The courtesy and obliging disposition of Caesar were notorious, and both were illustrated in some anecdotes which survived for generations in Rome. Dining on one occasion at a table where the servants had inadvertently, for sallad-oil, furnished some sort of coarse lamp-oil, Caesar would not allow the rest of the company to point out the mistake to their host for fear of shocking him too much by exposing the mistake. At another time, whilst halting at a little _cabaret_, when one of his retinue was suddenly taken ill, Caesar resigned to his use the sole bed which the house afforded. Incidents, as trifling as these, express the urbanity of Caesar's nature; and hence one is the more surprised to find the alienation of the Senate charged, in no trifling degree, upon a failure in point of courtesy. Caesar neglected to rise from his seat, on their approaching him in a body with an address of congratulation. It is said, and we can believe it, that he gave deeper offence by this one defect in a matter of ceremonial observance, than by all his substantial attacks upon their privileges. What we find it difficult to believe, however, is not that result from the offence, but the possibility of the offence itself, from one so little arrogant as Caesar, and so entirely a man of the world. He was told of the disgust which he had given, and we are bound to believe his apology, in which he charged it upon sickness, which would not at the moment allow him to maintain a standing attitude. Certainly the whole tenor of his life was not courteous only, but kind; and, to his enemies, merciful in a degree which implied so much more magnanimity than men in general could understand, that by many it was put down to the account of weakness. * * * * * We find that though sincerely a despiser of superstition, and with a frankness which must sometimes have been hazardous in his age, Caesar was himself superstitious. No man could have been otherwise who lived and conversed with that generation and people. But if superstitious, he was so after a mode of his own. In his very infirmities Caesar manifested his greatness; his very littlenesses were noble. "Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre."