specimen of what is really natural, should be selected from that nature what is best in its kind?-Carey and some others read thus: Quid illud? num etc. with Rath I prefer, Quid? Illud num etc., as this construction of quid then accords with that in the preceding sentences.-Quam eorum, i. e. quam natura eorum, etc.-Munivisset, had prepared by his famous deeds, etc.-Et religione... consecrata, and rendered sacred by the religious feeling of all men.

§ 12.

(58) P. 29. l. 16. Iisdem ne.. terminaretur? Shall we say that their fame is terminated by the same bounds as their life?-Licuit... Themistocli, Themistocles might have enjoyed his ease; where the construction is, licuit Themistocli esse otioso, esse taking the same case after it as before it.-Ne et... quaeram, not to mention things ancient and foreign.-Quo dempto, which [expectation of the future] being taken away.-De principibus; concerning leading men or rulers.--Funera fletu faxet, nor perform my funeral rites with weeping; faxet (by syncope) for fecerit,-Vivu', i. e. vivus, the s being dropped by apocope.

(59) P. 30. l. 3. Sed quid poëtas? But why [should I speak of] the poets ?-Opifices, artists. Phidias, a celebrated statuary of Athens, who died B. C. 432. By request of Pericles, he made a statue of Minerva, and on her shield, he carved his own likeness, and also that of Pericles. For this he was banished from Athens; and he took his revenge afterwards, by making a statue of Jupiter Olympius, which eclipsed the glory of his Minerva, and which was kept by the people of Elis.-Et si

maxime, and if we think those whose minds excel either in genius or virtue, to be peculiarly adapted to discern the power of nature, because they possess a nature best in its kind.

§§ 13-18.

But if the soul survives the body, where and how does it exist? This question gives occasion for a kind of episode here, on the met aphysical nature of the soul, and its final place of residence; which extends through § 13-18. Vulgar ignorance, says Cicero, has formed a multitude of superstitious notions on this subject; because the uninformed minds of men were unable to contemplate any thing but sensible objects. Pherecydes first taught the proper eternity of the soul; which was received and supported by the disciples of Pythagoras; from whom it passed to Plato.

Mathematicians (natural philosophers) teach, that of the four elements, two, i. e. earth and water, sink downwards; and two, i. e. fire and air, mount upwards. Now if the soul be igneous or etherial; and a fortiori if it be harmony, or that fifth something described by Aristotle; it will of course mount upwards on its departure from the body, and ascend to a very great distance from the earth. But I do not see how harmony can arise from the disposition of members and the figure of the body destitute of a soul. It were better for Aristoxenus, who maintains this, to attend to his music, and leave reasoning on this subject to Aristotle his master. The fortuitous concourse of atoms, moreover as a cause of animated being, we must at once reject. If then the soul consists of any of the four elements, it must necessarily be that of fire or air; and of course the soul, consisting of either of these, or of these combined, on quitting the body, must mount into the upper regions. And that the soul is of a warmer or more glowing nature than the concrete air, is clear from the warmth which it imparts to our bodies, that are formed from mere terrene materials.

'The soul, moreover, is capable of the highest celerity of movement; by which it can easily permeate the clouds and vapours and obscurity which encompass the earth, and escape to that clement in the upper regions, consisting of combined ether and solar warmth, which will be homogeneous with itself, and where it will find its own proper balance and resting place, and therefore cease to ascend. Here it will be nourished as the stars are, i. e. by the pure and glowing ether of those upper regions.

Here, also, being freed from all bodily desires and lusts, and left to the full and free exercise of its own proper powers, it will gratify its insatiable thirst for knowledge; which, moreover, will ever be increased in proportion to its gratification and its opportunities. Even here, on earth, the beauty of the natural creation excites ardent desire for more extended knowledge. And if we now count it a great thing to visit the extreme western part of the Mediterra

nean and to see the Euxine Sea on the east; what will be our rap-
ture, when we can see all the regions of the earth, with all their
various forms and productions!

Besides all this, we may consider, that at present we do not real-
ly see any thing, with our physical organs. These are the mere
inlets to the soul, which alone has any proper sensation. When
we come, then, to those upper regions, where we shall no longer be
impeded by any of our physical organs, nothing will binder our
having the clearest, most extensive, and altogether satisfactory
views of every thing that we desire to know.-Such therefore will
be the state and condition of the soul.

And such being the case, I wonder at the strange conduct of the
Epicureans, who think it a great thing to have freed men from
the fear of the future, by shewing that the soul is of a mortal na-
ture, and expires with the body. To me the sentiment of Pythago-
ras and Plato is much more probable and welcome.

