rest and admiration indescribable. I am slowly, at odd minutes,
getting through the stupid trash of Diodorus. I have read through
Seneca, and an affected empty scribbler he is. I have read Tacitus
again, and, by the bye, I will tell you a curious circumstance relating
to that matter. In my younger days I always thought the Annals a
prodigiously superior work to the History. I was surprised to find that
the Annals seemed cold and poor to me on the last reading. I began to
think that I had overrated Tacitus. But, when I began the History, I was
enchanted, and thought more highly of him than ever. I went back to the
Annals, and liked them even better than the History. All at once the
explanation of this occurred to me. While I was reading the Annals I
was reading Thucydides. When I began the History, I began the Hellenics.
What made the Annals appear cold and poor to me was the intense interest
which Thucydides inspired. Indeed, what colouring is there which would
not look tame when placed side by side with the magnificent light, and
the terrible shade, of Thucydides? Tacitus was a great man, but he was
not up to the Sicilian expedition. When I finished Thucydides, and
took up Xenophon, the case was reversed. Tacitus had been a foil to
Thucydides. Xenophon was a foil to Tacitus.

I have read Pliny the Younger. Some of the Epistles are interesting.
Nothing more stupid than the Panegyric was ever preached in the
University church. I am reading the Augustan History, and Aulus Gellius.
Aulus is a favourite of mine. I think him one of the best writers of his
class.

I read in the evenings a great deal of English, French, and Italian;
and a little Spanish. I have picked up Portuguese enough to read Camoens
with care; and I want no more. I have adopted an opinion about the
Italian historians quite different from that which I formerly held, and
which, I believe, is generally considered as orthodox. I place Fra Paolo
decidedly at the head of them, and next to him Davila, whom I take to
be the best modern military historian except Colonel Napier. Davila's
battle of Ivry is worthy of Thucydides himself. Next to Davila I put
Guicciardini, and last of all Machiavelli. But I do not think that you
ever read much Italian.

The English poetry of the day has very few attractions for me. Van
Artevelde is far the best specimen that I have lately seen. I do not
much like Talfourd's Ion; but I mean to read it again. It contains
pretty lines;