for his triumph, by legal means, over the rights of the people. Cursed be the eloquence that is employed to enthral a free people! This same nightingale had his head wrung off by him whom he had sung into the chair. Such is the reward of unsteady politicians," who think they may do evil that good may follow.

After the battle of Philippi he showed as much insolence and cruelty as he had want of ability, to obtain the victory without the conduct of Anthony.

Remember the cowardly treatment he gave to the remains of the great Marcus Brutus, which the vindictive Anthony himself beheld with compassion and tears; covered his head, when severed from the body, with his armour, and deprecated the proposal of sending it to Rome.

The brutal Octavianus, on the contrary, on every occasion in war, added insult to cruelty. A captive father and his son, begging their lives, were made to fight with each other, and the survivor was put to death by the soldiers. To another captive, imploring the privilege of burial, the tyrant said, "Yes, yes, the birds "will adjust that matter by and by." With the same abandoned cruelty did he behave after the capture of Perusia. All who applied for mercy to the tyrant had but one answer; 417 Moriendum est.

From the citizens of Nursia he took all that they had, their substance, and even their city,

and sent them forth to wander and starve, for no other crime than that, for their fellow-citizens slain at the siege of Modena, they had raised a monument, with an inscription, "That they had died fighting for the liberties of "their country.".

Of the horrors of the proscription, words are too weak to express my sensations; nor will I wound, or rather tear up, the wounds of your afflicted memory to recount themexul

Of his conduct to Marc Anthony, the whole train and tissue was perfidy. First he made. court to him, then suborned rogues to murder him; then he joined with him to make Mar upon his country, and by the bravery of Ag thony he attained the empire. Then by the plots and wiles of Agrippa he conquered Am thony; and Agrippa, but for the advice of the crafty Mæcenas, would have fallen a sacrifice to the boundless perfidy of the tyrant. 14

Many things, O Patavinus! have concurred to favour the fortunes and the fame of Au gustus, and to, obliterate his reproach. He has reigned very long, and the people seem to have forgotten what it was to have in reality a free constitution. All the great men have successively contaminated themselves by subserviency to his views of supreme, authority. None remain, who have not been, some how or other, detected by the people in servile compliances for offices, or subordinate power under his authority. To none can the friends of liberty now look up for restoring the es

sence, as well as the name and forms, of the old constitution. The dread of innovation is easily raised in a nation dwelling at peace and prosperity, in the arts and enjoyments of luxury, and this dread is sufficient to prevent any successful efforts to amend the state of public liberty.

By the pageantry of a splendid court, by public shows and donations, by universal luxury and corruption among the higher ranks, and thoughtless habits of bondage among the lower, all men are inured to the loss of their liberties. Learning, and the fine arts too, which were formerly inlisted under the banners of freedom, are become now the handmaids of corruption; and even the accomplished Horace, who fought on the side of Brutus, at Philippi, has become the apologist of Augustus, and the humble companion of Mæcenas. It is over! it is over! the sun of Liberty and of Rome is set, to arise, perhaps in future ages, in the island of Plato, or to hide itself for ever from the eyes of humanity!

Farewell.

VOL. I.

K

SIR,

Y

Letter Fifth.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE BEE.

(Sept. 14. 1791.)

My translations of the Letters to Capito and

Helvidius Priscus have been so well received by your readers, that I meditate the publication of the originals, together with the whole of the volume in which they are contained.

Doubts, I find, are entertained of their authenticity, which will be removed by putting the learned in possession of the manuscript, by depositing it in the British Museum, and printing a copy of it, without deviation from the text. Meantime I send you a translation of an epistle from Quintus to his brother Marcus Cicero, which bears internal evidence of its being one of those written from the camp in Britain, to which Tully refers in his 17. of the 4. b. to Atticus, and the 3. Ad. Quintum fratrem, 1. § 7. I am, Sir, with regard,

Your humble Servant,

A. B.

QUINTUS TO MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.

You are desirous, my excellent brother, that I should give you a minute account of the progress of our affairs in this island, and of my own particular situation; but Cæsar being now returned to the army in Gaul, and the weight of military affairs having fallen on my shoulders, hardly can I find sufficient leisure to write, or opportunity to enquire con, cerning, these things that might amuse you, as did heretofore, when, like Trebatius, I considered my self rather as a guest and companion, than an associate in the command and authority of the emperor. Indeed so little occasion has there been for civil arrangements in the communities that have been brought under the Roman dominion by Cæsar, that Trebatius enjoys his books, and his social pleasures, in Gaul, while I am looking forward anxiously for the return of a messenger from the Emperor, that I may prepare the troops for marching to the shore, and the reception of hostages for the preservation of fidelity, before our re-embarkation and return to the continent.

Few are the objects, my dear brother, in this savage island, that can contribute to the amusement of a polite scholar, but many to excite the attention and contemplation of a philosopher. Here you behold rude Nature