186 ANNUAL REPORT. 



the preservatioD of Roman liberty required that he should be 

 slain. His assassination was, therefore, an act of patriotism, and 

 Brutus was now their hero for having done it. Antony ascends 

 into the rostrum. They frown upon Antony. They will listen pat- 

 ronizingly to a temperate eulogy of Caesar ; custom and decency 

 demand this ; but 



'"Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here ! " 

 Antony commences his oration. He tells them of Caesar's services 

 to the Roman state; his benevolence to the poor; his refusal of the 

 crown when offered, thrice, at the Lupercal; their own former love 

 for Caesar; and now behold the spring in their hearts that he touches 

 at last to fire them to rage and mutiny against Brutus and his fel- 

 low conspirators. He tells them of the provisions of Caesar's will. 



"Moreover he hath left you all his walk?, 

 His private arbors, and new-planted orchards 

 On this side Tiber ; he hath left them you, 

 And to youi' heirs forever ; common pleasures, 

 To walk abroad and recreate yourselves." 



What ! the imperial parks, arbors and orchards left to 

 the common people of Rome — the toiling masses — for their en- 

 joyment, they and their heirs forever. Is it any wonder that all 

 blame for C&esar^s ambition, all complaisance towards Brutus de- 

 fending the assassination, vanishes from their thoughts, and that 

 when Antony after a pause in his oration, exclaims : 



"Here was a Caesar ! When comes such another ? " 

 They answer in their new sense of bereavement,' ' Never! never! " 

 and kindling into fury at the thought of the conspirators who 

 have striken down this great friend, they shout: 



"Away! away! 

 We'll burn his body in the market place 

 And with the brands ./?r^ f^e traitors houses] " 



I am afraid there were no horticultural societies in those days in 

 Rome, else parks and orchards for the common people could not 

 have been so precious and so rare. In fact it is almost certain there 

 were not, for Pliny tells us they had only twenty-two varieties of 

 the apple in his day, and it was then among their people such a 

 sour and astringent fruit that the Romans bestowed on it " many 

 a shrewed and bitter curse;" and hence we have its generic and 

 inappropriate name to-day, Pijnis Mains, the fruit that is bad. If 

 we ever have a World's Pomological Convention, the com- 

 mittee on nomenclature should change this, and gild the apple 

 with a new name in Latin, culled from the choicest terms they have. 



