It will not feem ftrange, to obferve the wifeft of the ancients puthing this principle to fo great a length, and confidering glory as the ampleft reward of a well-fpent life, when we reflect, that the greatest part of them had no notion of any other reward or futurity; and even those who believed a state of happiness to the good, yet entertained it with fo much diffidence, that they indulged it rather as a wish than a well-grounded hope, and were glad therefore to lay hold on that which feemed to be within their reach; a futurity of their own creating; an immortality of fame and glory from the applaufe of pofterity. This, by a pleafing fiction, they looked upon as a propagation of life, and an eternity of existence; and had no small comfort in imagining, that though the fense of it fhould not reach to themselves, it would extend at least to others; and that they fhould be doing good ftill when dead, by leaving the example of their virtues to the imitation of mankind. Thus Cicero, as he often declares, never looked upon that to be his life, which was confined to this narrow circle on earth, but confidered his acts as feeds fown in the immense univerfe, to raise up the fruit of glory and immortality to him through a fucceffion of infinite ages; nor has he been fruftrated of his hope, or difappointed of his end; but as long as the name of Rome fubfifts, or as long as learning, virtue, and liberty preferve any credit in the world, he will be great and glorious in the memory of all pofterity.

As to the other part of the charge, or the proof of his vanity, drawn from his boafting fo frequently of himself in his fpeeches both to the fenate and the people, though it may appear to a common reader to be abundantly confirmed by his writings: yet if we attend to the circumftances of the times, and the part which he acted in them, we fhall find it not only excufable, but in fome degree even neceflary. The fate of Rome was now brought to a crifis, and the contending parties were making their laft efforts either to opprefs or preferve it: Cicero

was the head of those who ftood up for its liberty, which entirely depended on the influences of his counfels; he had many years, therefore, been the common mark of the rage and malice of all who were aiming at illegal powers, or a tyranny in the ftate; and while thefe were generally fupported by the military power of the empire, he had no other arms or means of defeating them but his authority with the fenate and people, grounded on the experience of his fervices, and the perfuafion of his integrity; fo that to obviate the perpetual calumnies of the factious, he was obliged to inculcate the merit and good effects of his counfels, in order to confirm people in their union and adherence to them, against the intrigues of those who were employing all arts to fubvert them. "The frequent commemora❝tion of his acts," fays Quintilian, “was "not made fo much for glory as for " defence; to repel calumny, and vindi"cate his measures when they were at"tacked:" and this is what Cicero himfelf declared in all his fpeeches, "That "no man ever heard him speak of him"felf but when he was forced to it: that "when he was urged with fictitious crimes, "it was his custom to answer them with "his real fervices: and if ever he said

ready

ready hinted, had always the greateft force on the greatest fouls: but it must needs raife our contempt and indignation, to fee every conceited pedant, and trifling declaimer, who knew little of Cicero's real character, and still lefs of their own, prefuming to call him the vainest of mortals. But there is no point of light in which we can view him with more advantage or fatisfaction to ourselves, than in the contemplation of his learning, and the furprifing extent of his knowledge. This thines fo confpicuous in all the monuments which remain of him, that it even leffens the dignity of his general character: while the idea of the fcholar abforbs that of the fenator; and by confidering him as the greatest writer, we are apt to forget, that he was the greatest magiftrate also of Rome. We learn our Latin from him at fchool; our ftile and fentiments at the college; here the generality take their leave of him, and feldom think of him more but as of an orator, a moralift, or philofopher of antiquity. But it is with characters as with pictures: we cannot judge well of a fingle part, without furveying the whole, fince the perfection of each depends on its proportion and relation to the reft; while in viewing them all together, they mutually reflect an additional grace upon each other. His learning, confidered feparately, will appear admirable; yet much more fo, when it is found in the poffeffion of the firft ftatef man of a mighty empire. His abilities as a ftatefman are glorious; yet furprise us fill more when they are obferved in the ableft scholar and philofopher of his age: but an union of both thefe characters exhibits that fublime fpecimen of perfection, to which the belt parts, with the best culture, can exalt human nature.

No man, whofe life had been wholly fpent in ftudy, ever left more numerous, or more valuable fruits of his learning in every branch of fcience, and the politer arts; in oratory, poetry, philosophy, law, biglory, criticism, politics, ethics; in each of which he equalled the greatest mafters of his time; in fome of them excelled all men of all times. His remaining works, as voluminous as they appear, are but a fmall part of what he rearly publifhed; and though many of thefe are come down to us maimed by time, and the barbarity of the intermediate ages, yet they are july effe-med the molt precious remains of all antiquity, and, like the Sybylline books, if

more of them had perifhed, would have been equal ftill to any price.

