You shall not move me, howsoe’er you strain
At th’ other end, if I my strength put to ’t,
I’ll pull you Gods and Goddesses to me,
Do what you can, and earth and sea to boot,
And let you hang there till my power you see.
The Gods were out of countenance at this,
And to such mighty words durst not reply, &c.
No. IV
A very learned and ingenious friend,[72] to whom I am indebted for some very just remarks, of which I have availed myself in the preceding Essay, has furnished me with the following acute, and, as I think, satisfactory explanation of a passage in Tacitus, extremely obscure in itself, and concerning the meaning of which the commentators are not agreed. “Tacitus meaning to say, ‘That Domitian, wishing to be the great, and indeed the only object in the empire, and that no body should appear with any sort of lustre in it but himself, was exceedingly jealous of the great reputation which Agricola had acquired by his skill in war,’ expresses himself thus:
In Vit. Agr. cap. 39