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in the first place, because, though it is untrue that "a sneer cannot be answered," the answer too often imposes circumlocution. And upon a subject which makes wise men grave, a sneer argues so much perversion of heart, that it cannot be thought uncandid to infer some corresponding perversion of intellect. Perfect sincerity never existed in a professional sneerer. Se condly, no treachery, no betrayal of the cause which the man is sworn and paid to support. Conyers Middleton held considerable preferment in the church of England. Long after he had become an enemy to that church, (not separately for itself, but generally as a strong form of Christianity,) he continued to receive large quarterly cheques upon a bank in Lombard Street, of which the original condition had been, that he should defend Christianity" with all his soul, and with all his strength." Yet such was his perfidy to this sacred engagement, that even his private or personal feuds grew out of his capital feud with the Christian faith. From the church he drew his bread: and the labour of his life was to bring the church into contempt. He hated Bentley, he hated Warburton, he hated Waterland; and why? all alike as powerful champions of that religion which he himself daily betrayed; and Waterland, as the strongest of these champions, he hated most. But all these bye-currents of malignity emptied themselves into one vast cloaca maxima of rancorous animosity to the mere spirit, temper, and tendencies, of Christianity. Even in treason there is room for courage; but Middleton, in the manner, was as cowardly as he was treacherous in the matter. He wished to have it whispered about that he was worse than he seemed, and that he would be a fort esprit of a high cast, but for the bigotry of his church. It was a fine thing, he fancied, to have the credit of infidelity, without paying for a license; to sport over those manors without a qualification. As a scholar, meantime, he was trivial and incapable of labour. Even the Roman antiquities, political

or juristic, he had studied neither by research and erudition, nor by meditation on their value and analogies. Lastly, his English style, for which at one time he obtained some credit through the caprice of a fashionable critic, is such, that by weeding away from it whatever is colloquial, you would strip it of all that is characteristic; removing its idiomatic vulgarisms, you would remove its principle of animation.

That man misapprehends the case, who fancies that the infidelity of Middleton can have but a limited operation upon a memoir of Cicero. On the contrary, because this prepossession was rather a passion of hatred* than any aversion of the intellect, it operated as a false bias universally; and in default of any sufficient analogy between Roman politics, and the politics of England at Middleton's time of publication, there was no other popular bias derived from modern ages which could have been available. It was the object of Middleton to paint, in the person of Cicero, a pure Pagan model of scrupulous morality; and to show that, in most difficult times, he had acted with a self-restraint and a considerate integrity to which Christian ethics could have added no element of value. Now this object had the effect of, already in the preconception, laying a restraint over all freedom in the execution. No man could start from the assumption of Cicero's uniform uprightness, and afterwards retain any latitude of free judgment upon the most momentous transaction of Cicero's life: because, unless some plausible hypothesis could be framed for giving body and consistency to the pretences of the Pompeian cause, it must, upon any examination, turn out to have been as merely a selfish cabal, for the benefit of a few lordly families, as ever yet has prompted a conspiracy. The slang words "respublica" and "causa," are caught up by Middleton from the letters of Cicero ; but never, in any one instance, has either Cicero or a modern commentator, been able to explain what general interest of the

* exemplifies the pertinacity of this hatred to mention, that Middleton was one of the men who sought, for twenty years, some historical facts that might conform to Leslie's four conditions, (Short Method with the Deists,) and yet evade Leslie's logic. We think little of Leslie's argument, which never could have been valued by a sincerely religious man. But the rage of Middleton, and his perseverance, illustrate his temper of warfare.

Roman people was represented by these vague abstractions. The strife, at that era, was not between the conservative instinct as organized in the upper classes, and the destroying instinct as concentrated in the lowest. The strife was not between the property of the nation and its rapacious pauperism-the strife was not between the honours, titles, institutions, created by the state, and the plebeian malice of levellers, seeking for a commencement de novo, with the benefits of a general scramble-it was a strife between a small faction of confederated oligarchs upon the one hand, and the nation upon the other. Or, looking still more narrowly into the nature of the separate purposes at issue, it was, on the Julian side, an attempt to make such a redistribution of constitutional functions, as should harmonize the necessities of the public service with the working of the republican machinery. Whereas, under the existing condition of Rome, through the silent changes of time operating upon the relations of property and upon the character of the populace, it had been long evident that armed supporters now legionary soldiers, now gladiators enormous bribery, and the constant reserve of anarchy in the rear, were become the regular counters for conducting the desperate game of the mere ordinary civil administration. Not the demagogue only, but the peaceful or patriotic citizen, and the constitutional magistrate, could now move and exercise their public functions only through the deadliest combinations of violence and fraud. This dreadful condition of things, which no longer acted through that salutary opposition of parties essential to the energy of free countries, but involved all Rome in a permanent panic, was acceptable to the senate only; and of the senate, in sincerity, to a very small section. Some score of great houses there was, that by vigilance of intrigues, by far-sighted arrangements for armed force or for critical retreat, and by overwhelming command of money, could always guarantee their own domination. For this purpose

