which implied so much more magnanimity than men in general could
understand that by many it was put down to the account of weakness.

Weakness, however, there was none in Caius Caesar; and, that there might
be none, it was fortunate that conspiracy should have cut him off in the
full vigour of his faculties, in the very meridian of his glory, and on
the brink of completing a series of gigantic achievements. Amongst these
are numbered:--a digest of the entire body of laws, even then become
unwieldy and oppressive; the establishment of vast and comprehensive
public libraries, Greek as well as Latin; the chastisement of Dacia
(that needed a cow-hiding for insolence as much as Affghanistan from us
in 1840); the conquest of Parthia; and the cutting a ship canal through
the Isthmus of Corinth. The reformation of the Calendar he had already
accomplished. And of all his projects it may be said that they were
equally patriotic in their purpose and colossal in their proportions.

As an orator, Caesar's merit was so eminent that, according to the
general belief, had he found time to cultivate this department of civil
exertion, the received supremacy of Cicero would have been made
questionable, or the honour would have been divided. Cicero himself was
of that opinion, and on different occasions applied the epithet
_splendidus_ to Caesar, as though in some exclusive sense, or with some
peculiar emphasis, due to him. His taste was much simpler, chaster, and
less inclined to the _florid_ and Asiatic, than that of Cicero. So far
he would, in that condition of the Roman culture and feeling, have been
less acceptable to the public; but, on the other hand, he would have
compensated this disadvantage by much more of natural and Demosthenic
fervour.

In literature, the merits of Caesar are familiar to most readers. Under