Tacitus; the only Book, he says, he had read consecutively for an hour together for ten years. He does not say very much: but the Remarks of such a Man are worth many Cartloads of German Theory of Character, I think: their Philology I don’t meddle with. I know that Cowell has discovered they are all wrong in their Sanskrit. Montaigne never doubts Tacitus’ facts: but doubts his Inferences; well, if I were sure of his Facts, I would leave others to draw their Inferences. I mean, if I were Commentator, certainly: and I think if I were Historian too. Nothing is more wonderful to me than seeing such Men as Spedding, Carlyle, and I suppose Froude, straining Fact to Theory as they do, while a scatter-headed Paddy like myself can keep clear. But then so does the Mob of Readers. Well, but I believe in the Vox Populi of two hundred Years: still more, of two thousand. And, whether we be right or wrong, we prevail: so, however much wiser are the Builders of Theory, their Labour is but lost who build: they can’t reason away Richard’s Hump, nor Cromwell’s Ambition, nor Henry’s Love of a new Wife, nor Tiberius’ beastliness. Of course, they had all their Gleams of Goodness: but we of the Mob, if we have any Theory at all, have that which all Mankind have seen and felt, and know as surely as Day-light; that Power will tempt and spoil the Best.
Well, but what is all this Lecture to you for? Why, I think you rather turn to the re-actionary Party about these old Heroes. So I say, however
right you may be, leave us, the many-headed, if not the wise-headed, to go our way, only making the Text of Tacitus as clear for us to flounder about in as you can. That, anyhow, must be the first Thing. Something of the manners and customs of the Times we want also: some Lights from other contemporary Authors also: and then, ‘Gentlemen, you will now consider your Verdict, and please yourselves.’
Can’t you act on Spedding’s Advice and have your Prolegomena separate, if considerable in size? I don’t doubt its Goodness: but you know how, when one wants to take a Volume of an Author on Travel, Ship-board, etc., how angry one is with the Life, Commentary, etc., which takes up half the first volume. This we don’t complain of in George III. because he is not a Classic, and your Athenæum Critic admits that yours is the best Part of the Business by far.
To E. B. Cowell.
‘Scandal’; Lowestoft, June 17 [1867].
My dear Cowell,
I wrote to Elizabeth, I think, to congratulate you both on the result of the Election: I have since had your Letter: you will not want me to repeat what, without my ever having written or said, you will know that I feel. I wrote to Thompson on the subject, and have had a very kind Letter from him.
Now you will live at Cambridge among the Learned; but, I repeat, you would rather live among the Ignorant. However, your Path is cut out for you: and, to be sure, it is a more useful and proper one for you than the cool sequestered one which one might like to travel.
I am here in my little Ship—cool and sequestered enough, to be sure—with no Company but my Crew of Two, and my other—Captain of the Lugger now a-building: a Fellow I never tire of studying—If he should turn out knave, I shall have done with all Faith in my own Judgment: and if he should go to the Bottom of the Sea in the Lugger—I sha’n’t cry for the Lugger.