rumours had got abroad evidently about what was
+transpiring between Niccoli and Bracciolini, which greatly alarmed the
+former; but he was quieted by his bolder friend assuring him that "when
+Tacitus came, he would keep it a secresy; that he knew all the tittle-
+tattle that was going on,--whence it came,--through whom, and how it
+was got up; but that he need have no fear, for that not a syllable
+should escape him."--"Cornelium Tacitum, cum venerit, observabo penes
+me occulte. Scio enim omnem illam cantilenam, et unde exierit, et per
+quem, et quis eum vendicet. Sed nil dubites, non exibit a me ne
+verbo quidem."
+
+These words occur in a letter that bears date Rome, the 25th of
+September, 1427; and whatever interpretation the reader may feel
+disposed to put upon them, he must admit, after considering all
+that has been said, that they seem to confirm wonderfully the
+truth of our theory, pointing, as they unquestionably do, to some
+mysterious and deep secret about Tacitus that existed only between
+Niccoli and Bracciolini; and what could that secret be? It could
+not be about the recovery of a rare and valuable copy of the works
+of Tacitus. There would be no necessity of keeping that by one
+secretly; on the contrary, the proper thing to do was to noise it
+abroad immediately, and as publicly as could be, so that it might
+be known to a wide circle of book-collectors, and as large a sum
+got for it as could be obtained; but if it were a Tacitus in the
+oldest characters that were to be found in order that it should be
+made use of as a copy for the letters in a figment, one can then
+easily understand the cause for all this secresy. "Thus conscience
+doth make cowards of us all." In fact, forgery, and nothing else
+than forgery, seems to be the easiest as well as the most feasible
+explanation of these remarks, which, were it not for this theory,
+would, instead of being very clear, be quite nebulous.
+
+IV. The Tacitus that was to have come from Germany did not,
+however, arrive. "I hear nothing of the Tacitus that is in
+Germany," he observes towards the close of the letter. "I am
+expecting an answer from the monk."--"De Cornelio Tacito qui est
+in Germania nil sentio; expecto responsum ab illo monacho."
+(Ep. III. 14.)
+
+Towards the close of September, then, 1427, what Bracciolini had
+written had not yet been given to the transcriber: time was
+passing; and Niccoli sent him in the following month what must
+have been the oldest copy of Tacitus he had in his collection.
+Bracciolini thanked him for it, but complained that the Lombard
+characters, in which it was written, were half effaced; and that
+if he had only known what he was about to do, he would have spared
+him the trouble. He went on to say that he remembered having read
+a copy of Tacitus in antique characters which Niccoli had in his
+possession, and which he had purchased at the sale of the library
+of his old friend Coluccio Salutati, or some other large book
+collector. He was desirous of having that or some other that could
+be read; for it would be difficult to find a transcriber who,
+without making mistakes, could read the manuscript that he had
+sent him:--"Misisti mihi librum Senecae, et Cornelium Tacitum,
+quod est mihi gratum; et is est litteris longobardis, et majori ex
+parte caducis, quod si scissem, liberassem te eo labore. Legi olim
+quemdam apud vos manens litteris antiquis; nescio Colucii ne
+esset, an alterius. Illum cupio habere, vel alium, qui legi
+possit; nam difficile erit reperire scriptorem qui hunc codicem
+recte legat" (Ep. III. 15).
+
+It is clear from these words that the copy of Tacitus which
+Bracciolini received in October 1427 from his friend Niccoli so
+very badly written in Lombard letters as to be for the most part
+indistinguishable, could not have been for his own reading, nor
+for his making a copy of it as he was in the habit of doing with
+the ancient classics, but from his saying that it could not be
+correctly read by a transcriber, it must have been for the purpose
+of placing it in the hands of such a person. But why should he put
+such a Tacitus in the hands of a transcriber? Let the reader ask
+himself that question; and his reply will be, that it could have
+been with no other object than that the History and the other
+works of Tacitus should be copied into the oldest characters that
+could be obtained by Bracciolini; with this further and more
+important motive in view, to add to the acknowledged works of
+Tacitus the new portion that had just been forged, all uniformly
+transcribed in the same equally old letters in order to deceive
+the world as to the very great antiquity, and, consequently, the
+implied authenticity of the fabrication. Bracciolini is,
+accordingly, most anxious to get a very old copy of Tacitus. "Take
+care, therefore," he continues in his letter to Niccoli, "that I
+have another, if it can be done; but you can do it, if you will
+strive your utmost":--"ideo cura ut alium habeam, si fieri potest;
+poteris autem, si volueris nervos intendere" (ibid). His anxiety
+also is very great for the transcriber to set to work at once by
+his adding: "You have, however, sent me the book without the
+parchment. I know not the state of mind you were in when you did
+this, except that you were as mad as a March hare. For what book
+can be transcribed, if there be not the parchment? Have a care to
+it, then, and, also, to a second manuscript, but, above all, keep
+in mind the vellum."--"Tu tamen misisti librum sine chartis, quod
+nescio qua mente effeceris, nisi ut poneres lunam in Ariete.
+[Endnote 303] Qui enim potest liber transcribi desint Pergamenae?
+Cura ergo de eis, et item de altero codice, sed primum de chartis
+confice" (ibid).
+
+The parchment came in good time, as well as a second old copy of
+Tacitus that could be read by a transcriber.
+
+V. This was the 2lst of October, 1427. Exactly eleven months and
+ten days elapsed, during the whole of which time nothing more is
+heard about old copies of Tacitus and transcriptions on calfskin;
+all again went on in profound silence and secresy till the llth of
+September, 1428, when the mountain again laboured; and a little
+bit of news that dropped from Bracciolini bore a close resemblance
+to the appearance of a small mouse: "Not a word," says he, "of
+Cornelius Tacitus from Germany; nor have I heard thence any
+further news of his works," showing that this must have been in
+reply to some remark in a letter of Niccoli's expressing surprise,
+it may be, at the very long time that was being taken in the
+transcription of the works of Tacitus with the additional new
+bit:--"Cornelius Tacitus silet inter Germanos, neque quicquam
+exinde novi percepi de ejus operibus" (Ep. III. 19).
+
+Evidently the needy, ignorant, stupid monk of Hirschfeldt was not
+over busy in the Abbey of Fulda transcribing the forgery of
+Bracciolini and incorporating it with the works of Tacitus in
+closely copied Lombard characters of great antiquity. The monk was
+not only slow at his work; he was also negligent; for when he went
+to Rome in the winter following, and should have taken his
+transcript to Bracciolini, he had left it behind him at the abbey.
+"The Hirschfeldt monk has come without the book," writes
+Bracciolini angrily to Niccoli on the 26th February, 1429; "and I
+gave him a sound rating for it; he has given me his assurance that
+he will be back aoain soon for he is carrying on a suit about his
+abbey in the law-courts, and will bring the book. He made heavy
+demands upon me; but I told him I would do nothing for him until
+_I_ have the book; I am, therefore, in hopes that I shall have it,
+as he is in need of my good offices":--"Monachus Hersfeldensis
+venit absque libro; multumque est a me increpatus ob eam causam;
+asseveravit se cito rediturum, nam litigat nomine Monasterii,
+et portaturum librum. Rogavit me multa; dixi me nil facturum,
+nisi librum haberemus; ideo spero et illum nos haberemus, quia
+eget favore nostro " (Ep. III. 29).
+
+VI. As he anticipated, the book ultimately turned up; it might
+have been in a week or two, or it might not have been till two or
+three months after; for in a letter that bears the date of neither
+the year nor the day,--(which I think was sometime in March 1429,
+though the Chevalier de Tonelli, in his Collection of the Letters
+of Bracciolini, conjectures must have been in the first week in
+May,--some time before the 6th of that month,)--a passage occurs
+in which Bracciolini informs his friend Niccoli that, as far as
+himself was concerned, everything was "now complete with respect
+to the 'Little Work,' concerning which he would on some future
+opportunity write to him, and at the same time send it to him to
+read in order to get his opinion of it": "Ego jam Opusculum
+absolvi, de quo alias ad te scribam, et simul legendum mittam, ut
+exquirendum judicium tuum" (Ep. III. 30). I take it that he is
+here alluding in his customary jesting manner (from his writing
+"opusculum" with a big O, to his "great" undertaking, the Annals.
+If he is not joking, but serious, he must, then, of course, be
+referring to his treatise, "De Avaritia," which is, certainly, a
+"little affair," and which he wrote in 1429. However, the monk in
+the Abbey of Fulda, who had taken a very long time in his
+transcription of the forgery, had finished his work by the 26th of
+February, 1429, and must have placed it in Bracciolini's hands a
+little before or after the month of March in that year.
+
+The deed was then now done. With the consummation of the forgery,
+all that correspondence suddenly came to an end which had been
+carried on for years by Bracciolini with Niccoli relative to
+Tacitus; that correspondence has given much additional colouring
+of truthfulness to the theory I have proposed to myself to uphold;
+if there had been nothing else convincing, it should, by itself,
+leave no shadow of a shade of doubt that Bracciolini forged the
+Annals of Tacitus. Though, too, we have no positive record of it,
+we may be as sure as if we had, that the last six books of that
+production first saw the light some time in the spring of the year
+1429.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE FORGED MANUSCRIPT.
+
+
+I. Recapitulation, showing the certainty of forgery.--II. The
+Second Florence MS. the forged MS.--III. Cosmo de' Medici the man
+imposed upon.--IV. Digressions about Cosmo de' Medici's position,
+and fondness for books, especially Tacitus.--V. The many
+suspicious marks of forgery about the Second Florence MS.: the
+Lombard characters; the attestation of Salustius.--VI. The
+headings, and Tacitus being bound up with Apuleius, seem to
+connect Bracciolini with the forged MS.--VII. The first authentic
+mention of the Annals.--VIII. Nothing invalidates the theory in
+this book.--IX. Brief recapitulation of the whole argument.
+
+I. We have, then, seen, how, from the inception to the
+commencement of the forgery;--how, from its first suggestion to
+Bracciolini by Lamberteschi and its approval by Niccoli in
+February, 1422, down to the finishing of the transcription by the
+monk of the Abbey of Fulda in February, 1429, and its delivery
+into the hands of Bracciolini in probably the month following,
+seven years elapsed. The time was, certainly, long enough for the
+fabrication to have been elaborated into the remarkable
+completeness by which it is distinguished, and which secured the
+signal success with which, to all appearances, it was immediately,
+as it has all along, been attended. Nearly two years were passed
+in considering how the last Six Books of the Annals could best be
+done: the composition of those few books was commenced about
+January, 1424, and completed by May, 1427: several months were
+then occupied in endeavouring to procure the oldest copy of
+Tacitus that could be got to serve as a guide for the copyist, nor
+was it until October, 1427, that the transcriber was supplied with
+a copy in small Lombard characters; the transcription was then
+begun, and, after a year and a few months, in February, 1429, the
+work was finally completed, and next month probably placed in the
+hands of the fabricator.
+
+Throughout this we see the exercise of an exceeding caution from
+the beginning to the end which would have provided against all
+mistakes and mischances, if it were in the power of man to be on
+his guard against all mischances and mistakes in an achievement of
+such a description. We have pointed out a few of these mistakes;
+they may in some instances be considered trifling; looked at from
+one point of view, trifling they are; but looked at from another
+point of view, they are most important, nay, startling, because
+they are mistakes that could not, in any instance, have been made
+by Tacitus; in several instances they could not have been made by
+any ancient Roman whomsoever.
+
+Still, the wonder is, not that Bracciolini made these mistakes,
+but that he did not make a great many more. As for the general
+merit of his achievement, it is actually marvellous;--the most
+phenomenal thing ever known to have been done in literature. It
+has not come within the scope of this inquiry that I should point
+out the successes of Bracciolini in imitating Tacitus: suffice it
+that they are sustained, continuous, close, felicitous,
+wonderful;--so much so that frequently in the pursuing of this
+investigation I have been induced to throw it aside as a mere
+barren paradox instead of a thoroughly sound hypothesis, aye,
+based on a foundation as firm as the Great Pyramid; but every now
+and then the occurrence of some mistake, which, though at the
+first glance, it looked very small, nay, insignificant,--of no
+importance whatever, yet considered more minutely, it bulked out
+into an egregious, colossal, monstrous blunder which made it
+impossible for me to believe that the Annals was a production by
+Tacitus.
+
+If errors pointed out in language or style, in statements or
+grammar, have shaken the reader's faith in the authenticity of the
+Annals, that faith must have been still more shaken by the
+mysterious allusions made by Bracciolini in his letters to Niccoli
+about Tacitus; the conjectures I have hazarded on these must have
+gained additional force when references followed to an unknown
+monk of Hirschfeldt, with mention of copies of Tacitus in Lombard
+writing, parchment for transcription, and other matters denoting
+the completion of a literary work in those days.
+
+II. Now, if there be any truth in my theory,--if Bracciolini
+really forged the Annals,--further, if a transcript of it was made
+by a monk of the Abbey of Fulda, and if the manuscript is still in
+existence, it must necessarily be the oldest containing the last
+six books of the Annals; I will add this more, that if there be
+one place more likely than another where it would be found, it is
+the city whence the offer emanated, namely, Florence, and if there
+be one library more likely than another where it would be deposited,
+it is the library founded by (for a reason that will be immediately
+seen) the Medici family. Well, it does so happen that the oldest
+MS. of Tacitus containing the last six books of the Annals is
+really preserved in Florence; and in that library, the foundation
+of which was laid by Cosmo de' Medici, and which is known by the
+name of the Mediceo-Laurentian Library.
