صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

"Very suspicious," murmured my fair auditor, and the color rushed to my cheek. But I could have sworn to entire originality here, for just at this point, my stumbling Pegasus most manifestly halted. However, I continued:

66

"The light as it streamed through the tinted glass,
In its bright flood laving the marble floor,
Seemed coldly to strike through the thick cuirass,
Chilling my heart to its deepest core.

Well cold might seem e'en its source above,

For it beamed not on me with the light of Love!"

"You may stop, sir," said she majestically, while I remained in a sort of fever-and-ague of spirit, now warming with indignation at her apparent want of sensibility, and now quaking with vague apprehension; I am satisfied. Ah! how does your uncle, in whose true poetry of soul I have found an unexpected treasure, how does he glister through your rust! Mr. —, were it not for the new relation in which I may soon stand to you, I should express myself shocked at your duplicity. In the name of the blind old Melesigines, of Pope, Byron, or of some great Unknown, whose cognomen I forget, but whose pilfered property I distinctly recognize in the poetry you have been reciting, I protest against that piece as a palpable-plagiarism !"

I rushed frantically from the house, hardly knowing whither I went, until I nearly reached the bank of a river which flowed through the meadow below. As I rounded a clump of trees, there stood my uncle, fishing rod in hand, with a face which presented, as he turned towards me, a most uncomfortably warm and ruddy look. In such moods, strange, trifling thoughts will sometimes engage the mind, and as I came to a sudden stand in surprise, I considered whether my uncle would not feel cooler if he lay several feet below where he then stood, with mudpouts for roses in his shirt-frill, and eels twining among his fingers in place of flower-stems; and whether, being a large man, he would not in such case look as much like a "party in a parlor, all silent, and all damned," as the object which frightened Peter Bell could have done. Mollified by the consciousness of a lofty imaginative power, I began to think better both of my uncle and of myself, and concluded to allow him to work out his mission-fruges consumere-in peace. But think, reader, on how slight a thread murder and suicide may have been then suspended!

Hastening home I flung myself into a chair in the library, and endeavored to unravel the tangled sleave of events; not, however, until

I had come to the solemn and not unpleasing conclusion, that Miss was getting superannuated, withering on the stalk, at all events unworthy the interest of a man of taste. But the new relation, and the plagiarism? Just then the breeze through the open window brought into view a dusty scrap of writing-paper which had apparently lain concealed under my uncle's escritoire. I took it up listlessly, for already a sort of pleased contentment had come over me, as if I had awoke from a troubled dream. It was part of a copy in my uncle's handwriting of my own unlucky ode! The ruddy countenance by the river-side recurred to my mind, and I thought of Miss's short-reaching memory. I laughed immoderately at the idea of the "great unknown."

Nothing more was necessary to suggest to me that a plausible excuse for an indefinite absence on my part would be disagreeable neither to my uncle nor his nephew. A brief note was accordingly left for the former, and in the course of a short traveling-tour, the intelligence reached me, that the hymeneal bonds had been at last happily cemented. "Uncle,” said I, as I sat after the honeymoon at his new extension dining-table, and looked significantly at his blooming better half, "what do you think of plagiarism, in the mass?"

"Softly-softly!" returned he, with a wink of caution, "eschew all personality. But as to plagiarism, avoid it as you would a snake; or else let it be bold and manly, and from a great writer. I plagiarized myself, once, from a certain poor devil, and-would you believe it ?—it was all such wretched stuff that never a soul thought of questioning the authorship, although I am willing to pledge a reward of fifty dollars to anybody that will acknowledge it."

*

*

*

But there is little feeling in the smile which these memories provoke. I am not yet arrived at the philosophy which teaches us to laugh at our past selves, as at something alien and not our own. In the dimness of tears, as I sit in my room, I can see the bright image which beguiled my youth, with the flowers of Hope which had so fondly decked it, lying cold and dead upon its bier. Nay, passionately, stormfully almost, like the wrecked old Lear with Cordelia in his arms, I weep and moan for my perished Phantom-child, so beautiful, so early lost!

The Letters of Cicero.

-Quo fit ut omnis,

Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella

Vita senis.-Hor.

THERE is perhaps no character of antiquity with which a more intimate acquaintance is possible, than with that of Cicero. In reading the orations of the greatest of Roman orators, we are delighted not so much by what is Roman in their eloquence, as by the truly Ciceronian genius, which inspires them all; in his philosophical Essays, the Ciceronian rather than the Roman philosophy is our instructor; while in his miscellaneous works, we are presented not with the aggregate results of a nation's speculation, but with the researches of an individual mind in the various departments of politics, morals, oratory, and the lighter branches of literature. But in the letters of Cicero, we converse with a man who has turned from the labors of the forum and the study to the more genial interchange of family and friendly affection; and the student of Cicero, who is at all acquainted with the peculiarities of his author, will feel assured that if Cicero ever opened his heart without reservation to any one, if he ever spoke the truth uninfluenced by vanity or jealousy, he did so in his letters to his friends.

