privately by his wife Cornelia, in a vault of his Alban Villa. The Egyptians, however, raised a monument to him on the place, and adorned it with figures of brass, which being defaced afterwards by time, and buried almost in sand and rubbish, was sought out, and restored by the emperor Hadrian. MIDDLETON. CHA P. XLIV. CHARACTER OF JULIUS CAESAR. CIAESAR AESAR was endowed with every great and noble quality, that could exalt human nature, and give a man the ascendant in society: formed to excel in peace, as well as war; provident in counsel; fearless in action; and executing what he had resolved with an amazing celerity generous beyond measure to his friends; placable to his enemies; and for parts, learning, eloquence, scarce inferior to any man. His orations were admired for two qualities, which are seldom found together strength and elegance. Cicero ranks him among the greatest orators that Rome ever bred: and Quintilian says, that he spoke with the same force with which he fought; and if he had devoted himself to the bar, would have been the only man capable of rivalling Ci cero. Nor was he a master only of the politer arts; but conversant also with the most abstruse and critical parts of learning; and among other works, which he published, addressed two books to Cicero, on the analogy of language, or the art of speaking and writing correctly. He was a most liberal patron of wit and learning, wheresoever they were found; and out of his love of those talents, would readily pardon those, who had employed them against himself; rightly judging, that by making such men his friends, he should draw praises from the saine fountain, from which he had been aspersed. His capital passions were ambition, and love of pleasure; which he indulged in their turns to the greatest excess; yet the first was always predominant; to which he could easily sacrifice all the charins of the second, and draw pleasure even from toils and dangers, when they ministered to his glory. For he thought Tyranny, as Cicero says, the greatest of goddesses; and had frequently in his mouth a verse of Euripides which expressed the image of his soul, that if right and justice were ever to be violated, they were to be violated for the sake of reigning. This was the chief end and purpose of his life; the scheme that he had formed from his early youth: so that, as Cato truly declared of him, he came with sobriety and meditation to the subversion of the republic. : : He used to say, that there were two things necessary to acquire and to support power ; soldiers and money; which yet depended mutually ou each other with money therefore he provided soldiers; and with soldiers extorted money and was of all men the most rapacious in plundering both friends and foes; sparing neither prince nor state, nor temple, nor even private persons, who were known to possess any share of treasure. His great abilities would necessarily have made him one of the first citizens of Rome; but disdaining the condition of a subject, he could never rest, 'till he had made himself a monarch. In acting this last part, his usual prudence seemed to fail him ; as if the height to which he was mounted had turned his head, and mnade him giddy: for, by a vain ostentation of his power, he destroyed the stability of it: and as men shorten life by living too fast, so by an intemperance of reigning, he brought his reign to a violent end. MIDDLETON. F we consider the character of Cato without prejudice, he was certainly a great and worthy man; a friend to truth, virtue, liberty: yet falsely measuring all duty by the absurd rigour of the stoical rule; he was generally disappointed of the end which he sought by it, the happiness both of his private and public life. In his private conduct, he was severe, morose, inexorable; banishing all the softer affections, as natural enemies, to justice, and as suggesting false motives of acting, from favour, clemency, and compassion: in public affairs he was the same; had but one rule of policy, to adhere to what was right without regard to times or circumstances, or even to a force that could controul him; for instead of managing the power of the great, so as to mitigate the ill, or extract any good from it, he was urging it always to acts of violence by a perpetual defiance; so that, with the best intentions in the world, he often did great harm to the republic. This was his general behaviour; yet, from some particular facts, it appears that his strength of ruind was not always impregnable, but had its weak places of pride, ambition, and party zeal; which when managed, and flattered to a certain point, would betray him sometimes into measures contrary to his ordinary rule of right and truth. The last act of his life was agreeable to his nature and philosophy when he could no longer be, what he had been; or when the ills of life overbalanced the good, L a which, by the principles of his sect, was á just cause for dying; he put an end to his life, with a spirit and resolution, which would make one imagine, that he was glad to have found an occasion of dying in his proper character. On the whole, his life was rather adinirable, than ainiable; fit to be praised, rather than imitated. MIDDLETON. CHA P. XLVI. A COMPARISON OF THE POLITICAL PRINCIPLES AND CONDUCT OF CATO, ATTICUS AND CICERO. THE three sects which 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 |