his pupil from the first, Rome might have been spared the disgraceful folly of Nero’s subsequent buffooneries in the cities of Greece and the theatres of Rome.  We may lay it down as an invariable axiom in all high education, that it is never sensible to permit what is bad for the supposed sake of preventing what is worse.  Seneca very probably persuaded himself that with a mind like Nero’s—­the innate worthlessness of which he must early have recognised—­success of any high description would be simply impossible.  But this did not absolve him from attempting the only noble means by which success could, under any circumstances, be attainable.  Let us, however, remember that his concessions to his pupil were mainly in matters which he regarded as indifferent—­or, at the worst, as discreditable—­rather than as criminal; and that his mistake probably arose from an error in judgment far more than from any deficiency in moral character.

Yet it is clear that, even intellectually, Nero was the worse for this laxity of training.  We have already seen that, in his maiden-speech before the Senate, every one recognized the hand of Seneca, and many observed with a sigh that this was the first occasion on which an Emperor had not been able, at least to all appearance, to address the Senate in his own words and with his own thoughts.  Tiberius, as an orator, had been dignified and forcible; Claudius had been learned and polished; even the disturbed reason of Caligula had not been wanting in a capacity for delivering forcible and eloquent harangues; but Nero’s youth had been frittered away in paltry and indecorus accomplishments, which had left him neither time nor inclination for weightier and nobler pursuits.

The fame of Seneca has, no doubt, suffered grieviously from the subsequent infamy of his pupil; and it is obvious that the dislike of Tacitus to his memory is due to his connexion with Nero.  Now, even though the tutor’s system had not been so wise as, when judged by an inflexible standard, it might have been, it is yet clearly unjust to make him responsible for the depravity of his pupil; and it must be remembered, to Seneca’s eternal honour, that the evidence of facts, the testimony of contemporaries, and even the grudging admission of Tacitus himself, establishes in his favour that whatever wisdom and moderation characterized the earlier years of Nero’s reign were due to his counsels; that he enjoyed the cordial esteem of the virtuous Burrus; that he helped to check the sanguinary audacities of Agrippina; that the writings which he addressed to Nero, and the speeches which he wrote for him, breathed the loftiest counsels; and that it was not until he was wholly removed from power and influence that Nero, under the fierce impulses of despotic power, developed those atrocious tendencies of which the seeds had long been latent in his disposition.  An ancient writer records the tradition that Seneca very early observed in Nero a savagery of disposition which he could not wholly eradicate; and that to his intimate friends he used to observe that, “when once the lion tasted human blood, his innate cruelty would return.”