"gods! how will he learn to know him"self? How will he contemn, despise, "and set at nought all those things which "the vulgar esteem the most splendid and "glorious?" These were the principles on which Cicero built his religion and morality, which shine indeed through all his writings, but were largely and explicitly illustrated by him in bis Treatises on Government and on Laws; to which he added afterwards his book of Offices, to make the scheme complete: volumes which, as the elder Pliny says to the emperor Titus, ought not only to be read, but to be got by heart. The first and greatest of these works is lost, except a few fragments, in which he had delivered his real thoughts so professedly, that in a letter to Atticus, he calls those six books on the republic, so many pledges given to his country for the integrity of his life; from which, if ever he swerved, he could never have the face to look into them again. In his book of Laws, he pursued the same argument, and deduced the origin of law from the will of the supreme God. These two pieces therefore contain his belief, and the book of Offices, his practice: where he has traced out all the duties of man, or a rule of life conformable to the divine principles, which he had established in the other two; to which he often refers, as to the foundation of his whole system. This work was one of the last that he finished, for the use of his son, to whom he addressed it; being desirous, in the decline of a glorious life, to explain to him the maxims by which he had governed it, and teach him the way of passing through the world with innocence, virtue, and true glory, to an immortality of happiness; where the strictness of his morals, adapt ed to all the various cases and circumstances of human life, will serve, if not to instruct, yet to reproach the practice of most Christians. This was that law, which is mentioned by St. Paul, to be taught by nature, and written on the hearts of the Gentiles, to guide them through that state of ignorance and darkness, of which they themselves complained, till they should be blessed with a more perfect revelation of the divine will; and this scheme of it, professed by Cicero, was certainly the most complete that the Gentile world had ever been acquainted with; the utmost effort that human nature could make to wards attaining its proper end, or that supreme good for which the Creator had designed it: upon the contemplation of which sublime truths, as delivered by a heathen, Erasmus could not help persuading himself, that the breast from which they flowed, must needs have been inspired by the Deity. pas But after all these glorious sentiments that we have been ascribing to Cicero, and collecting from his writings, some have been apt to consider them as the flourishes rather of his eloquence, than the conclusions of his reason, since in other parts of his works he seems to intimate not only a diffidence, but a disbelief of the immortality of the soul, and a fu ture state of rewards and punishments; and especially in his letters, where he is supposed to declare his mind with the greatest frankness. But in all the sages brought to support this objection, where he is imagined to speak of death as the end of all things to man, as they are addressed to friends in distress by way of consolation; so some commentators take them to mean nothing more, and that death is the end of all things here below. and without any farther sense of what is done upon earth; yet should they be understood to relate, as perhaps they may, to an utter extinction of our being; it must be observed, that he was writing in all probability to Epicureans, and accom modating his arguments to the men; by offering such topics of comfort to them from their own philosophy, as they them selves held to be the most effectual. But if this also should seem precarious, we must remember always, that Cicero was an academic; and although he believed a future state, was fond of the opinion, and declares himself resolved never to part with it; yet he believed it as probable only, not as certain; and as pro bability implies some mixture of doubt, and admits the degrees of more and less, so it admits also some variety in the stability of our persuasion; thus, in a me lancholy hour, when his spirits were de pressed, the same argument will not ap pear to him with the same force; but doubts and difficulties get the ascendant, and what humoured his present chagrin, find the readiest admission. The passages alledged were all of this kind, and written in the season of his de jection, when all things were going with him, in the height of Caesar's power; and though we allow them to have all the the force that they can possibly bear, and to express what Cicero really meant at that time; yet they prove at last nothing more, than that, agreeably to the characters and principles of the Academy, he sometimes doubted of what he generally believed. But, after all, whatever be the sense of them, it cannot surely be thought reasonable to oppose a few scattered hints, accidentally thrown out, when he was not considering the subject, to the volumes that he had deliberately written on the other side of the question. As to his political conduct, no man was ever a more determined patriot, or a warmer lover of his country than he: his whole character, natural temper, choice of life and principles, made its true interest inseparable from his own. His general view, therefore, was always one and the same; to support the peace and liberty of the republic in that form and constitution of it, which their ancestors had delivered down to them. He looked upon that as the only foundation on which it could be supported, and used to quote a verse of old Ennius, as the dictate of an oracle, which derived all the glory of Rome from an adherence to its ancient manners and discipline. Moribus antiquis stat res Romana virisque. Fragm. de Repub. 