a by-word for eulogy;
quotes the opinion of Erasmus, who tells us that he loves the writings
of the man "not only for the divine felicity of his style, but for the
sanctity of his heart and morals." This was the effect left on the mind
of an accurate thinker and most just man. But then also has Cicero been
spoken of with the bitterest scorn. From Dio Cassius, who wrote two
hundred and twenty years after Christ, down to Mr. Froude, whose Caesar
has just been published, he has had such hard things said of him by men
who have judged him out of his own mouth, that the reader does not know
how to reconcile what he now reads with the opinion of men of letters
who lived and wrote in the century next after his death--with the
testimony of such a man as Erasmus, and with the hearty praises of his
biographer, Middleton. The sanctity of his heart and morals! It was thus
that Erasmus was struck in reading his works. It is a feeling of that
kind, I profess, that has induced me to take this work in hand--a
feeling produced altogether by the study of his own words. It has seemed
to be that he has loved men so well, has been so anxious for the true,
has been so capable of honesty when dishonesty was common among all
around him, has been so jealous in the cause of good government, has
been so hopeful when there has been but little ground for hope, as to
have deserved a reputation for sanctity of heart and morals.

Of the speeches made by Cicero as advocate after his Quaestorship, and
before those made in the accusation of Verres, we have the fragment only
of the second of two spoken in defence of Marcus Tullius Decula, whom we
may suppose to have been distantly connected with his family. He does
not avow any relationship. "What," he says, in opening his argument,
"does it become me, a Tullius, to do for this other Tullius, a man not
only my friend, but my namesake?" It was a matter of no great
importance, as it was addressed to judges not so called, but to
"recuperatores," judges chosen by the Praetor, and who acted in lighter
cases.

CHAPTER VI.

_VERRES._

There are six episodes, or, as I may say, divisions in the life of
Cicero to which special interest attaches itself. The first is the
accusation against Verres, in which he drove the miscreant howling out
of the city. The second is his Consulship, in which he drove Catiline
out of the city, and caused certain other conspirators who were joined
with the arch rebel to be