in order that he might enjoy without disturbance the company of
another lady who was nearly as much older than himself as his wife was
younger.

Now I ask, having brought forward so strong a testimony, not, I will
say, as to the character of the man, but of the estimation in which he
was held by those who came shortly after him in his own country; having
shown, as I profess that I have shown, that his name was always treated
with singular dignity and respect, not only by the lovers of the old
Republic but by the minions of the Empire; having found that no charge
was ever made against him either for insincerity or cowardice or
dishonesty by those who dealt commonly with his name, am I not justified
in saying that they who have in later days accused him should have shown
their authority? Their authority they have always found in his own
words. It is on his own evidence against himself that they have
depended--on his own evidence, or occasionally on their own surmises.
When we are told of his cowardice, because those human vacillations of
his, humane as well as human, have been laid bare to us as they came
quivering out of his bosom on to his fingers! He is a coward to the
critics because they have written without giving themselves time to feel
the true meaning of his own words. If we had only known his acts and not
his words--how he stood up against the judges at the trial of Verres,
with what courage he encountered the responsibility of his doings at the
time of Catiline, how he joined Pompey in Macedonia from a sense of
sheer duty, how he defied Antony when to defy Antony was probable
death--then we should not call him a coward! It is out of his own mouth
that he is condemned. Then surely his words should be understood. Queen
Christina says of him, in one of her maxims, that "Cicero was the only
coward that was capable of great actions." The Queen of Sweden, whose
sentences are never worth very much, has known her history well enough
to have learned that Cicero's acts were noble, but has not understood
the meaning of words sufficiently to extract from Cicero's own
expressions their true bearing. The bravest of us all, if he is in high
place, has to doubt much before he can know what true courage will
demand of him; and these doubts the man of words will express, if there
be given to him an _alter ego_ such as Cicero had in Atticus.

In reference to the biography of Mr Forsyth I must, in justice both to
him and to Cicer