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tation, but we have no room for them. The private library of the Emperor of Austria is particularly described, and as for the public or imperial library, it must be the Palace of Armida fitted up bibliographically! The earliest sacred text extant, in Mr Dibdin's opinion, which is a fragment of the book of Genesis, is viewed and described with feelings approaching to rapture! The copperplate engravings, by way of fac-similes, are full of interest. After visiting the monas tery of Closterneuburg, about eight miles beyond Vienna, and where Mr Dibdin was tempted to offer, but in vain, 2000 florins for about a dozen old books, from the library of the same monastery, our author turned back with his heart and hopes set upon Old England! Yet does he continue to give us a very interesting account of Ratisbon, Nuremberg, and Manheim, in his route homewards, adorned with some of the most beautiful engravings in the work. The Albert Durer Street, and the unknown portrait, the interior of two churches at Nuremberg, and the specimens from lein's drawings and copperplates, (which latter, we think, might have been well spared,) make the concluding part of Mr Dibdin's tour as brilliant a sunset as the commencement, or morning part of it, is allowed to have been cloudless.'

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We had got thus far when we received the additional plates, not completed at the time of publication. Mr Dibdin really seems to have no mercy upon his own purse, which we hope is more capacious than that of the generality of publishing travellers. Öf these plates, the vignette group of women at prayers, the Hotel de Ville at Stuttgart, and the Halt of Pilgrims to Göttwic Monastery, are perfectly exquisite. Whatever the author may have done for himself, whether on the score of fortune or of fame, he has been a kind and liberal benefactor to the brethren of the BURNA. Only a word or two more, and we have done. Justice demands the mention of failings and errors, as well as of excellences. We admit, on a revision of our labours, that they are of a friendly complexion, because, we think, a love of honesty and of PATRIOTIC feeling mingles itself in the exercise of our functions, as just critics. Here is a gentleman, and a clergyman, of re

putation and character, embarking in the hazardous experiment of a long and fatiguing journey, to the chief capitals of France and Germany, for the sake of making his countrymen acquainted with the "bibliographical, antiquarian, and picturesque" treasures in each. He carries with him an artist, not of widely extended fame, but an experimentalist, yet an able, diligent, and, in the end, surprisingly successful artist. He spares no expence entertains him sometimes, it should seem, en prince and they move on, lovingly and profitably together. He is afterwards paid for his labours, both abroad and at home, and thus this arduous and elaborate performance comes before the public, to excite its notice, and to claim its protection. Throughout the whole text, there is nothing which militates against the canons of good taste and good principles. The author is always casting a fond and "lingering look behind," upon the white cliffs of his own country-and the moon, which shines brightly over his head at Vienna, is doubly brilliant and beautiful, from the reflection that his family and friends, at home, may be gazing on it at the same time! Wherever he goes, the milk of good humour is still flowing in his veins. He has no fierce national antipathies to indulge; but, with the steadiest attachment to the laws and religion of his own country, he mingles with his fellow creatures, as being, equally with himself," animated and upheld by one and the SAME POWER, and hoping that ALL may be benefited by a reliance upon its goodness and bounty." Vol. I. 184.

On the score of absolute information, chiefly for books, and in a great measure for architecture, these volumes cannot fail to be referred to by the future antiquary and collector.

The work might have been, doubtless, much compressed. Many traits of character (although interesting in themselves) might have been omitted, many exclamations, and many eulogies spared; though we should have lost the raciness, as it were, of the performance. The style, too, is not to be imitated; by this we do not mean that it is inimitable, yet it becomes Mr Dibdin. It is his own, quite original, and generally lively; and we should be sorry to see him appear in a different dress. Many notes

(that amiable failing of a bibliographical mind!) might have been pruned down to more readable dimensions, and the fervour of individual panegy rics frequently abated. The engravings likewise may be thought to intrude too much upon the reader's attention. But here comes the recollection of that perverse determination (no doubt carried into effect ere now) of DESTROYING these plates, and the equally perverse one of never republishing the text! We suppose, however, that all this is done with a thorough knowledge of its beneficial results in past instances. And thus, borrowing the quaint phraseology so frequently adopted by our author, "take we our hearty farewell of" the Reverend THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN!

ON THE CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF TACITUS.

