which emboldened the Carthagi- | there would have been matter of reference to the Roman people; but when, instead of adding, you retrench, there is no room for deliberation. The Carthaginians, therefore, must submit to us at discretion, or must vanquish us in battle. Hooke. nians to break the truce with us, and to lay aside all thoughts of a peace when it was just upon the point of being concluded; and your present proposal is a proof of it. You retrench from their concessions every thing but what we are, and have been long possessed of. But as it is your care that your fellow-citizens should have the obligations to you of being eased from a great part of their burden, so it ought to be mine that they draw no advantage from their perfidiousness. Nobody is more sensible than I am of the weakness of man, and the power of fortune, and that whatever we enterprize is subject to a thousand chances. If, before the Romans passed into Africa, you had of your own accord quitted Italy, and made the offers you now make, I believe they would not have been rejected. But as you have been forced out of Italy, and we are masters here of the open country, the situation of things is much altered. And what is chiefly to be considered, the Carthaginians, by the late treaty which we entered into at their request, were, over and above what you offer, to have restored to us our prisoners without ransom, delivered up their ships of war, paid us five thousand talents, and to have given hostages for the performance of all. The senate accepted these conditions, but Carthage failed on her part; Carthage deceived us. What, then, is to be done? Are the Carthaginians to be released from the most important articles of the treaty as a reward of their breach of faith? No, certainly. If, to the conditions before agreed upon, you had added some new articles to our advantage, VOL. 1. The Character of Pompey. Pompey had early acquired the surname of the Great, by that sort of merit, which, from the constitution of the republic, necessarily made him great; a fame and success in war superior to what Rome had ever known in the most celebrated of her generals. He had triumphed at three several times over the three different parts of the known world, Europe, Asia, Africa, and by his victories had almost doubled the extent, as well as the revenues of the Roman dominion; for, as he declared to the people on his return from the Mithridatic war, he had found the lesser Asia the boundary, but left it in the middle of their empire. He was about six years older than Cæsar; and while Cæsar, immersed in pleasures, oppressed with debts, and suspected by all honest men, was hardly able to show his head, Pompey was flourishing in the height of power and glory; and, by the consent of all parties, placed at the head of the republic. This was the post that his ambi tion seemed to aim at, to be the first man in Rome; the leader, not the tyrant of his country; for he more than once had it in his power to have made himself the master of it without any risk, 3 Y he had not always the art to conceal his real sentiments. As be was a better soldier than a statesman, so what he gained in the camp he usually lost in the city; and, though adored when abroad, was often affronted and mortified at home, till the imprudent opposition of the senate drove him to if his virtue, or his phlegm at least, had not restrained him. But he lived in a perpetual expectation of receiving from the gift of the people what he did not care to seize by force; and, by fomenting the disorders of the city, hoped to drive them to the necessity of creating him dictator. It is an observation of all the historians, the alliance with Crassus and Cæthat, while Cæsar made no diffe-sar, which proved fatal both to rence of power, whether it was himself and the republic. He took conferred or usurped, whether over in these two, not as the partners, but those who loved, or those who fear- the ministers rather of his power: ed him, Pompey seemed to value that, by giving them some share none but what was offered; nor to with him, he might make his own have any desire to govern, but with authority uncontroulable. He had the good-will of the governed. no reason to apprehend that they What leisure he found from his could ever prove his rivals; since wars he employed in the study of neither of them had any credit or polite letters, and especially of elo- character of that kind, which alone quence, in which he would have could raise them above the laws; acquired great fame, if his genius a superior fame, and experience in had not drawn him to the more war, with the militia of the empire dazzling glory of arms; yet he at their devotion. All this was pleaded several causes with ap- purely his own; till, by cherishing plause, in the defence of his friends Cæsar, and throwing into his hands and clients, and some of them in the only thing which he wanted, conjunction with Cicero. His lan- arms and military command, he guage was copious and elevated, his made him at last too strong for sentiments just, his voice sweet, himself, and never began to fear his action noble, and full of dignity. him till it was too late. Cicero But his talent's were better formed warmly dissuaded both his union for arms than the gown: for, though and his breach with Cæsar; and in both he observed the same dis- after the rupture as warmly still, cipline, a perpetual modesty, tem- the thought of giving him battle. perance, and gravity of outward be- If any of these counsels had been haviour; yet, in the licence of followed, Pompey had preserved camps, the example was more rare his life and honour, and the repuband striking. His person was ex- lic its liberty. But he was urged tremely graceful, and imprinting re- to his fate by a natural superstispect; yet with an air of reserved tion and attention to those vain haughtiness, which became the ge- auguries with which he was flatneral better than the citizen. His tered by all the haruspices: he had parts were plausible, rather than seen the same temper in Marius great; specious, rather than pene- and Sylla, and observed the happy trating; and his views of politics but effects of it: but they assumed it narrow; for his chief instrument of only out of policy, he out of pringoverning was dissimulation; yet ciple: they used it to animate says, had scarce been sufficient for his victories, could not find a spot upon it at last for a grave. His body was burnt on the shore by one of his freed men, with the planks of an old fishing-boat; and his ashes, being conveyed to Rome, were deposited privately by his wife Cornelia, in a vault by his Alban villa. The Egyptians, however, raised a monument to him on the place, and adorned it with figures of brass, which, being defaced afterwards by time, and buried almost in sand and rubbish, was sought out, and restored by the emperor Hadrian. their soldiers, when they had found a probable opportunity of fighting; but he, against all prudence and probability, was encouraged by it to fight to his own ruin. He saw his mistakes at last, when it was out of his power to correct them; and, in his wretched flight from Pharsalia, was forced to confess that he had trusted too much to his hopes, and that Cicero had judged better and seen farther into things than he. The resolution of seeking refuge in Egypt finished the sad catastrophe of this great man: the father of the reigning prince had been highly obliged to him for his protection at Rome, and restoration to his kingdora ; and the son had sent a considerable fleet to his assistance in the present war: but in this ruin