+
+III. There can be very little doubt that Cosmo de' Medici was the
+famous individual,--the very rich man, for whom the three
+Florentines, Lamberteschi, Niccoli, and Bracciolini, conspired to
+get up a forgery of Tacitus. It certainly never once comes out in
+the correspondence, in language that can be considered "totus,
+teres atque rotundus," that the man who was imposed upon by
+Bracciolini and his two accomplices, and who was shamefully
+deceived into paying the little fortune of five, six, or even more
+hundred gold sequins for a forgery, was their own most affectionate,
+intimate, and eminent friend, the merchant of a fortune that placed
+him on a level with the princes of Italy, Cosmo de' Medici;--but
+Cosmo de' Medici it was: any other man than he would have jumped
+at such an offer as having the whole history of Livy, instead
+of a small fragment of Tacitus, which Bracciolini was positive
+that he could get (because he was positive that he could forge
+it); but the illustrious Florentine peremptorily refused the offer,
+there being no other historian whom he liked so much as Tacitus,
+nor whom he read with so much pleasure and profit, as borne testimony
+to by Vossius in his Treatise on the Roman Historians, when speaking
+of Tacitus in terms which lend additional strength to the truth of
+our theory of forgery. "The diction of Tacitus," he says, "is more
+florid and exuberant in the books of the History, terser and drier
+in the Annals: meanwhile he is staid and eloquent in both: no other
+historian was read with equal pleasure by Cosmo de' Medici, the
+Duke of Tuscany, a man, who, if there was one, possessed the
+greatest genius for statesmanship, and was clearly made to rule":
+--"Dictio Taciti floridior uberiorque in Historiarum est libris,
+pressior, sicciorque in Annalibus. Interim gravis utrobique et
+disertus. Non alium Historicum aeque lectitaret Cosmus Medices,
+Hetruriae Dux, vir, si quis alius, civilis prudentiae intelligentis-
+simus, planeque ad imperandum factus" (Vossius. De Historicis Latinis.
+Lib. I. c. 30. p. 146). Muretus says the same in the second volume
+of his Orations (Orat. XVIII.): "Cosmo de' Medici, who was the
+first Grand Duke of Tuscany, a man made to rule, who laid down the
+doctrine, that that which is commonly called good fortune consists
+in wise and prudent conduct, delighted in the works of Tacitus;
+and from the reading of them he derived the most excessive
+enjoyment":--"Cosmus Medices, qui primus Magnus Etruriae Dux fuit,
+homo factus ad imperandum, qui eam, quae vulgo fortuna dicitur, in
+consilio et prudentia consistere docuit, Taciti libros in deliciis
+habebat; eorumque lectione avidissime fruebatur."--
+
+IV. We may here observe parenthetically that both Vossius and
+Muretus err in speaking of Cosmo de' Medici, the former as "the
+Duke," the second as the "First Grand Duke" of Tuscany: it was not
+till the sixteenth century that the members of that family
+obtained the absolute sovereignty: in the fifteenth century there
+was, as Roscoe says in his Life of Lorenzo de' Medici (p. 6), no
+"prescribed or definite compact" between them and the people; the
+authority which Cosmo de' Medici exercised consisted, according to
+that correct and elegant writer, "rather in a tacit influence on
+his part, and a voluntary acquiescence on that of the people."
+
+That Roscoe was quite right can be seen by consulting a
+contemporary writer, Bartolommeo Fazio; in the biographical
+sketches that he has given of the most illustrious men of his
+time, who distinguished themselves as poets, orators, lawyers,
+physicians, painters, sculptors, private citizens, generals, and
+kings and princes, he has placed Cosmo de' Medici under the
+heading, "Of Some Private Citizens," ("De Quibusdam Civibus
+Privatis"); furthermore, he speaks of him in the following terms:
+--"As a civilian he was exceedingly rich, being not only the
+wealthiest of all the private men of our age, but in that respect
+to be compared, moreover, with princes of no mean standing":
+--"Divitiis civilem modum longe excessit omnium non tantum
+privatorum hominum nostrae tempestatis locupletissimus, sed etiam
+cum non mediocribus principibus ea re conferendus" (Bartol.
+Facius. De Viris Illustribus, p. 57. Flor. Ed. 1745).
+
+After he has spoken of the active part that Cosmo de' Medici took
+in the administration of public affairs, and the valuable advice
+that he gave in matters pertaining to war;--of the churches and
+other public buildings that he erected at his own expense;--the
+numbers of men whom he raised to public posts;--his beneficence to
+the poor;--his liberality to foreigners;--his hospitality to his
+countrymen; and the wonderful way in which he had adorned and
+embellished his private mansion with Tuscan marble;--Fazio ends by
+saying that, "in authority and estimation he was unquestionably
+the PRINCE of his native city":--"Auctoritate et existimatione
+haud dubie civitatis suae PRINCEPS" (ibid. p. 58). Here we see the
+cause of the error committed by Vossius, Muretus, and a number of
+historians; not only this phrase of Fazio's, but the manner in
+which contemporary Florentines thought of and demeaned themselves
+towards Cosmo de' Medici.
+
+We may further state, while thus digressing, that, from what Fazio
+says, we know that Cosmo de' Medici was a great lover of books;
+for Fazio informs us in his notice of Niccolo Niccoli that Cosmo
+de' Medici had his library in the magnificent church which at his
+own cost he had erected in Florence, namely, St. Mark's,
+("bibliothecae, quae erat in Marci Evangelistae Templo, quam
+Cosmus Medices effecerat" (Facius. De Viris Illust. p. 12); "this
+library he had built on a very extensive scale," and "adorned" it
+"with an infinite number of volumes of both Greek and Latin
+authors, of all kinds, and every degree of merit, some of which he
+had got at heavy expense from various quarters, others being
+copies contracted for with transcribers":--"bibliothecam, quam
+amplissimam aedificavit, infinitis librorum voluminibus tum
+Greacorum, tum Latinorum, cujusque ordinis, ac facultatis
+exornavit partim undique magno impendio quaesitis, partim
+conductis librariis exscriptis" (ibid. p. 57).
+
+But to return.--
+
+We see, then, from two such reliable authorities as Vossius and
+Muretus, that Cosmo de' Medici took a special delight in Tacitus,
+and ardently enjoyed reading him. We can thus clearly perceive,
+why it was when a forgery was to be undertaken, it was of an
+ancient classic, and the selection made was a continuance to the
+History of Tacitus: we, also, know how natural it was when
+Bracciolini found, after deliberation and a trial, that there was
+little or no sympathy between him and Tacitus, and, certainly, no
+identity of genius, that he should strive his utmost to cast off
+such a heavy burden and endeavour to carry a lighter load by
+fabricating a continuation of Livy; but no guinea is required to
+be spent for a visit to the séance of a medium, to call up the
+spirit of Cosmo de' Medici by the rapping of a table: in the first
+place, the spirit would be sure not to come, however hard the
+table might be rapped, from fear of being addressed in Latin or
+Italian, as spirits are always sulky when they speak languages
+that are unknown to the medium: in the second place, after what we
+hear from Vossius and Muretus about the historical studies of the
+enlightened Princely Florentine, we want no ghost of his to come
+from the grave, and tell us that he would not have taken one
+entire book of Livy for one little page of Tacitus. Hence
+Bracciolini was forced to go on with a forgery that went against
+his grain; but, uncongenial as it was, he executed it with the
+skill and power that showed the master mind.
+
+V. The manuscript in the Mediceo-Laurentian library is known as
+the Second Florence MS.; all the other MSS. of the last six books
+of the Annals are copies of it: as James Gronovius puts it,
+"emanated" from it: "ex hoc codice omnia alia scripta Taciti
+exemplaria _fluxisse_"; just as the other Florentine MS. is
+the only one containing all the books of the Annals, or as Ernesti
+says: "it is unique: we have no other manuscript of those books:
+--"ille unus est, nec alium scriptum illorum librorum codicem
+habemus;" there was no necessity making many transcripts of the
+latter codex, for printing had come into use a good half century
+before it was found,--or, more properly, said to have been found,
+--in the Abbey of Corvey.
+
+Both these manuscripts are spurious; though it concerns us for the
+present only to deal with the Second or earlier one:--Of the First
+or later one I will speak at the proper time.
+
+The second Florence MS., if a forgery, ought to have many
+suspicious marks about it to denote that it is a fabrication; and,
+perhaps, there does not exist in the world a more suspicious
+manuscript, not in one, but sundry, respects.
+
+In the first place, it is written in Lombard characters; of which
+the Benedictines in their "Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique," give
+both a description and a specimen; and from the specimen given,
+the characters are small and elegant, some being high and ending
+in volutes or curves, while there is a "mingling of capitals and
+cursives."
+
+But why should the manuscript have been written in Lombard
+characters at all? It would seem simply in order to give it an air
+of excessively great antiquity;--but a more fatal mistake could
+not possibly have been made.
+
+We know from the letters that Bracciolini wrote to Niccoli that he
+wanted a very old copy of Tacitus to serve as a guide to the
+transcriber at Hirschfeldt: Niccoli sent him a Tacitus in Lombard
+characters; his objection to it was not that the characters were
+Lombard, but that they were "half-effaced" ("caduca"). We may,
+therefore, conclude that the copy finally sent to him as a guide
+for the transcriber, was, also, in Lombard characters; those not
+"half-effaced," but clear and legible; it is a pity for them, but
+a good job for me, that he or Niccoli, or both, did not know that
+Lombard characters were not in use in the century when they wanted
+it to appear that their forgery was in existence; for they
+indulged in a trick to make the reader believe that the MS. was in
+existence at the close of the fourth century at the very latest;
+and, perhaps, a hundred or two hundred years before, for they put
+a note at the end, by which the reader is given to understand, to
+his mighty surprise, that the manuscript was in the hands of that
+illustrious Heathen Philosopher, Salustius, not the Syrian and
+Cynic, of whom an account is given by Suidas, Photius, Fabricitis
+and others, for he lived in the fifth century, but the Gaul and
+Platonist, who flourished in the preceding century, of whom
+Fabricius said that he would "rather ascribe to him who was the
+friend of the Emperor Julian and the Platonist, than to the other
+Salustius, who was the Cynic, the elegant treatise that was
+extant, "On the Gods and the World";--"huic potius Juliani,
+Platonico, quam alteri Cynico Salustio tribuerim libellum
+elegantem, qui exstat [Greek: peri Theon kai kosmou]" (Biblioth.
+Graec. Lib. III. c. 9); Theodoretus also speaks of him in his
+[Greek: Historia Ekklaesiastikae] (Lib. I. 3), as well as the
+Emperor Julian in one of his Orations (VIII.) and Ammianus
+Marcellinus in the 21st and 23rd books of his History. Now, the
+very fact that Ammianus Marcellinus speaks of this Salustius is
+the very reason why he should have been selected to be the
+corrector of the forged MS.; we have already said more than once,
+--and it cannot be too often impressed upon the reader,--that
+Bracciolini found the historical books of Ammianus Marcellinus;
+to all appearances, he had most carefully studied them: it was
+therefore, from his being quite familiar with the pages of
+Marcellinus, that he had Salustius suggested to him as the best
+individual to write the note.
+
+The note is to the effect that Salustius had read and corrected
+the manuscript when he was residing in Rome during the Consulate
+of Olibrius and Probinus, and that he had again revised it at
+Constantinople in the Consulate of Caesarius and Atticus.--"Ego
+Salustius legi et emendavi Romae felix, Olibio et Probino vc.
+Coss. in foro Martis controversias declamans oratori Endelechio.
+Rursus Constantinopoli recognovi Caesario et Attico Consulibus".
+Olibrius (not Olibius) and Probinus were the two last consuls in
+the reign of the Emperor Theodosius; that, therefore, gives the
+date 395; and Caesarius and Atticus were the consuls in the second
+year of the Emperor Arcadius, so that that gives the date 397.
+
+All the editors of Tacitus cast no doubt on the authenticity of
+these words; they believe they were actually written by Salustius;
+the fact is, they have not the slightest suspicion of forgery;
+under which circumstance, they had no other alternative but to
+regard the manuscript as a palimpsest, with everything erased
+except these words, which they believed ought also to have been
+expunged, as appertaining to the previous, and not the existing
+MS., and which remained through the negligence of the transcriber.
+Pichena, accepting everything as genuine, was of opinion that the
+manuscript was as old as 395; this is an opinion that everybody
+considers ridiculous, on account of the characters being Lombard,
+it not being until the sixth century that the Lombards came into
+Italy, until which date all Latin manuscripts were written in
+Roman characters.
+
+On account of this, there has arisen, among, the cognoscente of
+codices, an interminable controversy attended by a startling
+divergence of opinion with respect to the length of the existence
+of this manuscript.
+
+Unable to agree with Pichena, Jarnes Gronovius, nevertheless,
+places it at such an "immense distance in antiquity from all the
+others," that one must suppose he considered it coeval with the
+immediate arrival of the Lombards into Italy, and, therefore,
+about the sixth century. Exterus and Panckoucke, entertaining
+pretty much the same opinion as James Gronovius, date its origin
+from the seventh or eighth century.
