ing that literary monument of which I have spoken, but
his public usefulness was done. To the reader of his biography it will
seem that these coming fourteen years will lack much of the grace which
adorned the last twenty. The biographer will be driven to make excuses,
which he will not do without believing in the truth of them, but
doubting much whether he may beget belief in others. He thinks that he
can see the man passing from one form to another--his doubting devotion
to Pompey, his enforced adherence to Caesar, his passionate opposition to
Antony; but he can still see him true to his country, and ever on the
alert against tyranny and on behalf of pure patriotism.

At the present we have to deal with Cicero in no vacillating spirit, but
loudly exultant and loudly censorious. Within the two years following
his return he made a series of speeches, in all of which we find the
altered tone of his mind. There is no longer that belief in the ultimate
success of justice, and ultimate triumph of the Republic, which glowed
in his Verrine and Catiline orations. He is forced to descend in his
aspirations. It is not whether Rome shall be free, or the bench of
justice pure, but whether Cicero shall be avenged and Gabinius punished.
It may have been right--it was right--that Cicero should be avenged and
Gabinius punished; but it must be admitted that the subjects are less
alluring.

His first oration, as generally received, was made to the Senate in
honor of his return. The second was addressed to the people on the same
subject. The third was spoken to the college of priests, with the view
of recovering the ground on which his house had stood, and which Clodius
had attempted to alienate forever by dedicating it to a pretended
religious purpose. The next, as coming on our list, though not so in
time, was addressed again to the Senate concerning official reports made
by the public soothsayers as interpreters of occult signs, as to whether
certain portents had been sent by the gods to show that Cicero ought not
to have back his house. Before this was made he had defended Sextius,
who as Tribune had been peculiarly serviceable in assisting his return.
This was before a bench of judges; and separated from this, though made
apparently at the same time, is a violent attack upon Vatinius, one of
Caesar's creatures, who was a witness against Sextius. Then there is a
seventh, regarding the disposition of the provinces among the Propraetor