THE fragments that have happily come down to us of the writings of Tacitus, must ever remain unrivalled as historical compositions. Not only do they display an accuracy of research and an exercise of sound judgment unknown to ancient historians, but they bear in every line proofs of a degree of acquaintance with the subjeet, and of an extent of labour in finishing the composition, which no modern historian has approached. This proud pre-eminence may be partly ascribed to his choice of a period fresh in men's recollection, but much more to the singular character of the writer. Mr Gibbon's digression to celebrate his favourite model is highly interesting: "Before he gave himself to the public, he calmly waited till his genius had attained its full maturity, and he was more than forty years of age, when a grateful regard for the memory of the virtuous Agricola, extorted from him the most early of those historical compositions which will delight and instruct the most distant posterity. After making a trial of his strength in the life of Agricola, and the description of Germany, he conceived and at length executed a more arduous work; the History of Rome, in thirty books, from the fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva. The administration of Nerva introduced an age of justice and prosperity, which Tacitus had

destined for the occupation of his old age; but when he took a nearer view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that it was a more honourable, or a less invidious office, to record the vices of past tyrants, than to celebrate the virtues of a reigning monarch, he chose rather to relate, under the form of Annals, the actions of the four immediate successors of Augustus. To collect, to dispose, and to adorn a series of fourscore years, in an immortal work, every sentence of which is pregnant with the deepest observations and the most lively images, was an undertaking sufficient to exercise the genius of Tacitus himself during the greatest part of his life."

Tacitus was probably born in the reign of Claudius, which terminated in October of the year 54, for about the year 76 he married the daughter of Agricola. The affectionate account of Agricola's life was his first publication, but it is manifest, from the inimitable introduction to that elegant piece of biography, that he was, at the time of publication, engaged in writing his history. The introduction we may suppose to have been the last part of each work which he finished; hence the introduction to the life of Agricola makes mention of Nerva as Cæsar, while the introduction to the history alludes to him as no longer mortal. Tacitus must therefore have published his life of Agricola after the adoption of Trajan and before the death of Nerva, as a relief from the greater work in which he was at the same time engaged. The elaborate essay on the boundaries, manners, and tribes, of the Germans, ought probably to be dated after the publication of the history, and before the composition of the Annals. He says in that work: "We have seen Velleda long regarded by the Germans in the reign of Vespasian, with divine reverence. This fact Tacitus has recorded in the very commencement of Vespasian's reign, we may therefore more naturally apply the allusion to his history of the fact, than to the fact itself. In another part of the essay, Tacitus mentions the second consulship of the Emperor Trajan. This only proves that it was published in the reign of Trajan. The Annals were evidently his last work. Tacitus was upwards of 63

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years of age when Hadrian obtained the empire, and it is not unlikely that he lived during the greater part of that emperor's reign.

The felicity of the circumstances in which Tacitus wrote is singularly striking. From the death of Augustus, to the accession of Nerva, a period of about eighty-two years, the only respiration from capricious and turbulent tyranny was during the twelve years in which Vespasian and his son Titus reigned; and Vespa sian's reign is stained with the execution of Helvidius Priscus, the pride and glory of the enthralled empire, and a senator who had been respected even by the swinish Vitellius. From the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus, a period of 84 years, "the vast extent of the Roman empire," as Mr Gibbon has elegantly and extravagantly expressed it, was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom." Tacitus was born in the middle of the former period, and composed all his writings in the latter period. He heard his father and his father's friends relate their experience or their observation of the remorseless hypocrisy of Tiberius, of the capricious fury of Caligula, and of the unfeeling sottishness of Claudius; he was himself capable of remarking the character of the last years of Nero's reign, the eventful course of his three short-lived successors, and the progress of Vespasian to tranquillize the empire; he advanced through various gradations of public offices in the successive reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Accurately and feel ingly did he mark the dark principles of tyranny, and the various motives of its patient subjects, during the fifteen years that Domitian exercised a savage and timid temper. The instant he had emerged from this terrific oppression, he began to write its history. The full contrast of the period in which he now breathed, and its clear assurance of settled tranquillity, gave him unlimited freedom of narration and animadversion. Had Tacitus been born at an earlier period, the extension of tyranny, coeval with his life, would have prevented or destroyed his writings; had he been born at a later period, he would have had no personal experience to give truth and spirit to his delineations.

