As a man. Chpro was high-minded. generous, and possessed at all times of excellent inten tions: yet he was lacking in moral courage: he was intensely egoistic and so unstable that he failed tee impress his ideas upon those about him. His very sensitiveness and his high-strung. emotional nature. which made him so successful as an orator and as an interpreter of literary themes, were fatal to his ambit ion as a states man. Ile lacked the intense conviction of a man like Cato, and he lacked also the cool, haughty courage and unshaken nerve of Ca.sar. Ile al ways fatal facility the strength of each side of every question. so that he was continnallv wavering between one position and anotheT„ swayed by the impulses of the moment and ut terly devoid of that grim tenacity of purpose which holds fast to the end. This is the reason why, in the stormy times which attended and followed the death of Cicero hesitated and temporized and so misealeulatol the attitude and the intentions of the conflicting parties that, in the end, 110111 of tilV111 conceived for him an enmity mingled with contempt.
In his oratory. Cicero represents a mean be the Attie simplicity of Demosthenes and the so-called 'Asiatic' floridity of his own for mer rival, Hortensius. Ancient rhetoricians clas sified him as belonging to the Rhodian school of eloquence. Ile had, indeed, all the gifts of na ture and of training which go to make the per fect orator—an impressionable nature. a vivid imagination, and a mastery of language such as has never been surpassed. The one defect ill Cicero's oratory is the defect that has been al ready noted in his character, and which may be defined as a lack of sincerity. of genuine con viction, of the ring of truth. This strain of insincerity makes him almost always seem to be the special pleader who praises or denonnees, as the ease may be. more froin a certain sympathetic facility for working up a temporary interest in almost any ea use, than from the impelling force of a master mind which takes its stand upon the rock of principle, from which neither self-interest nor flattery nor danger can shake it free. Hence there is nothing in all Cicero's oratorical effort worthy to he set beside the one sublime master piece of Demosthenes without appearing by com light and hollow and almost trivial. This defect. however. is wholly moral and psycho logical. On the linguistic side, and viewed sim ply as a master of language, it is impossible to set Cicero's rank too high. The perfect har mony of his periods, the exquisite choice of his word.. the delicate balance of his cadences, whose sound keeps up an ever running aecominniment to sense, and the majestic roll of his wonderfrd perorations are absolutely without counterpart in Greek, or English, or any other language whatsoever. and they make reasonable and true
the judgment of Quintilian. that "Cicero is now less the name of a man than of eloquence itself." As a man of letters, Cicero has also left to posterity a mighty name. He created a prose style which for richness and refinement has never been surpassed, and which heeame at once the standard by which all other Latin prose is now tested and compared. He added, indeed, very largely to the vocabulary of his own language, giving currency to striking and picturesque words and phrases which had hitherto not entered into the diction of formal literature, but which were exceedingly expressive. and needed only the authority of a genius like Cicero to gain univer sal currency. Likewise, when necessary. and es pecially when paraphrasing in Latin the Philo sophical writings of the Greeks, he struck out new words to express new ideas. and these minted words were so thoroughly in accordance with the analogies of the Latin language as to be at once accepted and approved. Cicero was a facile writer, and he dealt with many subject in many of intellectual interest. Yearly all of 1115 1111110S01/11 le:11 hooks were bor rfAved almost wholly from Greek sources and are therefore entirely unoriginal in matter; hut the manner is most attractive and has a lucidity and grace such as the Greek philosophical seldom attained. His rhetorical works, written in the dialogue form. are of great value, first as being the production of one who was himself an accomplished rhetorician, and in the second place for the richness of the historical material which Cicero scattered through them with a lav ish hand. Among the minor work. of Cicero two, a treatise on old age ill,- Scncrtutc) and one on friendship (De Amin/tin) have always been admired, both for their exquisite charm of style and for their urbane and cultivated tone. highly important among the Ciceronian re inS are four collections of letters written by Cicero to various acquaintanees :11111 friends, and numbering in all 77 1 pieces. These letters were not collected by Cicero himself. nor did lie ever intend that they should he published. rep resent, therefore, an unstudied. uncons4.icrus. spontaneous self-revelation of their author. and they are, besides, an inexhaustible treasure-house of information, often of a very intimate charac ter, concerning Cicero's contemporaries and the political history of his t hoe. This correspond ence was preserved and edited by Cicero's amanu ensis. Tullius Tiro, and also in part by Cicero's familiar friend, Pomponius Atti•us, to whom very many of the letters were addressed. Cicero likewise, in his early years, composed poetry. little of which has survived and none of which was favorably criticised by his own countrymen.