ART. VIII.—The Republic of Cicero, translated from the Latin, and accompanied with a Critical and Historical Introduction. By G. W. FEATHERSTONHAUGH, Esq., Fellow of the Geological Society of London; of the American Philosophical Society; of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, &c. New York. G. & C. Carvill. 1829.

BEFORE speaking of this translation, we shall give a brief history of the original, and a general account of its contents.

Cicero, in his work De Divinatione, enumerates several books which he had written, and others that he proposed to write or finish, for the benefit of his countrymen, thinking it would be glorious to raise them above dependence on the philosophical writings of the Greeks. This he promises to accomplish, if he shall complete the plan marked out for himself. Among these works, he mentions a treatise in 'six books, de Republica, which he was writing when he was at the helm of government; a great subject, intimately connected with philosophy, and richly treated by Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, and the whole school of the Peripatetics.' He speaks of this work, in its progress, in several of his letters. In a letter to his brother Quintus, he says, that he was engaged in writing what he calls lind, a great and laborious work, but one on which, if he shall satisfy himself, the labor will be well bestowed. In another letter to the same person, it appears that he intended to divide the work into nine books; and that, having completed two, he read them to several of his friends at his Tusculan Villa, among whom was Sallust. Sallust advised him to abandon the form of dialogue, to write in his own name, and thus give the work that authority and influence to which it was entitled as the production of a consular senator, employed in the highest affairs of state, alleging that the introduction of Scipio and Lælius, &c., men of a former age, would give the work an air of fiction. He acknowledges that he was affected by the advice of Sallust, and perceived that he could not bring into view commotions which took place after the time of the persons whom he had introduced as speakers; but he concluded to abide by his first plan, and keep clear of the turbulent times of his own age. He made no alteration, therefore, except reducing the work to six books.

As might be expected, little notice was taken of this work

by the poets, philosophers, and historians of the Augustan age, and of after periods of the Roman empire. Cicero's was not a name to be recurred to with pleasure or praise, in connexion with civil affairs, by the supporters of imperial tyranny, or by those who enjoyed its patronage. It was left for some of the christian Fathers, who breathed the spirit of liberty, to appeal to Cicero's thoughts on government, with ardent commendation, and to preserve some passages for after ages. Lactantius, so remarkable for his Latinity and the approximation of his style to that of the great Roman orator, as to have acquired the appellation of the Christian Cicero, adverts often to the philosophical opinions of Tully, and cites several passages from his Republic. He sometimes quotes his author from recollection, thus implying a great familiarity with his writings. In the works of Augustin, about a century later, are found several passages quoted from the Republic, and a pretty full analysis of the third book. Besides these, numerous small fragments are gleaned from Nonius, Diomedes, and other grammarians and scholiasts. But the most remarkable fragment, of considerable length, is the celebrated passage preserved, and largely commented upon, by Macrobius, entitled the Dream of Scipio. Such being the scanty remains of Cicero's Republic, and yet sufficiently remarkable to excite a desire to find it complete, it might well be classed, by the great scholars of modern times, among the opera valde deflenda. Little hope seemed to remain that it would be found entire, in any unpublished manuscript, after the lapse of so many centuries since the revival of letters. The prospects from Herculaneum, which had roused the hopes of the sanguine, became discouraging in regard to any valuable discoveries; and those from Pompeii are remote, if not faint. Such being the case, the expectation of recovering any valuable works of the ancients, seems to rest mainly upon the examination of manuscripts, like that from which those portions of the Republic of Cicero, which have lately been presented to the public, have been rescued.

The peculiarities of the manuscripts here alluded to, though they have been described in some of the journals which are widely circulated among us, it is due to our subject briefly to notice. It seems that in very ancient times, either from economy or from the scarcity of parchment, or of other materials for a record of the thoughts, it was a practice to erase, more or

less thoroughly, what had been previously written upon those materials; but it was not done so completely as to obliterate all traces of the former writing. This practice existed as long ago as the time of Cicero. In one of his letters to Trebatius,* he praises the economy of his correspondent, in making use of a palimpsestus; and pleasantly expresses his wonder, what it might be that Trebatius would rather obliterate than not write what he had sent, unless it were his own formularies; for, says Cicero, I cannot think you would obliterate my letters, in order to substitute your own. Whatever therefore were the materials, or the process of destroying the former writing, the erasure seems to have been so far complete, that Cicero could not, at least not readily, discover what had been previously written. These codices rescripti, as they have sometimes been called, have now received among scholars the technical name, palimpsests, from the Greek, the fruitful mother of technical phraseology. It means a second time scraped, rubbed, or in some way prepared for writing.

