I ought to mention that I have adopted the English mode of dating, writing, for instance, July and August, though Cicero repudiated the former and, of course, never heard of the latter. I have also refrained generally from attempting to represent his Greek by French, partly because I fear I should have done it ill, and partly because it is not in him as in an English writer who lards his sentences with French. It is almost confined to the letters to Atticus, to whom Greek was a second mother-tongue, and often, I think, is a quotation from him. It does not really represent Cicero's ordinary style. One excuse for my boldness in venturing upon the work is the fact that no complete translation exists in English. Mr. Jeans has published a brilliant translation of a selection of some of the best of the letters. But still it is not the whole. The last century versions of Melmoth and Herbenden have many excellences; but they are not complete either (the letters to Brutus, for instance, having been discovered since), and need, at any rate, a somewhat searching revision. Besides, with many graces of style, they may perhaps prove less attractive now than they did a century ago. At any rate it is done, and I must bear with what equanimity nature has given me the strictures of critics, who doubtless will find, if so minded, many blemishes to set off against, and perhaps outweigh, any merit my translation may have. I must bear that as well as I may. But no critic can take from me the days and nights spent in close communion with Rome's greatest intellect, or the endless pleasure of solving the perpetually recurring problem of how best to transfer a great writer's thoughts and feelings from one language to another: "Cæsar in hoc potuit iuris habere nihil." LETTERS IN VOLUME I Number in this Translation