all that they needed was a secret understanding with each other, and the interchange of mutual pledges by means of marriage alliances. Any revolution which should put an end to this anarchy of selfishness, must reduce the exorbitant power of the paramount grandees. They naturally confederated against a result so shocking to their pride. Cicero, as a new member of this faction, himself rich* in a degree sufficient for the indefinite aggrandizement of his son, and sure of support from all the interior cabal of the senators, had adopted their selfish sympathies. And it is probable enough that all changes in a system which worked so well for himself, to which also he had always looked up from his youngest days as the reward and baven of his toils, did seriously strike him as dreadful innovations. Names were now to be altered for the sake of things; forms for the sake of substances; this already gave some verbal power of delusion to the senatorial faction. And a prospect still more starling to them all, was the necessity, towards any restoration of the old republic, that some one eminent grandee should hold provisionally a dictatorial power during the period of transition.

Abeken, and it is honourable to him as a scholar of a section not conversant with politics, saw enough into the situation of Rome at that time, to be sure that Cicero was profoundly in error upon the capital point of the dispute; that is, in mistaking a cabal for the commonwealth, and the narrowest of intrigues for a public "cause." Abeken, like an honest man, had sought for any national interest cloaked by the wordy pretences of Pompey, and he had found none. He had seen the necessity towards any regeneration of Rome, that Cæsar, or some leader pursuing the same objects, should be armed for a time with extraordinary power. In that way only had both Marius and Sylla, each in the same general circumstances, though with different feelings, been enabled to preserve Rome from total anarchy. We give Abeken's express words,

"Rich."We may consider Cicero as worth, in a case of necessity, at least L.400,000. Upon that part of this property which lay in money, there was always a very high interest to be obtained; but not so readily a good security for the principal. The means of increasing this fortune by marriage, was continually offering to a leading senator, such as Cicero, and the facility of divorce aided this resource.

that we may not seem to tax him with any responsibility beyond what he courted. At p. 342, (8th sect.) he owns it as a rule of the sole conservative policy possible for Rome:-" Dass Cæsar der einzige war, der ohne weitere stuerme, Rom zu dem ziele zu fuehren vermochte, welchem eз seit einem jahrhundert sich zuwendeto;" that Cæsar was the sole man who had it in his power, without further convulsions, to lead Rome onwards to that final mark towards which, in tendency, she had been travelling throughout one whole century. Neither could it be of much consequence whether Cæsar should personally find it safe to imitate the example of Sylla in laying down his authority, provided he so matured the safeguards of the reformed constitution, that, on the withdrawal of this temporary scaffolding, the great arch was found capable of self-support. Thus far, as an ingenuous student of Cicero's correspondence, Abeken gains a glimpse of the truth which has been so constantly obscured by historians. But, with the natural incapacity for practical politics which besieges all Germans, he fails in most of the subordinate cases to decipher the intrigues at work, and ofttimes finds special palliation for Cicero's conduct, where, in reality, it was but a reiteration of that selfish policy in which he had united himself with Pompey.

By way of slightly reviewing this policy, as it expressed itself in the acts or opinions of Pompey, we will pursue it through the chief stages of the contest. When was it that Cicero first heard the appalling news of a civil war inevitable? It was at Ephesus; at the moment of reaching that city on his return homewards from his proconsular government in Cilicia, and the circumstances of his position were these. On the last day of July 703, Ab Urb. Cond., he had formally entered on that office.

On

the last day but one of the same month in 704, he laid it down. The conduct of Cicero in this command was meritorious. And, if our purpose had been generally to examine his merits, we could show cause for making a higher estimate of those merits than has been offered by his professional eulogists. The circumstances, however, in the opposite scale, ought not to be overlooked. He knew himself to be under a jealous supervision from the friends of Verres, or all who might

have the same interest. This is one of the two facts which may be pleaded in abatement of his disinterested merit. The other is, that, after all, he did undeniably pocket a large sum of money (more than twenty thousand pounds) upon his year's administration; whilst on the other hand the utmost extent of that sum by which he refused to profit was not large. This at least we are entitled to say with regard to the only specific sum brought under our notice, as certainly awaiting his private disposal.

