patible,—civil liberty and the prerogative of the prince: and his successor Trajan continues to heal our wounds, and, by a just and wise administration, to diffuse the blessings of peace and good order through every part of the empire. Hopes are conceived of the constitution by all orders of men, and not conceived only, but rising every hour into confidence and public security."
Perhaps the affinity of his works to modern rather than ancient history may account for their mutilation. Their author strode before his time, and accordingly the men of the time could not relish his productions. Centuries passed by before Tacitus attracted the notice and attained the rank due to him among the great writers of antiquity. Pliny the younger, indeed, and a narrow circle of personal friends, awaited with deep interest, and doubtless, when they were published, crowned with zealous applause, each of his great works. But beyond that circle Tacitus apparently was little known. At the time he was writing nearly all narrative was assuming a biographical form; and hence Suetonius and his followers, the wretched chroniclers of the Cæsars from the death of Trajan to Constantine—the so-called "Augustan historians"—were read eagerly, while Tacitus slumbered on the shelf. His namesake, if not his remote relative, the emperor, directed that copies of all his writings should be made and deposited in every great library of the empire. But the reign of Tacitus, the Cæsar, was too brief for his instructions to be carried out; and indeed the times were too perturbed for literature of the highest order to be much in request. The gravity of the historian's temper, his concise style, his profound thought, were not favourable to the preservation of
