1 6 THE GARDENS OF EPICURUS 



disputed, or to want the assistance of modern authors : 

 if all failed, he will be but too well defended by the 

 excellence of so many of his sect in all ages, and 

 especially of those who lived in the compass of one, 

 but the greatest in story, both as to persons and events : 

 I need name no more than Caesar, Atticus, Maecenas, 

 Lucretius, Virgil, Horace ; all admirable in their several 

 kinds, and perhaps unparalleled in story. 



Caesar, if considered in all lights, may justly chal- 

 lenge the first place in the registers we have of man- 

 kind, equal only to himself, and surpassing all others of 

 his nation and his age, in the virtues and excellences of 

 a statesman, a captain, an orator, an historian ; besides 

 all these, a poet, a philosopher, when his leisure allowed 

 him ; the greatest man of counsel and of action, of de- 

 sign and execution ; the greatest nobleness of birth, 

 of person and of countenance ; the greatest humanity 

 and clemency of nature, in the midst of the greatest 

 provocations, occasions and examples of cruelty and 

 revenge : 'tis true, he overturned the laws and constitu- 

 tions of his country ; yet 'twas after so many others 

 had not only begun, but proceeded very far, to change 

 and violate them ; so as in what he did, he seems 

 rather to have prevented l others, than to have done 

 1 i. e. anticipated. 



