instead of travelling messengers at his command, and pen instead of
wax and sticks, or perhaps with an instrument-writer and a private
secretary, he would have answered all questions and solved all
difficulties. He would have so abounded with intellectual fertility
that men would not have known whether most to admire his powers of
expression or to deprecate his want of reticence.

There will necessarily be much to be said of Cicero's writings in the
following pages, as it is my object to delineate the literary man as
well as the politician. In doing this, there arises a difficulty as to
the sequence in which his works should be taken. It will hardly suit
the purpose in view to speak of them all either chronologically or
separately as to their subjects. The speeches and the letters clearly
require the former treatment as applying each to the very moment of
time at which they were either spoken or written. His treatises,
whether on rhetoric or on the Greek philosophy, or on government,
or on morals, can best be taken apart as belonging in a very small
degree, if at all, to the period in which they were written. I will
therefore endeavor to introduce the orations and letters as the
periods may suit, and to treat of his essays afterward by themselves.

A few words I must say as to the Roman names I have used in my
narrative. There is a difficulty in this respect, because the practice
of my boyhood has partially changed itself. Pompey used to be Pompey
without a blush. Now with an erudite English writer he is generally
Pompeius. The denizens of Africa--the "nigger" world--have had, I
think, something to do with this. But with no erudite English writer
is Terence Terentius, or Virgil Virgilius, or Horace Horatius. Were I
to speak of Livius, the erudite English listener would think that I
alluded to an old author long prior to our dear historian. And though