MESS 
4frmd the lamentable end of a Swift, a Marlborough, a 
Somers, or a Meflala. 
Though the Valerian family was one of the mod diftin- 
guifhed in Rome, hilbory has left us in great doubt and 
uncertainty concerning that particular branch of it, from 
which Meflala Corvinus was defcended. It is a matter 
not yet clearly afcertained, whether his father was Marcus 
Valerius Meflala, furnamed Niger, or Marcus Valerius 
Meflala, who was conful in the year of Rome 700. Cicero 
fpeaks of the firft in warm terms of approbation, and of 
the latter in a letter to his brother Quintus. His mother’s 
name is faid to have been Paula, a lady of the ^Emilian 
family, and of an amiable charafter, who, after the death 
of her hufband, married Lucius Gellius Poplicola, a man 
of diftinguilhed eminence. We afe left quite in the dark 
as to the time in which Meflala was born, married, or 
died. Had the writings of Maecenas, Pollio, Agrippa, 
and Dellius, furvived the ravages of time, they might have 
thrown light on the prefent fubjedt, and luppiied the 
lamented chafm in Livy’s Hiftory. For want of the 
materials which might have been afforded us by the 
above writers, we are obliged to have recourfe to St. 
Jerome, a Chriftian father of the fourth century, to tell 
us that Meflala married Terentia, Cicero’s divorced 
wife, and had by her two fons, Marcus and Lucius, and 
one daughter, called Valeria. Lempriere Rates, we know 
not upon what authority, that he died A. D. 9, in the 
77th year of his age. From a pafl'age in Tacitus, we 
ftiould fuppofe that he died about B. C. 9. His fons 
were both raifed to the confulfhip, and proved themfelves 
not unworthy of the Valerian family, whofe reputation 
was fo high in the reign of Nero, that Meflala’s great- 
grand fon was made conful ; and, when the emperor learnt 
that his fortune was not equal to fupport his rank, he 
ave him a peniion fufficient to maintain the dignity of 
is houfe. 
Meflala’s eldeft fon inherited a great fhare of his father’s 
eloquence ; and, when he was appointed, at a very early 
age, a member of the Quindecimviral College, Tibullus 
compofed a beautiful elegy, ([lib. ii. eleg. 5.) wherein he 
invokes Phcebus to aid him in celebrating the praifes of 
Mefl'alinus the new pontiff; and this poem he concludes 
with defcribing his father’s exultation, when he fhould 
fee his fon pafs before him in the long proceflion of a 
triumph. Ovid calls him “ the light of the Mufes, and 
the defence of the Forumbut, from the manner in 
which the poet exprefl'es himfelf, it may be a queftion 
whether the poet means Marcus the eldeft, who was con¬ 
ful in the year of Rome 750, or Lucius the youngeft, 
who was adopted into the Aurelian family, took the 
name of Lucius Cotfa Meflalinus, and was conful in the 
year 757- His daughter Valeria, we are told, married 
into the Statilian family, and her hufband took the name 
of Statilius Coryinus. 
As Terentia has been mentioned, it is impoflible to 
tjifmifs her without taking notice of feme very Angular 
circumftances in her life and fortune. It is a matter 
which admits of no doubt, that Cicero lived v/ith her 
above thirty years; that he had by her two children, who 
were extremely dear to him; and that he did not put her 
away till he was in the fixty-firft year of his age. Her 
imperious difpofition, and haughty temper, are afligned 
as the principal reafons of his taking a ftep which brought 
down upon him much cenfure and ridicule; and which, 
it is to be apprehended, his precipitate marriage with the 
young and wealthy Publilia did not remove. It is to be 
wiflied that Jerome had informed us what time intervened 
between her divorce, which happened in the year 707, 
and her fecond nuptials with the hiflorian Salluft, Cicero’s 
great enemy; or how long fire lived with him, or whether 
they had any children. This information was neceflary 
to have been given, in order to afcertain her age at the 
time of her marriage with Meflala, by whom, Jerome fays, 
die had three children. Therefore, if we fuppofe her 
married to Cicero at the age of fourteen or fifteen, and 
VOL. XV. No. JOJf. 
