The character is too vague in its outlines to be any
particular individual’s; but as all its points
fit many an Italian priest who became a Cardinal or
a Bishop and a chief minister to a prince, in the
time of the Renaissance, as well as in the period immediately
before it, and that immediately after it,—it
shows how men reflect the age they live in,—how
the principal biographies in any certain time convey
a pretty accurate idea of the tone of mind then prevailing;
further, and above all, it shows to what a great degree
the books of the Annals reflect the chief features
of the period when they were written, and how deeply
their author enters into the spirit of his age.
As with characters so with events. Heaps of passages
in the Annals read like incidents in the fifteenth
century. It is more like a picture in an Italian
court at that period than in a Roman Emperor’s
in the first century, when the arrest is made of Cneius
Novius for being found treacherously armed with a dagger
while mixing with the throng of courtiers bowing to
the prince; and then when he is stretched on the rack,
no confession being wrung from him as to accomplices;
and the doubt that prevailed whether he really had
fellow-conspirators. “Cneius Novius, eques
Romanus, ferro accinctus reperitur in coetu salutantium
principem. Nam, postquam tormentis dilaniabatur,
de se non infitiatus conscios non edidit, incertum
an occultans.” (An. XI. 22.)
IX. In this way do I fancy I perceive the author
of the Annals chose his subject and worked his materials,
so as to do most justice to his talents, and more
easily reach the height attained by Tacitus.
When he had apparently thus sketched the plan of his
edifice, and set about struggling with the difficulties
of the elaboration, he encountered these with such
eminent success that the reality of his literary labour
is one of the most surprising facts in the history
of the human mind. He seems never to have once
deviated from his design nor to have ever been perplexed
by embarrassments in the course of his undertaking,
notwithstanding the voluminousness of its nature.
In such a procedure, where the time he chose to descant
upon fits in with all he wanted to accomplish, we
see the first indication of the vast judgment he possessed,
as well as the correct notion he had formed of the
extent of his superior powers. In detecting in
the author of the Annals so much judgment and such
an exact estimate of his great mental faculties, we
see the difficulty to be coped with in distinguishing
between him and Tacitus, and thus in distinguishing
between the spurious and the genuine: but this
distinguishing can be accomplished by a minute, and
only a most minute examination of the two works.
CHAPTER IV.
HOW THE ANNALS DIFFERS FROM THE HISTORY.
I. In the qualities of the writers; and why that difference.
—II. In the narrative, and in what
respect.—III. In style and language.—IV.
The reputation Tacitus has of writing bad Latin due
to the mistakes of his imitator.
