Cato, or have shrunk from the harsher virtue of Brutus, Romilly was that man."

*

I am, I confess, at a loss to discover those pitiful fopperies in the historical records that survive of the illustrious Roman; nor has his lordship indicated his authority for the imputation. Perhaps allusion is intended to Cato's reception of Ptolemy Auletes, King of Egypt and Cyprus, mentioned by Plutarch, (Vit. Caton. Utic. cap. xx.) or to some passage in Dio Cassius, the rancorous enemy of Roman virtue; but the former admits of easy explanation, and the latter's bad feelings entitle him to little credit. Nor can I acknowledge the aptness of the epithet harsher to the virtue of Brutus, as compared to that of Cato, who was far less lenient and of austerer virtue than his nephew, and as little indulgent to himself as to others. (Sallust, Bell. Catil. cap. 52-54.) Every line of Plutarch, and every page of Cicero that have reference to Cato, demonstrate their conviction of the uncompromising severity of his principles and rectitude of conduct, so as apparently to border on harshness. Cicero (De Officiis, lib. i., cap. 31,) discriminates him from all other men, "propterea quòd eorum vita lenior, et mores fuerant faciliores." Others, might, he thought, submit to Cæsar; but, in consistency of character, "Catoni moriendum potius, quàm tyranni vultus aspiciendus fuit."

Brutus, on the contrary, did, ostensibly at least, submit to Cæsar, who had, in the powerful language

'On reading Lord (then Mr. Denman's) quotation from this historian, at the trial of Queen Caroline, I instantly traced it to its real source, "the article Octavie in Bayle," which I afterwards indicated to Dr. Dibdin, who gladly availed himself of it, as if his own discovery.

of Horace, subjugated the world, but failed to bend the idomitable spirit of Cato:

"Et cuncta terrarum subacta,

Præter atrocem animum Catonis."

Od. lib. ii., Od. i.

Four other poets emulously made him the theme of their panegyric. Virgil (Æneid. viii., 671,) describes him as the legislator of Elysium:-"Et his dantem jura Catonem." Lucan's line (lib. i., 128,) “ Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni," raises him above humanity; and again, (lib. ii., 380,) "Nec sibi, sed toti genitum se credere mundo." Martial (lib. vi. Epigr. 32,) in the same spirit of admiration, says "Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Cæsare major; and Manilius (Astron. lib. vi., 87,) "Et invictum, devictâ morte, Catonem." Montaigne has devoted a chapter (liv. i., ch. 36,) to his praise; but where his imputed fopperies are to be found I am wholly ignorant.

Without stopping rigidly to weigh the conduct of Brutus to Cæsar, we know that he yielded to his power; and we learn from Cicero that he evinced the most griping avarice, where Cato had displayed the utmost disinterestedness and integrity. On the death of Ptolemy (Auletes or Nothus,) Cato remitted to Rome, without the slightest reserve, the royal treasure, amounting to about 7000 talents, or £1,260,000, (Plutarch, cap. 44); while Brutus, in the same island, exercised the most unrelenting rigour and usurious extortion against his debtors. The circumstances, as communicated in confidential correspondence to their mutual friend, T. Pomponius Atticus, (lib. v., Ep. 24,) are disgraceful to the fame of the stoic, who wished to make Cicero, then Proconsul of Cilicia (U. C. 703,)

CATO—BRUTUS—AND CICERO'S LETTERS TO ATTICUS. 185

the instrument of his harshness, (certainly not the harshness of virtue,) which the latter refused to become, and, in vindication of this refusal, thus writes to Atticus" Habes meam causam, quæ si Bruto non probatur, nescio cur illum amemus; sed avunculo ejus certe probabitur," an appeal and distinction quite decisive of his higher estimation of Cato, though just then not a little disconcerted at the rigid stoic's declining to support his demand of a triumph, notwithstanding his cajoling letter on the subject, (Epist. ad. Famil. lib. xv., Epist. 4,) to which Cato made an admirable reply.*

