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194 It is well observed by that, "of all political characters,  is the most sublime and purely tragic with which history is acquainted. When still stirred by the vehement force of his language—when reading his life in —when transferring ourselves into his times and situation—we are carried away by a deeper interest than is excited by any hero in epic or tragic poem. What a crowd of emotions must have struggled through his breast amid the interchange of hope and despair for Athenian freedom! How natural was it that the lines of melancholy and of indignation, such as we yet behold in his bust, should have been imprinted on his severe countenance!"

We have no authentic bust of Tacitus. Yet it is not difficult to imagine him to have been, like the great Athenian orator, a man on whose features alternate hope and despair had traced deep lines. Knowing so little of his life, we cannot pronounce him austere. Yet it is evident from the 'Agricola' alone that he was not sanguine in expectation, while there can be no doubt, from the general tenor of his works, that he was sarcastic—a man of whom it might fairly be said,—