The Reign of Tiberius | Page 9

structure of English constitutional history has been erected: our modern historians look upon this treatise with singular approval; because it shows them, they say, the habits of their own forefathers in their native settlements. They profess to be enchanted with all they read; and, in their works, they betray their descent from the ancestors they admire. Gibbon says, prettily, "Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes, in which he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the attention of the reader from an uniform scene of vice and misery." Whether he succeeds, I must leave my readers to decide. Tacitus describes the quarrels of the Germans; fought, then with weapons; now, with words: their gambling, their sloth, their drunkenness. "Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat or barley, and corrupted (as it is strongly expressed by Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the gross purposes of German debauchery." Tacitus informs us, too, "that they sleep far into the day; that on rising they take a bath, usually of warm water; then they eat." To pass an entire day and night in drinking, disgraces no one: "Dediti somno ciboque," he says; a people handed over to sloth and gluttony. Some of these customs are now almost obsolete; the baths, for instance. In others, there has been little alteration since the Age of Tacitus; and the Germans have adhered, with obstinate fidelity, to their primitive habits. Tacitus thought less of their capacity, upon the whole, than it is usual to think now: "The Chatti," he says, "for Germans, have much intelligence;" "Leur intelligence et leur finesse étonnent, dans des Germains." But let us forget these "Tedeschi lurchi, non ragionam di lor;" and pass on to those manly virtues, which Tacitus records: To abandon your shield, is the basest of crimes, "relicta non bene parmula;" nor may a man thus disgraced be present at their sacred rites, nor enter their council; many, indeed, after escaping from battle, have ended their infamy with the halter. And to more shameful crimes, they awarded a sterner punishment:
_Behind flock'd wrangling up a piteous crew Greeted of none, disfeatured and forlorn: Cowards, who were in sloughs interr'd alive; And round them still the wattled hurdles hung Wherewith they stamp'd them down, and trod them deep, To hide their shameful memory from men._
Having now surveyed the compositions in this volume, it is proper that we should at length devote some of our notice to Gordon himself, and to his manner of presenting Tacitus. Thomas Gordon was born in Scotland; the date has not yet been ascertained. He is thought to have been educated at a northern university, and to have become an Advocate. Later, he went to London; and taught languages. Two pamphlets on the Bangorian controversy brought him into notice; and he wrote many religious and political dissertations. "A Defence of Primitive Christianity, against the Exhorbitant Claims of Fanatical and Dissaffected Clergymen;" "Tracts on Religion, and on the Jacobite Rebellion of '45;" "The Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy Shaken;" "A Cordial for Low Spirits;" are the titles of some of his compositions. In politics, and in theology, he was a republican and free-thinker: he translated and edited "The Spirit of Ecclesiastics in All Ages;" he was a contributor to "The Independent Whig;" and in a series of "Cato's Letters," he discoursed at ease upon his usual topics. The Tacitus was published in 1728, in two volumes folio: long dissertations are inserted in either volume; the literature in them excellent, the politics not so good: the volumes, as well as the several parts of them, are dedicated to some Royal and many Noble Patrons. Gordon has also turned Sallust into English: the book was published in 1744, in one handsome quarto; "with Political Discourses upon that Author and Translations of Cicero's Four Orations against Cataline." Walpole made Gordon the first commissioner of wine licences. It is handed down, that Gordon was a burly person, "large and corpulent." It is believed, that he found his way into "The Dunciad," and that he is immortalised there among the "Canaille écrivante;" the line
_Where Tindal dictates and Silenus snores_,
is taken to be Pope's description of him. Gordon died in 1750; at the same time as Dr. Middleton, the elegant biographer of Cicero: Lord Bolingbroke is said to have observed, when the news was told him, "Then is the best writer in England gone, and the worst." That Bolingbroke should have disliked Gordon and his politics, does not surprise me; but I cannot understand for what reason he, and other good judges, despised his writings. "The chief glory of every people arises from its authors," Dr. Johnson says; and happy the people, I would assert,