lius he was fond, of Curio, of
Trebatius. To Paetus he was attached, to Sulpicius and Marcellus. But to
none of them did he ever show that deference which he did to Brutus. I
could have understood this feeling as evinced in the political letters
at the end of his life, and have explained it to myself by saying that
the "ipsissima verba" have not probably come to us. But I cannot say
that the name of Brutus does not stand there, written in imperishable
letters on the title-pages of his most chosen pieces. If this be so,
Brutus has owed more to his learning than the respect of Cicero. All
ages since have felt it, and Shakespeare has told us that "Brutus is an
honorable man."

There is a dispute as to the period of the authorship of this treatise.
Cicero in it tells us of Cato and of Marcellus, and therefore we must
suppose that it was written when they were alive. Indeed, he so compares
Caesar and Marcellus as he could not have done had they not both been
alive. But Cato and Marcellus died B.C. 46, and how then could the
treatise have been written in B.C. 45? It should, however, be remembered
that a written paper may be altered and rewritten, and that the date of
authorship and that of publication cannot be exactly the same. But the
time is of but little matter to those who can take delight in the
discourse. He begins by telling us how he had grieved when, on his
return from Cilicia, he had heard that Hortensius was dead. Hortensius
had brought him into the College of Augurs, and had there stood to him
in the place of a parent. And he had lamented Hortensius also on behalf
of Rome. Hortensius had gone. Then he goes on to say that, as he was
thinking of these things while walking in his portico, Brutus had come
to him and Pomponius Atticus. He says how pleasantly they greeted each
other; and then gradually they go on, till Atticus asks him to renew the
story he had before been telling. "In truth, Pomponius," he says, "I
remember it right well, for then it was that I heard Deiotarus, that
truest and best of kings, defended by our Brutus here," Deiotarus was
that Eastern king whose defence by Cicero himself I have mentioned when
speaking of his pleadings before Caesar. Then he rushes off into his
subject, and discusses at length his favorite idea. It must still be
remembered that neither here are to be traced any positive line of
lessons in oratory. There is no beginning, no middle, and no end to this
treatise. Cicero runs o