The maps and the
genealogical tables in the three volumes of Messrs. Church and Brodribb's
translation are also of the greatest service, and the notes are sometimes
most amusing.
Of Tacitus himself, there is little for me to say: those, who know him,
can judge for themselves; to those who do not, no words are able to convey
an adequate impression. "Who is able to infuse into me," Cardinal Newman
asks, "or how shall I imbibe, a sense of the peculiarities of the style of
Cicero or Virgil, if I have not read their writings? No description,
however complete, could convey to my mind an exact likeness of a tune, or
an harmony, which I have never heard; and still less of a scent, which I
have never smelled: and if I said that Mozart's melodies were as a summer
sky, or as the breath of Zephyr, I shall be better understood by those who
knew Mozart, than by those who did not." These truths are little
remembered by modern critics: though, indeed, it is not possible to convey
to a reader adequate notions about the style of an author, whom that
reader has not pondered for himself; about his thoughts or his subjects,
it may be different.
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