From a passage in "The Life of Agricola," we may believe that Tacitus attended in the Senate; for he accuses himself as one of that frightened assembly, which was an unwilling participator in the cruelties of Domitian. In the year 97, when the Consul Virginius Rufus died, Tacitus' was made _Consul Suffectus_; and he delivered the funeral oration of his predecessor: Pliny says, that "it completed the good fortune of Rufus, to have his panegyric spoken by so eloquent a man." From this, and from other sayings, we learn that Tacitus was a famous advocate; and his "Dialogue about Illustrious Orators" bears witness to his admirable taste, and to his practical knowledge of Roman eloquence: of his own orations, however, not a single fragment has been left. We know not, whether Tacitus had children; but the Emperor Tacitus, who reigned in 275, traced his genealogy to the Historian. "If we can prefer personal merit to accidental greatness," Gibbon here observes, "we shall esteem the birth of Tacitus more truly noble than that of Kings. He claimed his descent from the philosophic historian, whose writings will instruct the last generations of mankind. From the assiduous study of his immortal ancestor, he derived his knowledge of the Roman Constitution and of human nature." This Emperor gave orders, that the writings of Tacitus should be placed in all the public libraries; and that ten copies should be taken annually, at the public charge. Notwithstanding the Imperial anxiety, a valuable part of Tacitus is lost: indeed we might argue, from the solicitude of the Emperor, as well as from his own "distinction," that Tacitus could not be generally popular; and, in the sixteenth century, a great portion of him was reduced to the single manuscript, which lay hidden within a German monastery. Of his literary works, five remain; some fairly complete, the rest in fragments. Complete, are "The Life of Julius Agricola," "The Dialogue on Orators," and "The Account of Germany": these are, unfortunately, the minor works of Tacitus. His larger works are "The History," and "The Annals." "The History" extended from the second Consulship of Galba, in the year 69, to the murder of Domitian, in the year 96; and Tacitus desired to write the happy times of Nerva, and of Trajan: we are ignorant, whether infirmity or death prevented his design. Of "The History," only four books have been preserved; and they contain the events of a single year: a year, it is true, which, saw three civil wars, and four Emperors destroyed; a year of crime, and accidents, and prodigies: there are few sentences more powerful, than Tacitus' enumeration of these calamities, in the opening chapters. The fifth book is imperfect; it is of more than common interest to some people, because Tacitus mentions the siege of Jerusalem by Titus; though what he says about the Chosen People, here and elsewhere, cannot be satisfactory to them nor gratifying to their admirers.