Here occurs a very important error of Middleton's. The question of money very much will turn upon the specific amount. Au abstinence which is exemplary may be shown in resisting an enormous gain: whereas under a slight temptation the abstinence may be little or none. Middleton makes the extravagant, almost maniacal, assertion, that the sum available by custom as a perquisite to Cicero's suite was "eight hundred thousand pounds sterling."

Not long after the period in which Middleton wrote, newspapers and the increased facilities for travelling in England, had begun to operate powerfully upon the character of our English universities. Rectors and students, childishly ignorant of the world, (such as Parson Adams and the Vicar of Wakefield,) became a rare class. Possibly Middleton was the last clergyman of that order; though, in any good sense, having little enough of guileless simplicity. In our own experience we have met with but one similar case of heroic ignorance. This occurred near Caernarvon. A poor Welsh woman, leaving home to attend an annual meeting of the Methodists, replied to us who had questioned her as to the numerical amount of members likely to assemble?" That perhaps there would be a matter of four millions!" This in little Caernarvon, that by no possibility could accommodate as many thousands! Yet, in justice to the poor cottager, it should be said that she spoke doubtingly, and with an anxious look, whereas Middleton announces his little bonus of L.800,000 with a glib fluency that demonstrates him to have seen nothing in the amount worth a comment. Let the reader take with him these little adjuncts of the case. First of all, the money was a mere surplus arising on the public expenditure, and resigned in any case

to the suite of the governor, only under the presumption that it must be too trivial to call for any more deliberate appropriation. Secondly, it was the surplus on a single year's expenditure. Thirdly, the province itself was chiefly Grecian in the composition of its population; that is, poor, in a degree not understood by most Englishmen, frugally penurious in its habits. Fourthly, the public service was of the very simplest nature. The administration of justice, and the military application of about 8000 regular troops to the local seditions of the Isaurian freebooters, or to the occasional sallies from the Parthian frontier-these functions of the proconsul summed up his public duties. To us the marvel is, how then could arise a surplus even equal to eight thousand pounds, which some copies countenance? Eight pounds we should have surmised. But to justify Middleton, he ought to have found in the text "millies -a read ing which exists nowhere. Figures, in such cases, are always so suspicious as scarcely to warrant more than a slight bias to the sense which they establish and words are little better, since they may always have been derived from a previous authority in figures. Meantime, simply as a blun. der in accurate scholarship, we should think it unfair to have pressed it. But it is in the light of an evidence against Middleton's good sense and thoughtfulness that we regard it as capital. The man who could believe that a sum not far from a million sterling had arisen in the course of twelve months, as a little bagatelle of office, a pot-devin, mere customary fees, payable to the discretional allotment of one who held the most fleeting relation to the province, is not entitled to an opinion upon any question of doubtful tenor. Had this been the scale of regular profits upon a poor province, why should any Verres create risk for him self by an arbitrary scale?

The cases, therefore, where the merit turns upon money, unavoidably the ultimate question will turn upon the amount. And the very terms of the transaction, as they are reported by Cicero, indicating that the sum was entirely at his own disposal, argue its trivial value. Another argument implies the same construction. Former magistrates, most of whom took such offices with an express view

to the creation of a fortune by embezzlement and by bribes, had established the precedent of relinquishing this surplus to their official "family." This fact of itself shows that the amount must have been uniformly trifling: being at all subject to fluc tuations in the amount, most certainly it would have been made to depend for its appropriation upon the separate merits of each annual case as it came to be known. In this particular case, Cicero's suite grumbled a little at his decision: he ordered that the money should be carried to the credit of the public. But, had a sum so vast as Middleton's been disposable in mere perquisites, proh deûm atque hominum fidem ! the honourable gentlemen of the suite would have taken unpleasant liberties with the proconsular throat. They would have been entitled to divide on the average forty thousand pounds a-man; and they would have married into senatorian houses. Because a score or so of monstrous fortunes existed in Rome, we must not forget that in any age of the Republic a sum of twenty-five thousand pounds would have constituted a most respectable fortune for a man not embarked upon a public career; and with sufficient connexions it would furnish the early costs even for such a career.

