work, than was Julius Caesar, as the founder of a power which was to last till the fall of Rome. For the accomplishment of this wonderful purpose, every one of his countless excellences seems to have done something; and nothing less than he, could have thus achieved a task, which prepared the way for the advance of a power, that was to outlast his throne and the Eternal city. Under the controlling influence of his genius, the world was so calmed, subjugated and arranged, that the gates of all nations were opened for the peaceful entrance of the preachers of the gospel. So solidly did he lay the foundation of his dominion, that even his own murder, by the objects of his undeserved clemency, made not the slightest change in the fate of Rome; for the paltry intrigues and fights of a few years ended in placing the power, which Caesar had won, in the hands of his heir and namesake, whose most glorious triumphs were but straws on the mighty stream of events, which Julius had set in motion. _Caesar._――Those who are accustomed merely to the common cant of many would-be philanthropists, about the destruction of the liberties of Rome, and the bloody-minded atrocity of their destroyer, will doubtless feel shocked at the favorable view taken of his character, above. The truth is, there was no liberty in Rome for Caesar to destroy; the question of political freedom having been long before settled in the triumphant ascendency of faction, the only choice was between one tyrant and ten thousand. No one can question that Caesar was the fair choice of the great mass of the people. They were always on his side, in opposition to the aristocracy, who sought his ruin because they considered him dangerous to their privileges, and _their_ liberty (to tyrannize;) and their fears were grounded on the very circumstance that the vast majority of the people were for him. This was the condition of parties until Caesar’s death, and long after, to the time of the final triumph of Octavius. Not one of Caesar’s friends among the people ever became his enemy, or considered him as having betrayed their affection by his assumptions of power. Those who murdered him, and plunged the world from a happy, universal peace, into the devastating horrors of a wide spread and protracted civil war, were not the patriotic avengers of an oppressed people; they were the jealous supporters of a haughty aristocracy, who saw their powers and dignity diminished, in being shared with vast numbers of the lower orders, added to the senate by Caesar, whose steady determination to humble them they saw in his refusal to pay them homage by rising, when the hereditary aristocracy of Rome took their seats in senate. It was to redeem the failing powers of their privileged order, that these aristocratic assassins murdered the man, whose mercy had triumphed over his prudence, in sparing the forfeited lives of these hereditary, dangerous