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• To the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole,
• Discourses Upon Tacitus.
• Discourse I.: Upon the Former English Translations of Tacitus.
• Sect. I.: Of the Translation By Greenway and Sir H. Savill.
• Sect. II.: Of the English Translation By Several Hands.
• Sect. III.: Of the Last Translation of the First Annal.
• Sect. IV.: Of the Last Translation of the Second Annal.
• Sect. V.: Of the Last Translation of the Third Annal.
• Sect. VI.: Of the Last Translation of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Annal.
• Sect. VII.: Of the Last Translation of the Eleventh Annal.
• Sect. VIII.: Of the Last Translation of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Annals.
• Sect. IX.: Of the Last Translation of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Annals.
• Discourse II.: Upon Tacitus and His Writings.
• Sect. I.: The Character of Tacitus.
• Sect. II.: How Much He Excells In Description and Force.
• Sect. III.: Further Instances of the Justness of His Genius, and of His Great Thoughts.
• Sect. IV.: The Morality of Tacitus, and His Spirit Virtuous and Humane.
• Sect. V.: The Stile of Tacitus, How Pertinent and Happy: His Obscurity, a Charge of the Moderns Only.
• Sect. VI.: A General Character of His Works.
• Sect. VII.: Tacitus Vindicated From the Imputation of Deriving Events From Counsels Too Subtle and Malevolent.
• Sect. VIII.: More Proofs of the Candour and Veracity of Tacitus.
• Sect. IX.: Mr. Bayle ’ S Unjust Censure of Tacitus; and How Well the Latter Knew and Observed the Laws of History.
• Sect. X.: An Apology For the Wrong Account By Tacitus Given of the Jews and Christians, and For His Disregard of the Religion Then Received.
• Sect. XI.: The Foolish Censure of Boccalini and Others Upon Tacitus.
• Sect. XII.: Of the Several Commentators and Translators of Tacitus.
• Sect. XIII.: A Conjecture Concerning the Modern Languages, More Largely Concerning the English.
• Sect. XIV.: A Conjecture Concerning the Present State of the English Tongue, With an Account of the Present Work.
• Discourse III.: Upon Cæsar the Dictator.
• Sect. I.: Of Cæsar’s Usurpation, and Why His Name Is Less Odious Than That of Catiline.
• Sect. II.: Of the Publick Corruption By Cæsar Promoted Or Introduced; With His Bold and Wicked Conduct.
• Sect. III.: Cæsar Might Have Purified and Reformed the State; But Far Different Were His Intentions. His Art, Good Sense, and Continued Ill Designs.
• Sect. IV.: The Probability of His Waxing More Cruel, Had He Reigned Much Longer.
• Sect. V.: Cæsar No Lawful Magistrate, But a Public Enemy.
• Sect. VI.: Of the Share Which Casualties Had, In Raising the Name and Memory of Cæsar. the Judgment of Cicero Concerning Him.
• Sect. VII.: How Vain It Is to Extol Any Designs of His For the Glory of the Roman People.
• Sect. VIII.: Of His Death; and the Rashness of Ascribing to Divine Vengeance the Fate of Such As Slew Him.
• Discourse IV.: Upon Octavius Cæsar, Afterwards Called Augustus.
• Sect. I.: Of the Base and Impious Arts By Which He Acquired the Empire.
• Sect. II.: Of the Vindictive Spirit of Octavius, and His Horrid Cruelties.
• Sect. III.: Of the Treachery, Ingratitude, and Further Cruelties of Octavius. That the Same Were Wanton and Voluntary.
• Sect. IV.: Of the Popular Arts and Accidents Which Raised the Character of Augustus.
• Sect. V.: Though Augustus Courted the People, and Particular Senators, He Continued to Depress Public Liberty, and the Senate.
• Sect. VI.: What Fame He Derived From the Poets and Other Flattering Writers of His Time.
• Sect. VII.: Of the False Glory Sought and Acquired By Augustus, From the Badness of His Successors.
• Sect. VIII.: The Character of Augustus.
• Sect. IX.: Of the Helps and Causes Which Acquired and Preserved the Empire to Augustus. His Great Power and Fortune No Proof of Extraordinary Ability.
• Discourse V.: Of Governments Free and Arbitrary, More Especially That of the Cæsars.
• Sect. I.: The Principle of God’s Appointing and Protecting Tyrants, an Absurdity Not Believed By the Romans.
• Sect. II.: The Reasonableness of Resisting Tyrants Asserted, From the Ends of Government, and the Nature of the Deity. Opinions the Most Impious and Extravagant, Why Taught, and How Easily Swallowed.
• Sect. III.: The Danger of Slavish Principles to Such As Trust In Them, and the Notorious Insecurity of Lawless Might.
• Sect. IV.: Princes of Little and Bad Minds, Most Greedy of Power. Princes of Large and Good Minds Chuse to Rule By Law and Limitations.
• Sect. V.: The Wisdom and Safety of Ruling By Standing Laws, to Prince and People.
• Sect. VI.: The Condition of Free States, How Preferable to That of Such As Are Not Free.
• Sect. VII.: The Misery and Insecurity of the Cæsars From Their Overgrown Power.
• Sect. VIII.: A Representation of the Torments and Horrors Under Which Tiberius Lived.
