he was the best master Rome could choose.  His mind was fitted by nature for empire.  His understanding was clear and strong.  His passions were cool, and under the absolute command of his reason.  His name gave him an authority over the troops and the people which no other Roman could possess in an equal degree.  He used that authority to restrain the excesses of both, which it was no longer in the power of the Senate to repress, nor of any other general or magistrate in the state.  He restored discipline in our armies, the first means of salvation, without which no legal government could have been formed or supported.  He avoided all odious and invidious names.  He maintained and respected those which time and long habits had endeared to the Roman people.  He permitted a generous liberty of speech.  He treated the nobles of Pompey’s party as well as those of his father’s, if they did not themselves, for factious purposes, keep up the distinction.  He formed a plan of government, moderate, decent, respectable, which left the senate its majesty, and some of its power.  He restored vigour and spirit to the laws; he made new and good ones for the reformation of manners; he enforced their execution; he governed the empire with lenity, justice, and glory; he humbled the pride of the Parthians; he broke the fierceness of the barbarous nations; he gave to his country, exhausted and languishing with the great loss of blood which she had sustained in the course of so many civil wars, the blessing of peace—­a blessing which was become so necessary for her, that without it she could enjoy no other.  In doing these things I acknowledge he had my assistance.  I am prouder of it, and I think I can justify myself more effectually to my country, than if I had died by my own hand at Philippi.  Believe me, Cato, it is better to do some good than to project a great deal.  A little practical virtue is of more use to society than the most sublime theory, or the best principles of government ill applied.

Cato.—­Yet I must think it was beneath the character of Messalla to join in supporting a government which, though coloured and mitigated, was still a tyranny.  Had you not better have gone into a voluntary exile, where you would not have seen the face of the tyrant, and where you might have quietly practised those private virtues which are all that the gods require from good men in certain situations?

Messalla.—­No; I did much more good by continuing at Rome.  Had Augustus required of me anything base, anything servile, I would have gone into exile, I would have died, rather than do it.  But he respected my virtue, he respected my dignity; he treated me as well as Agrippa, or as Maecenas, with this distinction alone, that he never employed my sword but against foreign nations, or the old enemies of the republic.

Cato.—­It must, I own, have been a pleasure to be employed against Antony, that monster of vice, who plotted the ruin of liberty, and the raising of himself to sovereign power, amidst the riot of bacchanals, and in the embraces of harlots, who, when he had attained to that power, delivered it up to a lascivious queen, and would have made an Egyptian strumpet the mistress of Rome, if the Battle of Actium had not saved us from that last of misfortunes.