essence of her constitution--were
set at nought, and her best friends were lying exposed in their blood."

These were surely very dismal times to those who suffered; but I know
not, why any one but a schoolboy, in his declamation, should whine over
the commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the
rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich,
grew corrupt, and, in their corruption, sold the lives and freedoms of
themselves, and of one another.

"About this time, Brutus had his patience put to the _highest_ trial: he
had been married to Clodia; but whether the family did not please him,
or whether he was dissatisfied with the lady's behaviour during his
absence, he soon entertained thoughts of a separation. _This raised a
good deal of talk_, and the women of the Clodian family inveighed
bitterly against Brutus--but he married Portia, who was worthy of such a
father as M. Cato, and such a husband as M. Brutus. She had a soul
capable of an _exalted passion_, and found a proper object to raise and
give it a sanction; she did not only love but adored her husband; his
worth, his truth, his every shining and heroic quality, made her gaze on
him like a god, while the endearing returns of esteem and tenderness she
met with, brought her joy, her pride, her every wish to centre in her
beloved Brutus."

When the reader has been awakened by this rapturous preparation, he
hears the whole story of Portia in the same luxuriant style, till she
breathed out her last, a little before the _bloody proscription_, and
"Brutus complained heavily of his friends at Rome, as not having paid
due attention to his lady in the declining state of her health."

He is a great lover of modern terms. His senators and their wives are
_gentlemen and ladies_. In this review of Brutus's army, _who was under
the command of gallant men, not braver officers than true patriots_, he
tells _us_, "that Sextus, the questor, was _paymaster, secretary at war,
and commissary general_; and that the _sacred discipline_ of the Romans
required the closest connexion, like that of father and son, to subsist
between the general of an army and his questor. Cicero was _general of
the cavalry_, and the next _general officer_ was Flavius, _master of Ihe
artillery_, the elder Lentulus was _admiral_, and the younger _rode_ in
the _band of volunteers_; under these the tribunes, _with many others,
too tedious to name_." Lentulus, however, w