1. 5. It is one of his maxims, which he inculcates in his writings, that as the end of a pilot is a prosperous voyage; of a physician, the health of his patient; of a general, victory; so that of a statesman is, to make his citizens happy; to make them firm in power, rich in wealth, splendid in glory, eminent in virtue, which he declares to be the greatest and best of all works among men and as this cannot be effected but by the concord and harmony of the constituent members of a city; so it was his constant aim to unite the different or ders of the state into one common interest, and to inspire them with a mutual confidence in each other; so as to balance the supremacy of the people by the authority of the senate; that the one should enact, but the other advise; the one have the last resort, the other the chief influence. This was the old constitution of Rome, by which it had been raised to all its grandeur; whilst all its misfortunes were Owing to the contrary principle of distrust and dissention between these two rival powers: it was the great object, therefore, of his policy, to throw the ascendant in all affairs into the hands of the senate and the magistrates, as far as it was consistent with the rights and liberties of the people; which will always be the general view of the wise and honest in all popular governments. This was the principle which he espoused from the beginning, and pursued to the end of his life: and though in some passages of his history, he may be thought perhaps to have deviated from it, yet upon an impartial view of the case, we shall find that his end was always the same, though he had changed his measures of pursuing it, when compelled to it by the violence of the times, and an over-ruling force, and a necessary regard to his own safety: so that he might say, with great truth, what an Athenian orator once said in excuse of his inconstancy; that he had acted indeed on some occasions contrary to himself, but never to the republic: and here also his academic philosophy seems to have shewed its superior use in practical as well as in speculative life, by indulging that liberty of acting which na ture and reason require; and when the times and things themselves are changed, allowing a change of conduct, and a recourse to new means for the attainment of the same end. The three sects, which at this time chiefly engrossed the philosophical part of Rome, were the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Academic; and the chief ornaments' of each were Cato, Atticus, and Cicero, who lived together in strict friendship, and a mutual esteem of each other's virtue ; but the different behaviour of these three will shew by fact and example, the different merit of their several principles, and which of them was the best adapted to promote the good of society. The Stoics were the bigots or enthusiasts in philosophy, who held none to be truly wise but themselves; placed perfect happiness in virtue, though stripped of every other good; affirmed all sins to be equal; all deviations from right equally wicked: to kill a dunghill cock without reason, the same crime as to kill a parent; a wise man could never forgive, never be moved by anger, favour or pity; never be deceived; never repent; never change his mind. With these principles Cato entered into public life, and acted in it, as Cicero says, as if he had lived in the polity of Plato, not in the dregs of Romulus. He made no distinction of times or things; no al lowance lowance for the weakness of the republic, and the power of those who oppressed it: it was his maxim to combat all power, not built upon the laws, or to defy it at Icast if he could not controul it: he knew no way to this end but the direct, and whatever obstructions he met with, resolved still to push on, and either surmount them or perish in the attempt; taking it for baseness and confession of being conquered, to decline a tittle from the truc road. In an age, therefore, of the utmost libertinism, when the public discipline was lost, and the government itself tottering, he struggled with the same zeal against all corruption, and waged a perpetual war with a superior force; whilst the rigour of his principles tended rather to alienate friends, than reconcile enemies; and by provoking the power that he could not subdue, helped to hasten that ruin which he was striving to avert; so that after a perpetual course of disappointments and repulses, finding himself unable to pursue his own way any farther, instead of taking a new one, he was driven by his philosophy to put an end to his life. But as the Stoics exalted human nature too high, so the Epicureans depressed it too low; as those raised to the heroic, these debased it to the brutal state; they held pleasure to be the chief good of a man; death the extinction of his being; and placed their happiness consequently in the secure enjoyment of a pleasurable life, esteeming virtue on no other account, than as it was a hand-maid to pleasure; and helped to ensure the possession of it, by preserving health and conciliating friends. Their wise man had therefore no other duty, but to provide for his own case; to decline all struggles; to retire from public affairs, and to imitate the life of their gods; by passing his days in a calm, contemplative, undisturbed repose; in the midst of rural shades and pleasant gardens. This was the scheme that Atticus followed: he had all the talents that could qualify a man to be useful to society great parts, learning, judgment, candour, benevolence, generosity; the same love of his country, and the same sentiments in politics with Cicero; whom he was always advising and urging to act, yet determined never to act himself; or never at least so