The Reign of Tiberius | Page 8

terminated by Domitian; who were
respectively "the most stupid, the most dissolute, and the most timid of
all the Emperors." It was in the British wars, that Vespasian began his
great career, "monstratus fatis"; but the island was not really added to
the Empire, until Agricola subdued it for Domitian. "The Life of
Agricola" is of general interest, because it preserves the memory of a
good and noble Roman: to us, it is of special interest, because it records
the state of Britain when it was a dependency of the Caesars; "adjectis
Britannis imperio." Our present fashions in history will not allow us to
think, that we have much in common with those natives, whom Tacitus
describes: but fashions change, in history as in other things; and in a
wiser time we may come to know, and be proud to acknowledge, that
we have derived a part of our origin, and perhaps our fairest
accomplishments, from the Celtic Britons. The narrative of Tacitus
requires no explanation; and I will only bring to the memory of my
readers, Cowper's good poem on Boadicea. We have been dwelling
upon the glories of the Roman Empire: it may be pardonable in us, and

it is not unpleasing, to turn for a moment, I will not say to "the too vast
orb" of our fate, but rather to that Empire which is more extensive than
the Roman; and destined to be, I hope, more enduring, more united, and
more prosperous. Horace will hardly speak of the Britons, as humane
beings, and he was right; in his time, they were not a portion of the
Roman World, they had no part in the benefits of the Roman
government: he talks of them, as beyond the confines of civility, "in
ultimos orbis Britannos;" as cut off by "the estranging sea," and there
jubilant in their native practices, "Visum Britannos hospitibus feros."
But Cowper says, no less truly, of a despised and rebel Queen;
_Regions Caesar never knew, Thy posterity shall sway; Where his
Eagles never flew, None invincible as they._
The last battles of Agricola were fought in Scotland; and, in the pages
of Tacitus, he achieved a splendid victory among the Grampian hills.
Gibbon remarks, however, "The native Caledonians preserved in the
northern extremity of the island their wild independence, for which
they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their valour. Their
incursions were frequently repelled and chastised; but their country was
never subdued. The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of
the globe turned with contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the
winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and
lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop
of naked barbarians." The Scotch themselves are never tired of
asserting, and of celebrating, their "independence"; Scotland imposed a
limit to the victories of the Roman People, Scaliger says in his
compliments to Buchanan:
_Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia lines._
But it may be questioned, whether it were an unmixed blessing, to be
excluded from the Empire; and to offer a sullen resistance to its
inestimable gifts of humane life, of manners, and of civility.
To these things, the Germans also have manifested a strong dislike; and
they are more censurable than the Scotch, because all their knowledge
of the Romans was not derived from the intercourse of war. "The
Germany" of Tacitus is a document, that has been much discussed; and
these discussions may be numbered among the most flagrant examples
of literary intemperance: but this will not surprise us, when we allow
for the structure of mind, the language, and the usual productions of

those, to whom the treatise is naturally of the greatest importance. In
the description of the Germans, Tacitus goes out of his way to laugh at
the "licentia vetustatis," "the debauches of pedants and antiquarians;" as
though he suspected the fortunes of his volume, and the future
distinctions of the Teutonic genius. For sane readers, it will be enough
to remark, that the Germany of Tacitus was limited, upon the west, by
the natural and proper boundary of the Rhine; that it embraced a
portion of the Low Countries; and that, although he says it was
confined within the Danube, yet the separation is not clear between the
true Germans and those obscurer tribes, whose descendants furnish a
long enumeration of titles to the present melancholy sovereign of the
House of Austria. Gibbon remarks, with his usual sense, "In their
primitive state of simplicity and independence, the Germans were
surveyed by the discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil
of Tacitus, the first historian who supplied the science of philosophy to
the study of facts. The expressive conciseness of his descriptions has
deserved to exercise the