agree with Ascham: I think I prefer the Commentaries as they are, chaste
and quiet; I really prefer them to Mr. Kinglake's "Crimean War," or to Mr.
Forbes' Despatches, or even to the most effusive pages of Mr. Stanley's
book on Africa.

In "The Life of Agricola," I would mention the simplicity of the treatment
and the excellence of the taste. Tacitus does not recite the whole of
Roman history, nor assemble all the worthies out of Plutarch. Agricola is
not compared to the pyramids, to the Flavian circus, nor to any works of
art and literature: these flights of imagination were not known to the
Ancients; but in a learned modern, I have seen Dante compared to Wagner's
operas, to the Parthenon and St. Peter's, and to Justinian's code. The
sanctities of private life are not violated; yet we know everything, that
it is decent to know, about Agricola. Lord Coleridge has given a beautiful
rendering of the closing passages of "The Agricola," in his account of Mr.
Matthew Arnold: these elegant papers are not only models of good English;
but are conspicuous, among recent obituary notices, for their fine taste
and their becoming reticence. From the excesses of modern biographers,
Tacitus was in little danger; thanks to his Roman sense, and to the
qualities of the Roman Language. "Economy," says Mr. Symonds, "is
exhibited in every element of this athletic tongue. Like a naked gladiator
all bone and muscle, it relies upon bare sinewy strength." That author
speaks of "the austere and masculine virtues of Latin, the sincerity and
brevity of Roman speech;" and Tacitus is, beyond any doubt, the strongest,
the austerest, the most pregnant of all the Romans. "Sanity," says Mr.
Matthew Arnold, in conclusion, "that is the great virtue of the ancient
literature; the want of that is the great defect of the modern, in spite
of all its variety and power." "It is impossible to read the great
ancients, without losing something of our caprice and eccentricity. I know
not how it is, but their commerce with the ancients appears to me to