insignificant wretches; or perhaps, to avoid giving any one room to complain that he was either unnoticed, or not extolled according to his imaginary merit; yet, certainly, you might have said something of Caesar; especially, as your opinion of _his_ abilities is well known to every body, and his concerning _your's_ is very far from being a secret. But, however," said he, (addressing himself to Brutus) "I really think of Caesar, and every body else says the same of this accurate connoisseur in the Art of Speaking, that he has the purest and the most elegant command of the Roman language of all the Orators that have yet appeared: and that not merely by domestic habit, as we have lately heard it observed of the families of the Laelii and the Mucii, (though even here, I believe, this might partly have been the case) but he chiefly acquired and brought it to its present perfection, by a studious application to the most intricate and refined branches of literature, and by a careful and constant attention to the purity of his style. But that _he_, who, involved as he was in a perpetual hurry of business, could dedicate to _you_, my Cicero, a laboured Treatise on the Art of Speaking correctly; that _he_, who, in the first book of it, laid it down as an axiom, that an accurate choice of words is the foundation of Eloquence; and who has bestowed," said he, (addressing himself again to Brutus) "the highest encomiums on this friend of ours, who yet chooses to leave Caesar's character to _me_;--that _he_ should be a perfect master of the language of polite conservation, is a circumstance which is almost too obvious to be mentioned." "I said, _the highest encomiums_," pursued Atticus, "because he says in so many words, when he addresses himself to Cicero--_if others have bestowed all their time and attention to acquire a habit of expressing themselves with ease and correctness, how much is the name and dignity of the Roman people indebted to you, who are the highest pattern, and indeed the first inventor of that rich fertility of language which distinguishes your performances?_"--Indeed," said Brutus, "I think he has extolled your merit in a very friendly, and a very magnificent style: for you are not only the _highest pattern_, and even the _first inventor_ of all our _fertility_ of language, which alone is praise enough to content any reasonable man, but you have added fresh honours to the name and dignity of the Roman people; for the very excellence in which we had hitherto been conquered by the vanquished Greeks, has now been either wrested from their hands, or equally shared, at least, between us and them. So that I prefer this honourable testimony of Caesar, I will not say to the public thanksgiving, which was decreed for your _own_ military services, but to the triumphs of many heroes."--"Very true," replied I, "provided this honourable testimony was really the voice of Caesar's judgment, and not of his friendship: for