primum mortalem esse, deinde etiam multis modis extingui posse
cogitabam." "I bethought myself in the first place that this man was
mortal, and then that there were a hundred ways in which he might be
put on one side." All the latter authorities have, I believe, supposed
the "hunc" or "this man" to be Pompey. I should say that this was
proved by the gist of the whole letter--one of the most interesting
that was ever written, as telling the workings of a great man's mind
at a peculiar crisis of his life--did I not know that former learned
editors have supposed Caesar to have been meant. But whether Caesar
or Pompey, there is nothing in it to do with murder. It is a
question--Cicero is saying to his friend--of the stability of the
Republic. When a matter so great is considered, how is a man to
trouble himself as to an individual who may die any day, or cease from
any accident to be of weight? Cicero was speaking of the effect of
this or that step on his own part. Am I, he says, for the sake
of Pompey to bring down hordes of barbarians on my own country,
sacrificing the Republic for the sake of a friend who is here to-day
and may be gone to-morrow? Or for the sake of an enemy, if the reader
thinks that the "hunc" refers to Caesar. The argument is the same. Am
I to consider an individual when the Republic is at stake? Mr. Froude
tells us that he reads "the words with sorrow and yet with pity." So
would every one, I think, sympathizing with the patriot's doubts as to
his leader, as to his party, and as to his country. Mr. Froude does so
because he gathers from them that Cicero is premeditating the murder
of Caesar!

It is natural that a man should be judged out of his own mouth. A man
who speaks much, and so speaks that his words shall be listened to and
read, will be so judged. But it is not too much to demand that when a
man's character is at stake his own words shall be thoroughly sifted