ithout a short notice of those services
which--as statesman, orator, and essayist--he rendered to his country
and to future ages and nations.

In regard to his services as a statesman, they were rendered chiefly to
his day and generation, for he elaborated no system of political wisdom
like Burke, which bears (except casually and indirectly) on modern
governments and institutions. It was his aim, as a statesman, to
continue the Roman Constitution and keep the people from civil war. Nor
does he seem to have held, like Rousseau, the _vox populi_ as the voice
of God. He could find no language sufficiently strong to express his
abhorrence of those who led the people for their own individual
advancement. He was equally severe on corrupt governors and venal
judges. He upheld morality and justice as the only guides in public
affairs. He loved popularity, but he loved his country better. He hated
anarchy as much as did Burke. Like Bright, he looked upon civil war as
the greatest of national calamities. He advocated the most enlightened
views, based on the principles of immutable justice. He wished to
preserve his country equally from unscrupulous generals and unprincipled
politicians.

As for his orations, they also were chiefly designed for his own
contemporaries. They are not particularly valuable to us, except as
models of rhetorical composition and transcendent beauty and grace of
style. They are not so luminous with fundamental principles as they are
vivid with invective, sarcasm, wit, and telling exaggeration,--sometimes
persuasive and working on the sensibilities, and at other times full of
withering scorn. They are more like the pleadings of an advocate than an
appeal to universal reason. He lays down no laws of political
philosophy, nor does he soar into the region of abstract truth, evolving
great deductions in morals. But as an orator he was transcendently
effective, like Demosthenes, though not equal to the Greek in force. His
sentences are perhaps too involved for our taste; yet he always swayed
an audience, whether the people from the rostrum, or the judges at the
bar, or the senators in the Curia. He seldom lost a case; no one could
contend with him successfully. He called out the admiration of critics,
and even of actors. He had a wonderful electrical influence; his very
tones and gestures carried everything before him; his action was superb;
and his whole frame quivered from real (or affected) emotion, like
E