The constitution of Atticus was ekcellent, since, for thirty years together previously to his last illness, he had no occasion for a physician ; and though now in the seventy-seventh year of his age, he was appa rently as stout and hale as ever. About this time he was seized with a distemper which affected his in testines, and at last broke out into a sore ; upon which, dreading a long continuance of pain, and sup posing his fate to be inevitable, he resolved to antici pate nature by abstaining from food. Having sent for his son-in-law, Agnppa, and some more of his friends, he declared to them his fixed resolution, and requested that none of them would endeavour to dis suade him from it. He is said to have done all this with such a composed countenance, that he seemed to be only talking of passing from one house to an other, and not from this world to the next. At the end of two days the pain and fever sensibly abated ; but thinking it beneath him to recede from his pur pose, he persisted in his abstinence, and on the fifth day after he had made the fatal resolution he breath ed his last. Thus died Atticus the death of a Ro man : that is, lie shrunk from a temporary distress with a meanness unbecoming a man, and rushed into the other world before he was regularly summoned. But this presumption we must ascribe, in this in stance, to the prejudices of the time, rather than to the individual. How different his conduct from that of a man, in similar circumstances, who has been styled the modern Atticus ! " See," said Addison to his friends, probably in allusion to this very suicide of At ticus, " see how a Christian can die. Atticus was buried, according to his own request, without any funeral pomp, by did Appian way, in the tomb of his uncle CxcIlius.
Upon the whole, the most prominent feature in the character of Atticus, so far as it is known to us, was prudence. But we must•avow our regret, that the piece ascribed to Cornelius Nepos should be the principal source of our information. That life is evidently intended for a panegyric, in which every thing great and amiable is ascribed to Atticus, with out a single shade of failing, to the best of the wri ter's judgment. Atticus, however, was unquestion ably a man of first rate consequence in his own time. His strict intimacy with that crafty tyrant Augus tus, who was forward in marrying his nephew Tibe rius to Agrippina, the grand-daughter of Atticus, is alone a full proof that he was an elevated character.
The Epistles of Cicero, too, written when that ora tor and statesman was in the plenitude of his fame and power, breathe such an air of ardent friend ship, unlimited confidence, and even anxious re spect, that we cannot but conclude, independently of Nepos, that Atticus was a politician of first rate accomplishments, wealth, and influence. We say politician, for though he disclaimed the title, nothing can be more evident from the epistles of Cicero, than that Atticus had-a very considerable share in the secret movements of the political machine, and that he at least sanctioned, if not suggested, a considerable degree of stratagem and intrigue for the accomplish ment of his purposes. These, however, it must be confessed, were all of a gentle and amiable kind ; and he seems to have been one of those few who ri gidly shaped their conduct by the precepts of philo sophy. This love of privacy was not the effect of timidity or indifference ; it was founded on a settled plan of avoiding the troubles of the time, on the score of ultimate happiriess. Atticus was splendid with economy ; industrious with dignity ; and his purse was open to relieve the wants of contending leaders, not because he ,had no public principle, but because these were his private friends, and were, perhaps, in his secret opinion, all equally devoid of patriotic motives. When two corrupt factions contended for the superiority, what wise man would join either, or make either his enemies ? In short, Atticus was one of those humane conciliating characters who dimi nish the animosity of parties, and who, if more nu merous, would entirely suppress it. The intrinsic value of his mind is the only foundation of his fame. Without having performed a single splendid action, or discharged any public function, or aimed at exci ting the admiration of posterity by any remarkable monument of his taste, talents, or munificence, he has the singular felicity of being famous for ever on account of his mere personal worth ! See M. T. Ciceronis Epistoler ad Atticum ; Vita T. Pomponii Attici ex Cornelio Nepotc ; Suetonii Vita Meru, c. 7. ; Gassendi, Vita Epicuri ; Diet. de Boyle. (E)