There never was in the world a brighter example of an able and complete magistrate than Cicero: When I think on his care and vigilance, the real hazards he slighted, and the pains he took for the safety of Rome; his wisdom and sagacity in detecting and disappointing the stratagems of the boldest and most subtle conspirators, and, at the same time, on his love to literature, arts, and sciences, his capacity in metaphysics, the justness of his reasonings, the force of his eloquence, the politeness of his style, and the genteel spirit that runs through his writings; when I think, I say, on all these things together, I am struck with amazement, and the least I can say of him is, that he was a prodigious man. But when I have set the many good qualities he had in the best light, it is as evident to me on the other side, that had his vanity been inferior to his greatest excellency, the good sense and knowledge of the world he was so eminently possessed of, could never have let him be such a fulsome as well as noisy trumpeter as he was of his own praises, or suffered him rather than not proclaim his own merit, to make a verse that a school boy would have been laughed at for. O! Fortunatam, &c. How strict and severe was the morality of rigid Cato, how steady and unaffected the virtue of that grand asserter of Roman liberty! but though the equivalent this stoic enjoyed, for all the self-denial and austerity he practised, remained long concealed, and his peculiar modesty hid from the world, and perhaps himself a vast while, the frailty of his heart, that forced him into heroism, yet it was brought to light in the last scene of his life, and by his suicide it plainly appeared that he was governed by a tyrannical power, superior to the love of his country, and that the implacable hatred and superlative envy he bore to the glory, the real greatness and personal merit of Cæsar, had for a long time swayed all his actions under the most noble pretences. Had not this violent motive over-ruled his consummate prudence, he might not only have saved himself, but likewise most of his friends that were ruined by the loss of him, and would in all probability, if he could have stooped to it, been the second man in Rome. But he knew the boundless mind and unlimited generosity of the victor: it was his clemency he feared, and therefore chose death because it was less terrible to his pride, than the thoughts of giving his mortal foe so tempting an opportunity of showing the magnanimity of his soul, as Cæsar would have found in forgiving such an inveterate enemy as Cato, and offering him his friendship; and which, it is thought by the judicious, that penetrating as well as ambitious conqueror would not have slipped, if the other had dared to live.