Thus from high hills the torrents swift and strong

Deluge whole fields, and sweep the trees along, Through ruin'd moles the rushing wave resounds, O'erwhelms the bridge, and bursts the lofty bound.

The yellow harvests of the ripen'd year,

And flatted vineyards, one sad waste appear!

Cursed is the man, and void of law and right,
Unworthy property, unworthy light,
Unfit for public rule, or private care;

That wretch, that monster, who delights in war:
Whose lust is murder, and whose horrid joy,
To tear his country, and his kind destroy!

There various news I heard of love and strife, Of peace and war, health, sickness, death and life,

Of loss and gain, of famine and of store,
Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore,
Of prodigies, and portents seen in air,

Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair,
Of turns of fortune, changes in the state,
The falls of favourites, projects of the great,
Of old mismanagements, taxations new,
All neither wholly false, nor wholly true.

Spacious indeed are these heavens! where do they begin? where do they end? what is their extent? can angels answer my question? have angels travelled the vast circuit? can angels measure the bounds of space? no; 'tis boundless, 'tis unknown, 'tis amazing to all.

O grant a poet leave ro recommend
(A poet fond of nature, and your friend)
Her slighted works to your admiring view;
Her works must needs excel, who fashion'd you.

CICERO AGAINST VERRES.

The time is come, Fathers, when that which has long been wished for, towards allaying the envy your order has been subject to, and removing the imputations against trials, is effectually put in your power. An opinion has long pervaded, not only here at home, but likewise in foreign countries, both dangerous to you, and pernicious to the state,—that, in prosecutions, men of wealth are always safe, however clearly con victed. There is now to be brought upon his trial before you, to the confusion, I hope, of the propagators of this slanderous imputation, one whose life and actions condemn him in the opinion of all impartial persons; but who, according to his own reckoning and declared dependence upon his riches, is already acquitted; I mean Caius Verres. I demand justice of you, Fathers, upon the robber of the public treasury, the oppressor of Asia Minor and Pamphylia, the invader of the rights and privileges of Romans, the scourge and curse of Sicily. If that sentence is passed upon him which his crimes deserve, your authority, Fathers, will be venerable and sacred in the eyes of the public; but if his great riches should bias you in his favour, I shall still gain one point,-to make it apparent to all the world, that what was wanting in this case, was not a criminal nor a prosecutor, but justice and adequate punishment.

To pass over the shameful irregularities of his youth, what does his quætorship, the first public employment he held, what does it exhibit, but one continued scene of villanies? Cneius Carbo plundered of the public money by his own treasurer, a consul stripped and betrayed, an army deserted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the civil and religious rights of a people violated. The employment he held in Asia Minor and Pamphylia, what did it produce but the ruin of those countries? in which houses, cities, and temples, were robbed by him. What was his conduct in his prætorship here at home? Let the plundered temples, and public works neglected, that he might embezzle thể money intended for carrying them on, bear witness. How did he discharge the office of a judge? Let those who suffered by his injustice answer. But his prætorship in Sicily crowns all his works of wickedness, and finishes a lasting monument to his infamy. The mischiefs done by him in that unhappy country, during the three years of his iniquitous administration, are such, that many years, under the wisest and best of prætors, will not be sufficient to restore things to the condition in which he found them; for it is notorious, that during the time of his tyranny, the Sicilians neither enjoyed the protection of their own original laws; of the regu lations made for their benefit by the Roman senate, upon their coming under the protection of the commonwealth; nor of the natural and unalienable rights of men. His nod has decided all causes in Sicily for these three years. And his decisions have broken all law, all precedent, all right. The sums he has, by arbi

trary taxes and unheard-of impositions, extorted from the industrious poor, are not to be computed. The most faithful allies of the commonwealth have been treated as enemies. Roman citizens have, like slaves, been put to death with tortures. The most atrocious criminals, for money, have been exempted from the deserved punishments; and men of the most unexceptionable characters, condemned and banished unheard. The harbours, though sufficiently fortified, and the gates of strong towns, have been opened to pirates and ravagers. The soldiery and sailors, belonging to a province under the protection of the commonwealth, have been starved to death; whole fleets, to the great detriment of the province, suffered to perish. The ancient monuments of either Sicilian or Roman greatness, the statues of heroes and princes, have been carried off; and the temples stripped of the images. Having, by his iniquitous sentences, filled the prisons with the most industrious and deserving of the people, he then proceeded to order numbers of Roman citizens to be strangled in the gaols; so that the exclamation, " I am a citizen of Rome!" which has often, in the most distant regions, and among the most barbarous people, been a protection, was of no service to them; but, on the contrary, brought a speedier and a more severe punishment upon them.

I ask now, Verres, what thou hast to advance against this charge? Wilt thou pretend to deny it? Wilt thou pretend, that any thing false, that even any thing aggravated is alleged against thee? Had any prince, or any state, committed the same outrage against the privilege of Roman

citizens, should we not think we had sufficient ground for demanding satisfaction? What punishment ought, then, to be inflicted upon a `tyrannical and wicked prætor, who dared, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, to put to the infamous death of crucifixion, that unfortunate and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus, only for his haying asserted his privilege of citizenship, and declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country, against the cruel oppressor, who had unjustly confined him in prison at Syracuse, whence he had just made his escape? The unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for his native country, is brought before the wicked prætor. With eyes darting fury, and a countenance distorted with cruelty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped, and rods to be brought; accusing him, but without the least shadow of evidence, or even of suspicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy. It was in vain that the unhappy man cried out, "I am a Roman citizen: I have served under Lucius Prætius, who is now at Panormus, and will attest my innocence." The blood-thirsty prætor, deaf to all he could urge in his own defence, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus, Fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with scourging; whilst the only words he uttered, amidst his cruel sufferings, were, " I am a Roman ciţizen;" With these he hoped to defend himself from violence and infamy. But of so little service was this privilege to him, that, while he was thus asserting his citizenship, the order was given for his execution,-for his execution upon the cross!