Middleton, in the preface to his own biography, which, with all its charms, has become a bye-word for eulogy, quotes the opinion of Erasmus, who tells us that he loves the writings of the man "not only for the divine felicity of his style, but for the sanctity of his heart and morals." This was the effect left on the mind of an accurate thinker and most just man.

But then also has Cicero been spoken of with the bitterest scorn.

From Dio Cassius, who wrote two hundred and twenty years after Christ, down to Mr.Froude, whose Caesar has just been published, he has had such hard things said of him by men who have judged him out of his own mouth, that the reader does not know how to reconcile what he now reads with the opinion of men of letters who lived and wrote in the century next after his death--with the testimony of such a man as Erasmus, and with the hearty praises of his biographer, Middleton.

The sanctity of his heart and morals! It was thus that Erasmus was struck in reading his works.

It is a feeling of that kind, I profess, that has induced me to take this work in hand--a feeling produced altogether by the study of his own words.