our Cavendishes, our Howards, and our Stanleys,
and feel that there is nothing in such honesty as this. But the
Cavendishes, the Howards, and the Stanleys of those days robbed with
unblushing pertinacity. Caesar robbed so much that he put himself above
all question of honesty. Where did he, who had been so greatly in debt
before he went to Spain, get the million with which he bribed his
adherents? Cicero neither bought nor sold. Twenty little stories have
been told of him, not one with a grain of enduring truth to justify one
of them. He borrowed, and he always paid; he lent, but was not always
repaid. With such a voice to sell as his, a voice which carried with it
the verdict of either guilt or innocence, what payments would it not
have been worth the while of a Roman nobleman to make to him? No such
payments, as far as we can tell, were ever made. He took a present of
books from his friend Poetus, and asked another friend what "Cincius"
would say to it? Men struggling to find him out, and not understanding
his little joke, have said, "Lo! he has been paid for his work. He
defended Poetus, and Poetus gave him books." "Did he defend
Poetus?" you ask. "We surmise so, because he gave him books," they
reply. I say that at any rate the fault should be brought home against
him before it is implied from chance passages in his own letters.

Cicero's affection for his family gives us an entirely unfamiliar
insight into Roman manners. There is a softness, a tenderness, an
eagerness about it, such as would give a grace to the life of some
English nobleman who had his heart garnered up for him at home, though
his spirit was at work for his country. But we do not expect this from
the Pompeys and Caesars and Catos of Rome, perhaps because we do not know
them as we know Cicero. It is odd, however, that we should have no word
of love for his boys, as to Pompey; no word of love for his daughter, as
to Caesar. But Cicero's love for his wife, his brother, his son, his
nephew, especially for his daughter, was unbounded. All offences on
their part he could forgive, till there came his wife's supposed
dishonesty, which was not to be forgiven. The ribaldry of Dio Cassius
has polluted the story of his regard for Tullia; but in truth we know
nothing sweeter in the records of great men, nothing which touches us
more, than the profundity of his grief. His readiness to forgive his
brother and to forgive his nephew, his anxiety to take them back t