you. I intreat you, therefore, to Corate all your cares to that end; and by means indulge fo mistaken a fufpicitat I am difpleafed you are not

. With me you are, in the best fez et that expreffion, if you are taking of your health; which I had much you fhould attend, than on myself. Frough I always both fee and hear with pleasure; that pleasure will be grady increased, when I shall have the fiction at the fame time to be affured t you are perfectly well.

My work is at prefent fufpended, as i cant make use of my own hand: awever, I employ myfelf a good deal in ng. If your tranfcribers should be Fazed with my manufcript, I beg you give them your affiftance: as inand there is an interlineation relating to aircumftance in Cato's behaviour when was only four years of age, that I could e decypher myfelf. You will conyour care likewife, that the diningbe in proper order for the reception our guests; in which number, I dare I may reckon Tertia, provided Publas be not invited.

That frange fellow Demetrius was alI know, the very reverse of his ke of Phaleris: but I find he is grown more infufferable than ever, degenerated into an arrant BilieIrefign the management of him refore entirely into your hands; and will pay your court to him accordBut-bowever-d'ye fee-and as (to prefent you with a few of his elegant expletives) if you should have converfation with him, let me know, may furnish me with the fubject letter, and at the fame time afford the pleasure of reading fo much an one from yourself. In the mean take care of your health, my dear I conjure you; and be well peraded, that you cannot render me a more ing fervice. Farewel.

The work to which Cicero alludes, was proasa panegyric upon Cato; which he wrote and Ped about this time.

Was this perfon and Demetrius were, is utwn; but it is probable that the ridipart of their characters, to which Cicero beat, was that of being very dull and inele

LETTER CXXVI. To Dolabellat.

[A. U. 708.]

OH! that the filence you so kindly regret, had been occafioned by my own death, rather than by the fevere lofs I have fuffered §; a lofs I should be better able to fupport, if I had you with me. For your judicious counfels, and fingular affection towards me, would greatly contribute to alleviate its weight. This good office indeed I may yet perhaps receive; for, as I imagine we fhall foon fee you here, you will find me still so deeply affected, as to have an opportunity of affording me great affiftance. Not that this affliction has fo broken my spirit as to render me unmindful that I am a man, or apprehensive that I must totally fink under its preffure. But all that cheerfulness and vivacity of temper, which you once fo particularly admired, has now, alas! entirely forfaken me. My fortitude and resolution, nevertheless (if these virtues were ever mine), I still retain, and retain them too in the fame vigour as when you left me.

As to thofe battles which, you tell me, you have fuftained upon my account; I am far lefs folicitous that you fhould confute my detractors, than that the world fhould know (as it unquestionably does) that I enjoy a place in your affection: and may you ftill continue to render that truth confpicuous. To this request I will add another, and entreat you to excufe me for not fending you a longer letter. I fhorten it, not only as imagining we fhall foon meet, but becaufe my mind is at prefent by no means fufficiently compofed for writing. Farewel.

an equal fhare with yourfelf. If I had been near you when this fatal accident happened, I thould not only have mingled my tears with yours, but aflifted you with all the confolation in my power. I am fenfible, at the fame time, that offices of this kind afford at best but a wretched relief; for as none are qualified to perform them, but thofe who ftand near to us by the ties either of blood or affection, fuch perfons are generally too much afflicted themselves, to be capable of adminiftering comfort to others. Nevertheless, I thought proper to fuggeft a few reflections which occurred to me upon this occafion; not as imagining they would be new to you, but believing that in your prefent difcompofure of mind, they might poffibly have efcaped your attention. Tell me then, my friend, wherefore do you indulge this excefs of forrow? Reflect, I intreat you, in what manner fortune has dealt with every one of us; that he has deprived us of what ought to be no lefs dear than our children, and overwhelmed in one general ruin our honours, our liberties, and our country. And after these loffes, is it poffible that any other should increase our tears? Is it poffible that a mind long exercised in calamities fo truly fevere, fhould not become totally callous, and indifferent to every event? But you will tell me, perhaps, that your grief arifes not fo much on your own account, as on that of Tullia. Yet furely you must often, as well as myfelf, have had occafion in thefe wretched times to reflect, that their condition by no means deferves to be regretted, whom death has gently removed from this unhappy fcene. What is there, let me afk, in the prefent circumftances of our country, that could have rendered life greatly defirable to your daughter? What pleafing hopes, what agreeable views, what rational fatiffaction could fhe poffibly have propofed to herself from a more extended period? Was it in the profpect of conjugal happinefs in the fociety of fome diftinguished youth? as if, indeed, you could have found a fon-in-law amongst our prefent fet of young men, worthy of being entrusted with the care of your daughter! Or was it in the expectation of being the joyful mother of a flourishing race, who might poffefs their patrimony with independence, who might gradually rife through the feveral dignities of the ftate, and exert the liberty to which they were born in the

fervice and defence of their friends an country? But is there one amongst a thefe defirable privileges, of which w were not deprived before the was in a ca pacity of tranfmitting them to her de fcendants? Yet after all, you may fti allege, perhaps, that the lofs of ou children is a fevere affliction; and un questionably it would be fo, if it were no a much greater to fee them live to en dure thofe indignities which their paren fuffer.

