PREFATORY NOTICE

IF the following sketch of Cicero’s life and writings be thought unworthy of so great a subject, the Author must plead the circumstances under which it was made.

In the spring of 1824, when his hands were full of work, Dr. Whately paid him the compliment of asking him to write it for the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, to which he was at that time himself contributing. Dr. Whately explained to him that the Editor had suddenly been disappointed in the article on Cicero which was to have appeared in the Encyclopædia, and that in consequence he could not allow more than two months for the composition of the paper which was to take its place; also, that it must contain such and such subjects. The Author undertook and finished it under these conditions.

In the present Edition (1872) he has in some places availed himself of the excellent translations of its Greek and Latin passages, made by the Reverend Henry Thompson in the Edition of 1852.