e when he was declining all offers of public service--of public
service for which his soul longed--because they were made to him by
Caesar. It was then that the "Vigintiviratus" was refused, which
Quintilian mentions to his honor. It was then that he refused to be
Caesar's lieutenant. It was then that he might have been fourth with
Caesar, and Pompey, and Crassus, had he not felt himself bound not to
serve against the Republic. And yet the biographer does not hesitate to
load him with infamy because of a playful word in a letter half jocose
and half pathetic to his friend. If a man's deeds be always honest,
surely he should not be accused of dishonesty on the strength of some
light word spoken in the confidence of familiar intercourse. The light
words are taken to be grave because they meet the modern critic's eye
clothed in the majesty of a dead language; and thus it comes to pass
that their very meaning is misunderstood.

My friend Mr. Collins speaks, in his charming little volume on Cicero,
of "quiet evasions" of the Cincian law,[7] and tells us that we are
taught by Cicero's letters not to trust Cicero's words when he was in a
boasting vein. What has the one thing to do with the other? He names no
quiet evasions. Mr. Collins makes a surmise, by which the character of
Cicero for honesty is impugned--without evidence. The anonymous
biographer altogether misinterprets Cicero. Mr. Froude charges Cicero
with anticipation of murder, grounding his charge on words which he has
not taken the trouble to understand. Cicero is accused on the strength
of his own private letters. It is because we have not the private
letters of other persons that they are not so accused. The courtesies of
the world exact, I will not say demand, certain deviations from
straightforward expression; and these are made most often in private
conversations and in private correspondence. Cicero complies with the
ways of the world; but his epistles are no longer private, and he is
therefore subjected to charges of falsehood. It is because Cicero's
letters, written altogether for privacy, have been found worthy to be
made public that such accusations have been made. When the injustice of
these critics strikes me, I almost wish that Cicero's letters had not
been preserved.

As I have referred to the evidence of those who have, in these latter
days, spoken against Cicero, I will endeavor to place before the
reader the testimony of his character which was gi