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CONYERS MIDDLETON.

Conyers Middleton, a Rationalist theologian, a biographer of Cicero, and one of the chief opponents of Bentley at Trinity College, was born at Richmond (Yorkshire) in 1683, and died in 1750 at Hildersham. His honesty has been perhaps justly attacked; the general merit and accomplishment of his style is, despite De Quincey's attempt to depreciate it, undeniable.

CICE

CICERO CONSUL

ICERO was now arrived through the usual gradation of honours, at the highest which the people could regularly give, or an honest citizen desire. The offices which he had already borne had but a partial jurisdiction, confined to particular branches of the government; but the consuls held the reins, and directed the whole machine with an authority as extensive as the empire itself. The subordinate magistracies, therefore, being the steps only to this sovereign dignity, were not valued so much for their own sake, as for bringing the candidates still nearer to the principal objects of their hopes, who, through this course of their ambition, were forced to practise all the arts of popularity: to court the little as well as the great, to espouse the principles and politics in vogue, and to apply their talents to conciliate friends, rather than to serve the public. But the consulship put an end to this subjection, and with the command of the state gave them the command of themselves: so that the only care left was, how to execute this high office with credit and dignity, and employ the power entrusted to them for the benefit and service of their country.

We are now therefore to look upon Cicero in a different light, in order to form a just idea of his character: to consider him, not as an ambitious courtier, applying all his thoughts and pains to his own advancement; but as a great magistrate and statesman, administering the affairs and directing the councils of a mighty empire. And, according to the accounts of all the ancient writers, Rome never stood in greater need of the skill and vigilance of an able consul than in this very year. For besides the traitorous cabals and conspiracies of those who were attempting to subvert the whole Republic, the new tribunes were also labouring to disturb the present quiet of it: some of them were publishing laws to abolish everything that remained of Sylla's establishment, and to restore the sons of the proscribed to their estates and honours; others to reverse the punishment of P. Sylla and Autronius, condemned for bribery, and replace them in the senate some were for expunging all debts, and others for dividing the lands of the public to the poorer citizens so that, as Cicero declared, both to the senate and the people, the Republic was delivered into his hands full of terrors and alarms; distracted by pestilent laws and seditious haranguers; endangered, not by foreign wars, but intestine evils, and the traitorous designs of profligate citizens; and that there was no mischief incident to a state which the honest had not cause to apprehend, the wicked to expect.

What gave the greater spirit to the authors of these attempts, was Antonius's advancement to the consulship: they knew him to be of the same principles, and embarked in the same designs with themselves, which, by his authority, they now hoped to carry into effect. Cicero was aware of this; and foresaw the mischief of a colleague equal to him in power, yet opposite in views, and prepared to frustrate all his endeavours for the public service; so that his first care, after their election, was to gain the confidence of Antonius, and to draw him from his old engagements to the interests of the Republic; being convinced that all the success of his administration depended upon it. He began therefore to tempt him by a kind of argument, which seldom fails of its effect with men of his character, the offer of power to his ambition, and of money to his pleasures: with these baits he

caught him; and a bargain was presently agreed upon between them, that Antonius should have the choice of the best province, which was to be assigned to them at the expiration of their year. It was the custom for the senate to appoint what particular provinces were to be distributed every year to the several magistrates, who used afterward to cast lots for them among themselves; the prætors for the prætorian, the consuls for the consular provinces. In this partition, therefore, when Macedonia, one of the most desirable governments of the empire, both for command and wealth, fell to Cicero's lot, he exchanged it immediately with his colleague for Cisalpine Gaul, which he resigned also soon after in favour of Q. Metellus'; being resolved, as he declared in his inauguration speech, to administer the consulship in such a manner, as to put it out of any man's power either to tempt or terrify him from his duty; since he neither sought, nor would accept, any province, honour, or benefit from it whatsoever : "The only way," says he," by which a man can discharge it with gravity and freedom, so as to chastise those tribunes who wish ill to the Republic, or despise those who wish ill to himself :" a noble declaration, and worthy to be transmitted to posterity, for an example to all magistrates in a free state. By this address he entirely drew Antonius into his measures, and had him ever after obsequious to his will; or, as he himself expresses it, by his patience and complaisance he softened and calmed him, eagerly desirous of a province, and projecting many things against the state. The establishment of this concord between them, was thought to be of such importance to the public quiet, that, in his first speech to the people, he declared it to them from the rostra, as an event the most likely to curb the insolence of the factious, and raise the spirits of the honest, and prevent the dangers with which the city was then threatened.

The Life of Cicero.

P. 157, 1. 28. Which is a blemish; for in strict English "with themselves" exhausts the antecedent "the same," and does not allow "which" to refer to it.

GEORGE BERKELEY.

George Berkeley, the greatest master of English philosophical style and perhaps the greatest of English metaphysicians, was born “in the county of Kilkenny" in 1684. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he became chaplain to Peterborough, sojourned in America as a missionary and teacher, was made Bishop of Cloyne, and died at Oxford in 1753.

BUT

MATTER.

UT let us examine a little the received opinion.—It is said extension is a mode or accident of Matter, and that Matter is the substratum that supports it. Now I desire that you would explain to me what is meant by Matter's supporting extension. Say you, I have no idea of Matter and therefore cannot explain it. I answer, though you have no positive, yet, if you have any meaning at all, you must at least have a relative idea of Matter; though you know not what it is, yet you must be supposed to know what relation it bears to accidents, and what is meant by its supporting them. It is evident "support" cannot here be taken in its usual or literal sense-as when we say that pillars support a building; in what sense therefore must it be taken?

If we inquire into what the most accurate philosophers declare themselves to mean by material substance, we shall find them acknowledge they have no other meaning annexed to those sounds but the idea of Being in general, together with the relative notion of its supporting accidents. The general idea of Being appeareth to me the most abstract and incomprehensible of all other; and as for its supporting accidents, this, as we have

just now observed, cannot be understood in the common sense of those words; it must therefore be taken in some other sense, but what that is they do not explain. So that when I consider the two parts or branches which make the signification of the words material substance, I am convinced there is no distinct meaning annexed to them. But why should we trouble ourselves any farther, in discussing this material substratum or support of figure and motion, and other sensible qualities? Does it not suppose they have an existence without the mind? and is not this a direct repugnancy, and altogether inconceivable ?

But, though it were possible that solid, figured, moveable substances may exist without the mind, corresponding to the ideas we have of bodies, yet how is it possible for us to know this? Either we must know it by sense or by reason. As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge only of our sensations, ideas, or those things that are immediately perceived by senses call them what you will: but they do not inform us that things exist without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which are perceived. This the materialists themselves acknowledge. It remains therefore that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must be by reason, inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived by sense. But what reason can induce us to believe the existence of bodies without the mind, from what we perceive, since the very patrons of Matter themselves do not pretend there is any necessary connexion betwixt them and our ideas? I say it is granted on all hands, and what happens in dreams, frensies, and the like, puts it beyond dispute, that it is possible we might be affected with all the ideas we have now, though there were no bodies existing without resembling them. Hence, it is evident the supposition of external bodies is not necessary for the producing our ideas; since it is granted they are produced sometimes, and might possibly be produced always in the same order we see them in at present, without their concurrence.

But, though we might possibly have all our sensations without them, yet perhaps it may be thought easier to conceive and explain the manner of their production, by supposing external bodies in their likeness rather than otherwise; and so it might

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