I lately fell into a reflection, which a it afforded great relief to the difquietud of my own heart, it may poffibly contr bute likewife to affuage the anguish c yours. In my return out of Afia, as was failing from Egina towards M gara, I amufed myfelf with contem plating the circumjacent countries. B hind me lay Agina, before me Megara on my right I faw Piræus †, and on m left, Corinth . Thefe cities, once flourishing and magnificent, now prefente nothing to my view but a fad fpectac of defolation. Alas," I faid to myfel "fhall fuch a fhort-lived creature as ma

66

complain, when one of his fpecies fal "either by the hand of violence, or "the common courfe of nature; whil "in this narrow compafs fo many gre "and glorious cities, formed for a muc

longer duration, thus lie extended "ruins? Remember then, oh my hear "the general lot to which man is bon "and let that thought fupprefs thy u " reasonable murmurs." Believe me, found my mind greatly refreshed an comforted by thefe reflections. Let n advife you in the fame manner to r prefent to yourself, what numbers our illustrious countrymen have late beca cut off at once; how much th frength of the Roman republic is in paired, and what dreadful devaftation h gone forth throughout all its provinces And can you, with the impreffion of the greater calamities upon your mind, be immoderately afflicted for the lofs of fingle individual, a poor, little, tend woman? who, if the had not died at

*gina, now called Engia, is an ifland fit ated in the gulf that runs between the Peloponnel and Attica, to which it gives its name. Meg was a city near the ifthmus of Corinth.

A celebrated fea-port at a small distance fro Athens, now called Port-Lion.

A city in the Peloponnefus.
In the civil wars.

time, maft in a few fleeting years more have inevitably undergone that common fate to which the was born. Reaionable, however, as thefe reflectams are, I would call you from them le, in order to lead your thoughts to hers more peculiarly fuitable to your creamfances and character. Remember then, that your daughter lived as long as he was worth poffeffing, that is, till liberty was no more; that the lived to fee you in the illuftrious offices of prætor, caful, and augur; to be married to fome of the noblet youths in Rome; to be belled with almost every valuable enjoyment; and at length to expire with the republic itself. Tell me now, what is tere in this view of her fate, that could gre either her or yourself just reason to cplain? In fine, do not forget that you re Cicero, the wife, the philofophical Cicero, who were wont to give advice to others; nor refemble thofe unfkilful

empirics, who at the fame time that they pretend to be furnished with remedies for ether men's diforders, are altogether incapable of finding a cure for their own. On the contrary, apply to your private i thofe judicious precepts you have adtered to the public. Time necefweakens the ftrongeft impreffions #rrow; but it would be a reproach to year character not to anticipate this its rtain effect, by the force of your own enfe and judgment. If the dead Fain any confciouinefs of what is here rafated, your daughter's affection, I an fare, was fuch both to you and to all her relations, that the can by no means tere you thould abandon yourfelf to this cefs of grief. Reftrain it then, I cone you, for her fake, and for the fake the rest of your family and friends, o lament to fee you thus afflicted. Refrain it too, I beseech you, for the fake of your country; that whenever the opportunity fhall ferve, it may reap the befit of your counfels and affiftance. In Bort, fince fuch is our fortune that we at neceffarily fubmit to the prefent fem of public affairs, fuffer it not to be fpected, that it is not fo much the death of your daughter, as the fate of the republic, and the fuccefs of our victors, that y deplore.

But it would be ill-manners to dwell y longer upon this fubject, as I fhould

To Pifo, Craflipes, and Dolabella,

feem to question the efficacy of your own good fenfe. I will only add, therefore, that as we have often feen you bear profperity in the noblest manner, and with the highest applaufe; fhew us likewife that you are not too fenfible of adversity, but know how to fupport it with the fame advantage to your character. In a word, let it not be faid, that fortitude is the fingle virtue to which my friend is a ftranger.

As for what concerns myfelf; I will fend you an account of the state of this province, and of what is transacting in this part of the world, as foon as I fhall hear that you are fufficiently compofed to receive the information. Farewel.

LETTER CXXVIII. To Servius Sulpicius.

[A. U. 708.]

