She possesses an excellent understanding, together with a consummate prudence, and gives the strongest testimony of the purity of her heart by her fondness of me. Her affection to me has given her a turn to books; and my compositions, which she takes a pleasure in reading, and even getting by heart, are continually in her hands. How full of tender solicitude is she when I am entering upon any cause! How kindly does she rejoice with me when it is over! While I am pleading, she places persons to inform her from time to time how I am heard, what applauses I receive, and what success attends the cause. When at any time I recite my works, she conceals herself behind some curtain, and with secret rapture enjoys my praises. She sings my verses to her lyre, with no other master but love, the best instructor, for her guide. From these happy circumstances I draw my most assured hopes, that the harmony between us will increase with our days, and be as lasting as our lives. For it is not my youth or my person, which time gradually impairs; it is my reputation and my glory of which she is enamoured. But what less could be ex pected from one who was trained by your hands, and formed by your instructions; who was early familiarised under your roof with all that is worthy and amiable, and was first taught to conceive an affection for me, by the advantageous colours in which you were pleased to represent me? And as you revered my mother with all the respect due even to a parent, so you kindly directed and encouraged my infancy, presaging of me from that early period all that my wife now fondly imagines I really am. Accept therefore of our mutual thanks, that you have. thus, as it were designedly, formed us for each other. Farewel. LETTER XXXIX. To Maximus. I HAVE already acquainted you with my opinion of each particular part of your work, as I perused it; I must now tell you my general thoughts of the whole. It is a strong and beautiful performance; the sentiments are sublime and masculine, and conceived in all the variety of a pregnant imagination; the diction is chaste and elegant; the figures are happily chosen, and a copious and diffusive vein of eloquence runs through the whole, and raises a very high idea of the author. You seem borne away by the full tide of a strong imagination and deep sorrow, which mutually assist and heighten each other; for your genius gives sublimity and majesty to your passion; and your passion adds strength and poignancy to your genius. Farewel. LETTER XL. To Velius Cerealis. How severe a fate has attended the daughters of Helvidius! these two sisters are both dead in child-bed, after having each of them been delivered of a girl. This misfortune pierces me with the deepest sorrow; as indeed, to see two such amiable young ladies fall a sacrifice to their fruitfulness in the prime and flower of their years, is a misfortune which I cannot too greatly lament. I lament for the unhappy condition of the poor infants, who are thus become orphans from their birth: I lament for the sake of the disconsolate husbands of these ladies; and I lament too for my own. The affection I bear to the memory of their late father is inviolable, as my defence of him in the senate, and all my writings, will witness for me. Of three children which survived him, there now remains but one; and his family, that had lately so many noble supports, rests only upon a single person! It will, however, be a great mitigation of my affliction, if fortune shall kindly spare that one, and render him worthy of his father and grandfather and I am so much the more anxious for his welfare and good conduct, as he is the only branch of the family. remaining. You know the softness and solicitude of my heart where I have any tender attachments; you must not won • The famous Helvidius Priscus, who signa lized himself in the senate by the freedom of his speeches in favour of liberty, during the reigns of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian; in whose time he was put to death by the order of the senate, though contrary to the inclination of the emperor, who countermanded the execution: but it was too late, the executioner having performed his office before the messenger arrived. Tacitus represents him as acting in all the various duties of social life with one consistent tenor of uniform virtue; superior to all temptations of wealth, of inflexible integrity, and unbroken courage. der then that I have many fears where I the last election of magistrates, upon have great hopes. Farewel. LETTER XLI. To Valens. BEING engaged lately in a cause before the Centumviri, it occurred to me that when I was a youth I was also concerned in one which passed through the same courts. I could not forbear, as usual, to pursue the reflection my mind had started, and to consider if there were any of those advocates then present, who were joined with me in the former cause; but I found I was the only person remaining who had been counsel in both: such changes does the instability of human nature, or the vicissitudes of fortune, produce! Death had removed some; ba nishment others; age and infirmities had silenced those, while these were withdrawn to enjoy the happiness of retire ment; one was at the head of an army; and the indulgence of the prince had exempted another from the burthen of civil employments. What turns of fortune have I experienced even in my own person! It was eloquence that first raised me; it was eloquence that occasioned my disgrace; and it was eloquence that advanced me again. The friendships of the wise and good at my first appearance in the world, were highly serviceable to me; the same friendships proved afterward extremely prejudicial to my interest, and now again they are my ornament and support. If you compute the time in which these incidents have happened, it is but a few years; if you number the events, it seems an age. A lesson that will teach us to check both our despair and presumption, when we observe such a variety of revolutions roll round in so swift and narrow a circle. It is my custom to communicate to my friend all my thoughts, and to set before him the same rules and examples by which I regulate my own conduct; and such was my design in this letter. Farewel. LETTER XLII. I MENTIONED to you in a former letter, that I apprehended the method of voting by ballots would be attended with inconveniencies; and so it has proved. At