PREFACE. i x 



Having, therefore, on retiring from office, more 

 time left for literary pursuits than professional and 

 judicial duties had before allowed me, I was not minded 

 to waste, indolent and inactive, or enslaved by lower 

 occupations, that excellent leisure : " Non fuit consi- 

 lium socordia atque desidia bonum otium conterere; 

 neque vero agrum colendo, aut venando, servilibus offi- 

 ciis intentum, setatem agere. Statutum res gestas po- 

 puli nostri carptim, ut queeque memoria digna videban- 

 tur, perscribere ; eo magis quod mihi a spe, metu, par- 

 tibus reipublicse, animus liber erat."* For I conceived 

 that as portrait-painting is true historical painting in 

 one sense, so the lives of eminent men, freely written, 

 are truly the history of their times ; and that no more 

 authentic account of any age, its transactions, the 

 springs which impelled men's conduct, and the merits 

 which different actors in its scenes possessed, can be 

 obtained than by studying the biography of the per- 

 sonages who mainly guided affairs, and examining 

 their characters, which by their influence they im- 

 pressed upon the times they flourished in. Such a 

 work had moreover this advantage, that beside pre- 

 serving the memory of past events, and the likeness of 

 men who had passed from the stage, it afforded fre- 

 quent opportunities of inculcating the sound principles 

 of an enlightened and virtuous policy, of illustrating 

 their tendency to promote human happiness, of exhi- 



* Sail., Cat., cap. iv. 



