of Cleopatra, lest she should be
"chastised by the sober eye" of Octavia, is exceedingly characteristic
of the two women: it betrays the jealous pride of her, who was conscious
that she had forfeited all real claim to respect; and it places Octavia
before us in all the majesty of that virtue which could strike a kind
of envying and remorseful awe even into the bosom of Cleopatra. What
would she have thought and felt, had some soothsayer foretold to her the
fate of her own children, whom she so tenderly loved? Captives, and
exposed to the rage of the Roman populace, they owed their existence to
the generous, admirable Octavia, in whose mind there entered no particle
of littleness. She received into her house the children of Antony and
Cleopatra, educated them with her own, treated them with truly maternal
tenderness, and married them nobly.

Lastly, to complete the contrast, the death of Octavia should be put in
comparison with that of Cleopatra.

After spending several years in dignified retirement, respected as the
sister of Augustus, but more for her own virtues, Octavia lost her
eldest son Marcellus, who was expressively called the "Hope of Rome."
Her fortitude gave way under this blow, and she fell into a deep
melancholy, which gradually wasted her health. While she was thus
declining into death, occurred that beautiful scene, which has never
yet, I believe, been made the subject of a picture, but should certainly
be added to my gallery, (if I had one,) and I would hang it opposite to
the dying Cleopatra. Virgil was commanded by Augustus to read aloud to
his sister that book of the Eneid in which he had commemorated the
virtues and early death of the young Marcellus. When he came to the
lines--

This youth, the blissful vision of a day,
Shall just be shown on earth, then snatch'd away, &c.

The mother covered her face, and burst into tears. But when Virgil
mentioned her son by name, ("Tu Marcellus eris,") which he had artfully
deferred till the concluding lines, Octavia, unable to control her
agitation, fainted away. She afterwards, with a magnificent spirit,
ordered the poet a gratuity of ten thousand sesterces for each line of
the panegyric.[80] It is probable that the agitation she suffered on
this occasion hastened the effects of her disorder; for she died soon
after, (of grief, says the historian,) having survived Antony about
twenty years.

VOLUMNIA.

Octavia, however, is only a beautiful sk