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Rh duces upon his canvas something of his own nature, it is also true that every great historical writer infuses into his narrative something of his own feelings. It cannot escape any attentive reader of the 'Annals,' in which the writer's proclivities are far more patent than in the 'History,' that he was an aristocrat, in the sense that the proud Appian, Fabian, and Claudian houses were of old. Although firmly convinced that the vast body of the empire could be effectively governed by one hand alone, he accepted a Cæsar as a necessity of the time. But to be resigned to a system of rule is one thing; to regard it with an eye of favour is another. Many who loved Cromwell little, served him well. It was no small recommendation of Trajan to Tacitus that, departing from the solemn injunction of Augustus not to extend the borders of the empire, he added to it provinces north of the Theiss and east of the Euphrates. At last there was a Cæsar treading in the steps of the Scipios and Paulus Æmilius. And yet, notwithstanding his military virtues and the temperate character of his civil administration, if was not Trajan, but the consuls and senate of the past who had the historian's real allegiance. His contempt for the nobles among whom he sat in the great council-chamber at Rome only increased his admiration for the Conscript Fathers whom the Epirot envoy likened to a conclave of gods; and who bated not a "jot of hope or heart" when Pyrrhus was within a few miles of Rome or Hannibal at her gates. The mongrel populace of the capital, with its greed for bread and the games, he contrasted with the people that once supplied the pith of the legions, and who, although often turbulent and factious, were proud of