it, as to enable him to fupport all the fatigues of the most active, as well as the mot ftudious life, with perpetual health and vigour. The care that he employed upon his body, confifted chiefly in bathing and rubbing, with a few turns every day in his gardens for the refreshment of his voice from the labour of the bar: yet in the fummer, he generally gave himself the exercise of a journey, to vifit his feveral eftates and villas in different parts of Italy. But his principal inftrument of health was diet and temperance: by thefe he preferved himself from all violent diftempers; and when he happened to be attacked by any flight indifpofition, ufed to inforce the feverity of his abftinence, and starve it prefently by fafting. In his cloaths and drefs, which the wife have ufually confidered as an index of the mind, he observed, what he prefcribes in his book of Offices, a modefty and decency adapted to his rank and character: a perpetual cleanliness, without the appearance of pains; free from the affectation of fingularity, and avoiding the extremes of a ruftic negligence and foppifh delicacy; both of which are equally contrary to true dignity; the one implying an ignorance, or illiberal contempt of it, the ather a childish pride and oftentation of proclaiming our pretensions to it. In his domestic and focial life his behaviour was very amiable: he was a moft indulgent parent, a fincere and zealous friend, a kind and generous mafter. His letters are full of the tendereft expreffions of love for his children; in whofe endearing converfation, as he often tells us, he ufed to drop all his cares, and relieve himfelf from all his ftruggles in the fenate and the forum. The fame affection, in an inferior degree, was extended alfo to his flaves, when by their fidelity and fervices they had recommended themselves to his favour. We have feen a remarkable inftance of it in Tiro, whose case was no otherwise different from the reft, than as it was diftinguished by the fuperiority of bis merit. In one of his letters to Atticus, "I have nothing more," fays he, "to write: and my mind indeed is fomewhat ruffled at prefent; for Socitheus, "my reader, is dead; a hopeful youth; which has afflicted me more than one "would imagine the death of a slave ought " to do." He entertained very high notions of friendship, and of its excellent use and benefit to human life; which he has beautifully illuftrated in his entertaining treatife on that fubject; where he lays down no other rules than what he exemplified by his practice. For in all the variety of friendships in which his eminent rank engaged him, he never was charged with deceiving, deferting, or even flighting any one whom he had once called his friend, or esteemed an honeft man. It was his delight to advance their profperity, to relieve their adverfity; the fame friend to both fortunes; but more zealous only in the bad, where his help was most wanted, and his fervices the most difinterested; looking upon it not as a friendship, but a fordid traffic and merchandize of benefits, where good offices are to be weighed by a nice eftimate of gain and lofs. He calls gratitude the mother of virtues; reckons it the most capital of all duties; and ufes the words grateful and good as terms fynonymous, and infeparably united in the fame character. His writings abound with fentiments of this fort, as his life did with the examples of them; fo that one of his friends, in apologizing for the importunity of a requeft, obferves to him with great truth, that the tenor of his life would be a fufficient excufe for it; fince he had eftablished fuch a custom, of doing every thing for his friends, that they no longer requefted, but claimed a right to command him. Yet he was not more generous to his friends, than placable to his enemies; readily pardoning the greatest injuries, upon the flighteft fubmiffion; and though no man ever had greater abilities or opportunities of revenging himself, yet when it was in his power to hurt, he fought out reasons to forgive; and whenever he was invited to it, never declined a reconciliation with his most inveterate enemies; of which there are numerous inftances in his hiftory. He declared nothing to be more laudable and worthy of a great man than placability; and laid down for a natural duty, to moderate our revenge, and obferve a temper in punishing; and held repentance to be a fufficient ground for remitting it: and it was one of his fayings, delivered to a public affembly, that bis enmities were mortal, his friendships immortal. His manner of living was agreeable to the dignity of his character, fplendid and noble: his houfe was open to all the learned ftrangers and philofophers of Greece and Afia; feveral of whom were conftantly Z24 enter entertained in it as a part of his family, and spent their whole lives with him. His levee was perpetually crouded with multitudes of all ranks; even Pompey himself not difdaining to frequent it. The greateft part came not only to pay their compliments, but to attend him on days of bufinefs to the fenate or the forum; where, upon any debate or tranfaction of moment they conftantly waited to conduct him home again: but on ordinary days, when thefe morning vifits were over, as they ufually were before ten, he retired to his books, and fhut himself up in his library without fecking any other diverfion, but what his children afforded to the fhort intervals of his leifure. His fupper was the greatest meal; and the ufual feafon with all the great of enjoying their friends at table, which was frequently prolonged to a late hour of the night. yet he was out of his bed every morning before it was light; and never used to fleep again at moon, as all others generally did, and as it is commonly practifed in Rome to this