battle, they hardly think what it is for an old man to leave his retreat and rush into the Forum, and there encounter such a one as Antony, and such soldiers as were his soldiers. Cicero, who had been brave enough in the emergencies of his career, and had gone about his work sometimes regardless of his life, no doubt thought of all this. It would be pleasant to him again to see his son, and to look upon the rough doings of Rome from amid the safety of Athens; but when his countrymen told him that he had not as yet done enough--when Brutus, with his cold, bitter words, rebuked him for going--then his thoughts turned round on the quick pivot on which they were balanced, and he hurried back to the fight. He travelled at once up to Rome, which he reached on the last of August, and there received a message from Antony demanding his presence in the Senate on the next day. He had been greeted on his journey once again by the enthusiastic welcome of his countrymen, who looked to receive some especial advantage from his honesty and patriotism. Once again he was made proud by the clamors of a trusting people. But he had not come to Rome to be Antony's puppet. Antony had some measure to bring before the Senate in honor of Caesar which it would not suit Cicero to support or to oppose. He sent to say that he was tired after his journey and would not come. Upon this the critics deal hardly with him, and call him a coward. "With an incredible pusillanimity," says M. Du Rozoir, "Cicero excused himself, alleging his health and the fatigue of his voyage." "He pretended that he was too tired to be present," says Mr Long. It appears to me that they who have read Cicero's works with the greatest care have become so enveloped by the power of his words as to expect from them an unnatural weight. If a politician of to-day, finding that it did not suit him to appear in the House of Commons on a certain evening, and that it would best become him to allow a debate to pass without his presence, were to make such an excuse, would he be treated after the same fashion? Pusillanimity, and pretence, in regard to those Philippics in which he seems to have courted death by every harsh word that he uttered! The reader who has begun to think so must change his mind, and be prepared, as he progresses, to find quite another fault with Cicero. Impetuous, self-confident, rash; throwing down the gage with internecine fury; striving to crush with his words the man who had the command of the legions of Rome; sticking at nothing which could inflict a blow; forcing men by his descriptions to such contempt of Antony that they should be induced to leave the stronger party, lest they too should incur something of the wrath of the orator--that they will find to be the line which Cicero adopted, and the demeanor he put on during the next twelve months! He thundered with his Philippics through Rome, addressing now the Senate and now the people with a hardihood which you