+
+A man who took an enormous interest in all literary matters of
+this description, Cardinal Passionei, deputed, in the middle of
+the last century, one of the most skilful experts in manuscripts
+in Italy, Signor Botari, to ascertain the age of this puzzling
+codex. Botari naturally applied to the principal keeper of the
+Mediceo-Laurentian Library, Signor Biccioni, who, after
+consulting with his colleague, Signor Martini, came to the
+conclusion that it did not date further back than the eighth
+century.
+
+The Benedictine Brothers, who tell this anecdote, are themselves
+of opinion that the manuscript is not older than the tenth
+century; and for these reasons, "the characters, the distance
+between the words, the punctuation, and some other signs" which
+are indicative, they say, of that century: "les caractères, la
+distance des mots, la ponctuation et plusieurs autres signes
+marquent tout au plus le Xe siècle" (t. III. p. 279).
+
+Other men have given other opinions of the age of this manuscript;
+Ernesti, for example, believes that it is as old as the 11th
+century; others say the 13th; others again give some other time;
+whereas the exact date is known to the reader, who is aware that
+it first saw the light in February or March, 1429.
+
+But about this writing of Salustius. Further imposture is shown by
+what the Philosopher is made to say about his "declaiming
+controversies" in the Forum of Mars before the Orator Endelechius.
+There is nothing to show that Salustius, (though he was in Gaul,
+the prefect in the praetorium, while Julian, the Apostate, was
+proconsul), was ever in Rome. It is doubtful whether Salustius and
+Endelechius ever were together; for though both flourished in the
+time of the Emperor Theodosius, one lived in Rome and the other in
+Constantinople.
+
+Looking at all the circumstances in this investigation it must be
+admitted as being uncommonly remarkable, and, therefore,
+uncommonly suspicious, that the note should have been made by one
+of whom such very little is known as Salustius; consequently, the
+very little that would be known of what he did, or what might be
+affirmed of him that he did:--we have seen from what is said of
+him by Fabricius that it is not positively known, but only
+shrewdly conjectured, that he wrote the treatise "De Diis et
+Mundo";--it is not ascertained whether he was the Salustius who
+was Consul with the Emperor Julian IV. in the year 363;--it is not
+settled what were his other names, some, such as Lemprière, taking
+them to be Secundus Promo_tus_, others, such as M. Weiss, in
+the "Biographie Universelle", Secundus Promo_tius_, a third
+set questioning whether he had any such names as "Secundus" and
+"Promotus" or "Promotius":--finally, it is not determined how his
+name, Salustius, ought to be spelt, whether with one or with two
+l's, when in Suidas it is spelt "Salustius" [Greek: Saloustios],
+and in Theodoretus "Sallustius" [Greek letters: Salloustios].
+And "who shall decide" when a lexicographer and a bishop "disagree?"
+
+There is not yet an end to all the mystery and confusion hanging
+around this Praefectus Praetorio. Was he ever a Praefectus
+Praetorio? One cannot then understand why Theodoretus, when
+speaking of his being [Greek: huparchos] (Hist. Eccl. I. 6
+post init.), should express his surprise at it, from Salustius
+"being a slave to impiety." The general of the Imperial Guard
+could have discharged his duties just as well whether he was pious
+or impious: So could the Praefectus Urbi; but this would not have
+been the case with the officer who was the superintendent of the
+public morals,--the Praefectus Morum: It would therefore seem that
+this was the post held by Salustius, when Ammianus Marcellinus
+informs us in his History that the Emperor Julian "promoted him to
+be Prefect and sent him into Gaul:"--"Salustium Praefectum
+promotum in Galliam missus est" (Lib. XXI. c. 8): Otherwise it is
+not clear why Theodoretus should write thus in his Ecelesiastical
+History:--"At this time Sallustius who was Prefect, ALTHOUGH he
+was a _slave to impiety_:--[Greek: Salloustios de hyparchos on
+taenikauta, KAITOI tae dussebeia douleuon"] (L. c.)
+
+With all this mystery and confusion attaching to Salustius, there
+is almost as much confusion and mystery attaching to Sanctus
+Severus Endelechius,--or Severus, as he is mostly known to the
+writers of ecclesiastical history. Possevino, the Elder, in the
+second volume (p. 398) of his "Apparatus Sacer" speaks of him as a
+teacher of oratory and a poet in the Christian world:--"Severi
+Rectoris et Poetae Christiani, Carmen Bucolicon". Rheinesius, in
+one of his Letters (VIII.) to Daumius, misquotes this, by
+substituting "Rhetoris "for "Rectoris"; in the course of the same
+letter he makes a remark which causes one to understand what is
+meant by "declaiming controversies in the Forum of Mars to the
+Orator Endelechius": Rheinesius says that, the custom of
+rhetoricians was to bring forward into the forum set matters, or
+themes" [Greek: Theseis] "for the sake of intellectual
+exercitation":--"solebant enim oratores etiam fictas materias, seu
+[Greek: Theseis], in forum producere exercendi ingenii gratia";
+--from this being done, we learn towards the close of the letter,
+when he is speaking of this very note to the Second Florentine
+MS., that "Endelechius was a master to Sallustius"--"Endelechius
+... Sallustio magister fuit."
+
+It is clear that Rheinesius believes everything about the note to
+the Second Florence MS. But how came a Heathen philosopher,--a
+very impious one, too, (according to Theodoretus), like Salustius,
+to be so cordially connected in the fourth century with a devout
+Christian teacher, like Sanctus Severus Endelechius? Even
+admitting that there was this freedom of intercourse between the
+two, do dates agree for the kind of relationship that is said to
+have existed between them? The time when Salustius was learning
+oratory from Endelechius was, as the note tells us, the year 395.
+But Endelechius was the contemporary of Paulinus, the date of
+whose death was 431, and Endelechius died a little before or after
+him, (See Rheinesius Epist. ad Daumium VIII. p. 25.) Endelechius
+must have then been a remarkably juvenile instructor in rhetoric.
+Shall we say at ten years of age? or eight? or six? or when he was
+in his cradle? for he died before he was 50.
+
+Why, also, should there have been any written declaration on the
+part of Salustius, that he had revised the copy? Does it not look
+as if his certificate of revision was meant to establish this as a
+fact not to be contravened,--that the Manuscript is as old as the
+fourth century? The trick is clearly the artifice of an impostor,
+who wants an attestation, when no attestation is required to
+substantiate a thing except when the thing to be substantiated is,
+as in this instance, a falsification. The Benedictine monks say in
+their "Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique" (III. 279), "they never saw
+in any manuscript an attestation of corrections"; more so, when
+the manuscript is a copy, and not an original, and does not bear
+any corrections on its margin;--"sur un très grand nombre de mss.
+que nous avons vus, jamais nous n'ayons rémarqué d'attestations de
+corrections, transcrites dans les copies." I will be bound to say
+that they never saw in any other manuscript than this, (the vellum
+of which is, I suspect, of the 15th century), the letters formed
+and the words placed at the distance between each other as
+obtained in the tenth century, along with the abbreviations and
+the punctuations of that period.
+
+Nor is this an end of the marks of imposture about this Second
+Florence MS.
+
+The reader will admit that a very great (and what looks like an
+insuperable) difficulty was to be got over by some amazingly
+clever trick not easily conceivable, when a number of books, as if
+written by Tacitus, were to precede a history which he had
+composed, commencing: "When I begin this work"--"Initium mihi
+operis;" those words which now in all the editions properly stand
+at the head of a separate and substantive work, "Historiarum Liber I."
+stand in the Second Florence MS. at the head of what is designated
+the "Seventeenth Book" of the whole production. The device had
+recourse to is ingenious in the extreme, yet as arrant a mark of
+imposture as anything that we have pointed out.
+
+The last Six Books of what we now know as "The Annals" are headed
+"Cornelii Taciti Historiae Augustae LI. XI. _Actionum_ Diurnalium:"
+that is, "The Books of the History of the Emperors by Cornelius
+Tacitus, the 11th of the Daily _Transactions_." The first book of
+what we now know as "The History" has this change in the heading:
+"_Actorum_ Diurnalium XVII."; that is "the 17th book of the Daily
+_Affairs_." The implication is that Tacitus meant a vast difference
+between "_Actiones_ Diurnales" and "_Actus_ Diurnales"; so to leave
+the reader in doubt as to whether Tacitus had given any explanations
+as to why he meant to change the character of the narrative but not
+the numbering of the books, the Sixteenth Book breaks off abruptly;
+the kind of explanation that must have been given by Tacitus is thus
+left entirely to the imagination of the reader, for everybody must
+conjecture, if the affair was genuine, that some sort of explanation
+was given in the lost part. This is certain that, from the manner in
+which he wrote the Annals, Bracciolini gave a larger meaning to "actus"
+than to "actiones," the former meaning "public affairs," and the other
+"things that were done" of any note or interest; clearly showing that
+nobody was more conscious than Bracciolini himself how he had failed
+in attempting to write history in the exact manner in which it was
+written by Tacitus. I may now place before the reader the astonishment
+which Seemiller expresses in his "Incrementa Typographica" (pp. 10, 11),
+that the books about the Emperors of Rome in the first edition of the
+works of Tacitus printed at Venice in 1469 by the then unrivalled master
+of his art, Vindelinus of Spire, should not have the titles of "Annals"
+and "History." The reader now sees the reason why; and, moreover, the
+reader knows that Seemiller must have seen very few editions of the
+works of Tacitus.
+
+VI. One or two things more ought to be taken notice of, because
+they connect Bracciolini with the forged manuscript.
+
+It was usual for monastic transcribers to follow the text of the
+writer as closely as printers in these days follow the copy of an
+author. Everybody has his peculiarities: Bracciolini was no
+exception to this rule. He was in the habit of writing "incipit
+feliciter" at the commencement of a work: this maybe seen in an
+old MS. copy of his "Facetiae", preserved in the British Museum,
+and supposed to have been written at Nuremberg in 1470. This also
+runs through the headings to the books in the Second Florence MS.
+To either "feliciter" or "felix," he was so partial, that he shows
+it in the attestation of Salustius, who is made to write "Ego
+Salustius legi et emendavi Romae _felix_."
+
+There is another point, which, though as trifling, is as striking.
+MSS. were sometimes found with two or more authors bound up
+together, and these, in the majority of cases, were very old ones.
+To give the Second Florence MS. an air of antiquity Tacitus is
+bound up with Apuleius. If an author was to be selected to be
+bound up with anything done by Bracciolini at this date, and he
+had been consulted in the matter, there was none more likely for
+him to have chosen than Apuleius, for his thoughts were now
+running altogether upon that writer, of whose "Golden Ass" he gave
+a Latin translation; and the particular part of Apuleius bound up
+with Tacitus only begins at the 10th chapter, that is, with only
+what he writes "De Asino Aureo."
+
+These are, as I have said, small points; but looking at
+surrounding circumstances, they are significant; and stand forth
+as additional proofs of Bracciolini being concerned not only in
+the forgery of the last Six Books of the Annals, but also in the
+forgery of the Second Florence MS.
+
+VII. Another point ought not to be passed over in silence, as it
+is of much importance.
+
+It has been said in the first part of this investigation that no
+authentic mention is to be found of the Annals of Tacitus from the
+second to the fifteenth century; for the simple reason that it was
+not then in existence. But if it was forged, copied and issued by
+1429, it would almost follow that some mention would be made of it
+not very long after that date: this was actually the case: the
+first authentic mention of the Annals is by Zecco Polentone, in
+the Sixth Book of his "De Scriptoribus Illustribus Latinae
+Linguae": he says that he would "not venture to state very
+positively what was the number of the books of Tacitus's History;
+but for himself he had seen the eleventh book (in a fragmentary
+form) and all the others down to the twenty-first, in which
+abundant materials had been furnished in an elaborate manner of
+the life of Claudius and of the succeeding emperors down to
+Vespasian." This work of Polentone I have never seen, and quote
+the extract as it is given by the Abbé Méhus in his Preface to the
+works of Traversari: "Librorum ejus" (Taciti nempe) "numerum
+affirmare satis certe non audeo. Fragmenta quidem libri undecimi,
+et reliquos deinceps ad vigesimum primum vidi, in quis vita
+Claudii, et qui fuerunt postea Caesares ad Vespasianum usque,
+ornate, ut dixi, et copiose ornavit" (Méhus. Praef. ad Latinas
+Epistolas Traversarii p. XLVII.). The question now arises when did
+Polentone write this? It could not have been before 1429, because
+the last six books of the Annals had not yet been given to the
+world; nor would it have been after 1463, for that date was,
+according to Pignorius, the year of his death. The first authentic
+mention of the last six books of the Annals might then have been
+in the first year after its publication, or it might not have been
+till the thirty-third; but this is certain, that those books, as
+might have been expected from their most remarkable character,
+attracted attention, as they have not ceased to do down to the
+present day, in the very first generation when they were placed
+before the public.
