To these things, the Germans also have manifested a strong dislike; and they are more censurable than the Scotch, because all their knowledge of the Romans was not derived from the intercourse of war. "The Germany" of Tacitus is a document, that has been much discussed; and these discussions may be numbered among the most flagrant examples of literary intemperance: but this will not surprise us, when we allow for the structure of mind, the language, and the usual productions of those, to whom the treatise is naturally of the greatest importance. In the description of the Germans, Tacitus goes out of his way to laugh at the "licentia vetustatis," "the debauches of pedants and antiquarians;" as though he suspected the fortunes of his volume, and the future distinctions of the Teutonic genius. For sane readers, it will be enough to remark, that the Germany of Tacitus was limited, upon the west, by the natural and proper boundary of the Rhine; that it embraced a portion of the Low Countries; and that, although he says it was confined within the Danube, yet the separation is not clear between the true Germans and those obscurer tribes, whose descendants furnish a long enumeration of titles to the present melancholy sovereign of the House of Austria. Gibbon remarks, with his usual sense, "In their primitive state of simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil of Tacitus, the first historian who supplied the science of philosophy to the study of facts. The expressive conciseness of his descriptions has deserved to exercise the diligence of innumerable antiquarians, and to excite the genius and penetration of the philosophic historians of our own time." Upon a few sentences out of the "Germania"; which relate to the kings, to the holding of land, to the public assemblies, and to the army; an imposing structure of English constitutional history has been erected: our modern historians look upon this treatise with singular approval; because it shows them, they say, the habits of their own forefathers in their native settlements. They profess to be enchanted with all they read; and, in their works, they betray their descent from the ancestors they admire. Gibbon says, prettily, "Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes, in which he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the attention of the reader from an uniform scene of vice and misery." Whether he succeeds, I must leave my readers to decide. Tacitus describes the quarrels of the Germans; fought, then with weapons; now, with words: their gambling, their sloth, their drunkenness. "Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat or barley, and corrupted (as it is strongly expressed by Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the gross purposes of German debauchery." Tacitus informs us, too, "that they sleep far into the day; that on rising they take a bath, usually of warm water; then they eat." To pass an entire day and night in drinking, disgraces no one: "Dediti somno ciboque," he says; a people handed over to sloth and gluttony. Some of these customs are now almost obsolete; the baths, for instance. In others, there has been little alteration since the Age of Tacitus; and the Germans have adhered, with obstinate fidelity, to their primitive habits. Tacitus thought less of their capacity, upon the whole, than it is usual to think now: "The Chatti," he says, "for Germans, have much intelligence;" "Leur intelligence et leur finesse étonnent, dans des Germains." But let us forget these "Tedeschi lurchi, non ragionam di lor;" and pass on to those manly virtues, which Tacitus records: To abandon your shield, is the basest of crimes, "relicta non bene parmula;" nor may a man thus disgraced be present at their sacred rites, nor enter their council; many, indeed, after escaping from battle, have ended their infamy with the halter. And to more shameful crimes, they awarded a sterner punishment:
Behind flock'd wrangling up a piteous crew
Greeted of none, disfeatured and forlorn:
Cowards, who were in sloughs interr'd alive;
And round them still the wattled hurdles hung
Wherewith they stamp'd them down, and trod them deep,
To hide their shameful memory from men.