some of the tablets were written several pieces of pleasantry, and even indecencies; in one particularly, instead of the name of the candidate, were inserted the names of those who espoused his interest. The senate was extremely exasperated at this insolence; and with one voice threatened the vengeance of the emperor upon the author. But he lay concealed, and possibly might be in the number of those who expressed the greatest indignation. What must one think of such a man's private conduct, who in public, upon so important an affair, and at so solemn a time, could indulge himself in such scurrilous liberties, and dare to act the droll in the face of the senate? Who will know it is the argument that prompts little and base minds to commit these indecencies. Secure from being discovered by others, and unawed by any self respect, they take their pen and tablets; and hence arise these buffooneries, which are fit only for the stage. What course shall we take, what remedy apply against this abuse? Our disorders indeed in general have every where eluded all attempts to restrain them. But this is a point much too high for us, and will be the care of that superior power, who by these low but daring insults has daily fresh occasions of exerting all his pains and vigilance. Farewel. > LETTER XLIII. To Nepos. THE request you make me, to supervise the correction of my works, which you have taken the pains to collect, I shall most willingly comply with; as indeed there is nothing I ought to do with more readiness, especially at your instance. When a man of such dignity, learning, and eloquence, deeply engaged in business, and entering upon the important government of a province, has so good an opinion of my works as to think them worth taking with him, how am I obliged to endeavour that this part of his baggage may not seem an useless embarrassment! My first care therefore shall be, that they may attend you with all the advantages possible; and my next, to supply you at your return with others, which you may not think undeserving to be added to them; for I can have no LETTER XLIV. I HAVE brought you as a present out of falls into the Larian lake. The nature of this spring is extremely surprising: it ebbs and flows regularly three times a day. This increase and decrease is plainly visible, and very entertaining to observe. You sit down by the side of the fountain, and whilst you are taking a repast and drinking its water, which is extremely cool,. you see it gradually rise and fall. If you place a ring, or any thing else at the bottom when it is dry, the stream reaches it by degrees till it is entirely covered, and then again gently retires from it; and this you may see it do for three times successively. Shall we say, that some secret current of air stops and opens the fountain-head, as it advances to or recedes from it; as we şee in bottles, and other vessels of that nature, where there is not a free and open passage, though you turn their necks downwards, yet the outward air obstructing the vent, they discharge their contents as it were by starts? Or may it not be accounted for upon the same principle as the flux and reflux of the sea? or, as those rivers which discharge themselves into the sea, meeting with contrary winds and the swell of the ocean, are forced back in their channels; so may there not be something that checks this fountain, for a time, in its progress? or is there rather a certain reservoir that contains these waters in the bowels of the earth, which while it is recruiting its discharges, the stream flows more slowly and in less quantity, but when it has collected its due measure, it runs again into its usual strength and fulness? or lastly, is there not I know not what kind of subterraneous poise, that throws up the water when the fountain is dry, and repels it when it is full? You, who are so well qualified for the inquiry, will examine the reasons of this wonderful appearance *; it will be sufficient for me if I have given you a clear description of it. Farewel. LETTER XLV. To Maximus. I AM deeply afflicted with the news I plete the rest. The hand of death is ever, There are several of these periodical fountains in different parts of the world: as we have some in England. Lay-well near Torbay is men104. p. 909.) to ebb and flow several times every tioned in the Philosophical Transactions (No. hour. his death, had a strong presentiment of what has happened: he dreamed one night, that as he was in his study with his papers before him, Nero came in, and placing himself by his side, took up the three first books of his history, which he read through, and then went away. This dream greatly alarmed him, and he looked upon it as an intimation that he should not carry on his history any farther than Nero had read: and so the event proved. I cannot reflect upon this accident without lamenting that he should not be able to accomplish a work, which had cost him so much pains and vigilance, as it suggests to me at the same time the thoughts of my own mortality, and the fate of my writings: and I am persuaded the same reflection alarms your apprehensions for those in which you are employed. Let us then, my friend, while yet we live, exert all our endeavours, that death, whenever it arrives, may find as little as possible to destroy. Farewel. LETTER XLVI. To Capito. You are not singular in the advice you give me to undertake the writing of history; it is a work which has been frequently pressed upon me by several others of my friends; and what I have some thoughts of engaging in. Not that I have any confidence of succeeding in this way; that would be too rashly presuming upon the success of an experiment which I have never yet made; but because it is a noble employment to rescue from oblivion those who deserve to be eternally remembered, and extend the reputation of others at the same time that we advance our own. Nothing, I confess, so strongly affects me as the desire of a lasting name: a passion highly worthy of the human breast, especially of one who, not being conscious to himself of any ill, is not afraid of being known to posterity. It is the continual subject therefore of my thoughts, By what fair deed I too may raise my name: for to that I moderate my wishes; the rest, And gather round the world immortal fame, is much beyond my hopes: • Virgil. 