Dean Merivale declares that "he marred the grace of the concession in the eyes of posterity"-- alluding to the concession made to popular feeling by his voluntary departure from Rome, as will hereafter be described--"by the unmanly lamentations with which he accompanied it." Mommsen, with a want of insight into character wonderful in an author who has so closely studied the history of the period, speaks of his exile as a punishment inflicted on a "man notoriously timid, and belonging to the class of political weather-cocks." "We now come," says Mr.Forsyth, "to the most melancholy period of Cicero's life, melancholy not so much from its nature and the extent of the misfortunes which overtook him, as from the abject prostration of mind into which he was thrown." Mr.Froude, as might be expected, uses language stronger than that of others, and tells us that "he retired to Macedonia to pour out his sorrows and his resentments in lamentations unworthy of a woman." We have to admit that modern historians and biographers have been united in accusing Cicero of want of manliness during his exile.

I propose--not, indeed, to wash the blackamoor white--but to show, if I can, that he was as white as others might be expected to have been in similar circumstances.
We are, I think, somewhat proud of the courage shown by public men of our country who have suffered either justly or unjustly under the laws.
Our annals are bloody, and many such have had to meet their death.

They have done so generally with becoming manliness.

Even though they may have been rebels against the powers of the day, their memories have been made green because they have fallen like brave men.

Sir Thomas More, who was no rebel, died well, and crowned a good life by his manner of leaving it.