Bellerophon, and the letter which the unsuspecting Uriah carries in his bosom, are meant to play the same part; by a refinement of cruelty each victim is made the messenger of his own disaster. It is thus à curious fact that the first two letters mentioned in literature are letters of treachery. The tragedy of Uriah the Hittite may be dated at about 1035 B.C.; probably this use of the letter by Homer belongs to about the same period. In each instance the letter plays an evil part and is the instrument of dark purposes.

One can easily conceive how, in a primitive age, the mysterious art of communication by secret symbols would be regarded with suspicion and dislike by ordinary men. The transmission of thought by means of lines scratched upon a leaf or a tablet would seem not less wonderful to the men of Homer's day than would wireless telegraphy to the innocent savage of the Pacific Islands. But as the new method of communication was better understood its use became general and popular. When we come to the Roman era we find letter-writing fully established as one of the indispensable conveniences of life, and the century which preceded the Christian era produced one of the greatest of all letter-writers, Marcus Tullius Cicero.

The extant correspondence of Cicero dates from the year 68 B.C. when he was thirty-nine years old. More than eight hundred of his letters have been preserved, of which number four hundred were addressed to Atticus, than whom no man ever had a more sympathetic and generous friend. In these letters we see Cicero in his habit as he lived. We see him in his strength and in his weakness, a man bold in thought but vacillating in action, brilliant and unstable, loving public life but never wholly absorbed in it, resenting retirement when it is compulsory, and yet never so truly happy as when he forgets the world, and is at home among his flowers and books in one of his sequestered

villas. He writes with equal grace of the condition of public affairs and the small domestic details of his life. His letters on public affairs constitute the best contemporary history of his times, and console us for the loss of the more elaborate history which he is known to have composed. He enables us to see the causes which led to the fate of the Republic, and we share his own agitation and dismay as the grim tragedy proceeds. But in the midst of the advancing shadows he remains detached if not serene, and finds his refuge in the calm pursuits of scholarship. His passion for books was among the strongest passions of his life. He says that a house without a library is a body without a soul. We find him in his letters to Atticus expressing delight over the gay appearance of the parchment-covers in which his rolls were kept, asking the loan of two librarians to glue his parchments together and make an index, and beseeching Atticus on no account to part with his library, for he, Cicero, hopes to purchase it from him, and find in it the resource of his old age. From the lamentable spectacle of public affairs, which inspires in him only disappointment and disgust, he turns with relief to the pleasures of his pen, saying that he is always able to find refreshment in literature, and that he would rather sit in a well-known seat in his friend's country house, with the bust of Aristotle over his head, than in a curule chair. This was by no means his constant mood, but it is a frequent mood, and shows him in his most engaging aspect. In this mood he envies neither Cæsar his triumphs, nor Crassus his wealth. He finds consolation for a hundred disappointments in the cultivation of friendship and philosophy; and he realises those conditions which Dr. Johnson said were necessary to the production of a good letter, "the cool of leisure, the stillness of solitude."

The charm of these letters is manifold. The scholar will praise their exquisite Latinity, the man of letters will regard them as masterpieces of expression, the thinker will value them for their philosophic clearness and range of vision, the statesman and historian for their definite contribution to his knowledge of affairs. Great as these qualities are, there is, however, a greater yet, which must always attract the ordinary reader who is unable to appreciate either the delicacies of style or the value of philosophic ideas. This quality may be best described as the human touch. It is surprising how modern many of these letters sound; both as regards their subject-matter and their expression they might have been written yesterday. So fresh, so natural, so intimate are they, that it is often impossible to imagine that more than nineteen centuries have passed away since they were written, and that the Empire of glory and of crime reflected in their pages has itself left not a wrack behind. It is the human note in these letters which produces this fortunate illusion. Cicero gossips freely of his private affairs, his financial embarrassments, his difficulty in recovering his loans, his disappointments with people he has trusted, his annoyances from stupid and intrusive neighbours, the repairs necessary to his house property, the newest scandal and the last dinner party; these, and a hundred other incidents of his daily life. His love for his daughter, little Tullia, or Tulliola as he often calls her, runs like a strain of music through all these familiar epistles, and his anguish over her death is terrible. He tells us that he is blind with tears as he writes. He is a man always craving for sympathy, and incapable of being separated from the persons and objects which he loves, even for a short time, without genuine misery. Italy he loves with a profound affection. He cannot make up his mind to leave her shores even when the security of his own life

demands the sacrifice. His letters written in exile are full of the most poignant pathos. And it is because he writes so frequently upon things which enter more or less into all human lives, the homely and the tragic things, thus striking the great common chords of humanity, that his letters have achieved a popularity which no others in the history of literature have attained. They still remain solitary in their charm, and incomparable in their excellence.

This is neither the occasion nor the place to give examples of these early and classic letters; but one may be appended both for its great historic interest, and as an illustration of the frankness and intimacy of Cicero's method. It is a letter to Atticus, in which he describes how he entertained Julius Cæsar.

O this visitor so much dreaded! And yet one whose visit I am not sorry to have received; for it went off most pleasantly.

"When we came the evening before, on the 18th, to my neighbour Philippus, the house was so crowded with soldiers, that there was hardly a vacant room for Cæsar to sup in. There were about two thousand of them, which made me feel no little uneasiness for the next day. But Barba Cussius set me at ease. He assigned me a guard; made the rest encamp in the fields; so that my house was kept clear. On the 19th, he staid with Philippus till one o'clock but admitted nobody. He was settling accounts, as I suppose, with Balbus. He then walked by the shore to my house. At two he took the bath. The verses on Mamuna were then read to him. His countenance was unchanged. He was rubbed, and anointed, and then he disposed himself at table, after taking an emetic; and ate and drank in a very free and easy manner; for he was en

tertained hospitably and elegantly; and our discourse resembled our repast in its relish and seasoning.

"Besides Cæsar's table, his attendants were well provided for in three other rooms; nor was there any deficiency in the provision made for his freedmen of lower quality, and his slaves; but those of the better sort were elegantly entertained. Need I add more. I acted as man with man. Yet he was not the man to whom one would say at parting, 'I pray let me have this visit repeated when you come this way again.' Once is enough. Not a word passed between us on business, but much literary talk. To make short of the matter, he was perfectly pleased and easy. He talked of spending one day at Puteoli; another at Baiæ. You have thus the account of the day's entertainment—an entertainment not agreeable, but still not troublesome to me. I shall stay here a little longer, and then to Tusculum.

"As he passed by Dolabella's villa, his troop marched close by the side of this house, on the right and left; which was done nowhere else.

"I had this from Nicias."

The reason why it has been necessary to give so much consideration to these letters of Cicero, which were written at a time when Britain was first invaded by the Romans, is that for many centuries the Roman speech was not only the written, but also very frequently the spoken, medium of the cultured classes of every European nation, and that his letters attain to the highest excellence of Latin epistolary style. It must be remembered that throughout the Middle Ages the Latin language was the common means of intercommunication between the peoples of the Western world. It was the language of travellers, students, statesmen, as well as of business correspondence, occupying just such a position as French holds throughout Europe to-day;