" THE .ANNALS OF TACITUS."
[TO THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR:']
SIR,—It is commonly better to accept criticism in silence, even when one cannot acquiesce in it. But one of the animadversions of your reviewer is so unjust, that it is difficult to submit to it. He is perfectly at liberty to hold, with Ritter, in the matter of the death of Julia, that " longinquitate exsilii" means "the distance of her place of exile," but he is not at liberty to blame us for following, with Orelli, the more reasonable interpretation of "the length of her exile." I say ' more reasonable,' because a place of exile (exile commonly meaning banishment from Italy) could not be less distant than Rhegium ; while, on the other hand, the time of Julia's exile had then extended to fourteen years. It is true that Tacitus twice uses longinquitas in the " Agricola "for distance of space, but he also uses longinqua (with apes) for length of time. ,(" Annales," xiii., 37.)—I am, Sir, &c., King Edward's School, East Retford. ALFRED CHURCH.
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