This is the way of all the ancient
writers. In a work on "Landscape," I remember that Mr. Hamerton mourns
over the Commentaries of Caesar; because they do not resemble the letters
of a modern war-correspondent; Ascham, on the other hand, a man of real
taste and learning, says of the Commentaries, "All things be most
perfectly done by him; in Caesar only, could never yet fault be found." I
agree with Ascham: I think I prefer the Commentaries as they are, chaste
and quiet; I really prefer them to Mr. Kinglake's "Crimean War," or to Mr.
Forbes' Despatches, or even to the most effusive pages of Mr. Stanley's
book on Africa.
In "The Life of Agricola," I would mention the simplicity of the treatment
and the excellence of the taste. Tacitus does not recite the whole of
Roman history, nor assemble all the worthies out of Plutarch. Agricola is
not compared to the pyramids, to the Flavian circus, nor to any works of
art and literature: these flights of imagination were not known to the
Ancients; but in a learned modern, I have seen Dante compared to Wagner's
operas, to the Parthenon and St. Peter's, and to Justinian's code.
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