" In all this; in his
leisured ways, in his dislike of parade and ceremonial, in his mockery of
flatterers and venal "patriots"; how like to Charles II., "the last King
of England who was a man of parts." And no one will deny "parts" to
Tiberius; he was equal to the burden of Imperial cares: the latest
researches have discovered, that his provincial administration was most
excellent; and even Tacitus admits, that his choice of magistrates "could
not have been better." He says, in another passage, "The Emperor's domains
throughout Italy, were thin; the behaviour of his slaves modest; the
freed-men, who managed his house, few; and, in his disputes with
particulars, the courts were open and the law equal." This resembles the
account of Antoninus Pius, by Marcus Aurelius; and it is for this modesty,
this careful separation between private and public affairs, that Tacitus
has praised Agricola. I am well contented, with the virtues of the
Antonines; but there are those, who go beyond. I have seen a book entitled
"The History of that Inimitable Monarch Tiberius, who in the xiv year of
his Reign requested the Senate to permit the worship of Jesus Christ; and
who suppressed all Opposition to it.
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