Having now surveyed the compositions in this volume, it is proper that we should at length devote some of our notice to Gordon himself, and to his manner of presenting Tacitus. Thomas Gordon was born in Scotland; the date has not yet been ascertained. He is thought to have been educated at a northern university, and to have become an Advocate. Later, he went to London; and taught languages. Two pamphlets on the Bangorian controversy brought him into notice; and he wrote many religious and political dissertations. "A Defence of Primitive Christianity, against the Exhorbitant Claims of Fanatical and Dissaffected Clergymen;" "Tracts on Religion, and on the Jacobite Rebellion of '45;" "The Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy Shaken;" "A Cordial for Low Spirits;" are the titles of some of his compositions. In politics, and in theology, he was a republican and free-thinker: he translated and edited "The Spirit of Ecclesiastics in All Ages;" he was a contributor to "The Independent Whig;" and in a series of "Cato's Letters," he discoursed at ease upon his usual topics. The Tacitus was published in 1728, in two volumes folio: long dissertations are inserted in either volume; the literature in them excellent, the politics not so good: the volumes, as well as the several parts of them, are dedicated to some Royal and many Noble Patrons. Gordon has also turned Sallust into English: the book was published in 1744, in one handsome quarto; "with Political Discourses upon that Author and Translations of Cicero's Four Orations against Cataline." Walpole made Gordon the first commissioner of wine licences. It is handed down, that Gordon was a burly person, "large and corpulent." It is believed, that he found his way into "The Dunciad," and that he is immortalised there among the "Canaille Écrivante;" the line
Where Tindal dictates and Silenus snores,
is taken to be Pope's description of him. Gordon died in 1750; at the same time as Dr. Middleton, the elegant biographer of Cicero: Lord Bolingbroke is said to have observed, when the news was told him, "Then is the best writer in England gone, and the worst." That Bolingbroke should have disliked Gordon and his politics, does not surprise me; but I cannot understand for what reason he, and other good judges, despised his writings. "The chief glory of every people arises from its authors," Dr. Johnson says; and happy the people, I would assert, who have no worse writers than Thomas Gordon. I wish to draw attention to Gordon's correct vocabulary, to his bold and pregnant language, and to his scholarly punctuation. Among our present writers, the art of punctuation is a lost accomplishment; and it is usual now to find writings with hardly anything but full stops; colons and semicolons are almost obsolete; commas are neglected, or misused; and our slovenly pages are strewn with dashes, the last resources of an untidy thinker, the certain witnesses to a careless and unfinished sentence. How different, and how superior, is the way of Gordon; who, though he can be homely and familiar, never lays aside the well-bred and courteous manners of a polished Age. In his writings, the leading clauses of a sentence are distinguished by their colons: the minor clauses, by their semicolons; the nice meaning of the details is expressed, the pleasure and the convenience of his readers are alike increased, by his right and elegant use of commas. The comma, with us, is used as a loop or bracket, and for little else: by the more accurate scholars of the last Age, it was employed to indicate a finer meaning; to mark an emphasis, or an elision; to introduce a relative clause; to bring out the value of an happy phrase, or the nice precision of an epithet. And thus the authors of the great century of prose, that orderly and spacious time, assembled their words, arranged their sentences, and marshalled them into careful periods: without any loss to the subtile meaning of their thought, or any sacrifice of vigour, they exposed their subject in a dignified procession of stately paragraphs; and when the end is reached we look back upon a perfect specimen of the writer's art. We have grown careless about form, we have little sense for balance and proportion, and we have sacrificed the good manners of literature to an ill-bred liking for haste and noise: it has been decided, that the old way of writing is cumbersome and slow; as well might some guerilla chieftain have announced to his fellow-barbarians, that Caesar's legions were not swift and beautiful in their manoeuvres, nor irresistible in their advance. I have spoken of our long sentences, with nothing but full stops: they are variegated, here and there, with shorter sentences, sometimes of two words; this way of writing is common in Macaulay or in the histories of Mr. Green, and I have seen it recommended in Primers of Literature and Manuals of Composition. With the jolting and unconnected fragments of these authorities, I would contrast the musical and flowing periods of Dr. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets": to study these works in solitude, will probably be sufficient to justify my preference; but to hear them read aloud, should convert the most unwilling listener into an advocate of my opinion.
