IN drawing attention to a great sans at Actium, moved by the authoquestion of whatsoever nature con- rity of arms; "tantum auctoritate nected with Cicero, there is no danger valebant, quantum milite:" and they of missing our purpose through any could have moved by no other. Lastwant of reputed interest in the sub- ly, as regards the personal biography, ject. Nominally, it is not easy to as- although the same series of trials, sign a period more eventful, a revolu- perils, and calamities, would have been tion more important, or a personal in any case interesting for themselves, career more dramatic, t that pe-yet undeniably they derive a separate power of affecting the mind from the peculiar merits of the individual concerned. Cicero is one of the very few pagan statesmen who can be described as a thoughtfully conscientious man. riod that revolution – career, which, with almost equal right, we may describe as all essentially Ciceronian, by the quality of the interest which they excite. For the age, it was fruitful in great men; but amongst them all, if we except the sublime Julian leader, none as regards splendour of endowments stood upon the same level as Cicero. For the revolution, it was that unique event which brought ancient civilization into contact and commerce with modern since, if we figure the two worlds of Paganism and Christianity under the idea of two great continents, it is through the isthmus of Rome imperialized that the one has virtually communicated with the other. Civil law and Christianity, the two central forces of modern civilization, were upon that isthmus of time ripened into potent establishments. And through those two establishments, combined with the antique literature, as through so many organs of metempsychosis, did the pagan world pass onwards, whatever portion of its own life was fitted for surviving its own peculiar forms. Yet, in a revolution thus unexampled for grandeur of results, the only great actor who stood upon the authority of his character was Cicero. All others, from Pompey, Curio, Domitius, Cato, down to the final parti VOL. LII. NO. CCCXXI. It is not, therefore, any want of splendid attraction in our subject from which we are likely to suffer. It is of this very splendour that we complain, as having long ago defeated the simplicities of truth, and preoccupied the minds of all readers with ideas politically romantic. All tutors, schoolmasters, academic authorities, together with the collective corps of editors, critics, commentators, have a natural bias in behalf of a literary man who did so much honour to literature, and who, in all the storms of his difficult life, manifested so much attachment to the pure literary interest. Readers of sensibility acknowledge the effect from any large influence of deep halcyon repose, when relieving the agitations of history; as, for example, that which arises in our domestic annals from interposing between two bloody reigns, like those of Henry VIII. and his daughter Mary, the serene morning of a childlike king, destined to an early grave, yet in the mean time occupied with benign counsels for propagating religion or for protecting the poor. Such a repose, the same luxury of rest for the mind, A |