We have noticed this affair with some minuteness, both from its importance to the accuser of Verres, and because we shall here have occasion to insist on this very case, as amongst those which illustrate the call for political revolution at Rome. Returning from Cicero the governor to Cicero the man, we may remark, that, although his whole life had been adapted to purposes of ostentation, and à

fortiori this particular provincial interlude was sure to challenge from his enemies a vindictive scrutiny, still we find cause to think Cicero very sincere in his purity as a magistrate. Many of his acts were not mere showy renunciations of doubtful privileges; but were connected with painful circumstances of offence to intimate friends. Indirectly we may find in these cases a pretty ample violation of the Roman morals. Pretended philosophers in Rome who prated in set books about "virtue" and the "sum.. mum bonum," made no scruple, in the character of magistrates, to pursue the most extensive plans of extortion,

through the worst abuses of military license; some, as the "virtuous Marcus Brutus, not stopping short of murder a foul case of this description had occurred in the previous year under the sanction of Brutus, and Cicero had to stand his friend in nobly refusing to abet the further prosecution of the very same atrocity. Even in the case of the perquisites, as stated above, Cicero had a more painful duty than that of merely sacrificing a small sum of money: he was summoned by his conscience to offend those men with whom he lived, as a modern prince or ambassador lives amongst the members of his official " family." Naturally it could be no trifle to a gentle-hearted man, that he was creating for himself a necessity of encountering frowns from those who surrounded him, and who might think, with some reason, that in bringing them to a distant land, he had authorized them to look for all such remunerations as precedent had established. Right or wrong in the casuistical point we believe him to have been wrong-Cicero was eminently right when once satisfied by arguments, sound or not sound as to the point of duty, in pursuing that duty through all the vexations which it entailed. This justice we owe him pointedly in a review which has for its general object the condemnation of his political conduct.

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Never was a child, torn from its mother's arms to an odious school, more homesick at this moment than was Cicero. He languished for Rome; and when he stood before the gates of Rome, about five months later, not at liberty to enter them, he sighed profoundly after the vanished peace of mind which he had enjoyed in his wild mountainous province. "Quæsivit lucem-ingemuitque repertam." Vainly he flattered himself that he could compose, by his single mediation, the mighty conflict which had now opened. As he pursued his voyage homewards, through the months of August, September, October, and November, he was met, at every port where he touched for a few days' repose, by reports, more and more gloomy, of the impending rupture between the great partizan leaders. These reports ran along, like the undulations of an earthquake, to the last recesses of the east. Every king and every people had been canvassed for

the coming conflict; and many had been already associated by pledges to the one side or the other. The fancy faded away from Cicero s thoughts as he drew nearer to Italy, that any effect could now be anticipated for mediatorial counsels. The controversy, indeed, was still pursued through diplomacy; and the negotiations had not yet reached an ultimatum from either side. But Cicero was still dis. tant from the parties; and, before it was possible that any general congress, representing both interests, could assemble, it was certain that reciprocal distrust would coerce them into irrevocable measures of hostility. Cicero landed at Otranto. He went forward by land to Brundusium, where, on the 25th of November, his wife and daughter, who had come forward from Rome to meet him, entered the public square of that town at the same moment with himself. Without delay he moved forward towards Rome; but he could not gratify his ardour for a personal interference in the great crisis of the hour, without entering Rome; and that he was not at liberty to do, without surrendering his pretensions to the honour of a triumph.

Many writers have amused themselves with the idle vanity of Cicero, in standing upon a claim so windy, under circumstances so awful. But, on the one hand, it should be remembered how eloquent a monument it was of civil grandeur, for a novus homo to have established his own amongst the few surviving triumphal families of Rome; and, on the other hand, he could have effected nothing by his presence in the senate. No man could at this moment; Cicero least of all; because his policy had been thus arranged-ultimately to support Pompey;. but in the mean time, as strengthening the chances against war, to exhibit a perfect neutrality. Bringing, therefore, nothing in his counsels, he could hope for nothing influential in the result. Cæsar was now at Ravenna, as the city nearest to Rome of all which he could make his military headquarters within the Italian (i. e. the Cisalpine) province of Gaul. But he held his forces well in hand, and ready for a start, with his eyes literally fixed on the walls of Rome, so near had he approached. Cicero warned his friend Atticus, that a dreadful and perfectly unexampled war

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