The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• 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. XIII.

A Conjecture concerning the modern Languages, more largely concerning the English.

OF the French Tongue itself I may venture to say, after better judges than my self, that from a laxness and effeminacy essential to it, it cannot naturalize the strong expressions of the Ancients, without spreading and weakening them considerably. It has a number of relatives, particles and monosyllables that return incessantly, and flatten the sense, and tire the ear. The English Language has indeed many words more harsh than the French; but it has likewise many more spirituous and sounding; and though it be also loaded with relatives, particles and words of one syllable, yet I think not to the same degree, nor do those we have return so often; and we can frequently drop the particles, and leave them to be understood, as well as the relatives.

In this respect the Latins had an advantage over the Greeks; as those two Languages have over every other that is now in the world, or perhaps ever was. We are infinitely behind them in significancy and sound, and, with all our adventitious words and refinements, are still crude and gothick to them. Nearest in Language to the Ancients come the Spaniards and Italians, though still far behind; yet they stand over the heads of the English and French, and walk while we creep. The Spanish is the more sonorous and lofty; the Italian the more sweet and gliding; and both excel in harmony, numerosity, and the pomp of words. The Italians seem to have spoiled their Tongue, by wild hyperboles, and phrases of mere sound and compliment; whether it be from the turn of the nation to Love and Music; whether it be from the Legends of their Saints, and their extravagant Panegyrics upon them, or from their Slavery to Churchmen, or the Severity of their Government, or from what other cause, I do not pretend to determine.

The French profess to have greatly refined their Tongue; and it is indeed brought to be exceeding glib and perspicuous; but whether the refiners have not pared away its strength to make it more shapely and regular, has been doubted. Some refinements we also have made in ours, perhaps by imitating the French; though I hope we have better preserved its force. Easy writing has been studied to affectation; a sort of writing, which, where the thoughts are not close, the sense strong, and the phrase genteel, is of all others the most contemptible. Such were the productions of Sir Roger L’Estrange, not fit to be read by any who have taste or good breeding; they are full of technical terms, of phrases picked up in the street from apprentices and porters, and nothing can be more low and nauseous. His sentences, besides their grossness, are lively nothings, which can never be translated (a sure way to try language) and will hardly bear repetition. Between hawk and buzzard: clawed him with kindness: alert and frisky: guzzling down tipple: would not keep touch: a queer putt: lay cursed hard upon their gizzard: cram his gut: conceited noddy: old chuff: and the like, are some of Sir Roger’s choice flowers. Yet this man was reckoned a Master, nay a Reformer of the English Language; a man who writ no Language; nor does it appear that he understood any; witness his miserable Translations of Cicero’s Offices and Josephus. That of the latter is a Version full of mistakes, wretched and low, from an easy and polite one of Monsieur D’Andilly.

Sir Roger is one amongst the several hands who attempted Tacitus, and the third Book of the History is said to be done by him. He knew not a word of it but what he has taken from Sir Henry Savill, and him he has wretchedly perverted and mangled. Out of the wise and grave mouth of Tacitus he brings such quaint stuff as this; to cast the point upon that issue: — sneaking departure ofVitellius: — at the rate of a man at his wit’s end: — sottish multitude never went beyond bawling: — an Emperor lugg’d out of his hole: — the sexton of the Capitol: — the Government dropt intoVespasian’smouth: — not cut out for a soldier: — went not a sneaking way to work: — Valensin the interim with his dissolute train of capons: [into this senseless cant word Sir Roger elegantly changes that of Eunuchs used by Sir H. Savill; for I dare say he neither saw nor knew the original, agmine spadonum]: the Emperor guzzling and gormandizing like a beast.

Such jargon is hardly good enough for a Puppet-shew. Sir Roger had a genius for buffoonry and a rabble, and higher he never went; his stile and his thoughts are too vulgar for a sensible artificer. To put his Books into the hands of youth or boys, for whom chiefly Æsop, by him burlesqued, was designed, is to vitiate their taste, and to give them a poor low turn of thinking; not to mention the vile and slavish principles of the man. He has not only turned Æsop’s plain Beasts, from the simplicity of nature, into Jesters and Bussoons; but out of the mouths of animals inured to the boundless freedom of air and desarts, has drawn doctrines of servitude, and a defence of Tyranny.

The taste and stile of the Court is always the standard of the public. At the Restoration, a time of great festivity and joy, the formal and forbidding gravity of the preceding times, became a fashionable topic of ridicule; a manner different and opposite was introduced; jest and waggery were encouraged; and the King himself delighted in drollery, and low humour. Hence the Language became replete with ludicrous phrases; archness and cant grew diverting; the writings of witlings passed for wit; and if they were severe upon the Sectaries, as the fashion was, they pleased the Court. By this means L’Estrange got his character. It is very true that there appeared at the same time men of just wit, and polite stile; but it cannot be denied but that the other manner was prevalent; the greatest wits sometimes fell into it.

This humour ended not with that Reign, nor the next, but was continued after the Revolution by L’Estrange, Tom Brown, and other delighters in low jests, their imitators; and such witlings have contributed considerably to debauch our Tongue. If we go so high as Queen Elizabeth’s time, we shall find that a good stile began then to be used, agreeably to the good sense of that Princess, and her Court; and we have the Language of that age in Sir Walter Raleigh, whose genius was too just and strong to go into the miserable pedantry of the next reign. Many of the productions then, and particularly the Royal productions, are wretched beyond measure; (I wish the honour and politics of those days had been better) nor could so considerable a man as Sir Francis Bacon escape the infection.

The next Prince affected a high and rigid gravity, and a pomp and solemnity of stile became common; yet the Language began to recover, when the cant and enthusiasm ensuing, gave it a new turn extremely insipid and offensive. But between the reign of King James and the Restoration, several Writers appeared eminently happy in their stile: such particularly was Mr. Chillingworth, whose language is flowing, and free as his own candid spirit. The same character is due to the excellent Lord Falkland, and Mr. Hales of Eaton. Mr. Hobbes’s English is beautiful almost, if not altogether, beyond example; nothing can be finer than his way of expressing his thoughts; his stile is as singularly good, charming and clear, as many of his principles are dangerous and false. Under this character of his stile I do not comprize his Translation of Thucydides; as it does not, however just it be, resemble his other Works. Hence I am inclinable to believe what I have heard, that it was done by some of his disciples, and by him revised; yet it far excels most of our Translations. Milton’s English Prose is harsh and uncouth, though vigorous and expressive. The stile of Selden and Hammond is rugged and perplexed.