far as to disturb his ease, er endanger his safety. For though he was so strictly united with Cicero, and valued him above all men, yet he managed an interest all the while with the opposite party faction, and a friendship even with his mortal enemies, Clodius and Antony; that he might secure against all events the grand point which he had in view, the peace and tranquillity of his life. Thus two excellent men, by their mistaken notion of virtue, drawn from the principles of their philosophy, were made useless in a manner to their country, each in a different extreme of life; the one always acting and exposing himself to dan gers, without the prospect of doing good; the other without attempting to do any, resolving never to act at all. Cicero chose the middle way between the obstinacy of Cato, and the indolence of Atticus: he preferred always the readiest road to what was right, if was right, if it lay open to him: if not, took the next; and in politics as in morality when he could not arrive at the truc, contented himself with the probable. He often compares the statesman to the pilot, whose art consists in managing every turn of the winds, and applying even the most perverse to the progress of his voyage; so that by changing his course, and enlarging his circuit of sailing, to arrive with safety at his destined port. He mentions likewise an observation, which long experience had confirmed to him, that none of the popular and ambitious, who aspired to extraordinary commands, and to be leaders in the republic, ever chose to obtain their ends from the people, till they had first been repulsed by the senate. This was verified by all their civil dissensions, from the Gracchi down to Cæsar: so that when he saw men of this spirit at the head of the government, who by the splendour of their lives and actions had acquired an ascendant over the populace; it was his constant advice to the senate, to gain them by gentle compliances, and to gratify their thirst for power by a volun tary grant of it, as the best way to mode rate their ambition, and reclaim them from desperate counsels. He declared cotention to be no longer prudent, than while it either did service, or at least not hurt ; but when faction was grown too strong to be withstood, that it was time to give over fighting, and nothing left but to extract some good out of the ill, by mitigating that power by patience, which they could not reduce by force, and conciliating it, if possible, to the interest of the state. This was what he advised, and what he prac tised; tised ; and it will account, in a great mensure, for those parts of his conduct which are the most liable to exception, on the account of that complacence, which he is supposed to have paid, at different times, to the several usurpers of illegal power. He made a just distinction between bearing what we cannot help, and approving what he ought to condemn ; and submitted therefore, yet never consented to those usurpations; and when he was forced to comply with them, did it always with a reluctance, that he expressed very keenly in his letters to his friends. But when ever that force was removed, and he was at liberty to pursue his principles and act without controul, as in his consulship, in his province, and after Cæsar's death, the only periods of his life in which he was truly master of himself; there we see him shining out in his genuine character, of an excellent citizen; a great magistrate; a glorious patriot: there we see the man who could declare of himself with truth, in an appeal to Atticus, as to the best witness of his conscience, that he had always done the greatest service to his country, when it was in his power; or when it was not, had never harboured a thought of it, but what was divine. If we must needs compare him therefore with Cato, as some writers affect to do; it is certain, that if Cato's virtue seems more splendid in theory, Cicero's will be found superior in practice; the one was romantic, the other rational; the one drawn from the refinements of the schools, the other from nature and social life; the one always unsuccessful, often hurtful; the other always beneficial, often salutary to the republic. To conclude; Cicero's death, though violent, cannot be called untimely: but was the proper end of such a life, which must have been rendered less glorious, if it had owed its preservation to Antony. It was therefore what he not only expected, but in the circumstances to which he was reduced, what he seems even to have wished. For he, who had before been timid in dangers, and desponding in distress, yet from the time of Cæsar's death, roused by the desperate state of the republic, assumed the fortitude of a hero: discarded all fear; despised all danger; and when he could not free his country from a tyFanny, provoked the tyrants to take that Ite, which he no longer cared to preserve. Thus, like a great actor on the stage, he reserved himself as it were for the last act; and after he had played his part with dignity, resolved to finish it with glory. Middleton's Cicero. $ 38. Mr. PULTENEY's Speech on the Motion for reducing the Army. Sir, We have heard a great deal about parliamentary armies, and about an army continued from year to year; I have always been, Sir, and always shall be, against a standing army of any kind. To me it is a terrible thing; whether under that of parliamentary or any other desig nation, a standing army is still a standing army, whatever name it be called by: they are a body of men distinct from the body of the people; they are governed by different laws; and blind obedience, and an entire submission to the orders of their commanding officer, is their only principle. The nations around us, Sir, are already enslaved, and have been enslaved by those very means: by means of thele standing armies