day. But though he was fo temperate and ftudious, yet when he was engaged to fup with others, either at home or abroad, he laid afide his rules, and forgot the invalid; and was gay and fprightly, and the very foul of the company. When friends were met together, to heighten the comforts of focial life, he thought it inhofpitable not to contribute his fhare to their common mirth, or to damp it by a churlish reservednefs. But he was really a lover of chearful entertainments, being of a nature remarkably facetious, and fingularly turned to raillery; a talent which was of great fervice to him at the bar, to correct the petulance of an adverfary; relieve the fariety of a tedious caufe; divert the minds of the judges; and mitigate the rigour of a fentence, by making both the bench and audience merry at the expence of the accufer. The ufe of it was always thought fair, and greatly applauded in public trials: but in private converfations, he was charged fometimes with pufhing his raillery too far; and through a confcioufnefs of his fuperior wit, exerting it often intemperately, with out reflecting what cruel wounds his lafhes iicted. Yet of all his farcaftical jokes, which are tranfmitted to us by antiquity, we fhall not cbferve any but what were pointed againft characters, either ridiculous or profligate; fuch as he defpifed for their follies, or hated for their vices; and though he might provoke the spleen, and quicken the malice of his enemies, more than was confiftent with a regard to his own ease, yet he never appears to have hurt or loft a friend, or any one whom he valued, by the levity of jefting. It is certain, that the fame of his wit was as celebrated as that of his eloquence, and that feveral fpurious collections of his fayings were handed about in Rome in his life-time, till his friend Trebonius, after he had been conful, thought it worth while to publish an authentic edition of them, in a volume which he addressed to Cicero himfelf. Cæfar likewife, in the height of his power, having taken a fancy to collect the Apophthegms, or memorable fayings of eminent men, gave ftrict orders to all his friends who used to frequent Cicero, to bring him every thing of that fort, which happened to drop from him in their company. But Tiro, Cicero's freedman, who served him chiefly in his ftudies and literary affairs, published after his death the moft perfect collection of his Sayings, in three books; where Quintilian however wishes, that he had been more sparing in the num◄ ber, and judicious in the choice of them. None of thefe books are now remaining, nor any other fpecimen of the jefts, bat what are incidently fcattered in different parts of his own and other people's writings; which, as the fame judicious critic obferves, through the change of taste in different ages, and the want of that action or geflure, which gave the chief spirit to many of them, could never be explained to advantage, though feveral had attempted it. How much more cold then and infipid muft they needs appear to us, who are unacquainted with the particular characters and ftories to which they relate, as well as the peculiar fafhions, humour, and tafle of wit in that age? Yet even in these, as Quintilian alfo tells us, as well as in his other compofitions, people would fooner find what they might reject, than what they could add to them. He had a great number of fine houf s in different parts of Italy; fome writers reckon up eighteen; which, excepting the family feat at Arpinum, feem to have been all purchased, or built by himself. They were fituated generally near to the fea, and placed at proper distances along the lower coaft, between Rome and Pompeii, which was about four leagues beyond Naples; and for the elegance of ftructure, and the the delights of their fituation, are called by him the eyes, or the beauties of Italy. Thofe in which he took the moft pleasure, and ufually spent fome part of every year, were his Tufculum, Antium, Austura, Arpinum; his Formian, Cuman, Puteolan, and Pompeian villas; all of them large enough for the reception not only of his own family, but of his friends and numerous guests; many of whom, of the first quality, ufed to pafs feveral days with him in their excurfions from Rome. But befides these that may properly be reckoned feats, with large plantations and gardens around them, he had feveral little inns, as he calls them, or baiting-places on the road, built for his accommodation in paffing from one houfe to another. His Tufculum houfe had been Sylla's, the dictator; and in one of its apartments had a painting of bis memorable victory near Nola, in the Marfic war, in which Cicero had ferved under him as a volunteer: it was about four leagues from Rome, on the top of a beautiful hill covered with the villas of the nobility, and affording an agreeable prospect of the city, and the country around it, with plenty of water flowing through his grounds in a large ftream or canal, for which he paid a rent to the corporation of Tufculum. Its neighbourhood to Rome gave bim the opportunity of a retreat at any hour from the fatigues of the bar or the fenate, to breathe a little fresh air, and divert himfelf with his friends or family: so that this was the place in which he took the moft delight, and spent the greateft share of his leifure; and for that reason improved and adorned it beyond all his other houfes. When a greater fatiety of the city, or a longer vacation in the forum, difpofed him to feek a calmer scene, and more undisturbed retirement, he used to remove to Antium or Aftura. At Antium he placed his best collection of books, and as it was not above thirty miles from Rome, he could have daily intelligence there of every thing that paffed in the city. Aftura was a little ifland, at the mouth of a