The letters, which have come down to us, numbering in all about a thousand, are the remains of Cicero's correspondence after he was forty years of age; and although we cannot but regret the loss of his earlier letters, yet the few that remain, are perhaps more valuable than any other portion of his correspondence, as revealing to us his mind in the full maturity of its powers, and placing in the strongest light the activity of his political and literary career. The most interesting portion of the correspondence, and the one on which we intend especially to dwell, is the collection of Cicero's letters to his friend Atticus. These not only contain all the peculiarities of the rest, but unquestionably they give the clearest and most varied insight into the character of their author. Were we to view them simply as records of the political changes of the times, their value is certainly not over-estimated by Nepos, when he pronounces them, "historiam contextam eorum temporum." And yet all the worst features of one of the worst ages of Roman degeneracy, all the bitter animosities of public men, all the confusion and strife of parties, which characterize the fall of the Roman Republic, are described in such

beautiful language, and varied with such charming episodes, that as De Quincy says, "a luxury of rest for the mind is felt by all, who traverse the great circumstantial records of those tumultuous Roman times, viz, the Ciceronian epistolary correspondence." The letters of Cicero, written immediately previous to the outbreak of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, are strikingly illustrative of that want of decision, which, as we think, often stood in the way of his permanent happiness and success. In one letter, the spirit of an exalted patriotism breathes itself out in words of consolation to his friends; in another a sense of personal injury seems to usurp all the malevolence of his nature; again, turning aside from the real issues of the struggle which awaited the Republic, he judges of men and measures by the varying standard of his situation, his prejudices, and his hopes; and again, when a returning sense of duty seems to quicken his mental vision, so that for the moment he imagines that he discerns a faint ray of hope in the gloom that was rapidly settling upon his country, then does he exclaim in the anguish of despair: "His ex rebus non spes, sed dolor major, cum videas civitatis voluntatem solutam, virtutem alligatam." Cicero's reluctance to take a decided part in the struggle that followed, is only another instance of the same want of resolution, which finally lost him the confidence of all determined men. Cicero was bound to Pompey by every consideration of friendship, family, and patriotism. He felt convinced that Pompey's interests were those of the Republic, but that Pompey himself was not the man to save his country. From Caesar he had every assurance of that great man's friendship, while the neutrality, which was all that Caesar asked, came more acceptable to his wishes, than the decided stand which Pompey and his friends required. Thus irresolute, does he exclaim, "I know the man whom I ought to avoid, but I know not the man whom I ought to follow." But turning aside from these exhibitions of weakness so humiliating to the character of Cicero, we may yet find many redeeming traits in his correspondence. His love of country, is after all, the only living impulse of his heart; his restless vanity seldom interferes with the warmth of his affection for his relatives and friends; his justice and humanity derive additional lustre from their contrast with the recklessness of the age; while the varied charms of his learning and his eloquence grace so frequently the pages of his correspondence, that we feel assured, that if Cicero sometimes fell below the Roman standard in decision and firmness, he invariably rose far above it in grasp of intellect and noble cultivation of the heart. One cannot fail to notice throughout these letters, the remarkable difference between Cicero's

[blocks in formation]

judgment of men and the sagacity he displays in predicting the issues of the political struggles of the times. In pronouncing upon [character, as has been already remarked, our author shows himself by no means an impartial or consistent judge. At one time, in the language of affection, he addresses Pompey as "nostri amores," and speaks in the highest praise of his character as a citizen and a man. Not long afterwards, and apparently without any sufficient cause, no words are too strong to express the contempt of Cicero for him who had once been his idol.

The reason is plain enough, why Cicero's letters represent the character of his contemporaries in such various aspects, now exalting and now depressing, not only Pompey, but Cato, Hortensius, Lucullus, and all the great men of Rome, even his own brother Quintus. Cicero was the slave of a vanity and a jealousy that never slept. But as a political seer, his long familiarity with the workings of the Roman Constitution, and his deep insight into the character of the age, eminently qualified him to be one of those who

"Can look into the seeds of time,

And say, which grain will grow, and which will not."

While it would add but little to the reputation of Cicero as a philosopher to compare his philosophical works with the confessions which abound in his letters, yet it must be admitted that these same letters give a more ample testimony to the literary attainments of our author than any other portion of his works. Throughout his whole correspondence, how frequent and how apt are his quotations from the Greek authors, éspecially Homer and the tragic poets! In the midst of the most exciting political struggles, how often are his letters varied with requests that Atticus would accept of some treatise that he has just composed! And when the fate of his country and of his own individual fortunes hung on the movements of the hour, how frequently will he close his long letters with instructions to Atticus to send him from time to time the choicest treasures of Grecian literature and art! Cicero, as it is well known, thought not a little of his abilities as a punster; and what is the more remarkable, he employed the Greek language almost exclusively in inflicting upon Atticus a succession of puns, many of which are truly deplorable. Had we the opportunity, a pertinent comparison might be instituted between the sentiments expressed by Cicero in his "De Amicitia" and the practical results of his theory as exemplified in his friendship for Atticus. Truly has Seneca said, "nomen Attici perire Ciceronis epistolae non sinunt." Most truly does such a friendship as this deserve to be placed among the few

« السابقةمتابعة »