It is of no consequence that on other occasions Tacitus may have delisted some what from the strict line which he thus lays down for himself—that he may have for a moment dropped the annalist and assumed the historian. If it should even be contended that his narrative does not in general exhibit a more slavish submis sion to the mere succession of years than others that have been dignified with the name of historians, that is still of no con sequence. He may have satisfied himself with the more humble name of an an nalist, when he had a right to the prouder one of an historian ; or the other works referred to may be wrongly designated histories. It may be, for instance, that he himself is as much an historian in what are called his Annals' as he is in what is called his ' History.' In iii. 65, of his Annals,' Tulles tells us that it formed no part of the plan of his 'Annals' to give at full length the sentiments and opinions of individuals, except they were signally characterized either by some honourable or disgraceful traits. In chap. 22 of the treatise on Oratory, attributed to Tacitus, the author expresses his opinion of the general cha meter of the style of ancient annals ; and (Annul. xiii. 31) he carefully marks the distinction between events fit to be incor porated into annals and those which were only adapted to the Acta Diurna. [Aar.] The distinction we have stated between history-writing and annal-writing seems to be the one that has been commonly adopted. An account of events digested into so many successive years is usually entitled, not a history, but annals. The ' Ecclesiastical Annals' of Baronius, and the ' Annals of Scotland,' by Sir David Dalrymple (Lord Hanes), are well-known examples. In such works so completely is the succession of years considered to be the governing principle of the nar rative, that this succession is sometimes preserved unbroken even when the events themselves would not have required that it should, the year being formally enu merated although there is nothing to be told under it The year is at least always stated with equal formality whether there be many events or hardly any to be re lated as having happened in it In this respect annals differ from a catalogue of events with their dates, as, for instance, the Perim Chronicle.' The object of
the latter is to intimate in what year cer tain events happened ; of the former, what events happened in each year. The his tory of the Peloponnesian war, by Thucy dides, has the character of annals. The events are arranged distinctly under each year, which is further divided into sum mers and winters. All political reflections are, for the most part, placed in the months of the various leaders on each side.
In the Rheinisches Museum fiir Phi lologie,' &c. ii. Jahrg. 2 heft. pp. 293, &c., there is a disquisition, by Niebuhr, on the distinction between History and Annals, in which he limits the latter nearly as has been done above. There is a translation of it in the sixth number (for May, 1833\ of the Cambridge Phi. lological Museum.' It scarcely need be noticed that the term annals is popularly used in a very loose sense for a record of events in what ever form it may be written—as when Gray speaks of . The short and simple annals of the poor." In the Romish church a mass said for any person every day during a whole year was anciently called an anal ; and some times the same word was applied to a mass said on a particular day of every year. (Du Cange, Glossarium ad Scrip tores Media et buivie Latinitatis.)