Dr. Birkbeck Hill, in the delightful Preface to his Boswell, explains how he was turned by a happy chance to the study of the literature of the eighteenth century; and how he read on and on in the enchanting pages of "The Spectator." "From Addison in the course of time I passed on," he continues, "to the other great writers of his and the succeeding age, finding in their exquisitely clear style, their admirable common-sense, and their freedom from all the tricks of affectation, a delightful contrast to so many of the eminent authors of our own time." These words might be used of Gordon: I do not claim for him the style of Addison, nor the accomplished negligence of Goldsmith; these are graces beyond the reach of art; but he exhibits the common-sense, and the clear style, of the eighteenth century. Like all the good writers of his time, he is unaffected and "simplex munditiis"; he has the better qualities of Pyrrha, and is "plain in his neatness." In Mr. Ward's edition of the English Poets, there may be read side by side a notice of Collins and of Gray; the one by Mr. Swinburne, the other by Mr. Matthew Arnold: I make no allusion here to the greatness of either poet, to the merits of either style, nor to the value of either criticism. But the essay upon Gray is quiet in tone; it has an unity of treatment, and never deserts the principal subject; it is suffused with light, and full of the most delicate allusions: the essay on Collins, by being written in superlatives and vague similes, deafens and perplexes the reader; and the author, by squandering his resources, has no power to make fine distinctions, nor to exalt one part of his thesis above another. These two performances illustrate the last quality in Gordon, and in the old writers, to which I shall draw attention: they were always restrained in their utterances, and therefore they could be discriminating in their judgments; they could be emphatic without noise, and deep without obscurity, ornamental but not vulgar, carefully arranged but not stiff or artificial. They exhibit the three indispensable gifts of the finest authorship: "simplicitas munditiis," "lucidus ordo," "curiosa felicitas."
In this volume, Gordon's punctuation has been generally followed: his orthography has been modernised a little, though not by my hands, nor with my consent; and I have observed without regret, that some of Gordon's original spellings have eluded the vigilance of the printer: that stern official would by no means listen to my entreaties for the long "SS," the turn-over words, or the bounteous capitals, which add so much to the seductive and sober dignity of an eighteenth-century page; but, on the whole, we have given a tolerable reproduction of Gordon's folio. In the second edition, he himself made more changes than improvements. I will not say, that Gordon has always conveyed the exact meaning of the sentences of Tacitus: but he has done what is better, and more difficult; he has grasped the broad meaning of his author, and caught something of his lofty spirit. "A translation," he says, "ought to read like an original;" and Gordon has not failed, I think, to reach this perfection. It is not commonly attained among translators: Gordon says, of one rendering of Tacitus, "'Tis not the fire of Tacitus, but his embers; quenched with English words, cold and Gothick." Of the author of another version, he says "Learning is his chief accomplishment, and thence his translation is a very poor one." This judgment is true of most modern translations from the Ancients; they may be correct versions, but are miserable English: the authors, while studying the most perfect models of the art of writing, have produced copies which are not literature at all. From this low company, I would rescue Sir Charles Bowen's "Virgil": a delightful poem, to those who are ignorant of Latin; an exquisite production, and an amazing triumph, to those who converse with the original. There are many English translations of Tacitus: the first, by Sir Henry Savile and "one Greenway"; the former, says Gordon, "has performed like a schoolmaster, the latter like a school-boy." Anthony à Wood writes in another strain, in the "Athenae Oxonienis": "A rare Translation it is, and the Work of a very Great Master indeed, both in our Tongue and that Story. For if we consider the difficulty of the Original, and the Age wherein the Translation lived, it is both for the exactness of the version, and the chastity of the Language, one of the most accurate and perfect translations that ever were made into English." There is a rendering by Murphy, diffuse and poor; a dilution of Gordon, worthy neither of Tacitus nor of the English tongue. There are translations, too, into almost every modern language: I would give the highest praise to Davanzati; a scholar of Tuscany, who lived in the sixteenth century. In French, I cannot but admire the labours of M. Burnouf: although the austere rules, the precise constructions, and the easy comportment of the French prose are not suited to the style of Tacitus, and something of his weight and brevity are lost; yet the translator never loses the depth and subtilty of his author's meaning; his work is agreeable to read, and very useful to consult. The maps and the genealogical tables in the three volumes of Messrs. Church and Brodribb's translation are also of the greatest service, and the notes are sometimes most amusing.
