nobility he also rendered himself very pleasing, by initiating them in debauchery, and by ridiculing the austerity of the older and most respectable senators. He made his fiiends, like himself, strenuous partizans of the democratic faction; he encouraged every motion made by tribunes, or other seditious citizens, to degrade the Senate, and to disturb the tranquillity of the State. Cicero, and some others of the most sagacious of the Senators, discerned in the conduct and character of Cæsar, influenced by his desperate circumstances, a desire of universal change in the State, in order to extricate himself from his difficulties, and to gratify his boundless ambition. To this motive they imputed his opposition to the aristocracy, and his professed zeal for what he called the rights of the people. The Senators in general, who had not the penetration to dive into the more hidden parts of his character, detested the notorious part-his debauchery and profligacy. Cæsar saw, that through the people only he could rise to the established offices, and much more to that power which he appears to have early coveted. He perceived that he could not more effectually pay his court to the people, than by professing warmly to embrace the interests of their favourites. He appeared to be a zealous partizan of Pompey, and next to the tribunes Gabinius and Manilius, and to Cicero, was the most instrumental in having extraordinary appointments conferred on that General. Several reasons determined Cæsar to appear strenuous in support of Pompey. Pompey was at that time the principal favourite with the people; consequently Cæsar, by appearing his partizan, gratified the democrats. By the extraordinary powers intrusted to that General, a precedent was established, of which Cæsar might afterwards avail himself. Pompey was the man of first consideration in the State, and Cæsar had hitherto attained distinction far short of his abilities. He must have seen through Pompey's real character, and that it would not be difficult for a man of talents, by professing to act a subordinate part, to make him a tool.

The democratic party, now that suffrage was universal, comprehended the most worthless men of the State. Every person oppressed with debt, who wished to defraud his creditors; every one who had suffered punishment, or expected to suffer punishment, for his crimes; every one who wished to be free from the restraint of the laws, ranged himself under the standard of the demagogues. Whoever had suffered punishment for sedition, or any other violence tending to disturb the State, was represented by the demagogues as a martyr to oppression and injustice. Cicero, now Consul, patriotically

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exerted his great abilities in defending Caius Rabirius against a charge brought by the democratic party, of having thirty-five years. before killed the tribune Saturninus. Beside the distance of time, and the fact being that Rabirius did not kill Saturninus, that tribune was in a state of rebellion, and had taken up arms against his country. He was killed in resisting the armed force of his country, headed by the Supreme Magistrates. Whatever individual therefore happened to kill him, was doing his duty. Cicero succeeded in the defence of Rabirius: the accusation therefore served only to shew the democratic faction to be friendly to insurgents and insurrections, which was well known before.

During his consulship the abilities of Cicero discovered and defeated a most dangerous conspiracy, formed by a club or society branching from the democrats. Catiline, a nobleman by birth, but of a most abandoned character, with a banditti of desperadoes, conceived a design of setting fire to the city, of murdering the Supreme Magistrates and principal Senators, and of seizing the government. Of the members who composed this conspiracy we have a very striking description from Sallust, which, beside being historically true respecting those individuals, is philosophically just as characterizing the class of persons who are in any country most apt to enter into combinations against the State. The associates of Catiline were profligate spendthrifts, bankrupts by their vices in fortune and credit, who would go any lengths to be free of the incumbrances which prevented the certain continuance of wicked gratifications, and to acquire a fund for future depravity. To these were added persons whose inability or misconduct had prevented them from rising so high in their professions, or in the state, as their own conceit fancied they deserved; in short, all who from ruined circumstances, abandoned characters, or disappointed ambition, were dissatisfied with their own individual situations, and wished for a general change, which they imagined might make them better, but knew could not make them worse. Several women, originally of rank and fortune, but who by their vices had reduced themselves to poverty and contempt, favoured Catiline's design; thieves, robbers, murderers, and all those villains who subsist by violence and plunder, approved of Catiline's scheme, so favourable to their habitual rapine. It is not to be imagined that the principal conspirators would entrust the whole of their design to all whom they wished to make instrumental in its execution. They set out with professing plans of reform, agreeable to the notions which seditious baranguers had taken such

