s apply to the
conclusions of his judgments, which he follows according to the bias he
has taken, very often beyond the matter he presents us withal, which he
has not deigned to alter in the least degree. He needs no excuse for
having approved the religion of his time, according as the laws enjoined,
and to have been ignorant of the true; this was his misfortune, not his
fault.

I have principally considered his judgment, and am not very well
satisfied therewith throughout; as these words in the letter that
Tiberius, old and sick, sent to the senate. "What shall I write to you,
sirs, or how should I write to you, or what should I not write to you at
this time? May the gods and goddesses lay a worse punishment upon me
than I am every day tormented with, if I know!" I do not see why he
should so positively apply them to a sharp remorse that tormented the
conscience of Tiberius; at least, when I was in the same condition, I
perceived no such thing.

And this also seemed to me a little mean in him that, having to say that
he had borne an honourable office in Rome, he excuses himself that he
does not say it out of ostentation; this seems, I say, mean for such a
soul as his; for not to speak roundly of a man's self implies some want
of courage; a man of solid and lofty judgment, who judges soundly and
surely, makes use of his own example upon all occasions, as well as those
of others; and gives evidence as freely of himself as of a third person.
We are to pass by these common rules of civility, in favour of truth and
liberty. I dare not only speak of myself, but to speak only of myself:
when I write of anything else, I miss my way and wander from my subject.
I am not so indiscreetly enamoured of myself, so wholly mixed up with,
and bound to myself, that I cannot distinguish and consider myself apart,
as I do a neighbour or a tree: 'tis equally a fault not to discern how
far a man's worth extends, and to say more than a man discovers in
himself. We owe more love to God than to ourselves, and know Him less;
and yet speak of Him as much as we will.

If the writings of Tacitus indicate anything true of his qualities, he
was a great personage, upright and bold, not of a superstitious but of a
philosophical and generous virtue. One may think him bold in his
relations; as where he tells us, that a soldier carrying a burden of
wood, his hands were so frozen and so stuck to the load that they there
remained closed and dead, b