+
+VIII. I cannot see that anything I can think of and investigate
+invalidates my theory: on the contrary, everything that suggests
+itself immediately and strictly tallies with the truth of it; but
+if this be not the case with every theory, then that theory is
+not, and cannot be correct. Take and test any; take and test the
+theory, for example, of Sir George Cornewall Lewis with respect to
+the ancient monarchy of Rome; he considered it to be a myth, his
+principal argument, in my opinion, being, on account of the number
+of years the seven kings had reigned,--244;--he maintained that
+such a length of years in such an exceedingly small number of
+consecutive reigns is not to be found in the history of any other
+country; that may be true enough; but only turn the eye to the
+country contiguous to ours; the land which almost seems to present
+itself as a matter of course for its great fame and splendour,
+France; then turn to the most striking and memorable period of its
+monarchy,--the time of the seven last kings, the Henries and the
+Louises, just preceding the Great Revolution: the years of their
+consecutive reigns number 233, so that there are 11 years to the
+good of Sir George Cornewall Lewis's theory; but if two of those
+French kings, Henry III. and Henry IV., had not been assassinated,
+and the last of them, Louis XVI., deprived of his life by an
+infuriated people, the number of years of those seven monarchs'
+reigns might have been 270 or 280, possibly even 300. That theory
+of Sir George Cornewall Lewis cannot then be accepted; there being
+nothing,--for the leading reason given by him,--that should induce
+us to question the accuracy of history as regards the Roman
+monarchy.
+
+IX. But it does strike me most forcibly that after what I have
+advanced, (it may be, feebly,--I am certain in a manner that is
+very faulty),--it is simply aversion to novelty that can cause the
+reader still to believe that Tacitus wrote that part of his
+History which passes by the name of "Annals": I do not see how the
+reader can be of that opinion when he ponders over the numerous
+literary doubts I have raised as to its authenticity, more
+particularly, of the last six books;--when, too, he remembers how
+I have shown by facts, dates and circumstances the period when
+that portion came into existence;--the year when it was begun and
+the year when it was completed;--the people who were engaged in
+its production;--the writer who composed it;--the individual who
+suggested it;--the book-collector who instigated it;--the monk who
+transcribed it;--the rich man who purchased it;--and, just now,
+the author who made the first authentic mention of it; and last,
+but not least, the condition (that is, the exact age and undoubted
+spuriousness) of the oldest MS. that we have of it:--all goes to
+prove that, if not the whole work, at any rate, the last Six Books
+of the Annals are a forgery;--and a forgery, too, so audacious in
+its conception, and so extraordinary in its bungling,--while all
+the steps of its execution have been so distinctly set forth
+according to data that have been given and authorities that have
+been cited,--that it seems to me to be nothing more nor less than
+sheer obstinacy, after such clear demonstration, for any body to
+entertain a doubt about it.
+
+
+END OF BOOK THE THIRD.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THE FOURTH.
+
+THE FIRST SIX BOOKS OF THE ANNALS.
+
+ Hunc lege quaeso librum, quem condidit ore disertus,
+ Et Latiae linguae Poggius ipse decus.
+ BEBELIUS. _Utilissimus Liber_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+REASONS FOR BELIEVING THAT BRACCIOLINI WROTE BOTH PARTS OF THE ANNALS.
+
+
+I.--Improvement in Bracciolini's means after the completion of the
+forgery of the last part of the Annals.--II. Discovery of the
+first six books, and theory about their forgery.--III. Internal
+evidence the only proof of their being forged.--IV. Superiority of
+workmanship a strong proof.--V. Further departure than in the last
+six books from Tacitus's method another proof.--VI. The Symmetry
+of the framework a third proof.--VII. Fourth evidence, the close
+resemblance in the openings of the two parts.--VIII. The same tone
+and colouring prove the same authorship.--IX. False statements
+made about Sejanus and Antonius Natalis for the purpose of
+blackening Tiberius and Nero.--X. This spirit of detraction runs
+through Bracciolini's works.--XI. Other resemblances denoting the
+same author.--XII. Policy given to every subject another cause to
+believe both parts composed by a single writer.--And XIII. An
+absence of the power to depict differences in persons and things.
+
+I. When Bracciolini completed the first instalment of his forgery
+he was in his fiftieth year. From that date, for the remainder of
+his life, in consequence of the large remuneration he received for
+his audacious imposition, he lived in comparatively affluent
+circumstances. He permanently fixed his residence in a villa which
+he purchased in the pleasant district of Valdarno in the Tuscan
+territory;--a villa made profitable by a vineyard, and beautiful
+by a garden adorned with tasteful ornaments, fountains and classic
+statues, the workmanship of ancient Greek and Roman sculptors.
+With the lucrative contingencies attached to his forgery, such as
+disposing of copies from the original, a privilege which he,
+doubtless, obtained from his friend Cosmo de' Medici, and for
+which he must have frequently got large sums of money, he may have
+gratified the inclination he expressed six years before to his
+friend, Niccoli, of spending 400 gold sequins a year;--"non sum
+pecuniosus ... erat animus expendere usque ad CCCC. aureos, non
+quod tot habeam." (Ep. II. 3.) He now had the means, that sum
+being equivalent to from 8 to 10 thousand pounds a year in these
+days. That he made a splendid fortune there can be no question,
+were it only for the words used by Poliziano in his History of the
+Pazzi and Salviati Conspiracy against Lorenzo de' Medici, while
+speaking of his eldest son James "squandering in a few years the
+ample patrimony which he had inherited": "patrimonium quod ipse
+amplum ex haereditate paterna obvoverat totum paucis annis
+profuderat" (Polit. De Pact. Conj. Hist. p. 637), the language
+used showing that Jacopo Bracciolini was not sole inheritor but
+co-heir with his brothers. Certain it is that the circumstances of
+Bracciolini were so much improved after his forgery of the Annals
+that from that time he had the opportunity of indulging a
+cherished idea of his earlier manhood devoting himself to literary
+undertakings. He started off with his treatise on Avarice, (a
+subject of which he was a very good judge): composition after
+composition then issued rapidly from his pen; they were no longer
+anonymous; they were attended by fame; he thus made ample amends
+for the "inglorius labor", as he styles it himself (An. IV, 32),
+of the Annals.
+
+These works have been extremely valuable in the course of this
+inquiry; they are more especially valuable just now in enabling me
+to trace home to him the authorship of the first six books of the
+Annals; these works were 15 in number, namely 1. Historia
+Disceptativa de Avaritia; 2. Two books of Historiae Convivales;
+3. An essay De Nobilitate; 4. Ruinarum Urbis Romae Descriptio;
+5. A treatise De Humanae Conditionis Miseria; 6. Controversial
+Writings; 7. Funeral Orations; 8. Epistles; 9. Fables; 10. Facetiae;
+11. A Dialogue De Infelicitate Principum; 12. Another entitled
+"An Seni sit Uxor ducenda"? first published in Liverpool in 1807,
+and edited by the Rev. William Shepherd; 13. Four books De Varietate
+Fortunae first published in 1723 by the Abbé Oliva; 14. History
+of Florence in 8 books, published by Muratori in the 20th volume
+of his Rerum Italicarum Scriptores; and 15. A Dialogue on
+Hypocrisy printed in the Appendix to the Fasciculus Rerum
+Expetendarum et Fugiendarum first published at Cologne in 1535 by
+Orthuinus Gratius, and in 1689 by Edward Brown with considerable
+additions.
+
+But these were not his only literary productions. Fazio tells us
+that he wrote a book upon the manners of the Indians: "scripsit
+... de Moribus Indorum" (Facius. De Viris Illustr. p. 17): this is
+the same as the fourth book of his "De Varietate Fortunae," which
+is a translation or version of the travels in India of Niccolo di
+Conti. The same authority also informs us that "he translated the
+Cyropaedeia of Xenophon, which he dedicated to Alphonso I, King of
+Naples, from whom he received a very large sum of money for his
+dedication, even as he dedicated to Pope Nicholas V. his
+translation of the six books of the historian Diodorus Siculus":
+--"Cyripaediam, quam Xenophon ille scripsit, latinam reddidit,
+atque Alphonso Regi dedicavit, pro qua a Rege magnam mercedem
+accepit. Ejusdem est traductio Diodori Siculi historiographi ad
+Nicolaum Quintum Pontificem Maximum libri sex" (L. c.) Another
+translation of his was "The Golden Ass" of Apuleius in ten books;
+and he edited, (but without notes), the "Astronomicon" of Manilius,
+--whom, by the way, he misstyles "Manlius."
+
+The advantage which he obtained from the publication of these
+works was as nothing compared to the large and repeated sums he
+must have got from his fabrication of the Annals; and the
+knowledge that he would always have a ready and munificent
+purchaser in Cosmo de' Medici, induced him to continue his
+wondrous and daring forgery.
+
+II. We have seen how, at the very least, 500 gold sequins were
+given by Cosmo de' Medici, for the last six books of the Annals.
+After the lapse of nearly 90 years, exactly the same sum was
+awarded for the discovery of the first six books by another
+de' Medici, Leo X., to Arcimboldi, afterwards Archbishop of Milan,
+--the 122nd, according to the Abbot Ughelli, in his work that
+occupied him thirty years,--"Italia Sacra".
+
+Now, it is a very remarkable circumstance that, at the time when
+Arcimboldi gave out that he had discovered the first six books of
+the Annals in the Abbey of Corvey, the fourth son of Bracciolini,
+Giovanni Francesco, then a man 68 years of years, was holding the
+same office that his father had held before him in the Pontifical
+Court as Papal Secretary. We have no record that Giovanni
+Francesco Bracciolini knew anything about the opening books of the
+Annals, nor where they were to be found: we are not told that he
+was in any communication on the matter with Arcimboldi: all we
+know is that he was a colleague in the court of Leo X. of the
+finder of those books.
+
+On this fact, nevertheless, I build up the following theory:--That
+Bracciolini having found what a good thing he had made of it in
+forging the last six books of the Annals, along with the great
+success that had attended it, set about forging an addendum, with
+a view of disposing of it when completed to Cosmo de' Medici;
+--that while he was engaged in the composition, he was surprised by
+death on the 30th of October, 1459, leaving behind his friend and
+patron, Cosmo de' Medici, to survive him nearly five years, till
+the 1st of August, 1464;--that Bracciolini, when he saw that he
+was approaching the end of his days, must necessarily and
+naturally have made his sons acquainted with the existence of the
+work, on account of the great profit that could be made by the
+disposal of it whenever the favourable opportunity presented
+itself;--that Giovanni Francesco Bracciolini, in 1513 when John
+de' Medici was elected to the Pontifical throne, having outlived
+all his brothers, had then this MS. in his keeping; knowing that
+it was in an unfinished state, from his father being engaged upon
+it when he died,--also being aware that there was an ugly gap of
+three years between the imprisonment of Drusus and the fall of
+Sejanus,--believing in the necessity of this gap being supplied,
+--and regarding Arcimboldi as a greater Latinist and scholar
+generally than himself, therefore more capable of adding this
+fresh matter,--at any rate, of putting the manuscript in order for
+transcription,--he apprised the Pope's Receiver of the treasure;
+--and that the time which elapsed between the offering of the reward
+by Leo X. and the turning up of the first six books of the Annals,
+something more than a year, or even a year and a half, was
+occupied by Arcimboldi in the revision of the MS. and by a monk in
+the Abbey of Corvey in transcribing the forgery along with the
+works of Tacitus.
+
+This theory, founded altogether on the imagination, may be right,
+or it may be quite wrong; but whether it be wrong or right, it is
+impossible to believe that Tacitus wrote those books: it is
+equally impossible to believe that they were forged by Arcimboldi,
+or that more than one man composed the first six and the last six
+books of the Annals, were it only on account of the close identity
+of the character, and the conspicuous splendour of the peculiar
+ability manifested in both parts.
+
+III. We must, therefore, now endeavour by internal evidence, and
+by that alone, to convince the reader that Bracciolini, and nobody
+else but he, forged the first portion of the Annals: too many
+proofs stand prominently forward to prevent our doubting for a
+moment that this really was the case, however unaccountable it may
+seem that 86 years should have intervened between the appearance
+of the two parts, and 56 after the death of the author.
+
+IV. One strong reason for believing that Bracciolini wrote the
+first six books is the far greater superiority of the workmanship
+to that in the last six books, showing that the author was then
+older, more matured in his mental powers, more experienced in the
+ways of the world and better acquainted with the workings of the
+human heart;--for if it be true what Goethe said that no young man
+can produce a masterpiece, it is, certainly, quite as true that a
+man's work in the way of intellect, information and wisdom, is
+better after he is fifty than before he reaches that age,--
+provided always that he retains the full vigour of his faculties.
+Now no one will for a moment say that such workmanship as the
+delineation of character, say, for example, of Nero and Seneca, in
+the last part of the Annals can stand by the side of the finished
+picturing of Tiberius and Sejanus in the first part.
+
+V. Another reason for entertaining this belief is that there is a
+still further departure in the first six than in the last six
+books from the method pursued by Tacitus: greater attention is
+paid to acts of individuals than to events of State: the writer
+seems to have been emboldened by his first success to follow more
+closely the bent of his genius, and that was, to make of history a
+school of morals for imparting instruction by means of revealing
+the springs of human action and the workings of the human heart.
+
+VI. That, indeed, the two parts proceeded from the same hand is
+seen in the symmetry of the framework. Each book contains the
+actions of two, three, four or six years. The latter is the case
+in the last part,--in the 12th book,--and in the first part,--in
+the 4th and 6th books. The narrative extends to four years in the
+13th book, and to about the same time in the 14th in the last
+part, and in the first part to the 2nd book; a little more than
+three years occupies the 15th book in the last part and the 3rd
+and 5th in the first part; two years the 11th and nearly two years
+the 1st; in both parts one book is left in a fragmentary state, it
+being the 16th in the last part, and in the first part the 5th.
