s to the sense of security and power.

[Mommsen is more at one with De Quincey here than Merivale,
who, at p. 478, vol. ii., writes: 'We learn with pleasure
that the conspirators did not venture even to sound Cicero';
but at vol. iii., p. 9, he has these significant words:
'Cicero, himself, we must believe, was not ashamed to lament
the scruples which had denied him initiation into the plot.'
Forsyth writes of Cicero's views: 'He was more than ever
convinced of the want of foresight shown by the
conspirators. Their deed, he said, was the deed of men,
their counsels were the counsels of children,' 'Life of
Cicero,' 3rd edition, pp. 435-6.--ED.]

_IV. CICERO (SUPPLEMENTARY TO PUBLISHED ESSAY)._

Some little official secrets we learn from the correspondence of Cicero
as Proconsul of Cilicia.[19] And it surprises us greatly to find a man,
so eminently wise in his own case, suddenly turning romantic on behalf
of a friend. How came it--that he or any man of the world should fancy
any substance or reality in the public enthusiasm for one whose
character belonged to a past generation? Nine out of ten amongst the
Campanians must have been children when Pompey's name was identified
with national trophies. For many years Pompey had done nothing to
sustain or to revive his obsolete reputation. Capua or other great towns
knew him only as a great proprietor. And let us ask this one searching
question--Was the poor spirit-broken insolvent, a character now so
extensively prevailing in Italian society, likely to sympathize more
heartily with the lordly oligarch fighting only for the exclusive
privileges of his own narrow order, or with the great reformer who
amongst a thousand plans for reinfusing vitality into Roman polity was
well understood to be digesting a large measure of relief to the
hopeless debtor? What lunacy to believe that the ordinary citizen,
crouching under the insupportable load of his usurious obligations,
could be at leisure to support a few scores of lordly senators
panic-stricken for the interests of their own camarilla, when he
beheld--taking the field on the opposite quarter--one, the greatest of
men, who spoke authentically to all classes alike, authorizing all to
hope and to draw their breath in freedom under that general recast of
Roman society which had now become inevitable! As between such
competitors, which way would the popularity be likely