ftruxere. Capti a Gallis fumus. Sed et Tufcis obfides dedimus, et Samnitium jugum fubivimus. Attamen, fi cuncta bella recenfeas, nullum breviore fpatio quám adverfus Gallos confectum. Continua deinde ac fida pax. Jam moribus, artibus, affinitatibus, noftris mixti, aurum et opes fuas inferant potiús, quam feparati habeant. Omnia, patres confcripti, quæ nunc vetuftiffima creduntur, nova fuere. Plebei magiftratus poft patricios, Latini poft plebeios, ceterarum Italiæ gentium poft Latinos. Inveterafcet hoc quoque, et quod hodie exemplis tuemur inter exempla erit'.' one. The copy here is apparently very different from the original. We have noted in Italics the only points, in which it is at all fimilar. The mockfun, we fee, has caught only three rays of the real And Tacitus feems, like our own Dr. Johnfon, to have had fome report of the real fpeech made to him, and then to have fabricated another from the intimations. But the report made to Tacitus, was evidently a much flighter one than that to Dr. Johnfon. The doctor, we believe, always comprehended fome of the leading topics of the reality, in his reprefentation; while Tacitus has merely glanced at what Claudius faid. And, whatever excufe may be made for the Englishman, then, to the difgrace of the reign of George the Second, re-` fiding in a garret behind Exeter-'Change;' compelled to procure himself a subsistence, by the exertion of his great powers; and naturally ftudying to 2 • Ann. xi. 24. gratify gratify that rage for reading parliamentary speeches, which was then beginning to rise in the nation, and has fhot out to fuch a wonderful extent fince; yet, not a fhadow of an excufe can be made for Tacitus. The baftard offspring in him, has scarcely any the faintest resemblance of the legitimate. The fpeeches of Johnson, too, were evanefcent in their nature, and would have evaporated and been loft in air; had not the effence of them, a little rectified and heightened, been caught in his alembic. But the fpeech of Claudius was actually recorded, was engraven upon plates of brafs, and hung up in the town-hall of Lyons, &c. Yet Tacitus did not give himself the trouble to procure a copy, when a copy was so easy to be had. He chose rather to display his abilities, in framing a new one for the emperor. He thus, in the unfaithfulness of his temper and in the vanity of his fpirit, imposed a fictitious speech for a genuine one, upon the credulity of his reader. But he could not, like Johnson, affimilate himself to the character of the fpeaker, whom he perfonated. The speech of Claudius is all in the style of Tacitus, brisk, brief, and compacted. And as this fingle instance fhews us in the plaineft manner, from what fource of information Tacitus derived all his fet speeches, thofe numerous decorations of his hiftory and annals, that all reflect ftrongly the features of their common parent; fo, in this particular inftance, Tacitus appears to have given the lie to history and to himself, and to have furnished a man, whom he himself defcribes to have been of a feeble understanding, understanding, imminuta mens, with a fpeech pointed, informed, and vigorous, Indeed, the fug gested speech is fo nearly, in all its parts, different from the pronounced one, that some have supposed the one to have been never meant for the other; especially as Tacitus directs his fpeech in favour of all the extra-provincial Gauls in general, and of the Edui in particular. But there is juft fimilarity enough, to evince the intended famenefs; even while the difference is great and ftriking enough, to prove it an actual forgery. And his mention of the Ædui, is no evidence to the contrary at all; as these appear from Ptolemy, to have been the fuperior lords of the Segufiani, and fo to have been the head-fovereigns of their capital city-Lyons". This forms a very extraordinary proof of the licentious hand, with which this philofophical hiftorian of antiquity,' as Mr. Gibbon calls him, has abused the honeft confidence of history. He is apparently Mr. Gibbon's model in writing. Mr. Gibbon has bis ftrain of irreligion; his refplendence of paffages; his philofophy of history;' and his unfaithfulness to the truth. And the laft point, that crimen læfæ majeftatis' in history has been proved fo plainly upon him by the Rev. Mr. (now Archdeacon) Travis; and much more by that extraordinary young man, that early victim to ftudioufnefs, the late Mr. Davis of Baliol college in Oxford; as nothing fhould ever efface from the mind of the public. Indeed the tone of opinion concern * Ann. vi. 46. 2 Bertius, Lib. ii. c. 8. p. 52. ing ing Mr. Gibbon, has been decifively settled among the difcerning few; ever fince Mr Davis wrote. Mr. Gibbon has ever fince been confidered, as a writer who, whatever else he may have to recommend him to notice, wants that firft grand quality of an historian, veracity. This defect, indeed, with the generality is of little moment. They read, but never examine; rely with an indecent kind of implicitnefs, on thefe dictators in hiftory; and are delighted at once with the fight and with the mufic, of these fairy scenes before them. But with others, with all who read to know truths, and with all whofe good opinions are worth the having; this mere 'femblance of truth,' and this actual hollownefs of falfehood, must hang upon the thought, must damp the ardour of praife, and poifon admiration with fufpicion. Nor has my own experience of Mr. Gibbon's preceding volumes, been different. I too have examined fome of his authorities; and I too have found him, like Tacitus, taking great freedoms with them. I will produce an inftance of this, that has not been noticed by any other writer, and has even no excufe from the difingenuity of prejudice. It is founded only, on the too natural careleffnefs of a philofophical hiftorian; and occurs in his firft volume. There, in p. xvii. of his notes on chapter the fifth, and in note 5, he places the Prætorian camp of Rome,' close to the walls of the city, and on the broad ⚫ fummit of the Quirinal and Viminal hills;' upon the authority of Nardini Roma Antica, p. 174, and Donatus de Româ Antiquâ, p. 46. I dwell not upon upon the grofs abfurdity, of placing one camp upon the fummit of two hills; or on the grand error of fixing it upon the broad fummit' of hills, one of which (the Quirinal) abuts fo close upon the capitol, and both had for ages been occupied with buildings. Our present business is not with miftakes, but mifquotations. Nor does either of the authors here referred to, pitch the Prætorian camp upon the broad fummit of the Quirinal and Viminal hills.' They both unite, inplacing it beyond the broad fummit' of either, beyond the bank of Tarquin, on a projecting point of the Viminal hill, and in the ftill remaining fquare of walls at the north-eastern angle of the city. Donatus refers to fome infcriptions in Panvinius, dug up at the ground, and mentioning the camp exprefsly. And Nardini declares Panvinius, to have proved the point by the clearest arguments; and appeals to those inscriptions and that fquarenefs, as a decifive evidence concerning it'. So greatly inattentive has Mr. Gibbon here been, to the very teftimony that he cites! So little can we depend upon his accuracy, even in fubjects where he had no bias of prejudice to lead him aftray! And fo ftrongly does this unite with all, which Mr. Davis, Mr. Travis, and others, have expofed, of the fame nature in his work! This fundamental defect, that has been found in Grævius's Thefaurus, iii. 510 and 512-513, for Donatus ; iv. 1065, 925, and 1082, for Nardini; and iii. 225-226, for Panvinius. the |