[Endnote 408: "What has rendered 'Tacitus' obscure", says the Rev. Thomas Hunter in that book of his from which I have so frequently quoted, "is the refinement of his sentiments; which, like some minims in Nature, require uncommon sagacity and artificial power to assist you in the knowledge of." I cannot help thinking that these remarks are much more, if not solely applicable to the author of the Annals, (consequently, Bracciolini), than to Tacitus, as well as these further observations on the difficulty of the Latin:—"Let a reader take Livy in hand without translation or notes, if he is but a moderate adept in the Latin tongue, he will find little difficulty in many chapters together, except where some plodding editor brings in an awkward word to confound common sense and spoil a beautiful antithesis. If he is a proficient in the Roman language, he will read a book from end to end, with little hesitation or doubt concerning his meaning in any place: but a good classical scholar, who sits down to Tacitus, disclaiming the assistance of commentary or translation, will meet with difficulties in every book, and frequently in every page". (Observations upon Tacitus. pp. 218-9.) Archdeacon Browne, speaking of the style of "Tacitus," says (in his "History of Roman Classical Literature," p. 487), "his brevity … is the necessary condensation of a writer whose thoughts flow more quickly than his tongue could express them. Hence his sentences are suggestive of far more than they express: they are enigmatical hints of deep and hidden meaning, which keep the mind active and the attention alive, and delight the reader with the pleasures of discovery and the consciousness of difficulties overcome." "The thoughts flowing more quickly than the tongue" (that is, the pen) "can express them," is an apt phrase, (without the Archdeacon knowing how truthfully he was speaking), for the embarrassment under which a fabricator labours when endeavouring, not only to write like an ancient, but to assimilate his style to that of another, which being quite different to his own, he is conscious that, strive as he may, he will never come up to a close resemblance to the original. The reader no doubt recalls Bracciolini's own description of his task when he first set about forging the Annals: "Beginnings of any kind are arduous and difficult; as what the ancients did pleasantly, quickly and easily to ME is troublesome, tedious and burdensome":—"In quibusvis quoque rebus principia sunt ardua et difficilia; ut quod antiquioribus in officio sit jucundum, promptum ac leve, MIHI sit molestum, tardum, onerosum." (See pages 192 and 266 of this work).
End of Project Gutenberg's Tacitus and Bracciolini, by John Wilson Ross