Of Tacitus himself, there is little for me to say: those, who know him, can judge for themselves; to those who do not, no words are able to convey an adequate impression. "Who is able to infuse into me," Cardinal Newman asks, "or how shall I imbibe, a sense of the peculiarities of the style of Cicero or Virgil, if I have not read their writings? No description, however complete, could convey to my mind an exact likeness of a tune, or an harmony, which I have never heard; and still less of a scent, which I have never smelled: and if I said that Mozart's melodies were as a summer sky, or as the breath of Zephyr, I shall be better understood by those who knew Mozart, than by those who did not." These truths are little remembered by modern critics: though, indeed, it is not possible to convey to a reader adequate notions about the style of an author, whom that reader has not pondered for himself; about his thoughts or his subjects, it may be different. Still, I may write something about the manner of Tacitus, which will not violate Cardinal Newman's laws, nor be an outrage to taste and common-sense. "It is the great excellence of a writer," says Dr. Johnson, "to put into his book as much as it will hold:" and if this judgment be sound, then is Tacitus the greatest of all writers in prose. Gordon says of him, "He explains events with a redundancy of images, and a frugality of words: his images are many, but close and thick; his words are few, but pointed and glowing; and even his silence is instructive and affecting. Whatever he says, you see; and all, that you see, affects you. Let his words be ever so few, his thought and matter are always abundant. His imagination is boundless, yet never outruns his judgment; his wisdom is solid and vast, yet always enlivened by his imagination. He starts the idea, and lets the imagination pursue it; the sample he gives you is so fine, that you are presently curious to see the whole piece, and then you have your share in the merit of the discovery; a compliment, which some able writers have forgot to pay to their readers." I would remark here, that many of the old writers give me the sense of handling things, they are definite and solid; while some of the moderns appear to play with words only, and never to come up with the objects of their pursuit: "we are too often ravished with a sonorous sentence," as Dr. Johnson says, "of which, when the noise is past, the meaning does not long remain." But of Tacitus, Gordon says, "His words and phrases are admirably adapted to his matter and conceptions, and make impressions sudden and wonderful upon the mind of man. Stile is a part of genius, and Tacitus had one peculiar to himself; a sort of language of his own, one fit to express the amazing vigour of his spirit, and that redundancy of reflections which for force and frequency are to be equalled by no writer before nor since."
Dr. Johnson, however, says in another place, "Tacitus, Sir, seems to me rather to have made notes for an historical work, than to have written a history:" I must own, that upon the subject of Tacitus, I prefer the sentiments of Gordon; and Montaigne would agree with me, for he says, "I do not know any author, who, in a work of history, has taken so broad a view of human events, or given a more just analysis of particular characters." The impressions of Tacitus are indeed wonderful: I doubt, whether volumes could bring us nearer to the mutinous legions, than the few chapters in which he records their history. I am always delighted by Gordon's way of telling the battle, in which the iron men of Sacrovir were overthrown; the account begins on page 139. Then how satisfying is the narrative of the wars in Germany, of the shipwreck, of the funeral of Varus and the slaughtered legions; how pleasing the description of Germanicus' antiquarian travels in Egypt, and in Greece. Though Tacitus is not a maker of "descriptions," in our modern sense: there is but one "description" in "The Annals," so far as I remember, it is of Capri; and it is not the sort, that would be quoted by a reviewer, as a "beautiful cameo of description." With Tacitus, a field of battle is not an occasion for "word-painting," as we call it; the battle is always first, the scenery of less importance. He tells, what it is necessary to know; but he is too wise to think, that we can realise from words, a place which we have never seen; and too sound in his taste, to forget the wholesome boundaries between poetry and prose. This is the way of all the ancient writers. In a work on "Landscape," I remember that Mr. Hamerton mourns over the Commentaries of Caesar; because they do not resemble the letters of a modern war-correspondent; Ascham, on the other hand, a man of real taste and learning, says of the Commentaries, "All things be most perfectly done by him; in Caesar only, could never yet fault be found." I 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 produce, in those who constantly practise it, a steadying and composing effect upon the judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general. They are like persons who have had a very weighty and impressive experience; they are more truly than others under the empire of facts, and more independent of the language current among those with whom they live."