the necessity of self-preservation, took Nassau the other day, and Hanover and Holstein and Hesse. It was thus that the wolf claimed all the river, not being able to endure the encroaching lamb. The humane reader of history execrates, as he reads, the cruel, all-absorbing, ravenous wolf. But the philosophical reader perceives that in this way, and in no other, is civilisation carried into distant lands. The wolf, though he be a ravenous wolf, brings with him energy and knowledge.
What may have been Cæsar's own aspirations in regard to Gaul, when the government of the provinces was confided to him, we have no means of knowing. We may surmise,—indeed we feel that we know,—that he had a project in hand much greater to him, in his view of its result, than could be the adding of any new province to the Republic, let the territory added be as wide as all Gaul. He had seen enough of Roman politics to know that real power in Rome could only belong to a master of legions. Both Marius and Sulla had prevailed in the city by means of the armies which they had levied as the trusted generals of the Republic. Pompey had had his army trained to conquest in the East, and it had been expected that he also would use it to the same end. He had been magnanimous, or half-hearted, or imprudent, as critics of his conduct might choose to judge him then and may choose to judge him now, and on reaching Italy from the East had disbanded his legions. As a consequence, he was at that moment, when Cæsar was looking out into the future and preparing his own
