In reality, Lucan did not think as he wrote. He had a purpose to serve;
and in an age when to act like a freeman was no longer possible, he
determined at least to write in that character. It is probable, also, that
he wrote with a vindictive or a malicious feeling towards Nero; and, as
the single means he had for gratifying _that_, resolved upon sacrificing
the grandeur of Caesar's character wherever it should be found possible.
Meantime, in spite of himself, Lucan for ever betrays his lurking
consciousness of the truth. Nor are there any testimonies to Caesar's vast
superiority more memorably pointed, than those which are indirectly and
involuntarily extorted from this Catonic poet, by the course of his
narration. Never, for example, was there within the same compass of words,
a more emphatic expression of Caesar's essential and inseparable grandeur
of thought, which could not be disguised or be laid aside for an instant,
than is found in the three casual words--_Indocilis privata loqui_. The
very mould, it seems, by Lucan's confession, of his trivial conversation
was regal; nor could he, even to serve a purpose, abjure it for so much as
a casual purpose. The acts of Caesar speak also the same language; and as
these are less susceptible of a false coloring than the features of a
general character, we find this poet of liberty, in the midst of one
continuous effort to distort the truth, and to dress up two scenical
heroes, forced by the mere necessities of history into a reluctant homage
to Caesar's supremacy of moral grandeur.

Of so great a man it must be interesting to know all the well attested
opinions which bear upon topics of universal interest to human nature; as
indeed no others stood much chance of preservation, unless it were from as
minute and curious a collector of _anecdotage_ as Suetonius. And, first,
it would be gratifying to know the opinion of Caesar, if he had any
peculiar to himself, on the great theme of Religion. It has been held,
indeed, that the constitution of his mind, and the general cast of his