the ardor, I may say the fury, of his energy in the cause which he was
advocating was due to his public aspirations. The orations which
have come to us in three sets, some of them published only but never
spoken--those against Verres, against Catiline, and the Philippics
against Antony--were all of this nature, though the first concerned
the conduct of a criminal charge against one individual. Of these I
will speak in their turn; but I mention them here in order that I may,
if possible, induce the reader to begin his inquiry into Cicero's
character as an advocate with a just conception of the objects of the
man. He wished, no doubt, to shine, as does the barrister of to-day:
he wished to rise; he wished, if you will, to make his fortune, not by
the taking of fees, but by extending himself into higher influence by
the authority of his name. No doubt he undertook this and the other
case without reference to the truth or honesty of the cause, and, when
he did so, used all his energy for the bad, as he did for the good
cause. There seems to be special accusation made against him on his
head, as though, the very fact that he undertook his work without pay
threw upon him the additional obligation of undertaking no cause that
was not in itself upright. With us the advocate does this notoriously
for his fee. Cicero did it as notoriously in furtherance of some
political object of the moment, or in maintenance of a friendship
which was politically important. I say nothing against the modern
practice. This would not be the place for such an argument. Nor do I
say that, by rules of absolute right and wrong, Cicero was right; but
he was as right, at any rate, as the modern barrister. And in reaching
the high-minded conditions under which he worked, he had only the
light of his own genius to guide him. When compare the clothing of the
savage race with our own, their beads and woad and straw and fibres
with our own petticoats and pantaloons, we acknowledge the progress of
civilization and the growth of machinery. It is not a wonderful thing