Note 220 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 2)

It may be reasonably doubted, however, if vanity had not something to do with this—the vanity of appearing as a philosophical writer, and astonishing the friends who had considered him only as a good comedian. The volume was magnificently printed in quarto on fine paper, “for the author,” in 1747. It is entitled, “The Character and Conduct of Cicero Considered, from the History of his Life by the Rev. Dr. Middleton; with occasional Essays and Observations upon the most Memorable Facts and Persons during that Period.” The entire work is a series of somewhat too-familiar notes on the various passages of “Cicero’s Life and Times,” as narrated by Middleton. He terms the unsettled state after the death of Sylla “an uncomfortable time for those sober citizens who had a mind and a right to be quiet.” His professional character breaks forth when he speaks of Roscius instructing Cicero in acting; and in the very commencement of his grave labour he rambles back to the theatre to quote a scene from Vanbrugh’s Relapse, as a proof how little fashionable readers think while they read. Colley’s well-meaning but free-and-easy reflections on the gravities of Roman history, in the progress of his work, are remarkable, and have all the author’s coarse common sense, but very little depth or refinement—Ed.