s to approve of the storm of abuse under which he attempted to
drown the memory and name of his antagonist. So virulent a torrent of
words, all seeming, as we read them, to have been poured out in rapid
utterances by the keen energy of the moment, astonish us, when we
reflect that it was the work of his quiet moments. That he should have
prepared such a task in the seclusion of his closet is marvellous. It
has about it the very ring of sudden passion; but it must be
acknowledged that it is not palatable. It is more Roman and less English
than anything we have from Cicero--except his abuse of Piso, with whom
he was again now half reconciled.

But it was solely on behalf of his country that he did it. He had
grieved when Caesar had usurped the functions of the government; but in
his grief he had respected Caesar, and had felt that he might best carry
on the contest by submission. But, when Caesar was dead, and Antony was
playing tyrant, his very soul rebelled. Then he sat down to prepare his
first instalment of keen personal abuse, adding word to word and phrase
to phrase till he had built up this unsavory monument of vituperation.
It is by this that Antony is now known to the world. Plutarch makes no
special mention of the second Philippic. In his life of Antony he does
not allude to these orations at all, but in that of Cicero he tells us
how Antony had ordered that right hand to be brought to him with which
Cicero had written his Philippics.

The "young Octavius" of Shakespeare had now taken the name of
Octavianus--Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus--and had quarrelled to the
knife with Antony. He had assumed that he had been adopted by Caesar, and
now demanded all the treasures his uncle had collected as his own.
Antony, who had already stolen them, declared that they belonged to the
State. At any rate there was cause enough for quarrelling among them,
and they were enemies. Each seems to have brought charges of murder
against the other, and each was anxious to obtain possession of the
soldiery. Seen as we see now the period in Rome of which we are
writing--every safeguard of the Republic gone, all law trampled under
foot, Consuls, Praetors, and Tribunes not elected but forced upon the
State, all things in disorder, the provinces becoming the open prey of
the greediest plunderer--it is apparent enough that there could be no
longer any hope for a Cicero. The marvel is that the every-day affairs
of life should have been ca