Plutarch does not blame Cato (the elder) for perpetually boasting and exalting himself, although the old censor somewhere pronounces it absurd for a man either to praise or to disparage himself. But Plutarch _does_ “think the man who is often praising himself, not so complete in virtue as the modest man, who does not even want others to praise him.” He takes frequent note of the habit of self-commendation in some of his heroes, and of the absence of it in others. Cato, “who was never sparing in his own praises, and thought boasting a natural attendant on great actions,” was nothing like so grievous an offender in this respect, to Plutarch’s thinking, as Cicero, whose writings, says he, “were so interlarded with encomiums on himself that, although his style was elegant and delightful, his discourses were disgusting and nauseous to the reader; for the blemish stuck to him like an incurable disease.” Comparing this greatest of Roman orators with the greatest of the Greek, Plutarch observes of their respective writings, that Demosthenes, when he touches on his own praise does it with an inoffensive delicacy, never, indeed, giving way to it at all unless he has some important matter in view; whereas Cicero, habitually and systematically, “speaks in such high terms of himself that it is plain he had a most intemperate vanity.” Modern critics not a few, German, English, and French, have made the most—not to say made the best—of this foible of Cicero’s. In particular, Mr. de Quincey makes merry over it, without mercy, at the father of his country’s expense. Isaac Barrow points the moral of the text which these heterogeneous annotations are meant to illustrate, with a special warning against Cicero’s infirmity. “If a man have worthy qualities and do great deeds, let them speak for him,” urges that masterly divine; they will of themselves extort commendation; his silence about them, his seeming to neglect them, will enhance their worth in the opinion of men. “Prating about them, obtruding them upon men, will mar their credit, inducing men to think them done, not out of love to virtue, but for a vain-glorious design. Thus did Cicero, thus have many others, blasted the glory of their virtuous deeds.” It is quaintly said by Owen Feltham, that whoso makes boast of the good he truly has, obscures much of his own worth, in drawing it up by so unseemly a bucket as his own tongue. “Though the vaunts be true, they do but awaken scoffs; and instead of a clapping hand, they find a look of scorn.” When a soldier bragged too much of a great scar in his forehead, he was asked by Augustus if he did not get it when he turned his back on the enemy. So, “If I have done anything well”—this is one of Feltham’s “Resolves,”—“I will never think it worth while to tell the world of it.” “O sir, to such as boasting show their scars, A mock is due,”