Verres, driven to despair, submitted, without awaiting his sentence, to a voluntary exile.

H. But what is this oration against Cæcilius, which, I find here, on opening my Cicero, has been placed at the head of the orations against Verres, and why is it called Divinatio?"

Dr. B. There was one Cæcilius, a mere creature of Verres, who had been his quæstor in Sicily, and who pretended to have received certain personal injuries from him, and to have a very intimate knowledge of all his crimes. He claimed, on these grounds, to be appointed accuser, in preference to Cicero, intending of course to manage the prosecution in such a way that Verres might easily escape.

H. An ingenious contrivance certainly.

Dr. B. Yes; but it emanated from Hortensius, who was counsel for the accused. The rival claims, therefore, of Cæcilius and Cicero had first to be decided, and this mode of deciding was technically termed “Divinatio," because, as there were no facts in the case, the judges, without the aid of witnesses, divined as it were, what was proper to be done.1

H. But, Doctor, did you mean to be understood as saying. that only one of the orations against Verres was ever pronounced?

Dr. B. I did. Of the six speeches against this individual, only one was actually delivered. The remaining five, which he intended to pronounce after the proof was completed, were subsequently published in the same shape, as if Verres had actually stood his trial and made a regular defence. Of these, the most interesting is that "De Signis," where an account is given of the statues, and paintings, and works of art, which Verres plundered; while the finest is undoubtly that "De Suppliciis," which is full of striking passages and the most vehement pathos.2

H. These orations, however, Doctor, must sound very oddly in some parts to a modern ear.

Dr. B. They do, indeed, Henry, I can assure you. Thus, in the beginning of the second oration, Cicero speaks of a report having been spread that Verres was to abandon his defence, but that here he sat braving his accusers and judges with his characteristic impudence. The effect of this is very amusing, when we recollect that Verres had absconded before one word of all this could be pronounced."

H. Still, Doctor, it is very comfortable, for us ordinary mortals, to know that so much of the brilliant eloquence of Cicero was carefully elaborated and wrought out in private, before the occasion arrived for its being flashed forth upon a dazzled auditory. The more I am allowed to look behind the curtain, and to survey from a nearer point of view the workshops of great minds, the more I am inclined to think that "sublimity," or, as we ought more correctly to render it, “elevation of style," is in reality a very mechanical kind of operation.

Dr. B. Yes; my old friend Parr thought that sublimis came from super limum, but I rather think sub lima the more rational etymology, and

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that the finest passages in the literature of every nation are precisely those which have been most carefully subjected to the private application of the file. But to return. At the expiration of the two years which were required by law to intervene between the ædileship and the office of prætor, Cicero was elected to this latter station. It was while invested with this magistracy, that he advocated with all his eloquence, against the views of the senate, to whom he was sincerely attached, and against the true interests of the republic, his cherished idol, the famous bill of the tribune of Manlius, which granted to Pompey, for enabling him to terminate the Mithridatic war, a power that seemed incompatible with public freedom.

H. I have never liked the character of Pompey, and it would delight me, Doctor, if your sentiments respecting him were to prove in accordance with my own. Do tell me what you think of the man.

Dr. B. Sallust paints his character in a very few words: "Oris probi, animo inverecundo," meaning to imply, that his probity was more upon his tongue than in his heart. Pompey, in fact, respected virtue sufficiently not to offer it any open outrage or insult, but he never loved it enough to sacrifice to it in secret. Hence arose that profound dissimulation, in which he always enveloped himself, and that system, so well supported by him, of never wishing apparently to become possessed of any object, except by his own merit, while in reality he was grasping at, and bearing off every thing by dint of private intrigue. If he was inferior, however, to Cæsar in military talents, he was always superior to him in the comparative purity of his morals, and in the moderation of his sentiments. Cæsar wished to be the master of the world, Pompey only the first citizen of the republic. He was constant in his friendships, a moderate enemy, and peaceable citizen, as long as he had no rival to fear. Intrepid in conflict, he was always generous after victory: and hence he gave to Mithridates a splendid funeral, and burnt all the correspondence between Sertorius and the chief men of Rome.-To return to the point from which your question called me off, Cicero, at the period alluded to, was midway in his career of public honours; the consulship was before him, and the hope of attaining to this darling prize of his ambition, through the influence of Pompey, must have exercised some degree of control over the movements of the orator. At all events, the Romans of that day gave him little credit for sincerity in his extravagant eulogiums upon that favourite commander.

