too much, in distant days, when your lofty hopes and destinies
are accomplished,--on the evening of some mighty victory,
--in the chariot of some magnificent triumph,--think on one who
loved you with that exceeding love which only the miserable can
feel. Think that, wherever her exhausted frame may have sunk
beneath the sensibilities of a tortured spirit,--in whatever
hovel or whatever vault she may have closed her eyes,--whatever
strange scenes of horror and pollution may have surrounded her
dying bed, your shape was the last that swam before her sight--
your voice the last sound that was ringing in her ears. Yet turn
your face to me, Caesar. Let me carry away one last look of
those features, and then "--He turned round. He looked at her.
He hid his face on her bosom, and burst into tears. With sobs
long and loud, and convulsive as those of a terrified child, he
poured forth on her bosom the tribute of impetuous and
uncontrollable emotion. He raised his head; but he in vain
struggled to restore composure to the brow which had confronted
the frown of Sylla, and the lips which had rivalled the eloquence
of Cicero. He several times attempted to speak, but in vain; and
his voice still faltered with tenderness, when, after a pause of
several minutes, he thus addressed her:

"My own dear Zoe, your love has been bestowed on one who, if he
cannot merit, can at least appreciate and adore you. Beings of
similar loveliness, and similar devotedness of affection,
mingled, in all my boyish dreams of greatness, with visions of
curule chairs and ivory cars, marshalled legions and laurelled
fasces. Such I have endeavoured to find in the world; and, in
their stead, I have met with selfishness, with vanity, with
frivolity, with falsehood. The life which you have preserved is