+
+These circumstances go a considerable way towards supporting the
+hypothesis that the first six books of the Annals were written by
+the same man who wrote the last six books.
+
+VII. A further evidence of the same authorship is found in the
+close resemblance which the openings of both parts bear to one
+another: each refers to crime, the last part opening with the
+hideous accusations against Silius, and the adulteries of
+Messalina, while the first part opens with the murder of Agrippa
+Posthumus.
+
+VIII. The same tone and colouring, too, are thrown over both
+parts: an unbroken moodiness pervades them; one unceasing series
+of repulsive pictures of the vices and immoralities of a country
+fallen into servility and hastening to destruction; men and women
+commit revolting crimes; the human race is a prey to calamity;
+individuals are feared and followed by oppression, and that, too,
+simply because they are distinguished by nobility of birth, or
+because they are excellent rhetoricians, or popular with the
+multitude, or endowed with faculties equal to all requirements in
+public emergencies and State difficulties: we have the same
+terrible deaths of ministers,--Seneca and Sejanus; the same
+blending of ferocity and lust in emperors,--Nero and Tiberius; the
+same accusations and sacrifices of men who are free of speech and
+honourable in their proceedings.
+
+IX. Statements are made in both parts that appear to be the
+outcome only of inventive ingenuity and a malignant humour. Thus
+Sejanus, who is depicted as a peril to the State, both when he
+flourished and when he fell, has, after his execution, his body
+ignominiously drawn through the streets, (which looks, by the way,
+like a custom of the fifteenth century), and those who are accused
+of attachment to him, including his innocent little children, are
+all put to death. This seems to be said merely with the view of
+blackening the character of Tiberius, as the character of Nero is
+blackened by the statements made about Antonius Natalis. Antonius
+Natalis takes part in the Pisonian Conspiracy against Nero (An.
+XV. 54, 55); then he betrays Seneca and the companions of Seneca
+(ib. 56); after that he gets off with impunity (ib. 71). I may be
+wrong, but it strikes me that this statement is merely made with
+the view of attacking Nero as a bad administrator for not
+punishing a mean conspirator and cruel traitor: Tiberius is
+similarly assailed for cruelly killing harmless children.
+
+There are no means of showing that what is said of the children of
+Sejanus is fiction; it can only be surmised: but it can be proved
+as a fact that what is stated about Antonius Natalis is nothing
+more nor less than pure romance. He was dead before the conspiracy
+of Piso: Bracciolini could have seen that had he read carefully
+the letters of Seneca himself; for the philosopher and statesman
+speaks of Natalis at the time when he wrote the letter numbered in
+his works 87, as being dead some time, and "having many heirs" as
+he had been "the heir of many":--"Nuper Natalis ... et multorum
+haeres fuit, et multos habuit haeredes" (Ep. LXXXVII.)
+
+X. This statement then about Nero having no foundation, seems to
+have been merely made out of that spirit of detraction which we
+have already noticed as characterizing both parts of the Annals:
+it is the same spirit which runs through the works of Bracciolini:
+first he praises an individual, and then mars the eulogy of him by
+introducing some little bit of defamation. To give examples:--We
+open his collected works, and begin to read his treatise on
+Avarice: turning over the first page we find him speaking of a
+great preaching friar, named Bernardino, whom he lauds as most
+extraordinary in the command he held over the feelings of his
+congregation, moving them, as he pleased, to tears or laughter;
+but he adds that Bernardino did not adapt his sermons to the good
+of those who heard him, but, like the rest of his class, to his
+own reputation as a preacher: "Una in re maxime excellit in
+persuadendo, ac excitandum affectibus flectit populum, et quo vult
+deducit, movens ad lachrymas, et cum res patitur ad risum....
+Verum ... ipse, et caeteri hujusmodi praedicatores, ... non
+accommodant orationes suas ad nostram utilitatem sed ad suam
+loquacitatem" (De Avaritia. Pog. Op. p. 2). A few pages further
+on, we find him speaking of Robert, King of Sicily, as unsurpassed
+by any living prince in reputation and the glory of his deeds, but
+the meanness of his avarice, we are told, clouded the splendour of
+his virtues: "At quid illustrius est etiam hodie regis illius
+memoria, fama, nomine, gloria rerum gestarum ... si avaritia in eo
+virtutis laudem extinxisset" (ib. p. 14).
+
+XI. Other resemblances in both parts denote identity of
+authorship. Mean individuals are magnified and inconsiderable
+nations exalted; their wars and deeds are related with pompous
+particularity; battles are fought not worth recording, and
+enterprizes undertaken not worth reading; Tacitus would have
+deemed such incidents unworthy of mention; for he takes no more
+notice of the Hermundurians, than to speak of them as a German
+tribe faithful to the Romans, and living in friendly relations
+with them: but in the Annals they are put forward for the
+admiration of posterity as waging a war with the Callians, and
+fighting a severe battle with those little creatures. In the last
+part of the Annals (XII. 55) the Clitae tribes of Cilician boors
+rush down from their rugged mountains upon maritime regions and
+cities under the conduct of their leader, Throsobor; so in the
+first part (III. 74) Tacfarinas makes depredations upon the
+Leptuanians, and then retreats among the Garamantes. The same
+Numidian savage in the same part leads his disorderly gang of
+vagabonds and robbers against the Musulanians, an uncivilized
+people without towns (II. 52); in the last part Eunones, prince of
+the Adorsians, fights with Zorsines, king of the Siracians,
+besieges his mud-huts, and, the historian gravely informs us, had
+not night interrupted the assault, would have carried his moats in
+a single day. "These are
+
+    "the battles, sieges, fortunes,--
+    The most disastrous chances
+    Of moving accidents by flood and field,"
+
+that enlist our sympathies in both parts of the Annals; and of
+these people, with their
+
+    "hair-breadth 'scapes in the imminent deadly breach,"
+
+"you have little else," says that severe critic of the Annals, the
+Vicar of Wrexham (p. 89), "but tumults, advances, retreats, kings
+recalled, kings banished, kings slain, and all in such confusion
+and hurry," as to be devoid of "satisfaction and pleasure"; and
+the Rev. Thomas Hunter likens these mean tribes so signalized by
+immortality to the ill-conditioned natives of India whom the Great
+Mogul styled "Mountain Rats."
+
+XII. Another great resemblance which induces the reader to believe
+that both parts of the Annals were composed by a single author is
+a monotony so very peculiar as to be characteristic of the same
+individual: it is a monotony quite equal to that of an ancient
+mansion in an English county, where one passes from apartment to
+apartment to be reminded of Gray's "Long Story," for the rooms are
+still spacious, the ceilings still fretted, the panels still
+gilded, the portraits still those of beauties rustling in silks
+and tissues, and still those of grave Lord Keepers in high crowned
+hats and green stockings;--or the monotony is like that which
+meets one when walking about a town, where at the corners of all
+the streets and squares and the beginning and end of every bridge
+and viaduct; the entrance to a palace or a public office; the
+gateway to a market or a subway, a park or a garden; the foot of a
+lamp-post or a statue; a curbstone running round an open space, or
+a wall abutting on a roadway, the same thing is always found for
+the purpose of keeping off the wheels of vehicles as they roll
+by,--a round stone: so one finds in the Annals always the same
+form given to every subject: that form is policy; through policy
+everything is done; by policy every person is actuated; policy is
+the motive of every action; policy is the solution of every
+difficulty.
+
+Augustus on his deathbed chooses a worse master than himself to be
+his successor in order that his loss may be the more regretted by
+the State. Tiberius makes Piso governor of Syria only that he may
+have a spy for Germanicus as governor of Egypt, for he was envious
+of the fame and virtues of the successful, popular young general.
+Nero sends Sylla into exile from mistaking his dullness for
+dissimulation. Arruntius kills himself because he is intolerant of
+iniquity. The stupidity of Claudius is discovered to be
+astuteness, the bestialities of Nero elegance. Nothing is easy,
+nothing natural; everything is forced, everything artificial.
+
+XIII. Nor does Bracciolini shine as a depicter of character. What
+a contrast between him and Livy in that respect! And as a
+describer of imperial occurrences, what a contrast between him and
+Tacitus! He does not touch the Paduese in his grand form of
+painting all people and all things in their proper colours: Livy
+places before us the Kings of old Rome in their pride and the
+Consuls in their variety; the former with their fierce virtue, the
+latter with their degraded love of luxury;--Decemvirs in the
+austerity of their rule and Tribunes with their popular impulses.
+Tacitus makes us see the movements of mighty events, as clearly as
+we behold objects shining in the broad light of day,--their
+vicissitudes, relations, causes and issues;--armies with their
+temper and feelings; provinces with their disposition and
+sentiments;--the Empire in the elements of its strength and
+weakness; the Capital in its distracted and fluctuating state;
+--all political phaenomena that marked the dreary reality of
+dominion in the declining days of the Roman Commonwealth. But
+Bracciolini puts before us nothing like this;--only incongruous,
+unimaginable and un-Romanlike personages,--people who gibber at
+us, as idiots in their asylums, as that unfortunate simpleton, the
+Emperor Claudius;--murderous criminals who glower and scowl upon
+us, as those two monsters of iniquity, Tiberius and Nero;--pimps
+and parasites beyond number, who so plague us with their perpetual
+presence, that the revolted soul at length wonders how so many
+such beings can be acting together, and be so degenerate, when
+Nature might have designed most, if not all, of them, for greater
+and more salutary purposes. While Bracciolini does not, in the
+least, resemble either of the two great historians of Rome, he is
+the very reverse of the historical classic of Spain, Mariana, who,
+in the thirty volumes of his Historia de Rebus Hispaniae, places
+before us the different characters of different people,
+distinguishing Mussulmans from Christians, Moors from Arabs, and
+Carthaginians from Romans; whereas, in the Annals, we perceive no
+difference between the Parthians and the Suevians, the Romans and
+the Germans, the Dandarides and the Adiabenians, the Medes and the
+Iberians.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LANGUAGE, ALLITERATION, ACCENT AND WORDS.
+
+I. The poetic diction of Tacitus, and its fabrication in the
+Annals.--II. Florid passages in the Annals.--III. Metrical
+composition of Bracciolini.--IV. Figurative words: (_a_)
+"pessum dare"; (_b_) "voluntas".--The verb foedare and the
+Ciceronian use of foedus.--VI. The language of other Roman
+writers,--Livy, Quintus Curtius and Sallust.--VII. The phrase
+"non modo ... sed", and other anomalous expressions, not
+Tacitus's.--VIII. Words not used by Tacitus, distinctus and
+codicillus.--IX. Peculiar alliterations in the Annals and works
+of Bracciolini.--X. Monotonous repetition of accent on
+penultimate syllables.--XI. Peculiar use of words: (_a_)
+properus; (_b_) annales and scriptura; (_c_) totiens.
+--XII. Words not used by Tacitus: (_a_) addubitare; (_b_)
+exitere.--XIII. Polysyllabic words ending consecutive sentences.
+--XIV. Omission of prepositions: (_a_) in; (_b_) with
+names of nations.
+
+I. Any student of Thucydides and Tacitus must have observed that,
+though both support their opinions by sober, rational remarks,
+Thucydides expresses himself with logical accuracy in the calm and
+cold phraseology of passionless prose, whereas Tacitus ever and
+anon indulges in figures of rhetoric and poetic diction.
+
+He changes things which can be considered only with reference to
+thought into solid, visible forms, as when he speaks of "wounds,"
+instead of "the wounded," being taken to mothers and wives: "ad
+matres, ad conjuges _vulnera_ ferunt" (Germ. 7). He ascribes
+to the lifeless what can be properly attributed only to the
+living, as when he makes "day and the plain _reveal_,"
+"_detexit_ dies et campus" (Hist. II. 62). He speaks of
+things done in a place as if they were done by the place itself,
+as Judaea _elevating_ Libanon into its principal mountain":
+"praecipuum montium Libanon _erigit_" i.e., Judaea (Hist. V. 6).
+He applies epithets to objects that are local, as if they were
+mental or moral, as we hear of "a _chaste_ grove" ("nemus
+_castum_") in the Germany (40).
+
+Any one who had carefully analyzed his writings with the view of
+imitating him by forgery could not have failed to notice this; the
+consequence is that if we were to have a forgery, we should have a
+very close reproduction of this style of expression, and it would
+show itself to be forgery, by being without the boldness,
+spontaneity and novelty of the original; it would be timid,
+forced, and elaborately close and cramped. Now just this copying
+of a fabricator is what we find in the Annals. Exactly corresponding,
+to Tacitus's "_wounds_" instead of "the wounded," is seeing _blood
+streaming_ in families," meaning "suicides," and "the _hands of
+executioners_," meaning "the executed": "aspiciens _undantem_ per
+domos _sanguinem_ aut _manus carnificum_ (An. VI. 39). Precisely
+akin to Tacitus's "day and the plain revealing" is "night _bursting_
+into wickedness": "noctem in scelus _erupturam_" (An. I. 28).