of his fortunes, what gratitude was there to be expected from a court governed by eunuchs and merce-great and noble quality that could Middleton. The Character of Julius Cæsar. Cæsar was endowed with every exalt human nature, and give a man the ascendant in society; formed to excel in peace, as well as war; provident in counsel; fearless in action; and executing what he had resolved with an amazing celerity; generous beyond measure to his friends; placable to his enemies; and for parts, learning, and eloquence, scarce inferior to any man. His nary Greeks? all whose politics turned, not on the honour of the king, but the establishment of their own power, which was likely to be eclipsed by the admission of Pompey. How happy had it been for him to have died in that sickness, when all Italy was putting up vows and prayers for his safety! or if he had fallen by the chance of war on the plains of Pharsalia, in the defence of his country's li-orations were admired for two quaberty, he had died still glorious, lities, which are seldom found tothough unfortunate; but, as if he gether, strength and elegance; Cihad been reserved for an example cero ranks him among the greatest of the instability of human great- orators that Rome, ever bred; and ness, he, who a few days before Quintilian says, that he spoke with commanded kings and consuls, the same force with which he and all the noblest of Rome, was fought; and, if he had devoted sentenced to die by a counsel of himself to the bar, would have slaves; murdered by a base de- been the only man capable of riserter; cast out naked and head- valling Cicero. Nor was he a less on the Egyptian strand; and master only of the politer arts; when the whole earth, as Vellelius but conversant also with the most abstruse and critical parts of learn- į were known to possess any share of ing; and among other works which treasure. His great abilities would he published, addressed two books necesarily have made him one of to Cicero, on the analogy of lan- the first citizens of Rome; but disguage, or the art of speaking and daining the condition of a subject, writing correctly. He was a most he could never rest, till he had ! liberal patron of wit and learning, made himself a monarch. In acting wheresoever they were found; and this last part, his usual prudence out of his love of those talents, seemed to fail him; as if the height would really pardon those who had to which he was mounted, had employed them against himself; turned his head and made him gidrightly judging, that by making dy: for, by a vain ostentation of his such men his friends, he should power, he destroyed the stability of draw praises from the same foun-it: and as men shorten life by livtain, from which he had been ing too fast, so by an intemperance aspersed. His capital passions were of reigning he brought his reign to ambition, and love of pleasure; a violent end. which he indulged in their turns Middleton. The Character of Cato. If we consider the character of Cato, without prejudice, he was certainly a great and worthy man; a friend to truth, virtue, liberty, yet falsely measuring all duty by the absurd rigour of the stoical rule; he was generally disappointed of the end which he sought by it, the happiness both of his private and public life. In his private conduct, he was severe, morose, inexorable; banishing all the softer affections, as natural enemies to justice, and as suggesting false motives of acting, from favour, cle to the greatest excess: yet the first was always predominant, to which he could easily sacrifice all the charms of the second, and draw pleasure even from toils and dangers, when they ministered to his glory. For he thought tyranny, as Cicero says, the greatest of goddesses; and had frequently in his mouth a verse of Euripides, which expressed the image of his soul, that if right and justice were ever to be violated, they were to be violated for the sake of reigning. This was the chief end and purpose of his life; the scheme that he had formed from his early youth; so that as Cato truly declared of him, he came with sobriety and meditation to the sub-mency, and compassion: in public version of the republic. He used to say, that there were two things necessary to acquire and to support power; soldiers and money; which yet depended mutually on each other; with money therefore he provided soldiers, and with soldiers extorted money, and was of all men, the most rapacious in plundering both friends and foes; sparing neither prince nor state, nor temple, nor even private persons, who affairs he was the same; had but one rule of policy; to adhere to what was right; without regard to time or circumstances, or even to a force that could controul him; for instead of managing the power of the great, so as to mitigate the ill, or extract any good from it, he was urging it always to acts of violence by a perpetual defiance; so that, with the best intentions in the world, he often did great harm to the re than that Cæsar were dead, to liver all freemen?-As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortu liant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his valour, and death for his ambition. Who's here so base, that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who's here so rude, that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who's here so vile, that would not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended.-I pause for a reply. public. This was his general behaviour; yet, from some particular facts, it appears that his strength of mind was not always impregna-nate, I rejoice at it; as he was vable, but had its weak places of pride, ambition, and party zeal; which when managed, and flattered to a certain point, would betray him sometimes into measures, contrary to his ordinary rule of right and truth. The last act of his life was agreeable to his nature and philosophy: when he could no longer be what he had been; or when the ills of life over-balanced the good, which, by the principles of his sect, was a just cause for dying; he put an end to his life, with a spirit and resolution which would make one imagine, that he was glad to have found an occasion of dying in his proper character. On the whole, his life was rather admirable than amiable; fit to be praised, rather than imitated. Middleton. None? Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Cæsar, than you should do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the capitol: his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death. Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony; who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a Brutus's Speech in Vindication of place in the commonwealth: as, Cæsar's Murder. Romans, countrymen, and lovers! Hear me, for my cause; and be silent, that you may hear. Believe me, for mine honour; and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom; and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cæsar's; to him I say, that Brutus's love to Cæsar was no less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cæsar? this is my answer. Not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves; which of you shall not? With this I depart that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself when it shall please my country to need my death. Shakspeare. A Comparison of Cæsar with Cato. As to their extraction, years, and eloquence, they were pretty nigh equal. Both of them had the same greatness of mind, both the samé degree of glory, but in different ways: Cæsar was celebrated for his great bounty and generosity; Cato |