river of the fame name, about two leagues farther towards the fouth, between the promontories of Antium and Circæum, and in the view of them both; a place peculiarly adapted to the purposes of folitude, and a fevere retreat; covered with a thick wood, cut out into thady walks, in which he used to spend the gloomy and fplenetic moments of his life, In the height of fummer, the manfionhoufe at Arpinum, and the little island adjoining, by the advantage of its groves and cafcades, afforded the beft defence against the inconvenience of the heats; where, in the greatest that he had ever remembered, we find him refreshing himself, as he writes to his brother, with the utmost pleasure, in the cool ftream of his Fibrenus. His other villas were fituated in the more public parts of Italy, where all the best company of Rome had their houfes of pleasure. He had two at Formice, a lower and upper villa; the one near to the port of Cajeta, the other upon the mountains adjoining. He had a third on the fhore of Baice, between the lake Avernus and Puteoli, which he calls his Puteolan: a fourth on the hills of Old Cumce, called his Cuman villa; and a fifth at Pompeii, four leagues beyond Naples, in a country famed for the purity of its air, fertility of its foil, and delicacy of its fruits. His Puteolan house was built after the plan of the Acadamy of Athens, and called by that name; being adorned with a portico and a grove, for the fame ufe of philofophical conferences. Some time after his death, it fell into the hands of Antiftius Vetus, who repaired and improved it; when a fpring of warm wa ter which happened to burst out in one part of it, gave occafion to the following epigram, made by Laurea Tullius, one of Cicero's freedmen. The furniture of his houfes was fuitable to the elegance of his taste, and the magnificence of his buildings; his galleries were adorned with statues and paintings of the beft Grecian mafters; and his veffels and moveables were of the best work and choicest materials. There was a cedar table of his remaining in Pliny's time, faid to be the first which was ever feen in Rome, and to have coft him eighty pounds. He thought it the part of an eminent citizen to preferve an uniformity of character in every article of his conduct, and to illuftrate his dignity by the fplendor of his life. This was the reafon of the great variety of his houfes, and of their fituation in the moft confpicuous parts of Italy, along the courfe of the Appian road; that they might occur at every stage to the obfervation of travellers, and lie commodious for the reception and entertainment of his friends. part of their eftates, as the most effectual teftimony of their respect and gratitude; and the more a man received in this way, the more it redounded to his credit. Thus Cicero mentions it to the honour of Lucullus, that while he governed Afia as proconful, many great eftates were left to him by will: and Nepos tells us in praise of Atticus, that be fucceeded to many inheri tances of the fame kind, bequeathed to him on no other account than on his friendly and amiable temper. Cicero had his full fhare of thefe teftamentary donations; as we fee from the many inftances of them mentioned in his letters; and when he was falfely reproached by Antony, with being neglected on thefe occafions, he declared in his reply, that he had gained from this fingle article about two hundred thousand pounds, by the free and voluntary gifts of dying friends; not the forged wills of perfons unknown to him, with which he charged Antony. The reader, perhaps, when he reflects on what the old writers have faid on the mediocrity of his paternal eftate, will be His moral character was never blemished at a lofs to conceive whence all his reve- by the stain of any habitual vice; but was nues flowed, that enabled him to fuftain a fhining pattern of virtue to an age, of all the valt expence of building and maintain- others the moft licentious and profligate. ing fuch a number of noble houses; but His mind was fuperior to all the fordid the folution will be eafy, when we recollect paffions which engross little fouls: avathe great opportunities that he had of im- rice, envy, malice, luft. If we fift his faproving his original fortunes. The two miliar letters, we cannot discover in them principal funds of wealth to the leading the leaft hint of any thing base, immodest, men of Rome, were first, the public magi- fpiteful, or perfidious, but an uniform printracies, and provincial commands; ie- ciple of benevolence, justice, love of his condly, the prefents of kings, princes, and friends and country, flowing through the foreign ftates, whom they had obliged by whole, and inspiring all his thoughts and their fervices and protection; and though actions. Though no man ever felt the no man was more moderate in the use of effects of other people's envy more feverethefe advantages than Cicero, yet to one ly than he, yet no man was ever more free of his prudence, economy, and contempt from it: this is allowed to him by all the of vicious pleasures, these were abundantly old writers, and is evident indeed from his fufficient to answer all his expences: for works; where we find him perpetually in his province of Cilicia, after all the me- praifing and recommending whatever was morable inftances of his generofity, by laudable, even in a rival or an adversary; which he faved to the public a full million celebrating merit wherever it was found, fterling, which all other governors had ap- whether in the ancients or his contempora plied to their private ufe, yet at the expiries; whether in Greeks or Romans; and ration of his year, he left in the hands of the publicans in Afia near twenty thousand pounds, referved from the ftrict dues of his government, and remitted to