+For "a country lifting up a mountain into its highest altitude,"
+is the analogous substitute, "the upper part of a town on fire
+_burning_ everything": "incensa super villa omnes _cremavit_"
+(An. III. 37): Here, too, is a further extension of poetical
+phraseology, more clearly proving forgery by denoting the hand
+of nobody so much as Bracciolini, who was remarkably fond of
+borrowing the language of Virgil, (never resorted to by Tacitus),
+"super" for "desuper":
+
+    "Haec _super_ e vallo prospectant Troies"
+    (Aen. IX. 168).
+
+For Tacitus's "chaste grove" we have the expression, like the note
+of a mockbird, "_just_ places",--when places do not favour either
+combatant: ("fundi Germanos acie et _justis locis"_ An. II. 5).
+
+This imitation is found not only in the first but also in the last
+part of the Annals.
+
+By tropes of verbs, nouns, adjectives, and in other ways, Tacitus
+produces effects that we look for in poets, but not in historians,
+as he uses "bosom" or "lap" ("sinus"), in the metaphorical sense
+of a "hiding place", ("latebrae"), in the History (II. 92), and of
+"a retreat", ("recessus"), in the Agricola (30). So, instead of
+his "bosom," or "lap", for "hiding place," or "retreat," we find
+"tears" for "weeping persons," where Seneca endeavours to recall
+his distracted friends to composure by words of suasion or authority:
+"Simul _lacrymas_ eorum modo sermone, modo intentior in modum
+coercentis, ad firmitudinem revocat" (An. XV. 62).
+
+The close crampness of the whole of these instances raises a very
+strong suspicion that it cannot be the writing of Tacitus, but
+merely a servile imitation of his manner. It shows, too, that both
+parts of the Annals proceeded from the same hand.
+
+II. When in the course of the autumn before last an announcement
+was made of this work in some of the public journals, the
+compliment was paid to me in one of the most enlightened of them,
+the _Daily News_, by a brilliant and learned writer, who was
+a perfect master of his subject, questioning whether it could be
+possible that Bracciolini had forged the Annals, on account of his
+mode of composition being so thoroughly different from that of
+Tacitus. The passages of Bracciolini were properly pronounced to
+be florid at times, and to bear resemblance to the high-flown
+magniloquence of Chateaubriand rather than the classic staidness
+of Tacitus. I have already pointed out how varied was Bracciolini
+in style, and his variety proved how by an effort he could, if it
+pleased him, imitate anybody. Still there is truth in the remark,
+that let him be as guarded as he might, he would, sometimes, fall
+quite unconsciously into a natural peculiarity. It might then be
+questioned whether he had forged the Annals unless it can be shown
+that in both parts of that work he now and again fell into the
+florid style found in his "Ruinarum Urbis Romae Descriptio", as
+quoted by the accomplished writer in the _Daily News_, (who took,
+as he said, the translation of Gibbon), to wit: "The temple is
+overthrown, the gold is pillaged, the wheel of Fortune has accomplished
+her revolution."
+
+I cannot do better than give the four instances that are adduced
+by Famianus Strada in his Prolusions (II. 3) by way of illustrating
+how every now and then Bracciolini wrote sentences that are marked
+by the qualities of poetry rather than of prose.
+
+The first occurs in the eleventh book, where Messalina is described
+in the following manner: "such was her furious lust, that, in mid
+autumn, she would celebrate in her home the vintage festival; the
+presses were plied, the vats flowed, and women girt with skins
+bounded about like sacrificing or raving Bacchantes, she, with
+hair flowing loosely, waving the thyrsus, and Silius by her side
+wreathed with ivy and shod with the cothurnus, tossing his head,
+while a crew of female wantons shrieked around them":--"Messalina
+non alias solutior luxu, adulto autumno, simulacrum vindemiae per
+domum celebrabat: urgeri prela, fluere lacus, et faeminae pellibus
+accinetae assultabant, ut sacrificantes vel insanientes Bacchae;
+ipsa crine fluxo, thyrsum quatiens, juxtaque Silius hedera vinetus,
+gerere cothurnos, jacere caput, strepente circum procaci choro."
+(An. XI. 31). It is not possible in any translation to convey
+an adequate notion of the all but rhythmical flow of the last few
+concluding words, as may be more clearly seen by their being arranged
+thus:--
+
+    "Juxtaque Sillus,
+    Hedera Vinctus,
+    Gerere _c_othurnos,
+    Jacere _c_aput,
+    Strepente _c_ircum
+    Procaci _c_horo."
+
+The second instance given by Famianus Strada is in the first part
+of the Annals, where the Roman commander in Lower Germany, Aulus
+Caecina, is beset by Armin and the Germans at the causeway called
+the Long Bridges. Speaking of both armies, the historian says: "It
+was a restless night to them from different causes whilst the
+barbarians with their festive carousals, their triumphal songs or
+their savage yells woke the echoes in the low-lying parts of the
+vallies and the resounding groves, among the Romans there were
+feeble fires, broken murmurs, and everywhere the sentinels leant
+drooping against the pales, or wandered about the tents more
+asleep than awake: awful dreams, too, horrified the commander; for
+he seemed to see and hear Quinctilius Varus, smeared with blood
+and rising out of the marsh, calling aloud, as it were, to him he
+paying no heed, and pushing back the hand that was held forth to
+him." "Nox per diversa inquies: cum barbari festis epulis, laeto
+cantu aut truci sonore subjecta vallium ac resultantis saltus
+complerent; apud Romanos invalidi ignes, interruptae voces, atque
+ipsi passim adjacerent vallo, oberrarent tentoriis, insomnes magis
+quam pervigiles; ducemque terruit dira quies: nani Quinctilium
+Varum sanguine oblitum et paludibus emersum, cernere et audire
+visus est, velut vocantem, non tamen obsecutus, et manum intendentis
+repulisse" (An. I. 65). As in the preceding sentence the closing
+words are arranged in musically measured cadences, as will be more
+clearly distinguished when thus presented to the eye:
+
+    Sanguine oblitum
+    Et paludibus emersum,
+    Cernere et audire
+    Visus est, velut vocantem,
+    Non tamen obsecutus,
+    Et manum intendentis repulisse. [Endnote 357]
+
+Famianus Strada was also struck at the extravagantly florid
+phraseology in the fifteenth book with respect to Scaevina's
+dagger being sharpened to a point the day before the intended
+execution of a plot: "Finding fault with the poniard which he drew
+from its sheath that it was blunted by time, he gave orders it
+should be whetted on a stone, and be made to FLAME UP _into a
+point_." "Promptam vagina pugionem 'vetustatem obtusum,'
+increpans, asperari saxo, et in _mucronem_ ARDESCERE" (An. XV. 24).
+
+High-flown, poetical language is also used in the first book when
+the Romans visit the scene of the defeat of Varus. "Caecina," says
+the historian, "having been sent on to explore the hidden recesses
+of the forest, and make bridges and conveyances over the waters of
+the bog and the insecure places in the plains, the soldiers reach
+the _sad spot, hideous both in its appearance and from association_."
+"Praemisso Caecina, ut occulta saltuum scrutaretur, pontesque et
+aggeres humido paludum et fallacibus campis imponeret, incedunt
+_moestos locos, visuque ac memoria deformes_" (An. I. 61).
+
+III. A writer so poetically inclined would naturally fall every
+now and then without being aware of it into metrical composition;
+Bracciolini frequently does so: for instance: writing to his
+friend Niccoli from London, he says that at that moment he fancies
+he is speaking to him, "hearing his tones and returning his speeches":
+--"jam jam videor tecum loqui, et au/dire no/tas et/reddere voces"
+(Ep. II. 1).
+
+In another of his letters he falls into hexametrical measure:
+"la/bris nos/tris om/ni re/rum strepi/tu vacu/us" (Ep. II. 17),
+about as inharmonious as the complete, inelegant hexameter which
+we find him writing in the opening words of the Annals:--
+
+ "Urbem / Romam a / principi/o re/ges habu/ere."
+
+The whole of this is in imitation of his two favorite authors,
+--Sallust, who occasionally wrote in hexametrical measure as, "ex
+vir/tute fu/it mul/ta et prae/clara re/i mili/taris." Jug. V.;
+--and Livy, who, if Sallust sometimes exceeded the number of feet,
+sometimes fell short of them, as in the opening words of the
+Preface to his History: "factu rusne oper/ae preti/um sim."
+
+IV. Another circumstance which causes us to credit Bracciolini
+with having written the first part of the Annals is that we find
+there certain poetical or figurative words, which are nowhere to
+be found in any of the works of Tacitus. One of these is "pessum
+dare," which means literally "to sink to the bottom," but is
+figuratively used for "destroying" or "ruining," as when
+Bracciolini in one of his letters says that he is "desirous of
+guarding against the weight of present circumstances _sinking
+him to the bottom_," that is "ruining him:" "id vellem curare,
+ne praesentiarum onus me _pessumdaret_" (Ep. II. 3). So in
+the first book of the Annals (9), he speaks of Mark Antony being
+"sunk to the bottom," that is "ruined" "by his sensualities": "per
+libidines _pessum datus_ sit"; or of the over-eagerness of
+Brutidius to grasp at honours undoing him, as it had "sunk to the
+bottom" "many, even good men": "multos etiam bonos _pessumdedit_"
+(An. III. 66).
+
+Bracciolini uses "voluntas" as the equivalent of "benevolentia."
+In the second "Disceptatio" of his Historia Tripartita, "where he
+means to speak of laws being framed for the good they do the
+greatest number," he expresses himself: "leges pro _voluntate_"
+(_i.e._ benevolentia) "majorum conditae" (Op. p. 38). So in the
+first part of the Annals when he says that "there was no getting
+any good to be done by Sejanus except by committing crime," he
+expresses himself in the same way: "neque Sejani _voluntas_"
+(_i.e._ benevolentia) "nisi scelere, quaerebatur" (An. IV. 68).
+
+V. The meaning "to disgrace," or "dishonour" is given to the verb
+"foedare." In the first part of the Annals when it is said that
+silk clothes are _a disgrace_ to men," the expression is "vestis
+serica viros _foedat_" (II. 33). When in the last part eloquence
+(periphrastically styled "the first of the fine arts") is spoken
+of as "_disgraced_ when turned to sordid purposes," the phrase is
+"bonarum artium principem sordidis ministeriis _foedari_" (An. XI. 6).
+This meaning is not to be found in any ancient Roman work, in prose
+or poetry; it might then be taken to be mediaeval; but it seems to
+be classical; for this reason: Bracciolini in one of his letters to
+Niccoli says, and truly enough, that he had formed himself on Cicero:
+whence it is easy to see that the idea occurred to him of coining
+that signification for the verb from the meaning which is given to
+the adjective by the writer whom he regarded as the greatest among
+the Romans, for Cicero certainly gives that meaning to "foedus" in
+this passage in his "Atticus" (VIII. 11) "nihil fieri potest miserius,
+nihil perditius, nihil _foedius_," that is, "nothing can be more
+miserably, nothing more flagitiously, nothing more _disgracefully_
+done"; and this other passage in his Offices (I. 34): "lust is most
+_disgraceful_ to old age": "luxuria ... senectuti _foedissima_ est":
+directly following Cicero, and altogether ignoring Tacitus, Bracciolini
+in the first part of the Annals, when speaking of the dishonourable
+fawning of the Roman senators, expresses "that _disgraceful_ servility,"
+"_foedum_ illud servitium" (IV. 74).
+
+VI. As this is the language of Cicero, and not Tacitus, so we find
+in other places in both parts of the Annals Bracciolini using the
+language of other leading Roman writers, in preference to that of
+the historian whom he was feigning himself to be. The following
+few instances will suffice:--Tacitus makes the adjective agree
+with the substantive: Livy does not. In imitation of Livy Bracciolini,
+throughout both parts of the Annals, puts the adjective in the neuter,
+and makes the substantive depend upon it in the genitive. Tacitus
+never uses the rare form "jutum." It is used in both parts of the
+Annals (III. 35, XIV. 4). Quintus Curtius uses the form of ere
+instead of erunt as the termination of the third person plural
+of the perfect active: it is then in imitation of Quintus Curtius
+that Bracciolini uses the form ere so constantly throughout the
+Annals. Tacitus always uses "dies" in the masculine, but Livy
+sometimes in the feminine when speaking of a specified day.
+"Postera die" in the third book of the Annals (10 _in._) is then
+more in the style of Livy than Tacitus.
