"My readers must not therefore be surprised by my practised style: it is indeed Claudius himself who is writing this book, and no mere secretary of his, and not one of those official annalists either, to whom public men are in the habit of communicating their recollections, in the hope that elegant writing will eke out meagreness of subject-matter and flattery soften vices. In the present work, I swear by all the Gods, I am my own mere secretary, and my own official annalist: I am writing with my own hand, and what favour can I hope to win from myself by flattery?" Chapter 1, p. 4

"Ten years, fifty days, and three,

"Clau-Clau-Clau-shall given be

"A gift that all desire but he.

"To a fawning fellowship

"He shall stammer, cluck and trip

"Dribbling always with his lip.

"But when he's dumb and no more here,

"Nineteen hundred years or...