The palimpsest containing the fragment of Cicero's Republic, was discovered by Angelo Mai, head librarian of the Vatican Library at Rome, and published at Rome, Paris, and London, in 1823, and before the close of the same year, in our own country, at Boston. It is a singular circumstance, that the later writing in this manuscript, should be a part of Augustin's commentaries on the psalms; of the same Augustin, who had done more, perhaps, to preserve the remembrance, and portions of the contents of the Republic, than any other writer. Most of the ancient classic remains that have been discovered in manuscripts of this kind, have given place to old treatises upon religious and devotional subjects. The more modern writing being in a smaller character, and being for the most part either contained within the lines, or inscribed on the upper or under extremities of the older and larger letters, when the chemical substance is applied, which brings out the ancient writing, it can be read without much difficulty, by those who are familiar with the forms of the letter.

M. Mai is the great discoverer in this promising region of antiquarian research. After having been devoted to his studies, in obscurity, for many years, in his own country, Bergamasco, he was appointed, in 1812, keeper of the Ambrosian Library at Milan, containing much curious literature. For at the close

*Ad. Fam. L. vii. 18.

of the sixteenth century, the Archbishop of Milan, wishing to enrich the library, sent distinguished scholars not only into the south of Italy, but also into Greece and Asia, provided with considerable sums of money for purchasing curious books and manuscripts. Though some of these were published, many remained unknown to the scholars of other countries. M. Mai brought to light several works and parts of works, while he continued at the library in Milan, showing a great extent of ingenuity and industrious research, and exciting strong hopes of still further and more important discoveries. The first fruits which the public received from his labors in restoring the obliterated writing on ancient parchments, were portions of Cicero's Orations, which are to be found in no former edition of his works. This was in 1814. He published successively several works obtained in the like manner; and among them, in 1816, several books, hitherto wanting, of the Romish Antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassus. In the year 1819 he was promoted to the place of librarian in the Vatican Library at Rome. He there continued to pursue with success the study of the palimpsest manuscripts, and his greatest discovery was that of Cicero's Republic.

Public expectation, so much excited by this discovery, was not a little disappointed in regard to the degree of completeness in the work; the whole amount, together with the fragments preserved by writers of a later age, not exceeding, perhaps, one third of the treatise.

The first book of Cicero's Republic, which is more perfect than any of the others, commences with an introduction in the author's own person, the beginning of which is wanting. He maintains that there is a tendency in human nature to virtue, and a disposition to support the common good, sufficient to prevail over all allurements to ease and pleasure; that virtue is essentially active, and should not, when there is work to be done for the public, listen to the invitations of philosophic seclusion. He is willing to meet those who would throw impediments in the way of patriotic efforts, and who represent the hardships to be endured in defending the state and the exposure of life in its cause, by contrasting with such hardships and fears, the nobler qualities of persevering effort and contempt of death, since it is far more glorious to hazard and to sacrifice life in the cause of one's country, than suffer it to be wasted away by old age and inactivity. Nor is he more willing to

listen to the excuses which are urged against taking a part in public affairs, founded in motives of prudence and personal reputation, and in the supposed inequality of the conflict between the good and the bad; since it is only by the combined efforts of honorable men, that the state can be relieved from subjection to the artful and base.

These notions concerning the duty of engaging in the public service, are regarded by him as a suitable preface to a work on government; and they are consistent with the language which he holds upon the same subject, in many parts of his philosophical writings. For though, like every man of a cultivated and philosophic mind, he had those yearnings for study and retirement, which afford the happiest refuge from the conflicts of the forum and the senate, yet his sense of public duty, during the continuance of animal and intellectual vigor, is ever paramount in his professions and example. In the proem to the second book, De Divinatione, there is a full expression of his opinions on this subject. While he was not employed in the great transactions of state, after Cæsar's accession to all its powers, he declares, that, inquiring with himself how he might be useful to the greatest number of citizens, and not lose sight of the good of the commonwealth, nothing better occurred to him than to impart to his countrymen the best instructions of which he was capable, in philosophy and good learning. According to his own professions, he was not discontented with his lot, nor did he waste his powers in querulous, indignant declamation against the conqueror or the times; but, waiting till he came to be again consulted on public affairs, he pronounces all his labor and solicitude, his whole powers, to be due to the commonwealth, and promises that no more time shall be bestowed on his favorite studies, than can be spared from his public duties. His constant recurrence to his consulship, and the defeat of Cataline's conspiracy, while it shows his own consciousness of desert, and is free from exaggeration, has subjected him to much ill natured remark. His demands on the praise and gratitude of his countrymen, which he claims mainly for this period of great public service, are the chief occasion of the charge of boastful vanity, so commonly alleged against him. Quintilian seems to come near the truth on this subject, when he says that Cicero boasted rather of his exploits, than of his eloquence, and that he did this not without reason, since he was either defending his coadjutors in the suppression