Besides the works now enumerated, we have a considerable fragment of his translation of Plato's _Timaeus_, which he seems to have finished in his last year. His remaining philosophical works, viz.: the _Hortensius_, which was a defence of philosophy; _De Gloria_; _De Consolatione_, written upon Platonic principles on his daughter's death; _De Jure Civili_, _De Virtutibus_, _De Auguriis_, _Chorographia_, translations of Plato's _Protagoras_, and Xenophon's _OEconomics_, works on Natural History, Panegyric on Cato, and some miscellaneous writings, are, except a few fragments, entirely lost. * * * * * His Letters, about one thousand in all, are comprised in thirty-six books, sixteen of which are addressed to Atticus, three to his brother Quintus, one to Brutus, and sixteen to his different friends; and they form a history of his life from his fortieth year. Among those addressed to his friends, some occur from Brutus, Metellus, Plancius, Caelius, and others. For the preservation of this most valuable department of Cicero's writings, we are indebted to Tyro, the author's freedman, though we possess, at the present day, but a part of those originally published. As his correspondence with his friends belongs to his character as a man and politician, rather than to his literary aspect, we have already noticed it in the first part of this memoir. * * * * * His Poetical and Historical works have suffered a heavier fate. The latter class, consisting of his commentary on his consulship and his history of his own times, is altogether lost. Of the former, which consisted of the heroic poems _Halcyone_, _Limon_, _Marius_, and his Consulate, the elegy of _Tamelastes_, translations of Homer and Aratus, epigrams, etc., nothing remains, except some fragments of the _Phaenomena_ and _Diosemeia_ of Aratus. It may, however, be questioned whether literature has suffered much by these losses. We are far, indeed, from speaking contemptuously of the poetical talent of one who possessed so much fancy, so much taste, and so fine an ear.[225] But his poems were principally composed in his youth; and afterwards, when his powers were more mature, his occupations did not allow even to his active mind the time necessary for polishing a language still more rugged in metre than it was in prose. His contemporary history, on the other hand, can hardly have conveyed more explicit, and certainly would have contained less faithful, information than his private correspondence; while, with all the penetration he assuredly possessed, it may be doubted if his diffuse and graceful style was adapted for the deep and condensed thoughts and the grasp of facts and events which are the chief excellences of historical composition. 11.