It is generally admitted, though without direct testimony, that Tacitus died not without issue. That excellent prince, M. Claudius Tacitus, deduced his pedigree from the historian, and ordered his image to be set up, and a complete collection of his works to be placed in the public archives, with a special direction that twelve copies should be made every year at the public expense. It is greatly to be regretted that such praiseworthy precautions should have failed to preserve for us that treasure entire! The age of Tacitus is usually styled the silver age of Roman Literature; and it merits no higher title, when compared with the golden age of Augustus. It was the good fortune of Augustus to gain the supremacy at Rome, when society had reached its maximum of refinement, and was just ready to enter upon its stage of corruption and decline. Hence his name is identified with that proud era in literature, in producing which he bore at best only an accidental and secondary part. In the literature of the Augustan age, we admire the substance of learning and philosophy without the show, the cultivation of taste without the parade of criticism, the fascination of poetry without its corruption, and the use of eloquence without its abuse. Grecian refinement was no longer despised; Grecian effeminacy had not yet prevailed. The camp was not now the home of the Romans; neither were the theatres and the schools. They had ceased to be a nation of soldiers, and had not yet become a nation of slaves. At no other period could Rome have had her Cicero, her Livy, and her Virgil.