But not so striking was the seasonableness of the time, as was the fitness of the genius of Tacitus. Penetrating and philosophical in his observations and researches, he discovered the hidden springs of human conduct, and traced the operations of conflicting passions. Catching the expressive features of character and the decisive incidents of narrative, with the inspired felicity of poetry, he described them with the unvarnished fidelity of history. His style corresponds to his severity of discrimination and accuracy of description. Every sentence, every word, is fully tasked, and fully performs its task. When you read Tacitus you listen not to tedious tales and winding explanations, but you fix your eye on a panoramic picture. Foolish and mischievous have been the dreams respecting the various styles in which history may be written. There is but one finished style, and that is a style in which every word is full of meaning, and not one word redundant. This style requires great labour, and great labour directed by genius, infallibly finds and adopts it. The style of Tacitus has all the gra phic impressiveness of Hume, and all the studied selection of Gibbon; it never relaxes into the familiar negligence of the former, and never reels in the fantastical gait of the latter. Robertson will give the English reader the best illustration of Tacitus, yet even he falls far short of the fresh reality which satisfies you, that you are awake, and conversant with actual life.

Let the attention be for a moment fixed upon the destiny of this philoso phical phoenix. A nation that exhibited the powers and the virtues of the human mind in their proudest view, having subjected the world to their dominion, were themselves overpowered, and ruled, by a succession of profligate tyrants. They next experienced the authority of several successive despots, who felt the impulse of humanity, and respected the principles of justice. Then arose the frightful storms, which made shipwreck of the Roman Empire, and spread darkness and desolation from one end of the world to the other. At this day, after the lapse of sixteen centuries, are men employed in collecting the detached fragments of the mighty mass. During the profound calm which had

preceded this storm, did the most accomplished writer record the history of the mightiest nation under the infliction of the worst despotism. He had been personally acquainted with the unequalled evils of imperial tyran ny, and he drew a faithful picture of them; he rejoiced in the respite given to mankind under a milder denomina tion, but with the prophetic wisdom of enlightened experience he foresaw the fearful tendency to inevitable ruin. The plaintive grandeur of Ta citus fills the mind with melancholy commiseration for our unhappy race; his involuntary lamentations for lost liberty inspire a holy ardour in the noblest cause that interests society; his electric glances at the horrors of oppression overwhelm our rising execrations with wonder and despair. The writings of Tacitus, when entire, and universally intelligible, were unavailing. Men rushed precipitately into the depths of servile misery, and superstitious horrors. Yet the ten dency of writings has been called a crime. The writings of Tacitus, Ti berius or Domitian would have de stroyed, as fatal to the stability of the empire. But they interrupted not the security of Commodus or of Caracalla. Let political enthusiasts know, that they may ruin themselves, but cannot benefit society. Even Brutus fought, even Tacitus wrote, without checking the downward course of mankind. But Tacitus was no enthusiast. He wrote with equal feel ing and fidelity, and his writings will continue to delight and improve, while reason and truth hold their sway among men.

That the works of Tacitus have not been preserved entire, is the great est loss which the ages of darkness have entailed on the world. Of sixteen books of Annals, embracing fiftyfour years of unrelieved tyranny, four are wholly lost, and three are mutilated. We have no account of Cali gula's reign, and we want six years of the reign of his successor, Claudius. The fall of Sejanus, and the death of Nero, we miss. But still more grie vous is the loss sustained from the mutilations of his finished history. Of a period of twenty-eight years, we have only the history of three years,

and never did the tide of narrative flow so rich, so natural, and so majestic. The civil conflicts of Galba and

Otho, of Vitellius and Vespasian, are described in a style that must ever increase admiration, and deter compe tition. Who can recollect without anguish, that all the events which marked the reigns of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian, were, in like manner, painted by the same masterly artist, and that there is not a trace remaining? The life of Agricola, an inimitable model of dignified and modest, yet deeply interesting biography, supplies part of the historical loss. Its entire preservation con tributes greatly to enhance its interest. We visit ruins with eager curiosity; we delight to dwell on unimpaired mansions.

(To be continued.)

ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF
HENRY AINSWORTH.

