There are many
English translations of Tacitus: the first, by Sir Henry Savile and "one
Greenway"; the former, says Gordon, "has performed like a schoolmaster,
the latter like a school-boy." Anthony a Wood writes in another strain, in
the "Athenae Oxonienis": "A rare Translation it is, and the Work of a very
Great Master indeed, both in our Tongue and that Story. For if we consider
the difficulty of the Original, and the Age wherein the Translation lived,
it is both for the exactness of the version, and the chastity of the
Language, one of the most accurate and perfect translations that ever were
made into English." There is a rendering by Murphy, diffuse and poor; a
dilution of Gordon, worthy neither of Tacitus nor of the English tongue.
There are translations, too, into almost every modern language: I would
give the highest praise to Davanzati; a scholar of Tuscany, who lived in
the sixteenth century. In French, I cannot but admire the labours of M.
Burnouf: although the austere rules, the precise constructions, and the
easy comportment of the French prose are not suited to the style of
Tacitus, and something of his weight and brevity are lost; yet the
translator never loses the depth and subtilty of his author's meaning; his
work is agreeable to read, and very useful to consult.
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