Cicero, however, passed his exile idly in Macedonia. But the very exile of Demosthenes made up a great part of the services he did for his country; for he went through the cities of Greece, and everywhere, as we have said, joined in the conflict on behalf of the Grecians, driving out the Macedonian ambassadors, and approving himself a much better citizen than Themistocles and Alcibiades did in the like fortune. After his return, he again devoted himself to the same public service, and continued firm in his opposition to Antipater and the Macedonians. Whereas Lælius reproached Cicero in the senate for sitting silent when Cæsar, a beardless youth, asked leave to come forward, contrary to the law, as a candidate for the consulship; and Brutus, in his epistles, charges him with nursing and rearing a greater and more heavy tyranny than that they had removed. Finally, Cicero’s death excites our pity; for an old man to be miserably carried up and down by his servants, flying and hiding himself from that death which was, in the course of nature, so near at hand—and yet at last to be murdered. Demosthenes, though he seemed at first a little to supplicate, yet, by his preparing and keeping the poison by him, demands our admiration; and still more admirable was his using it. When the temple of the god no longer afforded him a sanctuary, he took refuge at a mightier altar, freeing himself from arms and soldiers, and laughing to scorn the cruelty of Antipater.”—CLOUGH. A moralist as well as a biographer, Plutarch wrote many ethical and philosophical essays. The death of his daughter called forth a feeling letter to his wife,—“the Consolation,”—in which he affectionately bids her not give way to extravagant grief, but submit with resignation to the blow, comforting her with thoughts of immortality; it may be added that he held Plato’s views on this subject as on others. In his “Essay on Inquisitiveness” he condemns all eagerness to learn news and impatience in opening letters, or “biting the strings in two, as many will if they do not succeed at once with their fingers.” As an example of dignified patience, he instances Rusticus at Rome, who in the midst of a lecture received a letter from the emperor Domitian, but would not open it till Plutarch had finished speaking.