grew (as I remember) to be constable of France, and had a very haughty, imperious wife.[8] I took the author as a friend to our faction, (for so with great propriety of speech they call the Queen and ministry, almost the whole clergy, and nine parts in ten of the kingdom)[9] and I said to a gentleman near me, that although I knew well enough what persons the author meant, yet there were several particulars in the husband’s character, which I could not reconcile, for that of the lady was just and adequate enough; but it seems I mistook the whole matter, and applied all I had read to a couple of persons, who were not at that time in the writer’s thoughts.

Now to avoid such a misfortune as this, I have been for some time consulting Livy and Tacitus, to find out a character of a Princeps Senatus, a Praetor Urbanus, a Quaestor Aerarius, a Caesari ab Epistolis, and a Proconsul;[10] but among the worst of them, I cannot discover one from whom to draw a parallel, without doing injury to a Roman memory:  so that I am compelled to have recourse to Tully.  But this author relating facts only as an orator, I thought it would be best to observe his method, and make an extract from six harangues of his against Verres, only still preserving the form of an oration.  I remember a younger brother of mine, who deceased about two months ago, presented the world with a speech of Alcibiades against an Athenian brewer:[11] Now, I am told for certain, that in those days there was no ale in Athens; and therefore that speech, or at least a great part of it, must needs be spurious.  The difference between me and my brother is this; he makes Alcibiades say a great deal more than he really did, and I make Cicero say a great deal less.[12] This Verres had been the Roman governor of Sicily for three years; and on return from his government, the Sicilians entreated Cicero to impeach him in the Senate, which he accordingly did in several orations, from whence I have faithfully translated and abstracted that which follows.

“MY LORDS,[13]

“A pernicious opinion hath for some time prevailed, not only at Rome, but among our neighbouring nations, that a man who has money enough, though he be ever so guilty, cannot be condemned in this place.  But however industriously this opinion be spread, to cast an odium on the Senate, we have brought before your lordships Caius Verres, a person, for his life and actions, already condemned by all men; but as he hopes, and gives out, by the influence of his wealth, to be here absolved.  In condemning this man, you have an opportunity of belying that general scandal, of redeeming the credit lost by former judgments, and recovering the love of the Roman people, as well as of our neighbours.  I have brought a man here before you, my lords, who is a robber of the public treasure, an overturner of law and justice, and the disgrace, as well as destruction, of the Sicilian province:  of whom, if you shall determine with