HENRY AINSWORTH was a Separat ist from the Church of England, about the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, and belonged to that sect of Christians known in church history by the name of Brownists, though they themselves seem to have disavowed that appellation. They differed chiefly from other sects about church government, and professed to be Congrega tionalists, or what, in process of time, were called Independents, because, according to them, every church or congregation was independent of the interference or control of another in the management of its affairs. They were extremely averse to the for malities of the Church of England, attempting on every occasion to ridicule and condemn them, and would have been equally hostile to the Presbyterian Church, if they had sprung up in a country where it was established by law.

But while they rejected all ceremonies in the government of the church, they were ardent in the study of scrip ture. Their theology chiefly consisted in illustrating one passage of scripture by another, and in expressing their ideas in scripture language. Whoever excelled in this respect was reckoned "mighty in the scriptures," and qualified to teach others. To that office he was raised by the voice of the society, and laid it down at their

Ainsworth's Arrow against Idolatry. Edin. ed. p. 271.

pleasure. This was all the ordination among them. It is apparent that none could discharge the duties of this office well, without attending to the Hebrew text. Henry Jacob, who is said to have founded the first Independent congregation in England about the year 1616, was skilled in Hebrew; but none excelled Henry Ainsworth, concerning whose merits in this kind of literature we propose to make a few remarks.

Of this man's personal history very little is known. Where and of whom he was born; what kind of education he received, and to what profession he was destined; how he conducted himself in life, or bore the troubles of his situation,-none has thought proper to record.

While Whitgift and Bancroft filled the See of Canterbury, liberty of conscience was destroyed, and no sect whatever tolerated by Government except the Church of England. Ainsworth, therefore, and those of his sentiments, were forced, through the bigotry of the times, to abandon their native land, and seek an asylum in Holland. Here they suffered much obloquy, and were exposed to great distress. Ainsworth is said to have been under the necessity of acting as porter to a bookseller in the streets of Amsterdam, where he had no more than ninepence a-week and some boiled roots for his support.

Hardships and contempt were the consequence of such poverty. The Dutch Government looked upon the exiles with an unfavourable eye, not only from the bad accounts of them transmitted from England, but also from the hostility of Elizabeth, whom their High Mightinesses were unwilling to offend. Their insignificance alone secured them from persecution. After staying some time at Amsterdam, it is asserted by Hoornbeck,+ and after him by Neal, that Ainsworth sailed to Ireland, and attempted to convert the Irish; but we have been unable to find any other authority for this report, and it does not seem very probable. If ever he went thither, he soon returned, and followed his former occupations.

The same uncertainty hangs over his death. Neal tells a story about

* Orme's Memoirs of Dr Owen, p. 69. + Summa Controversiarum, p. 740.

his being poisoned by a Jew, who had lost a jewel which Ainsworth found. All the reward which Ainsworth would accept was a conference with some of the Rabbis about the grounds of their faith. The Jew promised, but could not perform; and the murder of Ainsworth was the only expedient which he could devise to free himself from the obligation. For this story there is little foundation, and we are rather inclined to believe what we are told by the author of a preface to one of his posthu mous works, called a " Censure on an Anabaptist," &c. and who seems to have been well acquainted with him. This person mentions that he was recently dead, and that he was advanced in age and infirmities when that event happened, which was about the end of the year 1622 or the beginning of 1623.

In such obscurity is the name of Ainsworth involved-one of the best scholars of his age, and whose progress in oriental literature would have been very great indeed, had it been his sole study. As it was, he had acquired uncommon skill in Syriac and Chaldee, but especially in Biblical and Rabbinical Hebrew. Whether he was indebted to any Jew of those times for assistance in this study, we know not, but we are certain that it was then the custom of the learned to receive lessons in Hebrew from Jews. was attracted to the study of the Hebrew scriptures from being teacher of the English Exiled Church at Amsterdam, while one Francis Johnson was the pastor. In what respects these offices differed, is not very obvious. Perhaps Ainsworth expounded the scriptures, while Johnson conducted the devotions of the congregation, and urged the people under his charge to the performance of religious and moral duties.

He

While acting in this capacity, he began his labours on the Hebrew scriptures. He translated the Pentateuch, Psalms, and Song of Solomon, and wrote commentaries upon them. The Psalms and Song of Solomon were first printed in 1612, Genesis in 1616, Exodus in 1617, Leviticus 1618, and Numbers and Deuteronomy 1619. The whole were reprinted and collected into one volume folio, London, 1627, and again in 1639, which edition is said to be scarce. By these works

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