Voltaire, in alluding to the lines quoted above, says, “It was, I believe, because Cato’s soul was always equal, and retained to the last its love for his country and her laws, that he chose rather to perish with her than to crouch to the tyrant. He died as he had lived. “Incapable of surrendering, and to whom? to the enemy of Rome—to the man who had forcibly robbed the public treasury in order to make war upon his fellow citizens, and enslave them by means of their own money. A pardoned foe! It seems as if La Motte Houdart was speaking of some revolted subject who might have obtained his Majesty’s pardon by letters in chancery. It seems (continues Voltaire) rather absurd to say that Cato slew himself through weakness. None but a strong mind can thus surmount the most powerful instinct of nature. This strength is sometimes that of frenzy; but a frantic man is not weak.” In forming an estimate of the condition of Cato’s mind, we must not look at him as delineated by the dramatist and poet, but as exhibited by the historian and philosopher. Our notions of Cato are too often based on Addison’s, and not Plutarch’s description of his character. That Cato was one of the most complete and perfect examples in antiquity of private manners and of public spirit cannot be questioned; and therefore, in this respect, worthy to be held up as an example. Sallust thus eulogizes Cato:—“His glory can neither be increased by flattery nor lessened by detraction. He was one who chose to be, rather than to appear good. He was the very image of virtue, and in all points of disposition more like the gods than men. He never did right that he might seem to do right, but because he could not do otherwise. That only seemed to be reasonable which was just. Free from all human vices, he was superior to the vicissitudes of fortune.” It was the dignity of Cato’s life that stamped a celebrity on the mode of his death.