Cicero, the sonorous vessel which contains all, from the individual
tears of the man, the husband, the father, and the friend, up to the
catastrophes of Rome and of the world, even to his gloomy forebodings
of his own fate. There is in Cicero a stratum of divine philosophy and
serenity, through which all waters seem to be filtrated and clarified,
and through which his great mind flows in torrents of eloquence,
wisdom, piety, and harmony. I had, till then, thought him a great but
empty speaker, with little sense contained in his long periods; I was
mistaken. Next to Plato, he is the word of antiquity made man; his
style is the grandest of any language. We suppose him meagre, because
his drapery is so magnificent; but strip him of his purple and you will
still find a vast mind, which has felt, understood, and said, all that
there was to comprehend, to feel, or to say, in his day in Rome.




LXV.


As to Tacitus, I did not even attempt to combat my partiality for him.
I preferred him even to Thucydides, the Demosthenes of history.
Thucydides relates, but does not give life and being. Tacitus is not
the historian, but a compendium of mankind. His narration is the
counter-blow of the fact in the heart of a free, virtuous, and feeling
man. The shudder that one feels as one reads not only passes over the
flesh, but is a shudder of the heart. His sensibility is more than
emotion,--it is pity; his judgments are more than vengeance,--they are
justice; his indignation is more than anger,--it is virtue. Our hearts
mingle with that of Tacitus, and we feel proud of our kindred with him.