him after wards at Rome. But there was another way of acquiring money, efteemed the moft reputable of any, which brought large and frequent fupplies to him, the legacies of deceafed friends. It was the peculiar cuftom of Rome, for the clients and dependants of families, to bequeath at their death to their patrons, fome confiderable verifying a maxim, which he had declared in a fpeech to the fenate, that no man could be envious of another's virtue, who was confcious of his own. His fprightly wit would naturally have recommended him to the favour of the ladies, whofe company he used to frequent when young, and with many of whom of the firit quality, he was oft engaged in his riper years to confer about the interefts of their husbands, brothers, or relations, who were abfent from Rome; yet we meet with по no trace of any criminal gallantry or intrigue with any of them. In a letter to Pætus, towards the end of his life, he gives a jocose account of his fupping with their friend Volumnius, an epicurean wit of the firft clafs, when the famed courtefan, Cytheris, who had been Volumnius's flave, and was then his mistress, made one of the company at table: where, after feveral jokes on that incident, he fays, that he never fufpected she would have been of the party; and though he was always a lover of chearful entertainments, yet nothing of that fort bad ever pleafed him when young, much lefs now, when he was old. There was one lady, however, called Cæfellia, with whom he kept up a particular familiarity and correfpondence of letters; on which Dio abfardly grounds fome little scandal, though he owns her to have been seventy years old. She is frequently mentioned in Cicero's letters as a lover of books and philofophy, and on that account as fond of his company and writings: but while out of complaifance to her fex, and a regard to her uncommon talents, he treated her always with refpect; yet by the hints which he drops of her to Atticus, it appears that the had no fhare of his affections, or any real authority with him. His failings were as few as were ever found in any eminent genius; fuch as flowed from his conftitution, not his will; and were chargeable rather to the condition of his humanity, than to the fault of the man. He was thought to be too fanguine in profperity, too defponding in adverfity: and apt to perfuade himself in each fortune, that it would never have an end. This is Pollio's account of him, which feems in general to be true: Brutus touches the first part of it in one of his letters to him: and when things were going profperously against Antony, puts him gently in mind, that he femed to truft too much to his hopes: and he himself allows the second, and says, that if any one was timorous in great and dangerous events, apprehending always the worst, rather than hoping the beft, he was the man; and if that was a fault, confeffes himself not to be free from it: yet in explaining afterwards the nature of this timidity, it was fuch, he tells us, as fhewed itself rather in foreseeing dangers, than in encountering them: an explication which the latter part of his life fully confirmed, and above all his death, which no man could fuftain with greater courage and refolution But the most confpicuous and glaring pafion of his foul was, the love of glory and thirft of praise: a paffion that he not only avowed, but freely indulged; and fometimes, as he himself confeffes, to a degree even of vanity. This often gave his enemies a plaufible handle of ridiculing his pride and arrogance; while the forwardnefs that he fhewed to celebrate his own merits in all his public fpeeches, feemed to juftify their cenfures: and fince this is generally confidered as the grand foible of his life, and has been handed down inplicitly from age to age, without ever being fairly examined, or rightly understood. it will be proper to lay open the fource from which the paffion itfelf flowed, and explain the nature of that glory, of which he profeffes himfelf fo fond. True glory then, according to his own definition of it, is a rvide and illuftrious fame of many and great benefits conferred upon our friends, our country, or the whole race of mankind: it is not, he fays, the empty blast of popular favour, or the applaufe of a giddy multitude, which all wife men had ever de fpifed, and none more than himself; but the confenting praife of all honest men, and the incorrupt teftimony of those who can judge of excellent merit, which refunds always to virtue, as the echo to the voice; and fince it is the general companion of good actions, ought not to be rejected by good men. That thofe who afpired to this glory were not to expect eafe or pleasure, or tranquillity of life for their pains; but must give up their own peace, to fecure the peace of others; muft expose themselves to forms and dangers for the public good; fuftain many battles with the audacious and the wicked, and fome even with the powerful: in short, muit behave themfelves fo, as to give their citizens caufe to rejoice that they had ever been born. This is the notion that he inculcates every where of true glory; which is furely one of the nobleft principles that can inspire a human breaft; implanted by God in our nature, to dignify and exalt it: and always found the strongest in the best and most elevated minds; and to which we owe every thing great and laudable, that history has to offer us through all the ages of the heathen world. There is not an inftance, fays Cicero, of a man's exerting himself ever with praise and virtue in the dangers of his country, who was not drawn to it by the hopes of glory, and a regard to pofterity. Give me a boy, fays Quintilian, whom praise excites, whom glory warms: for such a scholar was fure to answer all his hopes, and do credit to |