they have every one lost their liberties; it is indeed impossible that the liberties of the people can be preserved in any country where a numerous standing army is kept up. Shall we then take any of our measures from the examples of our neighbours? No, Sir; on the contrary, from their misfortunes we ought to learn to avoid those rocks upon which they have split. It signifies nothing to tell me, that our army is commanded by such gentlemen as cannot be supposed to join in any measures for enslaving their country. It may be so; I hope it is so; I have a very good opinion of many gentlemen now in the army; I believe they would not join in any such measures; but their lives are uncertain, nor can we be sure how long they may be continued in command; they may be all dismissed in a moment, and proper tools of power put in their room. Besides, Sir, we know the passions of men, we know how dangerous it is to trust the best of men with too much power. Where was there a braver army than that under Julius Cæsar? Where was there ever any army that had served their country more faithfully? That army was commanded generally by the best citizens of Rome, by men of great fortune and figure in their country, yet that army enslaved their country. The at fections fections of the soldiers towards their country, the honour and integrity of the underofficers, are not to be depended on: by the military law the administration of justice is so quick, and the punishment so severe, that neither officer nor soldier dares offer to dispute the orders of his supreme commander; he must not consult his own inclinations: if an officer were commanded to pull his own father out of this house, be must do it; he dares not disobey; immediate death would be the sure consequence of the least grumbling. And if an officer were sent into the court of requests, accompanied by a body of musketeers with screwed bayonets, and with orders to tell us what we ought to do, and how we were to vote, I know what would be the duty of this house; I know it would be our duty to order the officer to be taken and hanged up at the door of the lobby; but, Sir, I doubt much if such a spirit could be found in the house, or in any house of commons that will ever be in England. Sir, I talk not of imaginary things: I talk of what has happened to an English house of commons, and from an English army; not only from an English army, but an army that was raised by that very house of commons, an army that was paid by them, and an army that was commanded by generals appointed by them. Therefore do not let us vainly imagine, that an army raised and maintained by authority of parliament will always be submissive to them; if any army be so numerous as to have it in their power to over-awe the parliament, they will be submissive as long as the parliament does nothing to disoblige their favourite general; but when that case happens, I am afraid that in place of the parliament's dismissing the army, the army will dismiss the parliament, as they have done heretofore. Nor does the le gality or illegality of that parliament, or of that army alter the case; for, with respect to that army, and according to their way of thinking, the parliament dismissed by them was a legal parliament; they were an army raised and maintained according to law, and at first they were raised, as they imagined, for the preservation of those liberties which they afterwards destroyed. succession in his Majesty's most illustrious house, nor any succession, can ever be sale, as long as there is a standing army in the country. Armies, Sir, have no regard to hereditary successions. The first two Cæ sars at Rome did pretty well, and found means to keep their armies in tolerable subjection, because the generals and offi cers were all their own creatures. But how did it fare with their successors? Was not every one of them named by the army without any regard to hereditary right, or to any right? A cobler, a gardener, or any man who happened to raise himself in the army, and could gain their affections, was made emperor of the world. Was not every succeeding emperor raised to the throne, or tumbled headlong into the dust, according to the mere whim or mad frenzy of the soldiers? We are told this army is desired to be continued but for one year longer, or for a limited term of years. low absurd is this distinction? Is there any army in the world continued for any term of years? Does the most absolute monarch tell b army, that he is to continue them for any number of years, or any number months? How long have we already continued our army from year to year? And if it thus continues, wherein will it difer from the standing armies of those countries which have already submitted their necks to the yoke? We are now come to the Ru bicon; our army is now to be reduced, or it never will; from his Majesty's own mouth we are assured of a profound tranquillity abroad; we know there is one at home. If this is not a proper time, if these circumstances do not afford us a safe op portunity for reducing at least a part c our regular forces, we never can expect to see any reduction; and this nation, alica dy overburdened with debts and taxes, must be loaded with the heavy charge perpetually supporting a numerous stand ing army; and remain for ever exposed to the danger of having its liberties and pr vileges trampled upon by any king or ministry, who shall take it their heads to do so, and shall take a proper care to model the army for that pr pose. future It has been urged, Sir, that whoever is f 39. Sir JOHN ST. AUBIN's Speech for for the Protestant succession, must be for continuing the army: for that very reason, Sir, I am against continuing the ar my. I know that neither the Protestant repealing the Septennial Act. Mr. Speaker, The subject matter of this debate is of |