I have thought it proper to give this minute account of the treatise _De Republicâ_, for the sake of those who may not have had an opportunity of consulting Mai’s publication, and who may be curious to know somewhat of the value and extent of his discovery. On the whole, I suspect that the treatise will disappoint those whose expectations were high, especially if they thought to find in it much political or statistical information. It corresponds little to the idea that one would naturally form of a political work from the pen of Cicero—a distinguished statesman, always courted by the chiefs of political parties, and at one time himself at the head of the government of his country. But, on reflection, it will not appear surprising that we receive from this work so little insight into the doubtful and disputed points of Roman polity. Those questions, with regard to the manner in which the Senate was filled up—the force of degrees of the people, and the rank of the different jurisdictions, which in modern times have formed subjects of discussion, had not become problems in the time of Cicero. The great men whom he introduces in conversation together, understood each other on such topics, by a word or suggestion; and I am satisfied that those parts of the treatise _De Republicâ_, which are lost, contained as little that could contribute to the solution of such difficulties, as the portions that have been recovered. But though the work of Cicero will disappoint those who expect to find in it much political information, still, as in his other productions, every page exhibits a rich and glowing magnificence of style, ever subjected to the controul of a taste the most correct and pure. It contains, like all his writings, some passages of exquisite beauty, and everywhere breathes an exalted spirit of virtue and patriotism. The Latin language, so noble in itself, and dignified, assumes additional majesty in the periods of the Roman Consul, and adds an inexpressible beauty and loftiness to the natural sublimity of his sentiments. No writings, in fact, are so full of moral and intellectual grandeur as those of Cicero, none are more calculated to elevate and purify our nature—to inculcate the TU VERO ENITERE, in the path of knowledge and virtue, and to excite not merely a fond desire, or idle longing, but strenuous efforts after immortality. Indeed, the whole life of the Father of his Country was a noble fulfilment, and his sublime philosophic works are but an expansion of that golden precept, _tu vero enitere_, enjoined from on high, to his great descendant, by the Spirit of the first Africanus(469).