of law, or the moral distinctions of good and evil, no man possessed such a fund of argument, and happy illustration. Crasso nihil statuo fieri potuisse perfectius:  erat summa gravitas; erat cum gravitate junctus facetiarum et urbanitatis oratorius, non scurrilis, lepos.  Latine loquendi accurata, et, sine molestia, diligens elegantia; in disserendo mira explicatio; cum de jure civili, cum de aequo et bono disputaretur, argumentorum et similitudinum copia. De Claris Orat. s. 143.  In Cicero’s books DE ORATORE, Licinius Crassus supports a capital part in the dialogue; but in the opening of the third book, we have a pathetic account of his death, written, as the Italians say, con amore.  Crassus returned from his villa, where the dialogue passed, to take part in the debate against Philippus the consul, who had declared to an assembly of the people, that he was obliged to seek new counsellors, for with such a senate he could not conduct the affairs of the commonwealth.  The conduct of Crassus, upon that occasion, has been mentioned already.  The vehemence, with which he exerted himself, threw him into a violent fever, and, on the seventh day following, put a period to his life.  Then, says Cicero, that tuneful swan expired:  we hoped once more to hear the melody of his voice, and went, in that expectation, to the senate-house; but all that remained was to gaze on the spot where that eloquent orator spoke for the last time in the service of his country. Illud immortalitate dignum ingenium, illa humanitas, illa virtus Lucii Crassi morte extincta subita est, vix diebus decem post eum diem, qui hoc et superiore libra continetur.  Illa tanquam cycnea fuit divini hominis vox, et oratio, quam quasi expectantes, post ejus interitum veniebamus in curiam, ut vestigium illud ipsum, in quo ille postremum institisset, contueremur. De Orat. lib, iii. s. 1. and 6.  This passage will naturally call to mind the death of the great earl of Chatham.  He went, in a feeble state of health, to attend a debate of the first importance.  Nothing could detain him from the service of his country.  The dying notes of the BRITISH SWAN were heard in the House of Peers.  He was conveyed to his own house, and on the eleventh of May 1778, he breathed his last.  The news reached the House of Commons late in the evening, when Colonel BARRE had the honour of being the first to shed a patriot tear on that melancholy occasion.  In a strain of manly sorrow, and with that unprepared eloquence which the heart inspires, he moved for a funeral at the public expence, and a monument to the memory of virtue and departed genius.  By performing that pious office, Colonel BARRE may be said to have made his own name immortal.  History will record the transaction.

[g] Messala Corvinus is often, in this Dialogue, called Corvinus only.  See s. xii. note [e].