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For the Literary Magazine.

on the merits of cicero.

I HAVE contrived to read the
greater part of the works of Cicero
through, merely by taking up the
volume, at any odd, unoccupied mo-
ment, during the intervals, for in-
stance, between my two dishes of
coffee, or three pieces of bread, at
breakfast. This morning I opened
at the second Tusculan, and being
somewhat in a sulky mood, by rea-
son of some little domestic inconve-
nience not worth relating, I failed
to discover all that wisdom and elo-
quence, of which I usually find a
rich repast in these volumes. On
the contrary, I really conceived a
notion, from this dialogue, that Cice-
ro, however great in other respects,
was, upon the whole, both in theory
and practice, but a poor philosopher.

It was, indeed, somewhat unlucky
that I just now lighted on this dia-
logue, which attempts to prove, that

pain is no evil,
for I had, at that
moment, just escaped from the
twinges of a tooth-ache, from which
I had reason to expect but a short
respite, and which would effectually
mar the pleasures of a scheme to
which I had intended to devote the
ensuing day.

The orator appears to me to be-
gin with a pompous maxim, which
he cannot support, and has not the
candour to resign. In endeavouring
to maintain it, he falls into pitiful
evasions, substitutes brilliancy of ex-
pression for solidity of argument,
and, in fact, deserts the ground on
which he had first set out.

This dialogue is, indeed, a com-
plete chaos; a confused collection
of assertions, not merely without
proof, but absolutely contradictory
to each other; a useless detail of
all the philosophical opinions then
known; a compilation of stories,
either real or fictitious, whence no
consequence can be inferred, be-
cause we are in the dark with res-
pect to the point from which the
speaker sets out, as well as that to
which he intends to conduct us;
and a series of repetitions, which
all the eloquence of Cicero cannot
prevent from being tedious. In
short, there is in it a total want of
order, which is unavoidable where
an author neither defines his terms,
divides his subject, nor arranges his
ideas.

All this is certainly very severe;
but it must be acknowledged to be
just, if he seriously meant to main-
tain the extravagant opinion, that
pain is no evil.
It has, however,
been imagined, by some, that his
intention was only to expose to con-
tempt the pompous maxims and fu-
tile reasoning of some of the philo-
sophers of his age. To me, I con-
fess, this ridicule is not very obvi-
ous; but to his contemporaries, who
knew the persons, and had attended
the lessons of those to whom he al-
luded, it might be sufficiently ap-
parent.

The vanity which Cicero betrays
in quoting his own verses, and then
making his auditor enquire whose

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they were, and in the immediate
conviction which the latter is made
to express, is very reprehensible.
Vanity was a defect in the charac-
ter of Cicero too prominent ever to
be entirely concealed; the manner
in which it here obtrudes itself may
be ridiculous; but, in other parts of
his writings, it appears in a very
offensive point of view, and particu-
larly in his letter to Lucceius, where
he acknowledges that he writes
what he was ashamed to speak;
and plainly requests that historian
to applaud his public conduct, even
beyond what he might think it de-
served, and to indulge his friend-
ship, though at the expence of truth.

Vanity alone, in the degree in
which it tyrannized over Cicero,
and which overwhelmed him with
so many fantastic miseries and mor-
tifications, is sufficient to disprove
his title to the name of a practical
philosopher, or wise man. His la-
mentations on his banishment, and
on the death of his daughter, with
the strange means he proposed to
consecrate her memory, and the
exultations expressed on his recal,
and in the review of his consulship,
are equally unmanly and extrava-
gant.

In truth, I am strongly inclined to
think that, taking all circumstan-
ces into view, the wisest man of
Cicero's times was Atticus. Atti-
cus, it appears, was far from being
void of patriotism and benevolence,
but these passions led him to benefit
his countrymen, his friends, and
himself, by means far more effica-
cious than those adopted by the Ci-
ceros and Brutuses of the age, and
he appears to have been quite su-
perior to the meretricious charms
of power or popularity.


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