H. To what foreign province, Doctor, was Cicero sent on the expiration of his prætorship?

Dr. B. He would not accept of any government, but remained at Rome, where he strove more and more in every way to conciliate the favour of the people. He was now preparing to sue for the consulship, the great object of all his hopes; and his whole attention was employed how to obtain it in his proper year, and without a repulse. There were two years necessarily to intervene between the prætorship and consulship; the first of which was usually spent in forming a general in

1 Or. pro Leg. Manil. 1.
2 Or. pro Muren. 20.

terest, and soliciting as it were in a private manner; the second ir suing for it openly, in the proper form and habit of a candidate. The efforts of Cicero were crowned with success, and he was chosen consul with almost the same honours as in his antecedent elections to magistracy. His principal opponent was Catiline.

H. And his colleague in office, Antonius. Was it not so?

Dr. B. Yes; the same Antonius, who was in secret league with the party of Catiline, and had to be bought off by Cicero with the opulent province of Macedonia.1

H. I will not occupy your time, Doctor, by any questions relative to the conspiracy of Catiline; of that daring movement I have obtained an accurate idea from the pages of Sallust. I will merely request of you to give me a brief sketch of the subsequent life of Cicero, and then pass to an examination of his writings.

Dr. B. I think this will be our more advisable course, Henry, as time would fail us were we to endeavour to do full justice to both; and, besides, allusion will occasionally be made to the history of his later years in our remarks on his literary efforts. The extraordinary but well-merited honours conferred upon Cicero for crushing this formidable conspiracy, could not fail to excite against him the opposition of the envious, as well as the jealousy of the more ambitious portion of his fellow-citizens. They took care not to reproach him at first with any act of injustice in his public career, but merely expressed themselves fatigued, and indeed completely worn-out, by his continual eulogiums upon his own patriotic efforts. In the forum, at the meetings of the senate, before the tribunals of justice, nay, even in the private circles which he frequented, the names of Catiline and Lentulus were constantly on his lips. He introduced his own praises into his writings. Almost every treatise of his, composed after this event, contains some allusion to his public services. Even his speeches lost in this way, through the excessive vanity of the man, a large portion of that pleasing and persuasive influence by which they were once characterized. It was like a kind of fatality.

H. When did he first experience the evil effects of this line of conduct? Not surely during his consulship?

Dr. B. When he was about to retire from it. On such occasions, it was usual for the magistrate, who was laying down his office, to make a speech to the assembled people, detailing the various public services which he had rendered during its continuance, and showing that his discharge of the duties of the magistracy had been a faithful and conscientious one. The tribune Metellus interrupted Cicero, when on the point of making such an harangue, and commanded him to be silent. The only alternative left the orator was to swear in a loud voice that he had saved the city from conflagration, and his fellow-citizens from the sword. In this oath the populace joined with one accord, and Cicero was conducted home by them in triumph, amid the mortification of his enemies and the joy of his friends.2

H. A noble triumph, Doctor, aud well worthy of the man whom Catulus had styled, in a full senate, the father of his country.

1 Sallust, B. C. 26.

2 Or. in Pis. 3.-Ep. ad Fam. 5, 2.

Dr. B. Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus, who, three years after, formed the coalition known in history as the first triumvirate, secretly favoured the designs of Cicero's enemies, whose numbers the latter had increased by his unyielding and rigid discharge of duty, and to whom was now to be added the profligate Clodius, that bold and bad man, whose tribuneship was fraught with ruin to the peace and welfare of the deliverer oi his country. Ever since the period of his acquittal from the charge of sacrilege, the malignant star of Clodius was in the ascendant, and that of Cicero began to wane. During the progress of the accusation a deadly animosity had grown up between them, and Clodius was not a man to neglect any favourable opportunity of revenge.

H. Was not this man a descendant of the haughty race of the Claudii, who had ever shown so little regard for the liberties of the people?

Dr. B. He was; but profligacy and ruin had compelled him to take refuge among the very class on whose rights his patrician forefathers had so repeatedly trampled; and the corrupt and impoverished noble, the head of the Claudian family, voluntarily degraded himself from his rank, and obtained adoption into a plebeian house.

