It is one of the inestimable advantages of legitimate, hereditary, time-honoured, and unquestioned government, whatever may be its form, that it may sometimes outwardly remain inactive when the state is concerned. As in most cases it interferes only where it is absolutely necessary, and it seems to let things take their own course, it meddles very little with people’s affairs; and thus it is also able to allow a much higher degree of individual liberty. A government, on the other hand, which is called a usurpation, and is but newly established, has not only to try and hold its own, but also, in all that it undertakes, it has to prove its inherent right to govern, and to establish its reputation. Those who are placed in such a position, are forced to act from a most grievous necessity; and if this was the case with any one, it was with Cæsar. What could he have undertaken in the centre of the empire? Modern governments may do many things of which the ancients had no notion; and indeed that much cried down, and in many respects baneful system of centralization has still this good effect, that it gives the activity of rulers a wider range. There remained in truth no measures to be carried out by Cæsar, either in Italy or in the provinces; and as he had for fifteen years been accustomed to the most prodigious exertions, he was now as it were in a state of sloth, unless he could employ himself abroad: he must undertake something which would engage his whole soul; rest he no longer could. His first thought was war, and that in countries where since the time of Alexander, the most brilliant military glory was to be earned,—where the unburied bones of the legions of Crassus were still to be revenged,—against the Parthians. The Getæ also had spread in Thrace, and Cæsar wanted likewise to check them. But his grand design was to destroy the empire of the Parthians, and to extend that of the Romans as far as India; and in this he would undoubtedly have not been unsuccessful. He already felt so near the result, that he began to think of what was to be done afterwards; and therefore we may consider the statement as a very likely one, that he then meant to march through the defiles of the Caucasus and ancient Sythia into the land of the Getæ, and to return through Germany and Gaul. These plans of his had all of them a gigantic range: he had other projects besides which were quite as grand. The harbour of Ostia was bad, and large sea-going vessels could not come up the river; he is therefore said to have intended to cut a canal from the Tiber, above or below the city, and through the Pontine marshes as far as Terracina, which should be navigable for large ships to sail up to Rome. He likewise undertook many things which were done at once; so much indeed, that we hardly understand how he could have accomplished the whole of it during the five months which he had still to live. The veterans having now retired,