His induftry was incredible, beyond the example, or even conception of our days; this was the fecret by which he performed fuch wonders, and reconciled perpetual ftudy with perpetual affairs. He fuffered no part of his leifure to be idle, or the leaft interval of it to be loft: but what other

people gave to the public fhews, to pleasures, to feafts, nay even to fleep, and the ordinary refreshments of nature, he generally gave to his books, and the enlargement of his knowledge. On days of business, when he had any thing particular to compofe, he had no other time for meditating but when he was taking a few turns in his walks, where he used to dictate his thoughts to his fcribes who attended him, We find many of his letters dated before day-light; and fome from the fenate; others from bis meals; and the crowd of his morning levee.

No compofitions afford more pleasure than the epiftles of great men: they touch the heart of the reader by laying open that of the writer. The letters of eminent wits, eminent fcholars, eminent ftatesmen, are all efteemed in their feveral kinds: but there never was a collection that excelled fo much in every kind as Cicero's, for the purity of ftile, the importance of the matter, or the dignity of the perfons concerned in them. We have above a thousand ftill remaining, all written after he was forty years old; which are a fmall part not only of what he wrote, but of what were actually published after his death by his fervant Tiro. For we fee many volumes of them quoted by the ancients, which are utterly loft; as the first book of his Letters to Licinius Calvus; the first alfo to Q. Axius; a fecond book to his fon; a fecond also to Corn. Nepos; a third book to J. Cæfar; a third to Octavius; a third also to Panfa; an eighth book to M. Brutus; and a ninth to A. Hirtius. Of all which, excepting a few to J. Cæfar and Brutus, we have nothing more left than fome scattered phrafes and fentences, gathered from the citations of the old critics and grammarians. What makes thefe letters fill more eftimable is, that he had never defigned them for the public, nor kept any copies of them; for the year before his death, when Atticus was making fome enquiry about them, he fent him word, that he had made no collection; and tbat Tiro had prefereed only about feventy. Here then we may expect to fee the genuine man, without disguise

or

or affectation; efpecially in his letters to Atticus, to whom he talked with the fame frankness as to himfelf; opened the rife and progrefs of each thought, and never entered into any affair without his particular advice; fo that thefe may be confidered as the memoirs of his times; containing the most authentic materials for the hiftory of that age, and laying open the grounds and motives of all the great events that happened in it: and it is the want of attention to them that makes the generality of writers on thofe times fo fuperficial, as well as erroneous; while they chufe to tranfcribe the dry and imperfect relations of the later Greek hiftorians, rather than take the pains to extract the original account of facts from one who was a principal actor in them.

In his familiar letters he affected no particular elegance or choice of words, but took the firft that occurred from common ufe, and the language of converfation. Whenever he was difpofed to joke, his wit was eafy and natural; flowing always from the fubject, and throwing out what came uppermoft; nor difdaining even a pun, when it ferved to make his friends laugh. In letters of compliment, fome of which were addressed to the greatest men who ever lived, his inclination to please is expreffed in a manner agreeable to nature and reafon, with the utmost delicacy both of fentiment and diction, yet without any of those pompous titles and lofty epithets, which modern custom has introduced into our commerce with the great, and falfely ftamped with the name of politenefs; though they are the real offspring of barbarim, and the effects of degeneracy both in tafte and manners. In his political let ers, all his maxims are drawn from an intimate knowledge of men and things: he always touches the point on which the affair turns; forefees the danger, and fortells the mischief, which never failed to follow upon the neglect of his counfels; of which there were fo many inflances, that, as an eminent writer of his own time obferved to him, his prudence feemed to be a kind of divination, which foretold very thing that afterwards happened, with the veracity of a prophet. But none of his letters do him more credit than thofe of the recommendatory kind: the others thew his wit and his parts, thefe his benevolence and his probity: he folicits the intereft of his friends, with all the warmth and force of words of which he was maf

ter; and alledges generally fome perfonal reafon for his peculiar zeal in the cause, and that his own honour was concerned in the fuccess of it.

But his letters are not more valuable on any account, than for their being the only monuments of that fort, which remain to us from free Rome. They breathe the last words of expiring liberty; a great part of them having been written in the very crifis of its ruin, to roufe up all the virtue that was left in the honest and the brave, to the defence of their country. The advantage which they derive from this circumftance, will eafily be obferved by comparing them with the epiftles of the beft and greateft, who flourished afterwards in Imperial Rome. Pliny's letters are juftly admired by men of tafte: they fhew the scholar, the wit, the fine gentleman; yet we cannot but obferve a poverty and barrenness through the whole, that betrays the awe of a master. All his ftories and reflections terminate in private life; there is nothing important in politics; no great affairs explained; no account of the motives of public counfels: he had borne all the fame offices with Cicero, whom in all points he affected to emulate; yet his honours were in effect nominal, conferred by a fuperior power, and adminiftered by a fuperior will; and with the old titles of conful and proconful, we want still the ftatefman,the politician,and the magiftrate. In his provincial command, where Cicero governed all things with fupreme authority, and had kings attendant on his orders, Pliny durft not venture to repair a bath, or to punish a fugitive flave, or incorporate a company of masons, till he had firit confulted and obtained the leave of Trajan.

