reference to the propriety and precision of his discourse. When he had to speak even in private on important matters, he wrote down and read what he had to say; and he practised this kind of discourse even with his beloved Livia. He studied elocution under a master; his voice was sweet, but occasionally, from sore throat, he was obliged to make his public harangues through a crier.* I do not know whether or not he read his lectures to Julia from a paper, but they appear to have had all the inefficiency popularly charged upon written sermons. He forbade her the use of wine and of fine clothes, and kept a strict watch over all of the other sex who had access to see her. But all was in vain; and after deliberating whether he should not use the Roman father's right of putting his child to death, he sent her into perpetual banishment. His daughter and his nieces he used to call, by a strong figure of speech, his three misfortunes, his three cancers.† Augustus's eloquence was elegant and chaste. * Suetonius," Octavius," c. 84. + Ibid. c. 65. Tacitus and Aulus Gellius have joined with Suetonius in praising its excellence. He avoided the offensiveness (fatores, as he called it) of recondite words, says Suetonius. It is this passage in Suetonius, I have no doubt, that has led Rabelais to attribute to Octavius the saying of the greater Julius, who, in the first book of his lost work, "De Analogia"-" Avoid as a rock all unheard and unusual words."* The passage from Cæsar is quoted by Aulus Gellius, to whom Rabelais expressly refers; but this learned man had trusted to his memory, very without looking at his authority.† The style of Augustus, as described by Suetonius, would serve for a criticism on Cobbett. He used to ridicule the niceties of Mæcenas, "Habe semper in memoria atque in pectore ut tanquam scopulum, sic fugias inauditum atque insolens verbum."-Cæsar, quoted by Aulus Gellius, lib. 1, c. 10. "Ce que dict le philosophe et Aule Gelle qu'il nous conuient parler selon le languaige usité. Et comme disoit Octauian Auguste, qu'il faut euiter les motz espaues, en pareille diligence que les patrons de nauire euitent les rochiers de mer."-Rabelais, "Pantagruel," lib. 11, c. 6. and the obsolete and out-of-the-way language of Tiberius; and accused Antony of writing in such a way as to excite wonder rather than to be understood, and of using an eastern profusion of language. It appears also that he felt called on to correct the slovenly literature and elocution, as well as the loose morals, of his niece Agrippina.* Suetonius has given us a minute account of the peculiarities used by Augustus in his handwriting, and of the singularities which he affected in orthography. Augustus, who had often prayed for a sudden and easy death, had his prayer granted. When he felt his end approaching he called for his mirror, and caused himself to be adorned and have his hair dressed. Then asking his friends if the farce of life had been well played, he bade them, quoting a Greek verse, give him the due applause. Only once in the course of his short illness, his mind exhibited any wandering, when he started in terror and complained that forty young men were carrying him off. The * Suetonius, "Octavius," c. 86. impression, says Suetonius, was prophetic; his body was removed by forty of the Prætorian soldiers. He expired kissing Livia, with the words on his lips, "Live mindful of our marriage, and farewell." * Suetonius," Octavius," c. 99. VOL. I. N TIBERIUS. TIBERIUS, the most cold-blooded and hateful of the Roman emperors, was a man of tall stature, with broad shoulders and chest, and well-proportioned limbs. He was a left-handed man; and with a finger, we are told, he could pierce through a fresh apple, and could inflict a wound on the head of a boy with a filip. This is the picture of Tiberius drawn by Suetonius, and referring to the best days of his manhood. In old age, as he is described by Tacitus, he grew thin. His complexion, Suetonius tells us, was fair, and his face handsome though disfigured by blotches. His eyes were very large, |