history--were all so admirably represented in Latin that it was not
necessary to go to Greek for a model. In one respect Latin could claim
pre-eminence. It might possess no single passage greater than the
character study of Pericles or of the Athenians by Thucydides, but it
developed the character study into a recognized and clearly defined
element in historical narrative. Livy provided a pattern of narrative
on a grand scale. For 'exquisite eloquence' he was held not to
have his equal.[3] But of all the Latin historians, Tacitus had the
greatest influence. 'There is no learning so proper for the direction
of the life of man as Historie; there is no historie so well worth the
reading as Tacitus. Hee hath written the most matter with best conceit
in fewest words of any Historiographer ancient or moderne.'[4] This
had been said at the beginning of the first English translation of
Tacitus, and it was the view generally held when he came to be better
known. He appealed to Englishmen of the seventeenth century like no
other historian. They felt the human interest of a narrative based
on what the writer had experienced for himself; and they found
that its political wisdom could be applied, or even applied itself
spontaneously, to their own circumstances. They were widely read in
the classics. They knew how Plutarch depicted character in his Lives,
and Cicero in his Speeches. They knew all the Latin historians. But
when they wrote their own characters their chief master was Tacitus.

* * * * *

Continental historians provided the incentive of rivalry. They too
were the pupils of the Ancients, and taught nothing that might not be
learned equally well or better from their masters, but they invited
the question why England should be behind Italy, France, or the Low
Countries in worthy records of its achievements. In their own century,