No More Learning

[i] Quintilian says, the merit of a fine writer flourishes after his
death, for envy does not go down to posterity. _Ad posteros enim
virtus durabit, nec perveniet invidia. _ Lib. iii. c. 1. Envy is always
sure to pursue living merit; and therefore, Cleo observes to
Alexander, that Hercules and Bacchus were not numbered among the gods,
till they conquered the malignity of their contemporaries. _Nec
Herculem, nec Patrem Liberum, prius dicatos deos, quàm vicissent secum
viventium invidiam. _ Quintus Curtius, lib. viii. s. 18. Pliny the
younger has a beautiful epistle on this subject. After praising, in
the highest manner, the various works of Pompeius Saturninus, he says
to his correspondent, Let it be no objection to such an author, that
he is still living. If he flourished in a distant part of the world,
we should not only procure his books, but we should have his picture
in our houses: and shall his fame be tarnished, because we have the
man before our eyes?
Shall malignity make us cease to admire him,
because we see him, hear him, esteem and love him? _Neque enim debet
operibus ejus obesse, QUOD VIVIT. An si inter eos, quos nunquam
vidimus, floruisset, non solum libros ejus, verum etiam imagines
conquireremus, ejusdem nunc honor præsentis et gratia quasi satietate
languescet? At hoc pravum malignumque est, non admirari hominem
admiratione dignissimum, quia videre, alloqui, audire, complecti, nec
laudare tantum, verum etiam amare contingit. _ Lib. i. ep. 16.


Section XXIV.

[a] In the Dialogues of Plato, and others of the academic school, the
ablest philosophers occasionally supported a wrong hypothesis, in
order to provoke a thorough discussion of some important question.

[b] Cicero was killed on the seventh of December, in the consulship of
Hirtius and Pansa, A. U. C. 711; before Christ, 43. From that time to
the sixth of Vespasian the number of years is exactly 117; though in
the Dialogue said to be 120. See s.