no worldly views and whether
thou didst believe all the nonsense of the sect, at the head of which
thou wast pleased to become a legislator.--Adieu. Self-examination
requires retirement.

DIALOGUE IX.

MARCUS PORTIUS CATO--MESSALLA CORVINUS.

_Cato_.--Oh, Messalla! is it then possible that what some of our
countrymen tell me should be true? Is it possible that you could live
the courtier of Octavius; that you could accept of employments and
honours from him, from the tyrant of your country; you, the brave, the
noble-minded, the virtuous Messalla; you, whom I remember, my son-in-law
Brutus has frequently extolled as the most promising youth in Rome,
tutored by philosophy, trained up in arms, scorning all those soft,
effeminate pleasures that reconcile men to an easy and indolent
servitude, fit for all the roughest tasks of honour and virtue, fit to
live or to die a free man?

_Messalla_.--Marcus Cato, I revere both your life and your death; but the
last, permit me to tell you, did no good to your country, and the former
would have done more if you could have mitigated a little the sternness
of your virtue, I will not say of your pride. For my own part, I adhered
with constant integrity and unwearied zeal to the Republic, while the
Republic existed. I fought for her at Philippi under the only commander,
who, if he had conquered, would have conquered for her, not for himself.
When he was dead I saw that nothing remained to my country but the choice
of a master. I chose the best.

_Cato_.--The best! What! a man who had broken all laws, who had violated
all trusts, who had led the armies of the Commonwealth against Antony,
and then joined with him and that sottish traitor Lepidus, to set up a
triumvirate more execrable by far than either of the former; who shed the
best blood in Rome by an inhuman proscription, murdered even his own
guardian, murdered Cicero, to whose confidence, too improvidently given,
he owed all his power? Was this the master you chose? Could you bring
your tongue to give him the name of Augustus? Could you stoop to beg
consulships and triumphs from him? Oh, shame to virtue! Oh, degeneracy
of Rome! To what infamy are her sons, her noblest sons, fallen. The
thought of it pains me more than the wound that I died of; it stabs my
soul.

_Messalla_.--Moderate, Cato, the vehemence of your indignation. There
has always been too much passion mixed with your virtue. The enthusiasm
you