XXXIX.

On Caprea's loftiest cime:

The ruins of Tiberius' chief palace lie on the very topmost height of Capreæ, its earthquake-rent or thunder-splitten peaks stretched far beneath, and their cloven valleys lying between. With a world of beauty beneath him, and among airs fresh as if they came from heaven itself, here the old man retired, disgusted with Rome, with the world, and, worst of all, with himself. With a body prematurely worn out, with a mind vitiated by every excess, what was left him to recruit or to enjoy? Tacitus has hinted, Suetonius has dilated on his provocatives; his palaces of the senses must have been gross indeed, since the hour of his decease was that of their destruction. He could not have enjoyed life here; he must either have laughed at human nature, as a good jest, or despised it; he found ample causes round him to do both; and that he did so, we know. A tragedy, a fine one, but whose author should be Shakspeare only, might be written, unfolding the grey tyrant's most secret feelings of satiety, of disgust, of weariness, of baffled ambition, and of despair, which vented its spleen in the most revolting cruelties; combined also with that horror of death, that superstitious searching into futurity, which is ever the index of such a life.

A cloud of locusts were among the ruins whilst I was there. Tiberius' palaces of the senses have

Left not a wrack behind.

but his name is perpetuated in Capreæ; villany is "damned to everlasting fame," and so should it ever be, for surely his name, or that of any other monster, impresses the moral on the mind fully as much as those of Cato or Brutus.

Every short description of Tacitus is a miniature picture; and his annals are an historical picture gallery; history, in his hands, is philosophy teaching by examples. Tacitus may be justly called the anatomist of the heart, and, so long as the best "study of mankind is man," his works will be a school for political and moral knowledge. I have carefully selected the following extracts from him, which more immediately illustrate the text; I felt that I could not be diffuse with Tacitus.

Sick of everything on the continent, Tiberius passed over to Capreæ; defended there from all intrusion, he sequestered himself in the solitude of the place, seeing, it may be imagined, many objects suited to his humour*. . . He chose for his residences twelve different villas, all magnificent and well fortified. Wearied of public affairs, he now resigned himself to his favourite gratifications, amidst his solitary views, still engendering mischief. The habit of nourishing dark suspicions, and believing every whisper, still adhered to him.

The inaccessible rocks of Capreæ," says Suetonius, "suited the gloomy and vicious habits of Tiberius: Præcipuè delectatus insula, . . . undique præruptis immensæ altitudinis rupibus et profundo maris."

XL.

inaccessible

To human sympathies.

To see those whom he hated in his heart stretched on the torture of the mind, invoking death, yet compelled to linger in slow consuming pain, was the delight of that implacable, that obdurate mind; he thus made his mercy his severest vengeance. On one occasion it pleased him to review all his prisoners. One of them, harassed out with pain, petitioned for a speedy execution. "No," said Tiberius, " I

"have not yet made up my quarrel with you."

XLI.

He clung to power as his minister :

went from the "Devoted men

Bending under the weight of years, and still a slave to his desires, he was anxious to preserve his power to the last. With his usual policy, in appearance resigned to indolence, he made use of his vices to cover his secret purposes. We are informed that Tiberius, often as he Senate-house, was wont to say in Greek ;-how they rush headlong into bondage!" enemy of freedom, was disgusted with adulation; he played the tyrant, but despised the voluntary slave. A black and shameful period," continues Tacitus, "lies before me. The

Even he, the

age was sunk to the lowest depths of sordid adulation; in"somuch, that not only the most illustrious citizens, but

"men of consular and prætorian rank, emulated which should "be the most obsequious.”*

XLII.

He, the inscrutable, arrayed with power:

A profound master of dissimulation, Tiberius had from Nature, or from the force of habit, the art of being dark and unintelligible. Even on occasions when duplicity was useless, he spoke in short and broken hints; the sense suspended, mysterious, and indecisive. The fate of Sejanus, (continues Tacitus) filled him with emotions of joy too strong to be concealed; but, in all other matters, nothing could lay open the secret workings of that involved and gloomy spirit. He was never at any time more abstruse, dark, and unintelligible. He refused to see the Senate; he rejected the honours decreed to him; and even Regulus, who had so faithfully served him, was not admitted to his presence: hating the commerce of mankind, he retired, with a sullen spirit, to one of his Palaces, called "the Villa of Jupiter," and there continued, ruminating in solitude for months together.

* Ma lorsque le peuple n'eut plus rien à donner, et que le prince,au nom du Senat, disposa de tous les emplois, on les demanda, et on les obtint, par des voies indignes; la flatterie, l'infamie, les crimes, furent des arts nécessaires pour y parvenir. MONTESQUIEU.

In his decay of nature, he abated nothing from his usual gratifications; dissembling to the last, he endured every encroachment on his constitution with composure. Patience, he thought, would pass for vigour: to ridicule physic, and to jest at those who, after thirty, knew not their constitutions, had long been the bent of his humour.

But his cruelties increased with his years. To see those "whom he hated in his heart," continues Tacitus, "stretched on the torture of the mind, invoking death, yet forced to linger on in slow agonies, was the delight of that implaca"ble, that obdurate mind; he thus made his mercy, his "severest vengeance."

Why the Roman tyrants were always more or less regretted by the lower mass of the people is made manifest by Montesquieu:-"A cause de leur folie même; car ils "aimoient avec fureur ce que le peuple aimoit, et contri"buoient de tout leur pouvoir et même de leur personne à "ses plaisirs; ils prodiguoient pour lui toutes les richesses "de l'empire; et quand elles étoient épuisees, le peuple

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voyant sans peine dépouiller toutes les grandes familles, "jouissoit purement, car il trouvoit sa sûreté dans sa "bassesse."

"He was of a fair complexion," says Suetonius," and "had his hair so long behind, that it covered his neck, which