found him always cheerful; and his calm features,--in which a dignity
and thoughtfulness of spirit contrasted with the bloom and beauty of a
pure and honourable boyhood,--were never overshadowed with ill-temper or
with gloom.

The guardians of Marcus Aurelius had gathered around him all the most
distinguished literary teachers of the age. Never had a prince a greater
number of eminent instructors; never were any teachers made happy by a
more grateful, a more humble, a more blameless, a more truly royal and
glorious pupil. Long years after his education had ceased, during his
campaign among the Quadi, he wrote a sketch of what he owed to them.
This sketch forms the first book of his _Meditations_, and is
characterised throughout by the most unaffected simplicity and modesty.

The _Meditations_ of Marcus Aurelius were in fact his private diary,
they are a noble soliloquy with his own heart, an honest examination of
his own conscience; there is not the slightest trace of their having
been intended for any eye but his own. In them he was acting on the
principle of St. Augustine: "Go up into the tribunal of thy conscience,
and set thyself before thyself." He was ever bearing about--

"A silent court of justice in himself,
Himself the judge and jury, and himself
The prisoner at the bar."

And writing amid all the cares and distractions of a war which he
detested, he averted his eyes from the manifold wearinesses which daily
vexed his soul, and calmly sat down to meditate on all the great
qualities which he had observed, and all the good lessons that he might
have learnt from those who had instructed his boyhood, and surrounded