There is nobility in that, but there is very much that is ignoble in the means of canvassing which are advocated. I cannot say that they are as yet too ignoble for our modern use here in England, but they are too ignoble to be acknowledged by our candidates themselves, or by their brothers on their behalf. Cicero, not having progressed far enough in modern civilization to have studied the beauty of truth, is held to be false and hypocritical. We who know so much more than he did, and have the doctrine of truth at our fingers' ends, are wise enough to declare nothing of our own shortcomings, but to attribute such malpractices only to others. "It is a good thing to be thought worthy of the rank we seek by those who are in possession of it." Make yourself out to be an aristocrat, he means. "Canvass them, and cotton to them. Make them believe that in matters of politics you have always been with the aristocracy, never with the mob;" that if "you have at all spoken a word in public to tickle the people, you have done so for the sake of gaining Pompey." As to this, it is necessary to understand Pompey's peculiar popularity at the moment, both with the Liberals and with the Conservatives. "Above all, see that you have with you the 'jeunesse dorée.' They carry so much! There are many with you already. Take care that they shall know how much you think of them." He is especially desired to make known to the public the iniquities of Catiline, his opponent, as to whom Quintus says that, though he has lately been acquitted in regard to his speculations in Africa, he has had to bribe the judges so highly that he is now as poor as they were before they got their plunder. At every word we read we are tempted to agree with Mommsen that on the Roman oligarchy of the period no judgment can be passed save one, "of inexorable condemnation."[86]