Renaissance, Cicero was overestimated; now, after the sweeping condemnations of Drumann, Froude, and Mommsen, it has become the fashion to treat him with contempt. Cicero finds a more sympathetic, and we think more just, treatment at the hands of the great Cardinal Newman, in his Personal and Literary Character of Cicero,[1] where the life of this gifted Roman, his works, and his style are admirably described. Cicero's style is so splendid and masterly that the greatest of the Romans, Caesar, could not help admiring his inventive powers, which, as Newman says, "constitute him the greatest master of composition that the world has seen." Of late years a healthy reaction has set in against the vagaries of such radical critics as Mommsen and Froude. Quite recently Professor von Wilamowitz of the University of Berlin, stated emphatically: "In spite of Mommsen, Cicero must remain the centre of Latin instruction."[2]
Which works of Cicero are to be read? The Ratio Studiorum and other documents mention his epistles, orations, philosophical and rhetorical works. Some specimens of all these should be studied.
I. Of his orations the following deserve especially to be read.[3]
i. Verrinae I, IV, V; in the fourth, De Signis, the marvellous grouping of the material is highly instructive. 2. De Imperio Cn. Pompei (De Lege Manilia), has a most lucid disposition. 3. In Catilinam,