+
+As for Sallust, Bracciolini was never able to conceal his
+unbounded admiration of him; nor forbear from imitating him: this
+did not escape the notice of his contemporaries, who likened him
+to that ancient historian: he is perpetually borrowing his phrases,
+from the very first words in the Annals: "_Urbem Romam_ a principio
+reges _habuere_," after Sallust's "_Urbem Romam ... habuere_ initio
+Trojani" (Cat. 6) down to the close of his forgery, as in the XVth
+book (36), "haec atque talia _plebi volentia_ fuere," after Sallust's
+"multisque suspicionibus _plebi volentia_ facturus habebatur"
+(Fragmenta. Lib. IV. Delph. Ed. p. 317). To give a few instances
+from the First Six Books of the Annals: his "ambulantis Tiberii
+_genua advolveretur_" (I. 13) is Sallust's "_genua_ patrum" _advol-
+vuntur_ (Fragm.): his "_adepto_ principatu" (I. 7) is Sallust's
+"magistratus _adeptus_" (Jug. IV.), and "_adepta_ libertate" (Cat.7):
+his "_spirantem_ adhuc Augustum" (I. 5) is Sallust's "Catilina
+paullulam etiam _spirans_" (Cat. in fin. 61): his "excepere Graeci
+_quaesitissimis_ honoribus" (II. 53) is Sallust's "epulae _quaesitis-
+simae_" (Frag.): his "_magnitudinem paecuniae_ malo vertisse" (VI. 7)
+is Sallust's "_magnitudine paecuniae_ a bono honestoque in pravum
+abstractus est" (Jug. 24); and numerous other phrases are so precisely
+and peculiarly of the same kind as Sallust's, that we know they were
+taken or stolen from him. But Tacitus does not borrow from anybody;
+he is himself a great original. As in his unadmitted forgeries, so in
+his acknowledged works, whether it be a treatise as in his "De Miseria
+Humanae Conditionis" (I. Op. p. 107), Bracciolini goes on borrowing
+his choice phrases from Sallust, as "_libidini obnoxios_ fortuna
+fecit," which is Sallust's "neque delicto, neque _libidini obnoxius_"
+(Cat. 52); or whether it be one of his Funeral Orations as in that over
+Cardinal Florian (Op. p. 258), "nunquam ne parvula quidem nota ejus
+fama _labefactaretur_," or one of his essays, as that from which we
+have just quoted,--"On the Misery of the Human Condition,"--"vires
+Imperii _labefactarent_ flagitiis" (Op. p. 125), which are both
+Sallust's "vitiis obtentui quibus _labefactatis_" (Fragm. p. 357).
+
+So he prefers Sallust's archaic word "inquies"; for just as
+Sallust writes "humanum ingenium _inquies_ atque indomitum"
+(Frag. Lib. p. 172), he, too, writes "nox per diversa _inquies_"
+(I. 65), and "dies ploratibus _inquies_" (An. III. 4), forgetting
+that Tacitus always uses the modern word, "inquietus," as "inquieta
+urbs" (Hist. I. 20).
+
+VII. The phrase in the Annals "non modo ... sed," instead of "non
+modo ... sed etiam" is peculiar, being at variance with the measured
+style of all the old Roman writers. It occurs several times in the
+first part, as "_non modo_ portus et proxima maris, _sed_ moenia ac
+tecta" (III. 1), as well as in the last part, "_non modo_ milites,
+_sed_ populus" (XVI. 3). In both instances Tacitus would have written
+"_sed etiam_ moenia--_sed etiam_ populus."
+
+Nor would Tacitus have erred in using the anomalous expressions
+pointed out by Nicholas Aagard in his treatise about him, entitled
+"In C.C. Tacitum Disputatio." Tacitus would never have written, as
+in the Fourth Book of the Annals (56): "missa navali _copia_,
+non modo externa ad bella"; he would have used the plural instead
+of the singular; and, just as he would have used "copiis" instead
+of "copia", he would have used "ejus" for "sua" in this passage in
+the sixth book (6): "adeo facinora atque flagitia _sua_ ipsi
+quoque in supplicium verterant":--we know that he would not have
+constructed an adjective in the positive when it ought to be in
+the comparative, as: "_quanto_ quis audacia _promtus_" (An. I. 57);
+for we have almost just seen how in such a phrase he properly
+constructs _promtus_ in the comparative: "_tanto_ ad discordias
+_promtior_" (Hist. II. 99).
+
+VIII.--He now and then forgets himself by using words that clearly
+never could have been known to Tacitus, because they were words
+that sprang up in an after age. Thus on one occasion he is led
+into this error from the desire to express a poetical idea by a
+poetical word: just as Statius writes "distinctus" in the sense
+that his predecessors of ages before had used "distinctio":
+
+    "Viridis quum regula longo
+    Synnada _distinctu_ variat:"
+    Sylv. I. 5. 41.;
+
+so he falls into the blunder of making Tacitus say;--"ore ac
+_distinctu_ pennarum a ceteris avibus diversum" (An. VI. 28);
+at the same time he commits another mistake, of which he is
+repeatedly guilty, and which a Roman carefully avoided--using the
+rhythm of the hexameter in prose,--(if the Greek quantity with
+"ceterus" be taken:--
+
+    "penna/rum a cete/ris avi/bus di/versum."
+
+In both parts of the Annals "codicillus" is used in the plural as
+signifying "the codicil to a will" (VI. 9): "precatusque per
+_codicillos_, immiti rescripto, venas absolvit"; and in An.
+XV. 64 Seneca is described as "writing in the codicil of his will"
+"in _codicillis_ rescripserat." Such Latin not only would not
+have been written but would not have been even understood by
+Tacitus; because when he lived his countrymen confined the meaning
+of "codicillus" to a wooden table for writing on, and thence,
+figuratively, for "a note" or "letter": it was not till several
+centuries after,--the first part of the fifth (409-450),--in the
+reign of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger, that the lawyers used
+the word to signify "an imperial patent or diploma"; for
+"codicillariae dignitates" in the Theodosian Codex (VI. 22. 7)
+means "offices given by the patent of the Emperor." It is also put
+here and there in the same Codex (VIII. 18. 7 and XVI. 5. 40) for
+the "codicil to a will"; but it is used in the singular: the
+meaning so given to it in the plural, (as in both parts of the
+Annals), did not come into vogue till a century after, in the time
+of Justinian, as may be seen by consulting the Twenty-ninth
+Chapter of the Pandects which treats of the Law of Codicils ("De
+Jure _Codicillorum_"); and Marcian is quoted to this effect:
+that "a man who can make a will can, certainly, also make a
+codicil", the language being "_codicillos_ is demum facere
+potest, qui et testamentum facere potest" (Lib. VI. c. 3. Marcian
+VII. Instit.). It looks then tolerably clear that the author of
+the Annals got his Latin about "codicillus" in the plural
+signifying the "codicil to a will" either from the Institutes of
+Marcian or the Pandects of Justinian.
+
+IX. Alliterations occur in the Annals at the end of words four
+times repeated, as "Cui superposit_um_ convivi_um_ navi_um_ aliar_um_
+tractu moverentur" (XV. 37), which is in the style not of Tacitus,
+but Bracciolini, as "ad liberand_os_ praeclarissim_os_ ill_os_
+vir_os_ ex ergastulis barbarorum," already quoted from the treatise
+"De Infelicitate Principum"; or "mul_tis_ cap_tis_, trecen_tis_
+occi_sis_," in his History of Florence (Lib. V. See Muratori XX. p.346).
+
+Another very peculiar alliteration of Bracciolini's is with the
+letter _c_. Sometimes he alternates it after two words, as in
+a letter to his friend Niccoli, _C_ommisi hoc idem _c_uidam amico
+meo _c_ivi Senensi" (Ep. II. 3), exactly as we find it towards the
+beginning of the first book of the Annals (9) _C_uncta inter se
+_c_onnexa: jus apud _c_ives modestiam"; or at the end of the second
+book (88): _c_um varia fortuna _c_ertaret, dolo propinquorum _c_ecidit
+liberator." He repeats, too, this favourite alliteration four times,
+sometimes after one word, sometimes after two, as in a letter to
+Cardinal Julian, the Pope's Legate in Germany: "_c_ertissima quadam
+_c_onjectura, qua praeteritis _c_onnectens praesentia _c_ausasque"
+(Op. p. 309). In his History of Florence this quadrupled alliteration
+of _c_ occurs thus (Lib. II. see Muratori XX. p. 224): "_c_onspiciant;
+est quippe _c_ommune belluis, quae ratione _c_arent, ut naturali
+_c_ogente," as we have just seen in a quotation from the fifteenth
+book of the Annals (31), "gerere _c_othurnos, jacere _c_aput, strepente
+_c_ircum procaci _c_horo." But these alliterations with _c_ four
+times repeated, which occur frequently in the Annals generally take
+place with three or more words intervening between each alliteration,
+as in this sentence in the first part: "_c_onfertus pedes, dispositae
+turmae _c_uncta praelio provisa: hostibus _c_ontra, omnium nesciis,
+non arma, non ordo, non _c_onsilium" (An. IV. 25); or in this sentence
+in the last part: "_c_ompertum sibi, referens, ex _c_ommentariis patris
+sui nullam _c_ujusquam accusationem ab eo _c_oactam."
+(XIII. 43 _in med_.), which is in the style of one of the numerous
+beautiful alliterations of his favourite poet, Virgil:
+
+    "_C_redunt se vidisse Jovem _c_um saepe nigrantem
+    Aegida _c_oncuteret dextra, nimbosque _c_ieret"
+    Aen. VIII. 353-4.
+
+But it is not at all in imitation of the manner of Tacitus, who,
+certainly, sometimes has an alliteration after two words, but it
+is not with the letter _c_, nor does he alternate it; if an
+alliteration again occurs immediately afterwards, it is of quite a
+different character, as in his Agricola (45): "_o_mnia sine dubio,
+_o_ptime parentum, _a_ssidente _a_mantissima uxore"; and in his
+History (III. 36) "_p_raeterita, instantia, futura, _p_ari oblivione
+dimiserat; atque _i_llum _i_n nemore Aricino."
+
+Bracciolini distinctly shows himself to be the author of the Annals
+by a very peculiar kind of composition to which he is uncommonly
+partial,--joining together with an enclitic polysyllabic words of
+the same length and the same long ending, as "contempl_ationem_
+cogit_ationem_que" in his "De Miseria Humanae Conditionis" (Op. p. 130);
+in the first part of the Annals, "extoll_ebatur_, argu_ebatur_que"
+(I. 9) and in the last part, respec_tantes_, rogi_tantes_que"
+(An. XII. 69);--and it is difficult to say whether this is to be
+found oftener in his acknowledged productions or in his famous forgery.
+
+He is much given to placing together several words ending with i,
+as in the first part of the Annals: "sed pecorum modo, trah_i_,
+occid_i_, cap_i_" (IV. 25); and in the last part "illustri memoria
+Poppae_i_ Sabin_i consular_i" (XIII. 45).
+
+X. He is fond of monotonously repeating the accent on the penultimate
+syllable of trisyllabic words, as in describing the trial of Jerome
+of Prague (Ep. I. 11.),--if we are to consider "quae vellet" as
+equivalent to a trisyllable:--"de_in_de loq_uen_di quae _ve_llet
+fa_cul_tas da_re_tur"; this most disagreeable monotonous sound,
+which resembles, more than anything else, the pattering of a horse's
+feet when the animal is ambling, and which may, therefore, be
+called the "tit-up-a-tit-up" style, I will be bound to say, is not
+to be found in anybody else's Latin compositions but Poggio
+Bracciolini's all the way down from Julius Caesar to Dr. Cumming,
+--(the famous epistle of the reverend gentleman's to the Pope in
+which he endeavoured to procure an invitation from his Holiness to
+attend the Oecumenical Council of 1870): there is the dreadful
+sound again,--in the first six books of the Annals (II. 17),--just
+as it strikes the ear in the Letter describing the trial and death
+of Jerome of Prague--exactly as many as five times repeated,--when
+Bracciolini, (for now we know it is he, and nobody else but he,
+who wrote the Annals), is giving an account of the battle between
+the Cherusei and the Romans: "ple_ros_que tra_na_re Vi_sur_gim
+con_an_tes, in_jec_ta"; this sound occurs four times consecutively,
+in the last part of the Annals, when Bracciolini is speaking of
+Curtius Rufus fulfilling by his death the fatal destiny prognosticated
+to him by a female apparition of supernatural stature: "def_unc_tus
+fa_ta_le prae_sa_gium im_ple_vit" (An. XI. 21). Sometimes this
+very abominable monotony is accompanied by most horrible assonances,
+as in one of his letters (Ep. III. 23) "err_o_rum tu_o_rum certi_o_rem";
+--we catch it again, or something like it, in the last part of the
+Annals (XIV. 36) in "im_bel_les in_er_mes ces_su_ros," and in the
+first part: (I. 41) "_or_ant ob_sis_tunt, re_di_ret, ma_ne_ret."
+
+XI. We find in both part of the Annals a very peculiar use of
+"properus," with the genitive: in the last part: "Claudium, ut
+insidiis incautum, ita _irae properum_" (XI. 26): in the first
+part: "libertis et clientibus _potentiae_ apiscendae _properis_"
+(IV. 59). This is not to be met with in the writings of any of
+the old Romans; it would seem, then, that the Annals was, as is
+alleged, a spurious composition of the fifteenth century, and that
+the same hand wrote both parts.
+
+When Bracciolini wants to put into Latin:--"Nobody will compare my
+_history_ with the _books_ of those who wrote about the ancient
+affairs of the Roman people"; he expresses himself:--"Nemo
+_annales_ nostros cum _scriptura_ eorum contenderit, qui veteres
+populi Romani res composuere" (An. IV. 32): it is not only
+a very true observation, but, as far as concerns the use of
+"annales" and "scriptura," the exact counterpart of what we read
+in his "Description of the Ruins of the City of Rome", ("Ruinarum
+Urbis Romae Descriptio"), when he observes: "though you may wade
+through all the _books_ that are extant and pore over the
+whole _history_ of human transactions", he writes: "licet ...
+omnia _scripturarum_ monumenta pertractes, omnes gestarum
+rerum _annales_ scruteris" (Pog. Op. p. 132), where it will
+be observed that in both sentences not only "annales" and
+"scriptura" occur almost together, but the former has the meaning
+of "a history" and the latter of "a book," with which
+significations Tacitus never uses the two words: indeed Tacitus
+never uses the two words at all.
