The method which he pursues, is, firstly, to treat the subject in the abstract, and to investigate the nature of law; and, secondly, to propose an ideal code, limited by the principles of Roman jurisprudence. Thus Cicero’s polity and code were not Utopian—the models on which they were formed had a real tangible existence. His was the system of a practical man, as the Roman constitution was that of a practical people. It was not like Greek liberty, the realization of one single idea; it was like that of England, the growth of ages, the development of a long train of circumstances, and expedients, and experiments, and emergencies. Cicero prudently acquiesced in the ruin of liberty as a stern necessity; but he evidently thought that Rome had attained the zenith of its national greatness immediately before the agitations of the Gracchi. Both these works are written in the engaging form of dialogues. In the one, Scipio Æmilianus, Lælius, Scævola, and others, meet together in the Latin holidays (Feriæ Latinæ,) and discuss the question of government. In the other, the writer himself, with his brother Quintus and Atticus, converse on jurisprudence whilst they saunter on a little islet near Arpinum at the confluence of the Liris and Fibrena. We must, lastly, contemplate Cicero as a correspondent. This intercourse of congenial minds separated from one another, and induced by the force of circumstances to digest and arrange their thoughts in their communication, forms one of the most delightful and interesting, and at the same time one of the most characteristic, portions of Roman literature. A Roman thought that whenever he put pen to paper it was his duty, to a certain extent, to avoid carelessness and offences against good taste, and to bestow upon his friend some portion of that elaborate attention which, as an author, he would devote to the public eye. In fact the letter-writer was almost addressing the same persons as the author; for the latter wrote for the approbation of his friends, the circle of intimates in which he lived: the approbation of the public was a secondary object. The Greeks were not writers of letters: the few which we possess were mere written messages, containing such necessary information as the interruption of intercourse demanded. There was no interchange of hopes and fears, thoughts, sentiments, and feelings.