d, in the same uninterrupted habits
of composition; for with his dying hand, and nearly speechless, he sent
a fresh proof to the printer!

CICERO VIEWED AS A COLLECTOR.

Fuseli, in the introduction to the second part of his Lectures, has
touched on the character of Cicero, respecting his knowledge and feeling
of Art, in a manner which excites our curiosity. "Though Cicero seems to
have had as little _native taste_ for painting and sculpture, and even
less than he had taste for poetry, he had a conception of Nature, and
with his usual acumen frequently scattered useful hints and pertinent
observations. For many of these he might probably be indebted to
Hortensius, with whom, though his rival in eloquence, he lived on terms
of familiarity, and who was a man of declared taste, and one of the
first collectors of the time." We may trace the progress of _Cicero's
taste for the works of art_. It was probably a late, though an ardent
pursuit; and their actual enjoyment seems with this celebrated man
rather to have been connected with some future plan of life.

Cicero, when about forty-three years of age, seems to have projected the
formation of a library and a collection of antiquities, with the remote
intention of secession, and one day stealing away from the noisy honours
of the republic. Although that great man remained too long a victim to
his political ambition, yet at all times his natural dispositions would
break out, and amidst his public avocations he often anticipated a time
when life would be unvalued without uninterrupted repose; but repose,
destitute of the ample furniture, and even of the luxuries of a mind
occupying itself in literature and art, would only for him have opened
the repose of a desert! It was rather his provident wisdom than their
actual enjoyment, which induced him, at a busied period of his life, to
accumulate from all parts books, and statues, and curiosities without
number; in a word, to become, according to the term, too often
misapplied and misconceived among us, for it is not always understood
in an honourable sense, a COLLECTOR!

Like other late collectors, Cicero often appears ardent to possess what
he was not able to command; sometimes he entreats, or circuitously
negotiates, or is planning the future means to secure the acquisitions
which he thirsted after. He is repeatedly soliciting his literary friend
Atticus to keep his books for him, and not to dispose of his collections