+
+The use of "totiens," or its equivalent "toties," is peculiar to
+the author of the Annals: it is never found in Tacitus, but
+frequently in the writings of Bracciolini, as "tuam _toties_
+a me reprehensam credulitatem" (Ep. I. 11):--"_toties_ has
+fabulas audisti" (ibid):--"toties ... hoc biennio delusus sum in
+hac re libraria" (Ep. II. 41). So in the Annals: "An Augustum
+fessâ aetate, _toties_ in Germania potuisse" (II. 46):--"anxia
+sui et infelici fecunditate fortunae _totiens_ obnoxia" (II.75):
+--"_totiens_ irrisa resolutus" (IV. 9), and in other passages.
+Bracciolini is so partial to the word that he uses it in its
+compound as well as simple form, as in one of his letters to
+Niccoli: "_Multoties_ scripsi tibi" (Ep. I. 17), and at the
+beginning of the second book of the "Convivales," "addubitari,
+inquam, _multotiens_" (Op. p. 37).
+
+XII. "Addubitare" is a word which Tacitus never uses, only the
+author of the Annals, as "paullum _addubitatum_, quod
+Halicarnassii" (IV. 65). So in the "Ruinarum Urbis Romae
+Descriptio," when speaking of Marius sitting amid the ruins of
+Carthage, Bracciolini writes: "admirantem suam et Carthaginis
+vicem, simulque fortunam utriusque conferentem,
+_addubitantem_que utriusque fortunae majus spectaculum
+extitisset" (Op. p. 132).
+
+"Extitere" is a word never used by Tacitus;--or, more properly, he
+so avoids it that he uses it but once. Bracciolini, on the contrary,
+is very much given to the use of it. In the Annals it is repeatedly
+met with; in the last part, (take the fifteenth book,) "centurionem
+_extitisse_" (XV. 49), "auriga et histrio et incendiarius _extitisti_"
+(ib. 67):--in the first part, "_extitisse_ tandem viros" (III. 44),
+"socium delationis _extitisse_" (IV. 66), and on other occasions.
+So it runs throughout the works of Bracciolini, as in his essay
+on "Avarice": "si amator _extiterit_ sapientiae" (Op. 20); on
+"The Unhappiness of Princes," "cogitationesque dominantium _extiterunt_,"
+(Op. 393); on "Nobility," "autorem nobilitatis filiis _extitisse_
+(Op. p. 69); on "The Misery of the Human Condition," splendidissimas
+in illis civitatibus _extitisse_ (Op. p. 119); in his Letters,
+"egenorum praesidium, oppressorem refugium, _extitisti_" (Ep. III. 17);
+in his "History of Florence," "quae verba si execranda, et digna
+odio _extitissent_" (Muratori XX. p. 235);--in fact, in all his
+productions, whether forged or unforged.
+
+There are, in fact, a number of words, and also phrases, used by
+Bracciolini that are no where to be found in any of the works of
+Tacitus. To illustrate this, we will confine ourselves to two
+examples only of each, and to the first part of the Annals and the
+History of Florence. To begin with words, and to take "pervastare":
+in the first part of the Annals: "spatium ferro flammisque _pervastat_"
+(I. 51): the History of Florence (Lib. I) "caede, incendio, rapinis
+_pervastatis_" (Muratori tom. XX. p. 213). "Conficta," in the sense
+of "fabricated": in the first part of the Annals: "in tempus _conficta_"
+(I. 37): in the History of Florence (Lib. III): "_confictis_ mendaciis"
+(ib. p. 254). To pass on to phrases, and to take (a word never used
+by Tacitus) "impendium" with "posse": in the first part of the Annals:
+"_impendio_ diligentiaque _poterat_" (IV. 6): in the History of
+Florence (Lib. V.) "_impendio_ plurimum damni inferre _potuissent_"
+(ib. 320). "Bellum" with "flagrare": in the first part of the Annals:
+"_flagrante_ adhuc Poenorum _bello_" (II. 59): in the History of
+Florence (Lib. V.): "Gallia omnis _bello flagraret_ Florentinos"
+(ib. 320).
+
+XIII. Whenever Tacitus ends a sentence with a polysyllabic word of
+five syllables he avoids its repetition at the close of the next
+sentence. The reverse is the case in the Annals, as, (take the
+first book of the last part (XI. 22), "rem militarem _comitarentur_,
+--in the sentence after, "accedentibus provinciarum _vectigalibus_,"
+--in the sentence after that, "sententia Dolabellae velut _venundaretur_";
+(or take the first book of the first part (I. 21-2), "eo immitior
+quia _toleraverat_,"--the sentence after, "vagi circumspecta
+_populabantur_,"--the sentence after that, "manipularium _parabantur_,"
+--where, to be sure, in the last instance a syllable is deficient,
+but it is made good by the sonorous sesquipedalian penultimate,--
+_manipulariam_. So in the works of Bracciolini: "aures tuae
+_recusabantur_," in the following sentence, "domi forisque
+_obtemperares_," in the next sentence, "factorum dictorumque
+_conscientiae_" (Op. 313).
+
+XIV. A peculiarity in composition, if not actually proving, at
+least raising the suspicion, that the same hand which wrote the
+last part of the Annals also wrote the first part is observable in
+the omission of the preposition _in_, when rest at a place is
+denoted;--the omission, it is to be remarked, is not where there
+is a single word, but when two words are coupled together, as in
+the last six books,--in the description of the Romans bearing on
+their shoulders statues of Octavia, which they decorate with
+flowers and place both in the forum and in their temples:
+"Octaviae imagines gestant humeris, spargunt floribus, _foroque
+ac templis_ statuunt" (XIV. 61); and in the first six books in
+the description of servile Romans following Sejanus in crowds to
+Campania, and there without distinction of classes lying day and
+night in the fields and on the sea shore:--"ibi _campo aut
+litore_ jacentes, nullo discrimine noctem ac diem" (IV. 74).
+
+Tacitus, in common with all other Roman prose-writers, uses the
+names of _nations_ (when the verb implies motion) with a
+preposition, which is not required with the names of
+_countries_. The Roman poets are not so particular in this
+respect, Virgil, for instance, writes, after the Homeric fashion,
+by the omission of the preposition:
+
+    "At nos hinc alii sitientis ibimus _Afros_:
+    Ecl. I. 65;
+
+for "ad Afros." So after Virgil, whom he is always quoting and
+imitating, Bracciolini writes "ipse praecepts _Iberos_, ad
+patrium regnum pervadit" (An. XII. 51), for "_ad_ Iberos,
+_in_ patrium."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MISTAKES THAT PROVE FORGERY.
+
+
+I. The Gift for the recovery of Livia.--II. Julius Caesar and the
+Pomoerium.--III.--Julia, the wife of Tiberius.--IV. The statement
+about her proved false by a coin.--V. Value of coins in detecting
+historical errors.--VI. Another coin shows an error about
+Cornutus.--VII. Suspicion of spuriousness from mention of the
+Quinquennale Ludicrum.--VIII. Account of cities destroyed by
+earthquake contradicted by a monument.--IX. Bracciolini's hand
+shown by reference to the Plague.--X. Fawning of Roman senators
+more like conduct of Italians in the fifteenth century.--XI. Same
+exaggeration with respect to Pomponia Graecina and the Romans.--
+XII. Wrong statement of the images borne at the funeral of
+Drusus.--XIII. Similar kind of error committed by Bracciolini in
+his "De Varietate Fortunae".--XIV. Errors about the Red Sea.--
+XV. About the Caspian Sea.--XVI. Accounted for.--XVII. A passage
+clearly written by Bracciolini.
+
+It is now, however, time to pass on to other matters more
+interesting and important, and, it may be, more convincing.
+
+I. Famianus Strada is very much surprised in his Prolusions (I. 2
+Histor.) that it should be stated in the third book of the Annals
+(71), that when a gift for the recovery of Livia was to be
+presented to Fortune the Equestrian, it had to be made at Antium,
+where, it is stated, there was a temple which had that title,
+there being none in Rome that was so named. Here are the words of
+Bracciolini, in his own style, too, and his own history, neither
+of which is, nor could be that of Tacitus: "A debate then came on
+about a matter of religion, as to the temple in which the offering
+was to be placed, which the Knights of Rome had promised to
+present to Fortune the Equestrian for the health of the Imperial
+Princess" (a phrase which no Roman would have used); "for though
+there were many shrines of that Goddess in Rome, yet there was
+none with that name: it was resolved:--'that there be a temple at
+Antium which has such an appellation, and that all religious rites
+in towns in Italy, and temples and statues of Gods and Goddesses,
+be under Roman law and rule': consequently, the offering was set
+up at Antium": "Incessit dein religio, quonam in templo locandum
+erat donum, quod pro valetudine Augustae equites Romani voverant
+Equestri Fortunae: nam etsi delubra ejus deae multa in urbe,
+nullum tamen tali cognomento erat; repertum est, 'aedem esse apud
+Antium quae sic nuncuparetur, cunctasque caerimonias Italicis in
+oppidis, templaque et numinum effigies, juris atque imperii Romani
+esse': ita donum apud Antium statuitur" (An. III. 71). This,
+however, was not the case; for Famianus Strada says that there was
+a temple in Rome which had been dedicated to Fortune the
+Equestrian for more than 200 years by Quintus Fulvius after the
+war with the Celtiberians, when he was Praetor; and, afterwards
+when he was Censor, he erected a magnificent edifice in honour of
+the goddess: the gift and the temple are both mentioned by Livy
+(XL. 42), also by Vitruvius, Julius Obsequens, Valerius Maximus,
+Publius Victor, and other historians and antiquaries. One cannot
+then well understand how a fact like this could have been unknown
+to Tacitus, who must have been acquainted with all the public
+buildings in Rome, especially the Temples; though it is quite easy
+to conceive how the slip could have been made by a writer of the
+fifteenth century: indeed, it would be odd if Bracciolini had not,
+now and then, fallen into such errors, which, though trivial in
+themselves, become mistakes of mighty magnitude in an inquiry of
+this description.
+
+II. A writer who could be so ignorant about the temples in Rome is
+just the sort of writer who would display ignorance about the
+public works in that city. Cognate then with this blunder in the
+first part of the Annals is the blunder in the last part about
+that ancient right, the enlargement of the pomoerium. We are told
+that those only who had extended the bounds of the Empire by the
+annexation of countries which they had brought under subjection
+were entitled to add also to the City, and that the only two of
+all the generals who had exercised this privilege before the time
+of Claudius, were Sylla and Augustus. "Pomoerium urbis auxit
+Caesar more prisco, quo iis qui protulere imperium, etiam terminos
+urbis propagare datur. Nec tamen duces Romani, quamquam magnis
+nationibus subactis, usurpaverant, nisi Lucius Sulla et divus
+Augustus" (An. XII. 23). Justus Lipsius, at this misstatement, is,
+strange to say, quite contented by merely remarking in a merry
+mood: "I am not going to defend you, Cornelius: you are wrong: an
+enlargement was also made by Julius Caesar, who was 'pitched in'"
+("interjectus") "between these two." "Non defendo te, Corneli:
+erras: etiani C. Caesar auxit interjectus inter eos duos." Any
+critic ought not to be facetiously playful, but seriously startled
+and unaccountably puzzled, that Tacitus, or any Roman of his
+stamp, should have been ignorant of a fact which must have been
+known to all his well informed countrymen, from its having been
+borne testimony to by so many eminent writers;--by Cicero in his
+Letter to Atticus (I. 13), by Cassius Dio in the 43rd Book of his
+History, by Aulus Gellius in his "Noctes Atticae" (XIII. 14), and,
+omitting all the antiquaries such as Fulvius and Onuphrius, Mark
+Antony in his Funeral Oration over the remains of Caesar, where he
+bewails the fate of an Emperor, who had been slain in the City,
+the pomoerium of which he had enlarged: [Greek: en tae polei
+enedreutheis, ho kai to pomaerion autaes apeuxaesas] (Cas. Dio.
+XLIV. 49). This fact seems to have been unknown just as well to
+Shakespeare as to Bracciolini; or our great national poet would
+have taken cognizance of it somewhere, perhaps in that part of
+Mark Antony's speech, where reference is made to what Caesar did
+for the Romans:
+
+    "Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,
+    His private arbours, and new-planted orchards
+    On this side Tiber: he hath left them you,
+    And to your heirs for ever; common pleasures,
+    To walk abroad and recreate yourselves."
+    (_Jul. Caesar_, Act III. sc. 2)
+
+III. A writer who could entirely overlook such a memorable
+achievement of Julius Caesar distinctly shows himself in his
+incorrectness about the career of such a distinguished member of
+the Augustan family as Julia, the wife of Tiberius: she is spoken
+of as having died in the first year of the reign of Tiberius,
+after having been banished by her father for infamous adulteries
+to the island of Trimetus, where, deserted by her husband, she
+must have speedily perished, in lieu of languishing in exile for
+twenty years, had she not been supported by the bounty of
+"Augusta". "Per idem tempus Julia mortem obiit quam neptem
+Augustus convictam adulterii damnatus est, projeceratque haud
+procul Apulis littoribus. Illic viginti annis exilium toleravit,
+Augustae ope sustentata" (An. IV. 71).
+
+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
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