Antiquity has not left us a composition of superior interest to the letters of Cicero to Atticus, which, as Cornelius Nepos (Vit. Attici, c. 16,) observes, may enable us to dispense with any other memorial of the period. Nor would it be easy to present a parallel instance of genuine friendship, as defined by Cicero himself, in his treatise "De Amicitiâ," in which (cap. xvi.) he reproves, I may transiently remark, the calculating foresight that would teach us "to live with our friends as if they were one day to become our enemies ;" a maxim, I know not why, usually numbered with La Rochefoucauld's, probably because in his spirit; but it is not to be found in his collection. On Atticus this correspondence, of which, however, we have not his part, has conferred an immortality which his alliance with so many members of the Imperial House never would have secured him, as Seneca has well observed, "Nomen Attici perire Ciceronis epistolæ non sinent; nihil illi profuisset gener Agrippa, et Tiberius progener, et Drusus Cæsar pronepos: inter tam magna nomina taceretur, nisi Cicero illum applicuisset." (Sen. Ep. 21.) Tacitus, however, (Annal. ii., 43,) says, “Druso proavus eques Romanus, Pomponius Atticus, dedecere Claudiorum imagines videbatur," though, according to C. Nepos, the family of Pomponius was coeval with the origin of Rome:-"Ab origine ultima stirpis Romanæ generatus," (Vit. Attici, c. i. ;) but it never had exceeded the equestrian rank. To no critic, I may add, are we more indebted than to Paulus Manutius, (the hero of Erasmus's Ciceronianus,) for the elucidation of these admirable letters, of which he discovered the key, as Dr. Young, or Champollion (at whose great exhibition of his most interesting explorations I assisted, the 20th April, 1830, on his return from the East,) did that of the Egyptian inscriptions. And when we find Cicero himself thus addressing Atticus, (lib. vi., Ep. 4,) "μvoriɣútepov ad te scribam: tu sagacius odorabere," we may justly appreciate the penetrating acumen that revealed these secrets at the distance of sixteen centuries to the classical reader. The Abbé Montgault's French version is also entitled to VOL. II. Z

64

The conscious hardihood of impugning any assertion of so consummate a classical scholar as Lord Brougham is supposed to be, has compelled me to appear armed in strength of authority, which necessitated, and I trust, will excuse, these multiplied references and minute details, though abridged as much as possible.

His lordship has also included in his group, and exhibited in striking outline, the genius and aberrations of Napoleon, which I notice merely to add that M. Blanqui, on his return from a statistical mission to Corsica, communicated, on the 17th instant, to the Société des Sciences Morales et Politiques, some interesting particulars of Bonaparte's juvenile essays, hitherto, apparently, unknown. One is on the "Culture of the Mulberry-tree," a source of profitable industry in the island; another on the "Military Defence of Corsica;" and a third on the "Constitutional Oath," required of the French clergy in 1790. They all teem, as is represented, with beauties of the first order, unerringly prelusive to that superiority of mind which, in its riper stage, so dazzled, deluded, and dismayed mankind. In 1792, he thus addressed his great-uncle and guardian Lucien,-" Envoyez moi trois cents francs. Cette somme me suffira Cette somme me suffira pour aller à Paris...... tout me dit que j'y réussirai: voulez vous

praise; and, if some residuous obscurities should still interrupt the perusal, we may say, with D'Olivet, (ad Epist. 4, lib. ii.) "Tu verò, bone lector, quæ non intelligunter ne curabis quidem intelligere, sed ex iis quæ plana sunt voluptatem et fructum capies."

How different was the friendship of Cicero and Atticus from the illustration of the sentiment by the renowned Russian Chief, Suvarow, as found in the collection of his quaint and pithy sayings-"Amitié et services sont deux parallèles qui ne se rencontrent jamais." Such, in his view, was the discordance between the profession and action of friendship!

m'en empêcher faute de cent écus?" The little sum (£12,) was sent, and fruitful indeed was it of results! Of his first public manifestation in that capital, in October, 1795, when he overthrew the Sections armed in opposition to the Convention, I was witness, and well remember the prognostics raised on the fearful energy of his conduct on that occasion, when I had the good fortune to secure a refuge to one of the discomfited generals and his aide-de-camp, who were concealed at my residence in the South for some days. The general, a connexion of my family, did not long survive; but the aide-de-camp, since also deceased, had subsequently served with distinction under Napoleon, and commanded the third division of the invading army against Spain in 1823, when he was created a Peer of France; I mean the late General, Count Bourke, the son of an officer in the Irish Brigade, who was made prisoner with his countryman, the unfortunate Lally, at Pondicherry, for the surrender of which Lally was executed in 1766, a sacrifice similar, as elsewhere observed, to that of our Byng, to national vanity and popular clamour; but Lally found a noble vindicator in his eloquent (natural) son, Count Lally Tolendal, who concluded one of his memorials in strong language:-"Le parlement de Dijon a ratifié, par bêtise, un assassinat, que celui de Paris avait commis par cruauté."

Reaching in his progress the highest elevation of public virtue, Lord Brougham closes his review of illustrious moderns by a beautiful tribute to Washington, who succeeds Napoleon in the series, not indeed as a pendant, but in deepest contrast.

The generally vicious system of princely tuition has