» A L A. Igs 
that flie lived but two or three years with Salluft, which 
is long enough, confidering the hiftorian’s character, flie 
mull have been near fifty years of age before the gave her 
hand to Meflala. When we confider his amiable charac¬ 
ter, we may fuppofe that Ihe lived with him till his death ; 
and, if we could but imagine that her care and tender- 
nefs helped to footh and comfort the Lift helplefs days of 
that great man’s life, we fhould gladly draw a veil over 
her many failings, and her fourth and laft marriage with 
Vibius Rufus, who, Dion Calfius fays, was conful in the 
reign of Tiberius, and who ufed to boaft that he was pof- 
fefl'ed of two molt valuable relics, which were, the wife 
of Cicero, and the chair in which Caefar was killed. Pliny 
and Valerius Maximus fay, that this venerable matron 
lived to the advanced age of a hundred and three; and 
furely, if her memory and underftanding furvived, Ihe 
mull have been a moll agreeable and entertaining com¬ 
panion. To be born in the moll enlightened period of 
Rome’s grandeur, when the whole known world l'ub- 
mitted to its fway; to be the witnefs of fuch aftonilhing 
revolutions in men and manners; to be married fuccef- 
fively to the firft orator, the firft liiftorian, and the moft 
accomplilhed citizen, of the age in which Ihe lived; and 
to outlive the moft important century in the annals of 
mankind ; form fuch an aflemblage of fplendid circum¬ 
ftances, as fcarcely can ever again fill to the lot of any 
mortal. Berwick's £\fe of Miffala Corvinus. 
In the examination of the above work in the Monthly 
Review, we find feme very curious remarks, which we 
cannot refrain from laying before our readers, though in 
fo doing we mull travel over the fame ground again, and 
give, as it were, a l'econd hiftory of Meflala. It is to be 
obferved, that all the accounts of this perfon hitherto 
given, have been chiefly amplifications of Plutarch’s Life 
of Brutus, and of the praifes of Tibullus, whom he pa- 
tronifed. But, fay the Monthly Reviewers, “ Important 
hiftoric doubts await lolution from a critical eftimate of 
Meflala’s charafter. Blackwell in his Memoirs of the 
Court of Auguftus, Middleton in his Life of Cicero, and 
even Gibbon in a note to his feventeenth chapter, have 
concurred to panegyrize him: but Blackwell was defi¬ 
cient in fagacity of inference, and Middleton in induftry 
of refearch; and, though Gibbon ufually diiplays a pene¬ 
tration equal to his information, in this inftance we iuf- 
peft him to have been biafled by the tellimony -of Tibul¬ 
lus and Horace, and never to have been drawn into any 
direft inveftigation of the conduft of their patron. The 
praife of the poet is naturally exceflive, and that of the 
rewarded poet is always fufpicious. 
Ci The father, Marcus Valerius Meflala, was conful in 
the year of Rome 701, and was mentioned by Cicero as 
noftri laudator, amator, imitator. This imitator announces 
a younger man than Cicero; fo that his fon muft have 
been a full generation younger, and was probably be¬ 
tween twenty-five and thirty years of age when Cicero, 
in his fixty-firft year, repudiated his wife Terentia. 
An intrigue with, the liiftorian Salluft is fuppoled to 
have occafioned this divorce, as ihe married him aimed 
immediately: but, after the lofs of Salluft, fhe married 
the young Meflala. He was no doubt habitually inti¬ 
mate in Cicero’s family, had grown up a Ciceronian, and 
owed a part of his (kill as a barrifter and as a conftitutional 
lawyer to this perfonal accefs. When Cicero, angry that 
Brutus had fpared Anthony, began to lean towards O(fla¬ 
vins, and to feek in him a barrier againft that bittereft 
and moft dangerous enemy, it is naturally probable that 
Meflala would alio draw near to O(flavins. We conceive 
that he did ; and that he attached himfelf to Brutus, with 
Cicero’s letter of recommendation on the road, not as a 
ftneere friend, but as a fpy. 
“ Cicero was about this time thoroughly difpleafed 
with Brutus: he had not been employed to write the 
apology for the tyrannicide; his foe Anthony had been 
fpared by the conlpirators ; and Rome had been quitted 
by the chiefs of the fen^torial party, contrary to his ad- 
1 & vice,' 
