and the serpent. Cicero
took it, no doubt (not translated it, however), from the passage in the
Iliad, lib, xii, 200, which has been rendered by Pope with less than his
usual fire, and by Lord Derby with no peculiar charm. Virgil has
reproduced the picture with his own peculiar grace of words. His version
has been translated by Dryden, but better, perhaps, by Christopher Pitt.
Voltaire has translated Cicero's lines with great power, and Shelley has
reproduced the same idea at much greater length in the first canto of
the Revolt of Islam, taking it probably from Cicero, but, if not, from
Voltaire.[39] I venture to think that, of the nine versions, Cicero's is
the best, and that it is the most melodious piece of Latin poetry we
have up to that date. Twenty-seven years afterward, when Lucretius was
probably at work on his great poem, Cicero wrote an account of his
consulship in verse. Of this we have fifty or sixty lines, in which the
author describes the heavenly warnings which were given as to the
affairs of his own consular year. The story is not a happy one, but the
lines are harmonious. It is often worth our while to inquire how poetry
has become such as it is, and how the altered and improved phases of
versification have arisen. To trace our melody from Chaucer to Tennyson
is matter of interest to us all. Of Cicero as a poet we may say that he
found Latin versification rough, and left it smooth and musical. Now, as
we go on with the orator's life and prose works, we need not return to
his poetry.

The names of many masters have been given to us as those under whom
Cicero's education was carried on. Among others he is supposed, at a
very early age, to have been confided to Archias. Archias was a Greek,
born at Antioch, who devoted himself to letters, and, if we are to
believe what Cicero says, when speaking as an advocate, excelled all his
rivals of the day. Like many other educated Greeks, he made his way to
Rome, and was received as one of the household of Lucullus, with whom he
travelled, accompanying him even to the wars. He became a citizen of
Rome--so Cicero assures us--and Cicero's tutor. What Cicero owed to him
we do not know, but to Cicero Archias owed immortality. His claim to
citizenship was disputed; and Cicero, pleading on his behalf, made one
of those shorter speeches which are perfect in melody, in taste, and in
language. There is a passage in which speaking on behalf of so excellent
a professor in the