1 Georg. sub. init. "Though yet +"However, the first is sufficient, and history perhaps is the single means that can ensure it to me. Oratory and poetry, unless carried to the highest point of eloquence, are talents but of small recommendation to those who possess them; but history, however executed, is always entertaining. Mankind are naturally inquisitive, and are so fond of having this turn gratified, that they will listen with attention to the plainest matter of fact, and the most idle tale. But besides this, I have an example in my own family that inclines me to engage in this study, my uncle and adoptive father having acquired great reputation as a very accurate historian; and the philosophers, you know, recommend it to us to tread in the steps of our ancestors, when they have gone before us in the right path. If you ask me then, why I do not immediately enter upon the task? my reason is this: I have pleaded some very important causes, and (though I am not extremely sanguine in my hopes concerning them) I have determined to revise my speeches, lest, for want of this remaining labour, all the pains they cost me should be thrown away, and they with their author be buried in oblivion; for with respect to posterity, the work that was never finished was never begun. You will think, perhaps, I might correct my pleadings and write history at the same time. I wish indeed I were capable of doing so, but they are both such great undertak ings, that either of them is abundantly sufficient. I was but nineteen when I first appeared at the bar; and yet it is only now at last I understand (and that in truth but imperfectly) what is essential to a complete orator. How then shall I be able to support the weight of an additional burthen? It is true indeed, his tory and oratory have in many points a general resemblance; yet in those very things in which they seem to agree, there are several circumstances wherein they differ. Narration is common to them both, but it is a narration of a distinct kind: the former contents itself frequently with low and vulgar facts; the + Part of a verse from the fifth Æneid, where Mnestheus, one of the competitors in the naval games, who was in some danger of being distanced, exhorts his men to exert their utmost vigour to prevent such a disgrace. 1 latter requires every thing splendid, elevated, and extraordinary: strength and nerves is sufficient in that, but beauty and ornament is essential to this; theexcellency of the one consists in a strong, severe, and close style; of the other, in a diffusive, flowing, and harmonious narration : in short, the words, the emphasis, and the whole turn and structure of the periods, are extremely different in these two arts; for, as Thucydides observes, there is a wide distance between compositions which are calculated for a present purpose, and those which are designed to remain as lasting monuments to posterity; by the first of which expressions he alludes to oratory, and by the other to history. For these reasons I am not inclined to blend together two performances of such distinct natures, which, as they are both of the highest rank, necessarily therefore require a separate attention; lest, confounded by a crowd of different ideas, I should introduce into the one what is only proper to the other. Therefore (to speak in our language of the bar) I must beg leave the cause may be adjourned some time longer. In the mean while, I refer it to your consideration from what period I shall commence my history. Shall I take it up from those remote times which have been treated of already by others? In this way, indeed, the materials will be ready pre pared to my hands, but the collating of the several historians will be extremely troublesome; or shall I write only of the present times, and those wherein no other author has gone before me? If so, I may probably give offence to many, and please but few. For, in an age so over-run with vice, you will find infinitely more to condemn than approve; yet your praise, though everso lavish, will be thought too reserved; and your censure, though ever so cautious, too profuse. However, this does not at all discourage me: for I want not sufficient resolution to bear testimony to truth. I expect then that you prepare the way which you have pointed out to me, and determine what subject I shall fix upon for my history, that when I am ready to enter upon the task you have assigned me, I may not be delayed by any new difficulty. Farewel. LETTER XLVII. To Saturninus. YOUR letter made very different impressions upon me, as it brought me news which I both rejoiced and grieved to receive. It gave me pleasure when it informed me you were detained in Rome; cumstance that affords you none, yet I which though you will tell me is a circannot but rejoice at it, since you assure me you continue there upon my account, and defer the recital of your work till my return; for which I am greatly obliged to you. But I was much concerned at that part of your letter which mentioned the dangerous illness of Julius Valens; though, indeed, with respect to sentiments, as it cannot but be for his himself it ought to affect me with other advantage the sooner he is relieved by death, from a distemper of which there is no hope he can ever be cured. But what you add concerning Avitus, who died in his return from the province where he had been quaestor, is an accident that died on board a ship, at a distance from justly demands our sorrow. That he his brother whom he tenderly loved, and from his mother and sisters, are cir cumstances, which though they cannot affect him now, yet undoubtedly did in his last moments, as well as tend to heighten the affliction of those he has left behind. How severe is the reflection, that a youth of his well-formed disposition should be extinct in the prime of life, and snatched from those high honours to which his virtues, had they been permitted to grow to their full maturity, would certainly have raised him! How did his bosom glow with the love of the fine arts! How many books has he perused! how many volumes has he transcribed! but the fruits of his labours are now perished with him, and for ever lost to posterity.-Yet why indulge my sorrow? a passion which, if we once give a loose to it, will aggravate every the slightest circumstance. I will put an end therefore to my letter, that I may to the tears which yours has drawn from me. Farewel. LETTER XLVIII. I WRITE this to you under the utmost |