throughout Italy, were thin; the behaviour of his slaves modest; the
freed-men, who managed his house, few; and, in his disputes with
particulars, the courts were open and the law equal." This resembles the
account of Antoninus Pius, by Marcus Aurelius; and it is for this modesty,
this careful separation between private and public affairs, that Tacitus
has praised Agricola. I am well contented, with the virtues of the
Antonines; but there are those, who go beyond. I have seen a book entitled
"The History of that Inimitable Monarch Tiberius, who in the xiv year of
his Reign requested the Senate to permit the worship of Jesus Christ; and
who suppressed all Opposition to it." In this learned volume, it is proved
out of the Ancients, that Tiberius was the most perfect of all sovereigns;
and he is shown to be nothing less than the forerunner of Saint Peter, the
first Apostle and the nursing-father of the Christian Church. The author
was a Cambridge divine, and one of their Professors of mathematics: "a
science," Goldsmith says, "to which the meanest intellects are equal."

Upon the other hand, we have to consider that view of Tiberius, which is
thus shown by Milton;

_This Emperor hath no son, and now is old;
Old and lascivious: and from Rome retired
To Capreae, an island small but strong,
On the Campanian shore; with purpose there,
His horrid lusts in private to enjoy._

This theme is enlarged by Suetonius, and evidently enjoyed: he represents
Tiberius, as addicted to every established form of vice; and as the
inventor of new names, new modes, and a new convenience, for unheard-of
immoralities. These propensities of the Emperor are handled by Tacitus
with more discretion, though he does not conceal them. I wish neither to