• Sect. IX.: The Terrible Operation of Lawless Power Upon the Minds of Princes; and How It Changes Them.
• Sect. X.: The Wretched Fears Accompanying the Possession of Arbitrary Power, Exemplified In Caligula and Other Roman Emperors.
• Sect. XI.: What It Is That Constitutes the Security and Glory of a Prince; and How a Prince and People Become Estranged From Each Other.
• Sect. XII.: How Nearly It Behoves a Prince to Be Beloved and Esteemed By His Subjects. the Terrible Consequences of Their Mutual Mistrust and Hatred.
• Sect. XIII.: Public Happiness Only Then Certain, When the Laws Are Certain and Inviolable.
• Discourse VI.: Of the Old Law of Treason By the Emperors Perverted and Extended.
• Sect. I.: The Antient Purpose of That Law; the Politics of Augustus In Stretching It.
• Sect. II.: The Deification of the Emperors, What an Engine of Tyranny, and Snare to the Roman People.
• Sect. III.: The Images of the Emperors, How Sacred They Became, and How Pernicious.
• Sect. IV.: What a Destructive Calamity the Law of Majesty Grew, and How Fast Treasons Multiplied Under Its Name.
• Discourse VII.: Of the Accusations, and Accusers Under the Emperors.
• Sect. I.: The Pestilent Employment of These Men, Their Treachery and Encouragement.
• Sect. II.: The Traiterous Methods Taken to Circumvent and Convict Innocence. the Spirit of Accusing How Common, the Dread of It How Universal; and the Misery of the Times.
• Sect. III.: Plots Feigned Or True, an Ample Field For Accusations and Cruelty; and Upon What Miserable Evidence Executions Were Decreed.
• Sect. IV.: What Ridiculous Causes Produced Capital Guilt. the Spirit of the Emperor Constantius; With Somewhat of His Father Constantine.
• Sect. V.: The Black and General Carnage Made Under Constantius, By His Bloody Minister Paulus Catena, For Certain Acts of Superstition and Curiosity.
• Sect. VI.: The Ravages of the Accusers Continued; Their Credit With the Emperors; Yet Generally Meet Their Fate. the Falsehood of These Princes. the Melancholy State of Those Times.
• Sect. VII.: The Increase of Tyranny. Innocence and Guilt Not Measured By the Law, But By the Emperor’s Pleasure and Malice.
• Sect. VIII.: What Tacitus Means By Instrumenta Regni.
• Sect. IX.: How Much These Emperors Hated, and How Fast They Destroyed All Great and Worthy Men. Their Dread of Every Man For Any Reason.
• Sect. X.: Reflections Upon the Spirit of a Tyrant. With What Wantonness the Roman Emperors Shed the Blood of the Roman People. the Blindness of Such As Assisted the Usurpation of Cæsar and Augustus.
• Sect. XI.: Why Under Such Tyrants, the Senate Continued to Subsist.
• Sect. XII.: How the Unrelenting Cruelty of the Emperors Hastened the Dissolution of the Empire. the Bad Reigns of Constantine and Constantius. the Good Reign of Julian. the Indiscreet Behaviour of the Christians. Continued Tyranny; and End of the Em
• Sect. XIII.: The Excellency of a Limited Monarchy, Especially of Our Own.
• Discourse VIII.: Of the General Debasement of Spirit and Adulation Which Accompany Power Unlimited.
• Sect. I.: The Motives of Flattery Considered. Its Vileness, and Whence It Begins.
• Sect. II.: Men of Elevated Minds Irreconcileable to Arbitrary Power, and Thence Suspected By It. the Court Paid to It Always Insincere, Sometimes Expedient, But Seldom Observes Any Bounds.
• Sect. III.: The Excessive Power of the Imperial Freed Slaves; With the Scandalous Submission and Honours Paid Them By the Romans.
• Sect. IV.: The Excessive Flattery of the Senate, How Ill Judged.
• Sect. V.: The Free Judgment of Posterity a Powerful Warning to Princes, to Reign With Moderation and to Detest Flatterers. the Name and Memory of the Roman Tyrants How Treated.
• Sect. VI.: How Lamentably Princes Are Debauched and Misled By Flatterers.
• Sect. VII.: The Pestilent Tendency of Flattering Counsels, and the Glory of Such As Are Sincere.
• Discourse IX.: Upon Courts.
• Sect. I.: Of Freedom of Speech; and How Reasonable It Is.
• Sect. II.: The Spirit of Courtiers What; Some Good Ones.
• Sect. III.: The Arts of Courtiers; Their Cautiousness, and Its Causes.
• Sect. IV.: Of Slanderers and Tale-bearers In Courts. the Folly of Craft.
• Sect. V.: How Much Worthless People Abound In Courts, and Why.
• Sect. VI.: The Remarkable Fickleness and Insincerity of Courtiers.
• Discourse X.: Of Armies and Conquest.
• Sect. I.: The Burden and Danger of Maintaining Great Armies.
• Sect. II.: Great Armies the Best Disciplined, Whether Thence the Less Formidable to a Country. Their Temper and Views.
• Sect. III.: Princes Ruling By Military Power, Ever At the Mercy of Military Men.
• Sect. IV.: Instances of the Boldness and Fury of the Roman Soldiery.
• Sect. V.: The Humour of Conquering, How Injudicious, Vain, and Destructive.
• Sect. VI.: The Folly of Conquering Further Urged and Exemplified.
• The Annals of Tacitus.
• Book I.
• Book II.
• Book III.