The objection made by many, viz. that they cannot understand what
the nature of the soul is, which is eternal, amounts to nothing; for
can they understand any better what the soul is, when in the body,
than when out of the body? To me it is much more difficult to see
how the soul can dwell in a habitation so foreign to its true nature,
and how it is to contemplate it as freed from such a habitation: un-
less, indeed, we are to maintain the position, that we can understand
nothing which we do not see with our eyes; and then we must dis-
believe the existence of the gods. Dicaearchus and Aristoxenus,
because they could not tell what the soul is, rejected the idea of
its existence. But when the oracle of Apollo said: Tvær oɛav-
Tov, it meant, that we should become acquainted with our souls,
which are our only proper selves.

Thus it is evident that one main design of Cicero, in the whole of
this apparent digression, is to remove objections against a future
state, made from the nature and dwelling place of the soul.

(60) P. 30. 1. 26. Censebant, i. e. antiqui hom-
ines censebant.-Frequens...theatri, the crowded
assembly at the theatre.-Audiens... carmen, when
hearing so pompous a strain. Adsum etc., I am
present, and I come from Acheron, with difficulty,
through a deep and dangerous passage; through
caves formed by rough rocks, over-hanging, huge;
where the thick darkness of hell is immoveable; rigi-
da stat is a more probable reading than rigida
constat; the meaning of which former is stands
stiff, i. e. immoveable. The quotation is from the
Hecuba of Euripides, sub. init.-Valuit, did pre-
vail.-Sublatus, removed; the lexicons derive this

word from tollo, its own proper root being out of

use.

(61) P. 31. l. 5. Animos ... complecti, they could not form any idea of minds living by themselves, i. e. existing independently of the body.-Aliquam, some kind of-Tota vexvia, all the vexvia of Homer; Vɛxvia means sacrifices and rites instituted for the dead, in order to evoke the shades (umbrae) from the under-world or Hades.-Nexgoμavtɛĩa, places where necromancy was practised.-Faciebat seems hardly to admit of a tolerable sense here. It may be rendered, procured, made, constructed, and possibly made of, i. e. esteemed, valued, for this is one of the senses of facio, even when it governs the Accusative; although it is seldom so used in such a connexion. (62) P. 31. l. 9. Averni lacus was near to Cumae in Campania; hence in vicinia nostra. By this lake is the fabled entrance to the infernal regions, as described by Homer and Virgil.-Ostio... Acherontis, at the mouth of the deep Acheron; which (Acheron) here means a river in lower Italy that must have been near the lake mentioned; see Scheller's Lat. Lex.

(63) P. 31. l. 11. Falso sanguine; so I find it, in my edition of Ernesti's Cicero; but in Rath, Nobbe, and Carey, salso sanguine. blood is, I am unable to imagine.

What salt False blood

may very easily be attributed to the imagines mortuorum, i. e. mere umbrae or shadows of living beings; so Main in his version: "No mortal blood." -Ad oculos... referebant, i. e. they made every thing to be visible to the eye, in whose existence they believed.-Et... abducere, and to withdraw our thoughts from objects with which we are familiar.

(64) P. 31. l. 18. Itaque ... dixit, therefore, (what in my opinion others had said for many ages, but, so far as we have it on record), Pherecydes of Syros first said, etc. Syrius (Zioios), belonging to Syros, one of the Grecian islands (Cyclades), not far from Delos, and at the mouth of the Aegean Sea. The Syrius here has been mistaken by some for Syrus, a Syrian. Pherecydes was born about 595 B. C. and died about 535. He was the teacher of Pythagoras; and with the disciples of Pythagoras, Plato was intimate; so that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul seems to have come down from Pherecydes directly to Plato.-Antiquus sane; for, as the above dates shew, Pherecydes was born almost 500 years before Cicero.

(65) P. 31. l. 21. Meo regnante gentili, during the reign of my relative, (Main renders: my namesake Tullus), i. e. during the reign of Servius Tullius, which was from 578 B. C. to 534 B. C. Serv. Tullius was the son of Ocrisia and Tullius, who belonged to Corniculum, a town of the Sabines, a little north of the river Anio, and but a short distance from the city of Rome. In a war between the Sabines and Romans, Tullius the husband of Ocrisia was killed, and she came into the hands of Tarquin the Elder, king of Rome, as a slave. Tarquin presented her to his wife; who brought up her son, Servius Tullius, in the palace. Afterwards Tarquin gave to Tullius his daughter as a wife; and upon the death of this king, S. Tullius, his son in law, was made king, and reigned 34 years. He was the last of the ancient Roman kings, save one, viz. Tarquin the Proud; who is