The first book is the most complete of the whole six: the opening however is imperfect. Cicero in his own person enters into a discussion whether governments should be administered by contemplative philosophers, or by active practical men. He recapitulates the arguments on both sides of the question, often discussed by the ancients, and decides the question in consonance with those feelings which had governed his very active life. The eloquence and force of some of the passages are inimitable. They will be applicable to all times as long as civil government exists among men. But in this country where the experiment of a popular government is trying upon so comprehensive a scale, the grandeur of the sentiments deserves the attention of every man. As where he states as an argument of those who shun active occupations, that it is dangerous to meddle with public affairs in turbulent times, and disgraceful to associate with the low and disreputable men who are conspicuous at those periods; that it is vain to hope to restrain the mad violence of the vulgar, or to withdraw from such a contest without injury; “As if,” he adds with a generous enthusiasm, “there could be a more just cause for good and firm men, endowed with noble minds, to stand forth in aid of their country, than that they may not be subject to bad men; nor suffer the republic to be lacerated by them, before the desire of saving it may come too late.” After disposing of this question, he proceeds with great address to open the plan of his work, and presents in all the beautiful simplicity of the times, Scipio, his friend Lælius, with some of their most accomplished cotemporaries, seated, not in the gorgeous saloon of a Lucullus or Crassus, but in the sunny part, because it was the winter season, of the lawn of Scipio’s country place; where they had convened to pass the Latin holidays in discussing philosophical questions. Here, upon an inquiry being instituted into the cause of two suns reported to have been seen in the heavens, occasion is found to introduce in a very pleasing manner, the astronomical knowledge of the day, which Cicero was well versed in. Scipio is made here to deliver a magnificent passage, beginning at the 17th section. “Who can perceive any grandeur in human affairs,” &c.[9] This inquiry about celestial phenomena, which appeared so foreign to a philosophical investigation on the principles of government, is admirably closed and without the abruptness being perceived, by Lælius asking how it can interest him that Scipio should be solicitous about the two suns, “when he does not inquire the cause why two senates, and almost two people exist in one republic.” At the general request Scipio consents to deliver his opinion of government. He defines a republic to be the “public thing,” or common interest of all: and he shews most satisfactorily that human beings congregate not on account of their weakness, but that they are led thereto by the social