His hiftorical works are all loft: the Commentaries of his Confulfhip in Greek; the History of his own Affairs, to his return from exile, in Latin verse; and his Anecdotes; as well as the pieces that he published on Natural History, of which Pliny quotes one upon the Wonders of Nature, and another on Perfumes, He was meditating likewife a general History of Rome, to which he was frequently urged by his friends, as the only man capable of adding that glory alfo to his country, of excelling the Greeks in a fpecies of writing, which of all others was at that time the leaft cultivated by the Romans. But he never found leisure to execute fo great a talk; yet he has

fketched

lime, and comprehenfive kind, which dignified every subject, and gave it all the force and beauty of which it was capable; it was that roundness of speaking, as the ancients call it, where there was nothing either redundant or deficient; nothing either to be added or retrenched: their perfections were in all points fo tranfcendent, and yet so fimilar, that the critics are not agreed on which fide to give the preference. Quintillian indeed, the moft judicious of them, has given it on the whole to Cicero; but if, as others have thought, Cicero had not all the nerves, the energy, or, as he himself calls it, the thunder of Demofthenes, he excelled him in the copioufnefs and elegance of his diction, the variety of his fentiments, and, above all, in the vivacity of his quit, and finartnefs of bis raillerys Demofthenes had nothing jocofe or facetious in him; yet, by attempting fometimes to jeft, fhewed, that the thing itself did not difpleafe, but did not belong to bim: for, as Longinus fays, wherever he affected to be pleasant, he made himself ridiculous; and if he happened to raise a laugh, it was chiefly upon himself. Whereas Cicero, from a perpetual fund of wit and ridicule, had the power always to please, when he found himself unable to convince, and could put his judges into good humour, when he had caufe to be afraid of their feverity; fo that, by the opportunity of a well-timed joke, he is faid to have preferved many of his clients from manifeft ruin.

Yet in all this height and fame of his eloquence, there was another fet of orators at the fame time in Rome, men of parts and learning, and of the firft quality; who, while they acknowledged the fuperiority of his genius, yet cenfured his diction, as not truly attic or claffical; fome calling it loofe and languid, others timid and exube

rant.

Thefe men affected a minute and faftidious correctnefs, pointed fentences, fhort and concife periods, without a fyllable to fpare in them, as if the perfection of oratory confifted in a frugality of words, and in crowding our fentiments into the narrowest compafs. The chief patrons of this tafte were M. Brutus, Licinius, Calvus, Afinius, Pollio, and Salluft, whom Seneca feems to treat as the author of the obfcure, abrupt, and fententious file. Cicero often ridicules thefe pretenders to attic elegance, as judging of eloquence not by the force of the art, but their own weakness; and refolving to decry what they could not attain, and to admire nothing but what they

could imitate; and though their way of fpeaking, he fays, might please the ear of a critic or a scholar, yet it was not of that fublime and fonorous kind, whose end was not only to inftruct, but to move an audience; an eloquence, born for the multitude; whofe merit was always fhewn by its effects of exciting admiration, and extorting houts of applaufe; and on which there never was any difference of judgment between the learned aud the populace.

This was the genuine eloquence that prevailed in Rome as long as Cicero lived: his were the only fpeeches that were relithed or admired by the.city; while thofe attic orators, as they called themselves, were generally defpifed, and frequently deferted by the audience, in the midst of their harangues. But after Cicero's death, and the ruin of the republic, the Roman oratory funk of courfe with its liberty, and a falfe fpecies univerfaily prevailed; when inftead of that clate, copious, and flowing eloquence, which launched out freely into every fubject, there fucceeded a guarded, dry, fententious kind, full of laboured turns and studied points; and proper only for the occafion on which it was employed, the making panegyrics and fervile compliments to their tyrants. This change of file may be observed in all their writers, from Cicero's time to the younger Pliny; who carried it to its utmost perfection, in his celebrated panegyric on the emperor Trajan; which, as it is juftly admired for the elegance of diction, the beauty of fentiments, and the delicacy of its compliments, fo it is become in a manner the ftandard of fine speaking to modern times, where it is common to hear the pretend ers to criticism, defcanting on the tedious length and fpiritlefs exuberance of the Ciceronian periods. But the fuperiority of Cicero's eloquence, as it was acknow ledged by the politeft age of free Rome, fo it has received the most authentic confirmation that the nature of things can admit, from the concurrent sense of na tions; which neglecting the productions of his rivals and contemporaries, have preferved to us his ineitimable remains, as a fpecimen of the most perfect manner of fpeaking, to which the language of mortals can be exalted: fo that, as Qintilian declared of him even in that early age, he has acquired fach tame wit terity, that Cicero is not much the name of cir itfaf.