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