E. 5.--This gentle criticism seems to have somewhat damped Cicero's ardour for Caesar and his British glories. His every subsequent mention of the expedition is to belittle it. In the spring he had written to Trebatius: "So our dear Caesar really thinks well of you as a counsel. You will be glad indeed to have gone with him to Britain. There at least you will never meet your match."[93] But in the summer it is: "I certainly don't blame you for showing yourself so little of a sight-seer [_non nimis_ [Greek: philotheôron]] in this British matter."[94] "I am truly glad you never went there. You have missed the trouble, and I the bore of listening to your tales about it all."[95] To Atticus he writes: "We are all awaiting the issue of this British war. We hear the approaches [_aditus_] of the island are fortified with stupendous ramparts [_mirificis molibus_]. Anyhow we know that not one scruple [_scrupulum_] of money exists there, nor any other plunder except slaves--and none of them either literary or artistic."[96] "I heard (on Oct. 24) from Caesar and from my brother Quintus that all is over in Britain. No booty.... They wrote on September 26, just embarking." E. 6.--Both Caesar and Quintus seem to have been excellent correspondents, and between them let Cicero hear from Britain almost every week during their stay in the island, the letters taking on an average about a month to reach him. He speaks of receiving on September 27 one written by Caesar on September 1; and on September 13 one from Quintus ("your fourth")[97] written August 10. And apparently they were very good letters, for which Cicero was duly grateful. "What pleasant letters," he says to Quintus, "you do write.... I see you have an extraordinary turn for writing [[Greek: hypothesin] _scribendi egregiam_]. Tell me all about it, the places, the people, the customs, the clans, the fighting. What are they all like? And what is your general like?"[98] "Give me Britain, that I may paint it in your colours with my own brush [_penicillo_]."[99] This last sentence refers to a heroic poem on "The Glories of Caesar," which Cicero seems to have meditated but never brought into being. Nor do we know anything of the contents of his British correspondence, except that it contains some speculations about our tide-ways; for, in his 'De Natura Deorum,'[100] Cicero pooh-poohs the idea that such natural phenomena argue the existence of a God: "Quid? Aestus maritimi ... Britannici ... sine Deo fieri nonne possunt?"