Sect. IX.

Of the last Translation of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth Annals.

A Fresh hand has undertaken the three following Annals, and by good fortune such a hand as has preserved an eminent uniformity with the foregoing; only he is somewhat more gross. Tacitus says, it was reported that when Agrippina studied to draw Nero her son into an incestuous commerce with herself, Senecam contra muliebres inlecebras subsidium a femina petivisse: immissamque Acten libertam. “Seneca (says the Translator) soon brought in Acte, Nero’s beloved woman, to expel one whore with another.”

When Agrippina had escaped the first attempt upon her life, she dissembled, and seemed not to think it designed, nor to entertain any future apprehensions: simulata securitate: “Under the appearance of security,” (says the Translator.) But as Acerronia one of her maids had perished in that attempt, she ordered her Will to be found, and all her effects to be sealed up. This she did, says Tacitus, without any dissimulation; id tantum non per simulationem, c. 6. “She takes all necessary care (says the Translator) for the cure of her wound; the Testament of Acerronia to be looked out, her coffers to be sealed up, and all things necessary to be done without the least dissimulation:” How nicely he understands the original, and how grammatical is his English! Here however there seems to be some meaning aimed at; in what follows, even that is wanting: “The image of the villains who were stained with the guilt of this parricide, still haunted him.” The words of the original are observabanturque maris illius & litorum gravis adspectus, c. 10.

In truth, to expose the insipidness and nonsense of these Annals, were to transcribe them. In some places he is so gross, that his words will not bear repeating; as particularly where one of Octavia’s maids tells Tigellinus,castiora esse muliebria Octaviæ quam os ejus. His Translation of this is abominable, as well as ridiculous and false; and many such like instances there are in him. I beg leave to quote one short passage more out of this Annal. When that Lady was by the Tyrant divorced, and banished into Campania under a guard; inde crebri questus, says Tacitus,nec occulti per vulgum, cui minor sapientia, & ex mediocritate fortunæ, pauciora pericula sunt, c. 60. This is a fine reflection; observe how execrably it is rendred: “Upon the clamour of the people (who having nothing to lose, are commonly fearless, not out of any love or relenting at his severity) this was remitted.”

