clap-traps.

No one has been so frequently condemned out of his mouth as Cicero,
and naturally. In these modern days we have contemporary records as to
prominent persons. Of the characters of those who lived in long-past
ages we generally fail to have any clear idea, because we lack those
close chronicles which are necessary for the purpose. What insight
have we into the personality of Alexander the Great, or what insight
had Plutarch, who wrote about him? As to Samuel Johnson, we seem to
know every turn of his mind, having had a Boswell. Alexander had no
Boswell. But here is a man belonging to those past ages of which I
speak who was his own Boswell, and after such a fashion that, since
letters were invented, no records have ever been written in language
more clear or more attractive. It is natural that we should judge out
of his own mouth one who left so many more words behind him than did
any one else, particularly one who left words so pleasant to read. And
all that he wrote was after some fashion about himself. His letters,
like all letters, are personal to himself. His speeches are words
coming out of his own mouth about affairs in which he was personally
engaged and interested. His rhetoric consists of lessons given by
himself about his own art, founded on his own experience, and on his
own observation of others. His so-called philosophy gives us the
workings of his own mind. No one has ever told the world so much about
another person as Cicero has told the world about Cicero. Boswell
pales before him as a chronicler of minutiae. It may be a matter of
small interest now to the bulk of readers to be intimately acquainted
with a Roman who was never one of the world's conquerors. It may be
well for those who desire to know simply the facts of the world's
history, to dismiss as unnecessary the aspirations of one who lived so
long ago. But if it be worth while to discuss the man's character, it