the lessons which Cicero enforced. After all the severe judgments we are compelled to pass on his conduct, we must acknowledge that there remains a residue of what is amiable in his character and noble in his teaching beyond all ancient example. VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, ii. c. 66. TACITUS, De Oratore, c. 22, 23. CHARACTER OF CINEAS, PHILOSOPHER AND STATESMAN. L IKE Themistocles, he was gifted with an extraordinary memory; the very day after his arrival at Rome, he was able to address all the senators and citizens of the equestrian order by their several proper names. He had studied philosophy, like all his educated countrymen, and appears to have admired particularly the new doctrine of Epicurus; which taught that war and state affairs were but toil and trouble, and that the wise man should imitate the blissful rest of the gods, who dwelling in their own divinity, regarded not the vain turmoil of this lower world. Yet his life was better than his philosophy; he served his king actively and faithfully in peace and in war, and he wrote a military work, for which he neither wanted ability nor practical knowledge. He excited no small attention as he went to Rome, and his sayings at the places through which he passed were remembered and recorded. Some stories said that he was the bearer of presents to the influential senators, and of splendid dresses to win the favour of their wives; all which, as the Roman traditions related, were steadily refused. But his proposals required grave consideration, and there were many in the senate who thought that the state of affairs made it necessary to accept them.—Arnold. PLINY, Hist. Nat. vii. c. 24. CICERO, de Senectute, § 43. S° GROTIUS.-HIS EXCELLENCE AS AN AUTHOR, O great is the uncertainty of posthumous reputation, and so liable is the fame even of the greatest men to be obscured by those new fashions of thinking and writing which succeed each other so rapidly among polished nations, that Grotius, who filled so large a space in the eye of his contemporaries, is now perhaps known to some of my readers only by name. Yet if we fairly estimate both his endowments and his virtues, we may justly consider him as one of the most memorable men who have done honour to modern times. He combined the discharge of the most important duties of active and public life with the attain ment of that exact and various learning which is generally the portion only of the recluse student. He was distinguished as an advocate and a magistrate, and composed the most valuable works on the law of his own country. He was almost equally celebrated as a historian, a scholar, a poet, and a divine. Unmerited exile did not damp his patriotism; the bitterness of controversy did not extinguish his charity. The sagacity of his numerous and fierce adversaries could not discover a blot on his character; and in the midst of all the hard trials and galling provocations of a turbulent political life, he never once deserted his friends when they were unfortunate, nor insulted his enemies when they were weak. Such was the man who was destined to give a new form to the law of nations, or rather to create a science, of which only rude sketches and undigested materials were scattered over the writings of those who had gone before him. CICERO, pro Archia, passim. Acad. Prior. ii. § 1-7. I CONTRAST OF A YOUNG PRINCE AND AN OLD KING. NSTEAD of a monarch, jealous, severe, and avaricious, who, His in proportion as he advanced in years, was sinking still deeper in these unpopular vices, a young prince of eighteen had succeeded to the throne, who even in the eyes of men of sense gave promising hopes of his future conduct, much more in those of the people, always enchanted with novelty, youth, and royal dignity. The beauty and vigour of his person, accompanied with dexterity in every manly exercise, was further adorned with a blooming and ruddy countenance, with a lively air, with the appearance of spirit and activity in all his demeanour. father, in order to remove him from the knowledge of public business, had hitherto occupied him entirely in the pursuits of literature, and the proficiency which he made gave no bad prognostic of his parts and capacity. Even the vices of vehemence, ardour, and impatience, to which he was subject, and which afterwards degenerated into tyranny, were considered only as faults, incident to unguarded youth, which would be corrected when time had brought him to greater moderation and maturity. SUETONIUS, Caligula, c. 3, 4. TACITUS, Hist. iv. c. 86. i. c. 14. LIVY, xxiv. c. 4, 5. THO CLEOPATRA.-HER ACCOMPLISHMENTS. HOUGH her own security had been her first object, and her ambition the second, the inspirer of so many licentious passions was at last enslaved herself. She might disdain the fear of a rival potentate, and defy the indignation of Octavius, but her anxiety about his sister was the instinct of the woman rather than of the queen. She could not forget that a wife's legitimate influence had once detained her lover from her side for more than two whole years; she might still apprehend the awakening of his reason, and his renunciation of an alliance which at times he felt she well knew to be bitterly degrading. To retain her grasp of her admirer, as well as her seat upon the throne of the Ptolemies, she must drown his scruples in voluptuous oblivion, and invent new charms to revive and amuse his jaded passion. Her personal talents were indeed of the most varied kind; she was an admirable singer and musician; she was skilled in many languages, and possessed intellectual accomplishments rarely found among the staidest of her sex, combined with the archness and humour of the lightest. She pampered her lover's grosser appetites by rank and furious indulgences; she stimulated his flagging zest in them by ingenious surprises; nor less did she gratify every reviving taste for nobler enjoyments with paintings and sculptures and works of literature. She amused him with sending divers to fasten salt-fish to the bait of his angling-rod; and when she had pledged herself to consume the value of ten million sesterces at a meal, amazed him by dissolving in the humble cup of vinegar before her a pearl of inestimable price.-Merivale. CICERO, pro Cluentio, § 12-16. SALLUST, Catilin. c. 25. HORACE, Od. I. xxxvii. Epod. ix. PART III. ORATORICAL. INVECTIVE AGAINST MINISTERS, AND DENUNCIATION OF WAR. AM not, nor did I ever pretend to be, a statesman; but that character is so tainted and so equivocal in our day, that I am not sure that a pure and honourable ambition would aspire to it. I have not enjoyed for thirty years, like these noble lords, the emoluments of office. I have not set my sails to every passing breeze. I am a plain and simple citizen, sent here by one of the foremost constituencies of the Empire, representing feebly, perhaps, but honestly, the opinions of very many, and the true interests of all that have sent me here. Let it not be said that I am alone in my condemnation of this war, or of an incompetent and guilty Ministry. And, even if I were alone, if my voice were the solitary one raised amid the din of arms and the clamours of a venal press, I should have the consolation I have to-night-and which I trust will be mine to the last moment of my existence the priceless consolation that I have never uttered one word that could promote the squandering of my country's treasure, or the spilling of one single drop of my country's blood.-J. Bright. SALLUST, Jugurth. c. 31. HORACE, Od. III. iii. 1-8. |