The fifteenth Annal is done just like the fourteenth, wretchedly. Here follows a specimen: Corbulo and Cesennius Petus commanded in the East: sed neque Corbulo æmuli patiens (says Tacitus); & Pætus, cui satis ad gloriam erat, si proximus haberetur, despiciebat gesta, nibil cædis aut prædæ, usurpatas nomine tenus urbium expugnationes, dictitans: se tributa ac leges, & pro umbra Regis Romanum jus victis impositurum, c. 6. The misfortune was, (says the Translator) “the one was impatient of a rival, and the other could not endure a superior; and Petus, who ought to have contented himself in being second to Corbulo, ever took pleasure to diminish the glory of his actions, upbraiding him that his victory in taking of towns was imaginary, without conquest or plunder. That he would impose laws and demand contributions, introduce the Roman power in the place of their Knights, and render them a meer shadow.”

He often seems to be without the least glimmering of Tacitus’s meaning, or any meaning, and puts down a parcel of words at random. How clearly does he English, provisis exemplis Caudinæ ac Numantinæ cladis; “resolving to follow the example of Numantian, and the Caudine defeat, which practice they thought they might justify, since the Parthians were at this time more powerful than the Carthaginians or Samnites:” [were they in truth? what a discovery is here?] neque eandem vim Samnitibus Italico populo, aut Pœnis Romani imperii æmulis. He goes on: They were now beginning to talk that the Antients were always commended for their address in suiting all things to the times, and securing a safe retreat when fortune should frown upon them. This is another discovery which he has made from these words: validam quoque & laudatam antiquitatem, quotiens fortuna contra daret, saluti consuluisse, c. 13; that is, “these same venerable Antients, so very stubborn and invincible, and so much adored, always consulted self-preservation, as often as pressed by the assaults of a calamitous fortune.”

When Petus had submitted to such shameful conditions from the Parthians, he, amongst the rest, made a bridge over the river Arsanias, and to hide his disgrace, pretended it was to shorten his own march; when in truth, it was done in obedience to the commands of the Parthians, as a monument of their superiority and conquest: namque iis usui fuit; nostri per diversum iere, c. 15. “It being commodious to them, (quoth the Translator) and not in any manner to molest us.” Were ever two meanings more remote? He often adds words of his own to those of Tacitus, and often drops many more of the original, sometimes whole sentences. Tacitus says, there prevailed then a pestilent custom of making fraudulent Adoptions, by such Candidates for Offices as had no children of their own; and as soon as the Election was over, they instantly dismissed such as they had occasionally adopted. This abuse raised a storm from such as were real parents; who, having applied to the Senate with warm representations against such fallacious dealings in others, and such injury done to themselves, add, sibi promissa legum diu expectata, in ludibrium verti, quando quis sine solicitudine parens, sine luctu orbus, longa patrum vota repente adæquaret, c. 19. All this is dropped by the Translator, and the following jargon of his own inserted: “They took children to quit them at their fancy in contempt of those laws, while they had a great many privileges, for care or sorrow, the other with ease enjoyed the same.”

I am afraid I have tired my reader, as I have done my self, with such a dull deduction of stupidities. I did not at first intend to say any thing of the former Translations: I took it for granted that every man who had seen them, must have condemned them, and found them as pitiful and bad as they really are. But when upon publishing my Proposals, I found that some, who by their titles and profession should be learned, others who by their high quality, ought to have taste and elegance, had commended the former Translation, and uttered their despair of seeing a better; I found it necessary to give some account of that performance, which I think to be as low, defective, and wretched as any thing in print; neither language, nor sense, nor decency, and as much unlike Tacitus the Historian, as the meanest slave of Tacitus the Consul, was unlike his master. It is much worse than the old Translation, which is exceeding bad. It is in my own defence, as well as in defence of Tacitus, that I have censured it, and against my inclination. It looks indeed as if the Translators themselves had no opinion of it, since they have not, as is usual, said one word about it by way of Preface. This is what Mr. Dryden particularly never used to omit doing; why did he omit it now in the Translation of a work of such name and weight? As far as the sixth Annal there is a Translation too of la Houssaye’s Notes, but done with great ignorance and errors.

DISCOURSE II.

Upon Tacitus and his Writings.