not unmindful of the luxuries of home and the charms of country retirement, and those enjoyments which are ever associated with refined and favored life.  We read here of pictures, books, medals, statues, curiosities of every kind, all of which adorned his various villas, as well as his magnificent palace on Mount Palatine, which cost him what would be equal in our money to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  To keep up this town house, and some fifteen villas in different parts of Italy, and to feast the greatest nobles, like Pompey and Caesar, would imply that his income was enormous, much greater than that of any modern professional man.  And yet he seems to have lived, like Bacon and our Webster, beyond his income, and was in debt the greater part of his life,—­another flaw in his character; for I do not wish to paint him without faults, but only as a good as well as a great man, for his times.  His private character was as lofty as that of Chatham or Canning,—­if we could forget his vanity, which after all is not so offensive as the intellectual pride of Burke and Pitt, and of sundry other great lights who might be mentioned, conscious of their gifts and attainments.  There is something very different in the egotism of a silly and self-seeking aristocrat from that of a great benefactor who has something to be proud of, and with whose private experiences the greatest national deeds are connected.  I speak of this fault because it has been handled too severely by modern critics.  What were the faults of Cicero, compared with those of Theodosius or Constantine, to say nothing of his contemporaries, like Caesar, before whom so much incense has been burned?

At the age of forty Cicero became Praetor, or Supreme Judge.  This office, when it expired, entitled him to a provincial government,—­the great ultimate ambition of a senator; since the administration of a province, even for a single year, usually secured an enormous fortune.  But this tempting offer he resigned, since he felt he could not be spared from Rome in such a crisis of public affairs, when the fortunate generals were grasping power and the demagogues were almost preparing the way for despotism.  Some might say he was a far-sighted and ambitious statesman, who could not afford to weaken his chances of being made Consul by absence from the capital.

This great office, the consulship, the highest in the gift of the people,—­which gave supreme executive control,—­was rarely conferred, although elective, upon any but senators of ancient family and enormous wealth.  It was as difficult for a “new man” to reach this dignity, under an aristocratic Constitution, as for a commoner a hundred years ago to become prime minister of England.  Transcendent talents and services scarcely sufficed.  Only generals who had won great military fame, or the highest of the nobles, stood much chance.  For a lawyer to aim at the highest office in the State, without a great family to back him, would have been