I JOIN with you, my dear Sulpicius, in withing that you had been in Rome when this moft fevere calamity befel me. I am fenfible of the advantage 1 fhould have received from your prefence, and I had almoft faid your equal participation of my grief, by having found myself fomewhat more compofed after I had read your letter. It furnished me indeed with arguments extremely proper to footh the anguish of affliction; and evidently flowed from a heart that fympathized with the forrows it endeavoured to affuage. But although I could not enjoy the benefit of your own good offices in perfon, I had the advantage, however, of your fon's; who gave me a proof, by every tender affitance that could be contributed upon fo melancholy an occafion, how much he imagined that he was acting agreeably to your fentiments, when he thus difcovered the affection of his own. More pleafing inftances of his friendship I have frequently received, but never any that were more obliging. As to thofe for which I am indebted to yourself, it is not only the force of your reafonings, and the very confiderable fhare you take in my afflic tions, that have contributed to compofe my mind; it is the deference likewife which I always pay to the authority of your fentiments. For knowing, as I perfectly do, the fuperior wifdom with which you are enlightened, I fould be afhamed not to fupport my diftreffes in the manner you think I ought. I will acknow

G

acknowledge nevertheless, that they fometimes almoft intirely overcome me: and I am scarce able to refilt the force of my grief when I reflect, that I am detitute of thofe confolations which attended others, whofe examples I propofe to my imitation. Thus Quintus Maximus loft a fon of confular rank, and diftinguished by many brave and illustrious actions; Lucius Paulus was deprived of two fons in the fpace of a fingle week; and your relation Gallus, together with Marcus Cato, had both of them the unhappinef to furvive their respective fons, who were endowed with the higheft abilities and virtues. Yet thefe unfortunate parents lived in times when the honours they derived from the republic might in fome meafure alleviate the weight of their domeltic misfortunes. But as for myfelf, after having been fripped of thofe dig. nities you mention, and which I had acquired by the most laborious exertion of my abilities, I had one only confolation remaining and of that I am now bereaved. I could no longer divert the difquietude of my thoughts, by employing myfelf in the caufes of my friends, or the bufinefs of the ftate: for I could no longer with any fatisfaction appear either in the forum, or the fenate. fhort, I juftly confidered myfelf as cut off from the benefit of all thofe alleviating occupations in which fortune and industry had qualified me to engage. But I confidered too, that this was a deprivation which I fuffered in common with yourfelf and fome others and whilft I was endeavouring to reconcile my mind to a patient indurance of thofe ills; there was one to whofe tender offices I could have recourse, and in the fweetness of whofe convertation I could difcharge ail the cares and anxiety of my heart. But this laft fatal flab to my peace has torn open thofe wounds which feemed in fome meafure to have been tolerably healed. For I can now no longer lofe my private forrows in the profperity of the cominonwealth, as I was wont to difpel the uneafinefs I fuffered upon the public account, in the happiness I received at home. Accordingly I have equally banifhed myfelf from my houfe, and from the public;

*

In

Cicero, upon the death of his daughter, retired from his own houfe, to one belonging to Attion near Rome: from which, palap, this 19was written.

as finding no relief in either, from the calamities I lament in both. It is this, therefore, that heightens my defire of feeing you here; as nothing can afford me a more effectual confolation than the renewal of our friendly intercourse: a happinefs which I hope, and am informed indeed, that I fhall shortly enjoy. Among the many reafons I have for impatiently wifhing your arrival, one is, that we may previously concert together our scheme of conduct in the prefent conjuncture; which, however, muit now be intirely accommodated to another's will. This perion †, 'tis true, is a man of great abilities and generofity; and one, if I mistake not, who is by no means my enemy; as I am fure he is extremely your friend. Neverthelefs it requires much confideration, 1 do not fay in what manner we thall aft with refpect to public affairs, but by what methods we may beft obtain his per miflion to retire from them. Farewel.

LETTER CXXIX.

To Lucius Lucceius.

[A. U. 7c3.]

ALL the letters I have received from

you upon the fubject of my late miffortune, were extremely acceptable to me, as inftances of the highest affection and good fenfe. But the great advan tage I have derived from them, principally refults from that animating contempt with which you look down upon human affairs, and that exemplary forti tude which arms you against all the vari

ous affaults of fortune.

I esteem it the moft glorious privilege of philofophy, to be this fuperior to external accidents, and to depend for happiness on ourselves alone: a fentiment which, although it was too deeply planted in my heart to be totally eradicated, has been fomewhat weakened, I confefs, by the violence of thole repeated forms to which I have been lately expofed. But you have endeavoured, and with great fuccefs indeed, to reflore it to all its ufual ftrength and vigour. I cannot therefore either too often or too flrongly affure you, that nothing could give me an higher fatisfaction than your letter. But powerful as the various arguments of confolation are