JULIUS CAESAR. 155 



flict. Ambition had doubtless also a large share in moulding 

 the events of his life. Such a man, so gifted with the ability 

 for power, could not do otherwise than grasp at it. His 

 sudden abdication of what had been won at such cost of toil 

 and blood, is not so incompatible with this as it might seem. 

 We dare not set down anything to principle ; but neither can 

 we admit the notion of fear as prompting the act. We look 

 rather to the pride of a man who had nothing further to 

 gain; to his contempt of the world he had thus mastered, 

 and to his love of luxurious indulgence, as it is described to 

 us by the writers of the age. Or it might be, that he already 

 felt the approaches of the disease, whatever this was, which 

 shortly after ended his days. The annalist easily records 

 that event which stops alike the career of all of the great, 

 the brave, and the wise but he is ignorant, or takes little 

 note, of those more subtle causes, which though not suffi- 

 cient to stop the current of life, yet check and turn it 

 aside in its course; of those physical changes which put 

 passions to sleep, and paralyse the powers of action. His- 

 tory revels in tales of poison and secret assassination, but 

 is silent as to the secret disease of organs the slow poison 

 of bodily decay. Yet it is certain that these things are 

 deeply concerned in worldly affairs ; and we could suggest 

 many cases of historical paradox, which may be best solved 

 by looking to them alone. Such documents, however, are 

 written for the most part in too delicate a character to 

 be legible by the historian ; and we must needs be content 

 with, and give what credit we may, to the coarser materials 

 which are put in evidence before us.* 



Again, there is an obvious facility in denning character by 

 strong and arbitrary lines ; and there may often be a moral 



* Since this article was first published, two biographies of Sylla have ap- 

 peared in Germany, by Drs. Zacharia and Lau, manifesting the usual industry 

 of German research. 