pains to impress on the people. In the common cant of malecontents, they represented regular government as an encroachment on the rights of man, and their own designs of rebellion, massacre, and plunder, as plans for restoring their countrymen to their inherent privileges. It is therefore probable, that some of the populace, from general ignorance or particular misconception, might favour Catiline, without having themselves bad intentions. The conspiracy continued for two years before it came to its full height. The plot thickened, and every thing was preparing to make the catastrophe most terribly tragical. Agents were employed in various parts of the country to excite discontent, to mislead the ignorant, and collect the worthless into a participation of the plot. A correspondence was established between the disaffected of the country and country towns and those of the city, for the purpose of co-operation. Individuals and Committees were appointed to provide arms. Catiline and a junto of the ringleaders of this Corresponding Society formed themselves into a secret Committee for arranging the plan of rebellion and bloodshed. Their first intended victims were the most respectable Senators and Magistrates, and, above all, Cicero. That patriotic and wise servant of his country was, beyond all others, hated and detested by the conspirators, and all their connections. From the head of the plot to the lowest second-hand retailer of impotent scurility, all, according to the measure of their abilities, abused Cicero. It is altogether in the natural course of things, for those who mean mischief to their country, to abominate the ablest and most indefatigable labourers for its preservation and welfare. The penetration of Cicero had before his consulship discovered their general designs. It was during his magistracy that his vigilance and indefatigable industry made him perfectly acquainted with the detail of the means. Accident assisted, in some degree, in furnishing him with discoveries, which his sagacity traced to their source. Cuius, one of the UNITED ringleaders, who, beside his profligacy, was weak and vain, had long had an intrigue with Fulvia, a woman of some rank, who had reduced herself to the state of being a courtezan. On her he squandered what of his fortune remained from a series of debaucheries. Unable any longer to supply the extravagance in which women of that stamp delight, he tried to amuse her with promises. He attempted to enhance to her the importance of her conquest by boasting of the confidence reposed in him. As a proof of it he discovered the plot; at the same time he tried to feed her with the hopes of sharing in the treasures which he fancied he should have

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in his power. Fulvia either relying little on the promises of a lover ruined by extravagance, or entertaining a bad opinion of an undertaking trusted to so garrulous and weak a person as Curius, conceived it would be more profitable to unfold the whole affair. She did so in such a way as to reach the ears of Cicero. The wisest and best men must often, in investigating secret and associated villainy, make use of worthless instruments. The surest guides to the discovery of plots must be accomplices. Cicero sent for Fulvia, and afterwards for Curius; and prevailed on him to discover all he knew of the conspiracy. Informed who the conspirators were, he detached others from the association. With a patriotic policy, which no real lover of his country could blame, he directed those persons still to attend as accomplices at the clubs of the conspirators, and inform him of their motions. He then laid his discoveries before the Senate, but for a very obvious reason did not mention his authors, because that would have closed the source of future information. The majority of the Senate reposing the utmost confidence in the integrity and wisdom of Cicero, and knowing that whatever he either told or concealed, he did it from the most prudent and patriotic considerations, required him not to prove his allegations, or to produce witnesses. They ordained by a public decree, that the Consuls should take care least the State received any detriment; a form used in times of emergency, investing the Supreme Magistrates with a power of dispensing with the laws. It proceeded on this principle, that as all laws ought to be intended to prevent evil, and to do good to the community; when cases occur in which their usual course cannot produce good or hinder evil, for the very same reason for which they ought generally to operate, they behove them to be suspended. It was the democracy which hindered the suspension from proceeding as in mixed governments, on extraordinary cases, from the Legislature. The emergencies which required the interruption of the laws arose from democratic violence. Now that suffrage was almost universal, the majority of the people, stimulated by their demagogues, were not unfavourable to insurrections. From their assemblies, therefore, no effectual measures could be expected for suppressing the conspiracy. If Rome had been a mixed and well-balanced government, the Legislature would have been disposed, and able, to frame temporary acts, according to the exigency of the case. At Rome, to supply the defects of the democracy, and to remedy the evils which it caused, the Senate was obliged to exert a discretionary power. Catiline finding the plot discovered, and being severely attacked by

the glowing eloquence of Cicero, left the city, and betook himself to his corresponding accomplices in the country and country towns. The vigilance of Cicero soon after made him master of letters from the conspirators in the city, and of other proofs which unfolded every particular of their individual and general designs. He arrested Lentulus, a worthless and abandoned man, who had been degraded from the senatorian dignity for misconduct; Cethegus, a most dissolute audacious miscreant, who had been some time before tribune, and a favourite demagogue; also the rest of the secret Committee who remained in the city. A debate took place in the Senate concerning the disposal of the conspirators. Most of the Senators argued, that as there could be no doubt of their guilty intentions, they should be put summarily to death. Cæsar, on the contrary, said, that whatever might be their wickedness, the law had not annexed the punishment of death to such proceedings, and that therefore they ought not to be capitally punished. The virtuous and patriotic Cato considered less the letter of the law than general equity and expediency. It was just, he said, that those who were devising the murder of the Supreme Magistrates, and of all good men, and the subversion of the State, should be punished by death for those wicked and traitorous compassings; and that it was expedient that those who shewed a design to do the greatest mischief to their country, should be for ever deprived of the power. Cicero took the same side with Cato. The majority of the Senate concurred. The conspirators were put to death without a formal trial. This was certainly a deviation from the usual course of law, but a deviation, from the irregularity and violence of the democracy, absolutely necessary. So unfavourable is democracy to tranquillity and order, that almost every step which the Senate at any time took for resforing the public peace was literally a deviation from the Constitution. Catiline hearing of the defeat of his party in the city, tried with a band of desperadoes to make his escape into Gaul; but was intercepted by the Consul's Lieutenant. Forced to fight, he fell in the battle, and freed his country from a desperate enemy, whose ability was fortunately not equal to the wickedness of his intentions.