MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 



Y 



Cicero, in his De Senectute,'^ Be Oficiis^^ and others of his 

 works, refers in the strongest terms of commendation to the 

 pleasures of a country life. Virgil J and Horace § allude 

 in similar strains, in many passages of their poems, to the 

 superior enjoyments of rural retirement and agricultui'al 

 pm'suits. In the elegant epistles of Pliny, we are present- 

 ed with a graphic account of the beauties of some of his 

 Italian yillas, and his ordinary occupations and amuse- 

 ments ; in the latter of which he much resembled his 

 uncle, the elder Pliny, in his addiction to study and ele- 

 gant literature. After his retirement from pubKc business, 

 and his Eastern campaigns, Lucullus finally forsook the 

 paths of ambition, and resisted all the applications of the 

 leaders of Rome previous to the first triumyirate, and the 

 entreaties of his friends, to take a public part in the civil 

 affairs of that busy period, in wliich he might have aspired, 

 if not to the first, at least to a prominent position. If 

 not as addicted, duiing his retirement, to literary pursuits 

 as much as others who might be mentioned, still, as the in- 

 troducer of the Cerasus, or Cherry-tree, from Pontus into 

 Europe, he would seem to have given his attention to sub- 

 jects connected with matters of practical utility in a 

 country life. The whole history of Atticus, as recorded 

 by Cornehus Nepos, from its commencement to its close, 

 illustrates, more strongly than any mere commendations, 

 the happiness and benefit which may be obtained and pro- 

 duced in the quiet and even tenor of a life withdrawn for 

 the most part fi'om general view and pubhc employments. 

 And finally may be instanced the concluding years in the 

 life of Sallust the historian, as presented to us in the ad- 

 mirable essay prefixed to his translation of that author's 

 works by the subject of this Memoir; who, when he had 



* Cic. De Sen. §§ 15, 16. t Cic. De Off. lib. i. cap. 42. 



X Virg. Georg. lib. ii. § Hor. Epod. lib. ii. 



