This book,
considered merely as an essay, is one of the most entertaining
productions of ancient times; but, beheld as a picture drawn from life,
exhibiting the real characters and sentiments of men of the first
distinction for virtue and wisdom in the Roman Republic, it becomes
doubly interesting to every reader of observation and taste. Cicero now
also wrote his discourse on Fate, which was the subject of a conversation
with Hirtius, in his villa near Puteoli; and he executed about the same
time a translation of Plato's celebrated Dialogue, called Timaeus, on the
nature and origin of the universe. He was employing himself also on a
history of his own times, or rather of his own conduct; full of free and
severe reflections on those who had abused their power to the oppression
of the Republic. Dion Cassius says, that he delivered this book sealed
up to his son, with strict orders not to read or publish it till after
his death; but from this time he never saw his son, and it is probable
that he left the work unfinished. Afterwards, however, some copies of it
were circulated; from which his commentator, Asconius, has quoted several
particulars.

During a voyage which he undertook to Sicily, he wrote his treatise on
Topics, or the Art of finding Arguments on any Question. This was an
abstract from Aristotle's treatise on the same subject; and though he had
neither Aristotle nor any other book to assist him, he drew it up from
his memory, and finished it as he sailed along the coast of Calabria.
The last (63) work composed by Cicero appears to have been his Offices,
written for the use of his son, to whom it is addressed. This treatise
contains a system of moral conduct, founded upon the noblest principles
of human action, and recommended by arguments drawn from the purest
sources of philosophy.

Such are the literary productions of this extraordinary man, whose
comprehensive understanding enabled him to conduct with superior ability
the most abstruse disquisitions into moral and metaphysical science.
Born in an age posterior to Socrates and Plato, he could not anticipate
the principles inculcated by those divine philosophers, but he is justly
entitled to the praise, not only of having prosecuted with unerring
judgment the steps which they trod before him, but of carrying his
researches to greater extent into the most difficult regions of
philosophy. This too he had the merit to perform, neither in the station
of a