leader
than if no leader had been given them. The leader will measure his
danger; but the people itself know no such measurement."[311] He
afterward takes up the question of the ballot, and is against it on
principle. "Let the people vote as they will," he says, "but let their
votes be known to their betters."[312] It is, alas, useless now to
discuss the matter here in England! We have been so impetuous in our
wish to avoid the evil of bribery--which was quickly going--that we
have rushed into that of dissimulation, which can only be made to go by
revolutionary changes. When men vote by tens of thousands the ballot
will be safe, but no man will then care for the ballot. It is, however,
strange to see how familiar men were under the Roman Empire with matters
which are perplexing us to-day.

We now come to the three purely moral essays, the last written of his
works, except the Philippics and certain of his letters, and the Topica.
Indeed, when you reach the last year or two of his life, it becomes
difficult to assign their exact places to each. He mentions one as
written, and then another; but at last this latter appears before the
former. They were all composed in the same year, the year before his
death--the most active year of his life, as far as his written works are
concerned--and I shall here treat De Senectute first, then De Amicitia,
and the De Officiis last, believing them to have been published in that
order.

The De Senectute is an essay written in defence of old age, generally
called Cato Major. It is supposed to have been spoken by the old Censor,
149 B.C., and to have been listened to by Scipio and Laelius. This was
the same Scipio who had the dream--who, in truth, was not a Scipio at
all, but a son of Paulus AEmilius, whom we remember in history as the
younger Africanus. Cato rushes at once into his subject, and proves to
us his point by insisting on all those commonplace arguments which were
probably as well known before his time as they have been since. All men
wish for old age, but none rejoice when it has come. The answer is that
no man really wishes for old age, but simply wishes for a long life, of
which old age is the necessary ending. It creeps on us so quickly! But
in truth it does not creep quicker on youth than does youth on infancy;
but the years seem to fly fast because not marked by distinct changes.
It is the part of a wise man to see that each portion of his five-act
poem shall be well p