blishing this as the foundation whereon they are to build, that they can never be capable of performing their duty as they ought, unless they have formed themselves beforehand to their undertaking, by prudence, and long experience of affairs; without which endowments and advantages, it they attempt to write a history, they will fall into a various and endless labyrinth of errours. When we hear this author speaking, we are ready to think ourselves engaged in a conversation with Cato the Censor, with Lelius, with Massinissa, and with the two Scipios; that is, with the greatest heroes and most prudent men of the greatest age in the Roman commonwealth. This sets me so on fire, when I am reading either here, or in any ancient author, their lives and actions, that I cannot hold from breaking out with Montagne into this expression: "It is just, says he, for every "honest man to be content with the government " and laws of his native country, without endea"vouring to alter or subvert them; but if I were "to choose where I would have been born, it "should have been in a Commonwealth." He indeed names Venice, which, for many reasons, should not be my wish; but rather Rome in such an age, if it were possible, as that wherein Polybius lived; or that of Sparta, whose constitution for a republick is by our author compared with Rome, to which he justly gives the preference. I will not undertake to compare Polybius and Tacitus; though, if I should attempt it upon the whole merits of the cause, I must allow to Polybius the greater comprehension and the larger soul; to Tacitus the greater eloquence, and the more close connection of his thoughts. The manner of Tacitus in writing is more like the force and gravity of Demosthenes; that of Polybius more like the copiousness and diffusive character of Cicero. Amongst historians, Tacitus imitated Thucydides, and Polybius Herodotus. Polybius foresaw the ruin of the Roman commonwealth, by luxury, lust, and cruelty; Tacitus foresaw in the causes those events which should destroy the monarchy. They are both of them, without dispute, the best historians in their several kinds. In this they are alike, that both of them suffered under the iniquity of the times in which they lived; both their histories are dismembered, the greatest part of them lost, and they are interpolated in many places. Had their works been perfect, we might have had longer histories, but not better. Casaubon, according to his usual partiality, condemns Tacitus that he may raise Polybius; who needs not any sinister artifice to make him appear equal to the best. Tacitus described the times of tyranny; but he always writes with some kind of indignation against them. It is not his fault that Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, were bad princes. He is accused of malevolence, and of taking actions in the worst sense but we are still to remember that those were the actions of tyrants. Had the rest of his history remained to us, we had certainly found a better account of Vespasian, Titus, Nerva, and Trajan, who were virtuous Emperors; and he would have given the principles of their actions a contrary turn. But it is not my business to defend Tacitus ; neither dare I decide the preference betwixt him and our Polybius. They are equally profitable and instructive to the reader; but Tacitus more useful to those who are born under a monarchy, Polybius to those who live in a republick. What may farther be added concerning the history of this author, I leave to be performed by the elegant translator of his work, |