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be entertained and attended with the same care and respect as if she had been in her father's house and as soon as he could find her lover, he gave her to him, and added to her portion the money that her father had brought for her ransom. Valerius Maximus says, Eximiae formae virginem accersitis parentibus, et sponso inviolatam tradidit, et Juvenis, et Calebs, et Victor. This was a most glorious example of moderation, continence, and generosity, which gained him the heart of all the people of Spain; and made them say, as Livy tells us, Venisse ·Diis simillimum juvenem, vincentem omnia, cum armis, tum benignitate, ac beneficiis.

Such are the rewards that always crown virtue; and such the characters that you should imitate, if you would be a great and a good man, which is the only way to be a happy one! Adieu.

CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS.

CHARACTER OF MARIUS.

THE

HE birth of Marius was obscure, though some call it equestrian, and his education wholly in camps; where he learnt the first rudiments of war, under the greatest master of that age, the younger Scipio, who destroyed Carthage; 'till by long service, distinguished valour, and a peculiar hardiness and patience of discipline, he advanced himself gradually through all the steps of military honour, with the reputation of a brave and complete soldier. The obscurity of his extraction, which depressed him vith the nobility, made him the greater favourite of the people; who on all occasions of danger, thought him the only man fit to be trusted with their lives and fortunes, or to have the command of a difficult and desperate war and in truth, he twice delivered them from the most desperate, with which they had ever been threatened by a foreign enemy. Scipio, from the observation of his martial talents, while he had yet but an inferior command in the army, gave a kind

of prophetic testimony of his future glory: for being asked by some of his officers, who were supping with him at Numantia, what general the republic would have in case of any accident to himself; « That man ; » replied he pointing to Marius at the bottom of the table. In the field he was cautious and provident; and while he was watching the most favourable opportunities of action, affected to take all his measures from augurs and diviners; nor ever gave battle, 'till by pretended omens and divine admonitions, he had inspired his soldiers with a confidence of victory: so that his enemies. dreaded him, as something more than mortal; and both friends and foes believed him to act always by a peculiar impulse and direction from the gods. His merit however was wholly military, void of every accomplishment of learning, which he openly affected to despise; so that Arpinum had the singular felicity to produce the most glorious contemner, as well as the most illustrious improver of the arts and eloquence of Rome. He made no figure, therefore, in the gown, nor had any other way of sustaining his authority in the city, than by cherishing the natural jealousy between the

O &

senate and the people; that by his declared enmity to the one, he might always be at the head of the other; whose favour he managed, not with any view to the public good, for he had nothing in him of the statesman or the patriot, but to the advancement of his private interest and glory. In short, he was crafty, cruel, covetous, and perfidious; of a temper and talents greatly serviceable abroad, but turbulent and dangerous at home: an implacable enemy to the nobles, ever seeking occasions to mortify them, and ready to sacrifice the republic, which he had saved, to his ambition and revenge. After a life spent in the perpetual toils of foreign or domestic wars he died at last in his bed, in a good old age, and in his seventh consulship; an honour that no Roman before him ever attained.

MIDDLETON.

,

CHARACTER OF SYLLA.

SYLLA died after he had laid down the dictatorship and restored liberty to the republic, and, with an uncommon greatness of mind, lived many months as a private senator, and with perfect security, in that city where he had exercised the most bloody tyranny but nothing was thought to be greater in his character, than that during the three years, in which the Marians were masters of Italy, he neither dissembled his resolution of pursuing them by arms, nor neglected the war which he had upon his hands; but thought it his duty, first to chastise a foreign enemy, before he took his revenge upon citizens. His family was noble and patrician, which yet, through the indolence of his ancestors, had made no figure in the republic for many generations, and was almost sunk into obscurity, 'till he produced it again into light, by aspiring to the honours of the state. He was a lover and a patron of polite letters, having been carefully instituted himself in all the learn

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