H. But what were his objects?

Dr. B. They were two; to humble the aristocracy and take vengeance upon Cicero. Being elected to the tribuneship, this pestilent demagogue obtained the passing of a law, making it criminal in any one to have put to death a Roman citizen without a trial before the people, and inflicting the penalty of exile. The blow was aimed at Cicero, who, however, in ordering the punishment of Catiline's accomplices, had only obeyed the mandate of the senate, and the illustrious Roman was compelled to bend to the storm and go into voluntary banishment. Immediately after his departure a law was passed, which exiled him to the distance of 500 miles from Rome, and declared all his property to be confiscated. His villas, accordingly, were pillaged and burnt, his dwelling at Rome was demolished, and a temple to Freedom was erected on its site.

H. But where was the aid which he expected, and ought to have received, from Pompey?

Dr. B. As long as that profound dissembler believed that there was danger lest Cicero might throw himself into Cæsar's hands, he gave him the strongest assurances, confirmed by oaths and the most solemn protestations, that there was no danger, and that he would rather lose his own life, than suffer any harm to approach the person of the orator. But growing cool and reserved, as the plot against Cicero drew towards a crisis, and pretending to believe that the latter had formed designs against his safety, he withdrew to his villa, and abandoned him to his fate.3

H. Why did not Cicero demand a personal interview, and upbraid him with his monstrous duplicity?

Dr. B. He did obtain such an interview; but as for upbraiding the

1 Quarterly Review, No. 112, p. 354.

2 Ibid.

Or. pro Dom. 11.

wily hypocrite, he wanted firmness for that. He threw himself at the feet of Pompey, and supplicated for aid. But the answer he received was perfectly in character: Pompey felt himself compelled to act in nothing against the wishes of Cæsar.1

H. And where were his other friends?

D. B. All zealous for his welfare, but, as might naturally be expected, divided in opinion as to the course which he ought to pursue. Lucullus advised him to remain, and defend himself by force. Cato and Hortensius urged him to yield to the storm; and this advice, coinciding with the opinion of Atticus, and being supported by the fears and entreaties of his own family," made him resolve to leave the field to his enemies and go into voluntary exile. Withdrawing in the night season, escorted by a numerous train of friends, who, after a day's journey or two, left him with every demonstration of regret, he turned his course towards Sicily, intending to make it his place of refuge, and sure of finding in the bosoms of its inhabitants that grateful affection which had been denied him at home. But when he was come within sight of the island, the Roman prætor sent him word that he must not set foot within it; and what made the shock still more cruel was this, that the magistrate in question had been an old and familiar friend, was under important obligations to Cicero, and belonged to the same party in the state.

H. But why did the prætor take this step?

Dr. B. Through fear of Clodius, whose enmity he had already experienced, and the weight of whose power he now dreaded to encounter. Retiring to Greece, Cicero now took refuge in Thessalonica, where the hand of friendship was extended to him by Plancius, then quæstor of Macedonia, and where the prætor Apuleius, though he dared not venture to grant him openly his protection, yet connived at . the acts of his quæstor, and took a lively interest in his behalf. Two months had hardly elapsed before his friend the tribune Ninnius made a motion in the senate for his recall. Pompey also, roused by the insults of Clodius, whose power was now on the decline, and anxious to retrieve his own credit and ingratiate himself with the senate and people, began to exert himself in his behalf. After a long and stormy interval, after every effort had been made by Clodius and his factious adherents, the cause of justice triumphed, and Cicero was recalled from exile by the unanimous suffrages of the centuries, and to the great joy of a vast majority of his countrymen.?

H. I have heard it said, Dr. Barton, that Cicero's conduct, while in exile, was not such as one would consider either manly or spirited.

1 Ep. ad Att. 10, 4. Plutarch says, that Pompey slipped out of a back door, and would not see him; but it is certain from Cicero's ac count that he was admitted to an interview.

Plut. Vit. Cic. c. 31.

3 Ibid c. 32.

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Or. pro Planc. 40.

Or. pro Planc. 41.-Post Red. in Sen. 14.

Or. pro Sext. 31.

? Pro Dom. 33.-Post Red. in Sen. 11.