were promptly pardoned, and many of them were placed in high commands. Brutus, who had served under Cæsar, and who had sided with Pompey, was one of those whom Cæsar forgave, and advanced to the governorship of a province. Of all the host who had been in arms against him, not one man was executed, nor the estate of one man confiscated, the aim of the conqueror being to restore peace to his distracted country, that he might at once begin the execution of his still vaster designs.

Julius Cæsar, at the age of forty-seven, was master of the greater part of the Roman world. The ancient forms of republican government were carefully preserved ; but not the less was the whole power of the state wielded by one man. He appeared to desire to use his power for the good of the country. He built temples, established new military posts, sent forth colonies, restored the cities injured in the civil wars, corrected the calendar, projected a survey of the empire, and a codification of the laws. But he was not satisfied with these peaceful conquests. He seemed, as Plutarch remarks, as jealous of his old renown as though that renown belonged to another man, and he burned for new triumphs, so dazzling that they should cast into the shade all his previous achievements. Aiming at nothing less than the subjection of the world to his imperial sway, he prepared to transport his legions to the remotest frontiers of the empire, and saw, in prospect, the whole earth under Roman laws and institutions, governed by Roman lieutenants, all owning allegiance to the central power-himself. This was Napoleon's error too. Napoleon appeared entirely great until he assumed the trivialities of the imperial dignity, and pretended to give away kingdoms. It is the error natural to men whose talents are immense, and whose souls are little.

In the plenitude of his power, Cæsar became haughty, irritable, harsh toward the nobles, impatient of contradiction, restless. He needlessly wounded the self-love of those who served. him, an error he had never committed when he was climbing to the throne of the world, an error which truly great men never knowingly commit. In the midst of the exccution of his gigantic schemes, a conspiracy was formed against him, which aimed at his life. Of the men engaged in it, all but Brutus

seem to have been actuated by personal and petty motives. Some of them were offended that an old comrade should have attained such a height above them. Some had grudges to avenge, and others hoped to rise upon the ruins of his power. Brutus alone appears to have thought that the death of the despot would restore to Rome its ancient liberty, and it was his name that gave something of dignity to the plot.

The spring of the year forty-four, B. C., arrived. Rome was all astir with the departing legions and the noise of the dictator's mighty schemes. Cæsar still walked the streets of Rome unattended, and had no guard about his house, nor any escort when he went to the senate-house. Rumors were industriously circulated that he meant to assume the title of king of horror to the Romans. True he had thrice refused the proffered crown, in the sight of the people; but many imagined, and Brutus among them, that he had refused it as a woman often refuses the thing she covets most, - refused it that it might be the more strenuously thrust upon him.

-a, name

On the morning of the ides (the 15th) of March, Cæsar entered the senate-house. The Senate rose, as usual, to do him honor. He took his usual seat. On the pretence of asking the recall of a man whom he had banished, the conspirators gathered round his chair. He gave them, at length, a positive denial, and, as they continued their importunities, he grew angry. One of the men then seized the collar of his robe and drew it off his shoulders, which was the preconcerted signal of attack. Another, with nerveless hand, struck at his neck with his sword, inflicting a slight wound. Cæsar, astonished, laid his hand upon his sword, and said:

"Villain! Casca! what do you mean ?"

At once the whole party drew their swords, and Cæsar saw himself hedged about with bristling points. He stood at bay, with his drawn sword, and defended himself as became him, until Brutus thrust his sword into his groin. Then, it is said, he uttered the memorable words:

"Thou, too, Brutus!"

and, dropping the point of his sword, gave up the struggle, and fell pierced with twenty-three wounds.

Fifteen years of civil war followed the assassination of Julius Cæsar. At the time of his death, his nephew, Octavius, a youth of nineteen, was travelling with his tutor. No one supposed that this young man would so much as dare to come to Rome to claim his uncle's private estate. He boldly appeared, however, and joined in the strife for the slain emperor's power. Some of his rivals he overcame by management and flattery; .. others were destroyed by their own vices; some he overthrew in battle; and, at length, assuming the title of Augustus, he wielded the whole authority of Cæsar, and ruled the vast Roman empire peacefully and ably for forty years. He, too, respected and preserved the ancient forms of the republic. Under him a body called the Senate still held its sessions, and men styled consuls were elected. But Augustus was, in fact, absolute sovereign of the civilized world.

This is the man with whom Louis Napoleon desires to be compared. Like him, he is called the nephew of his imperial predecessor; but Cæsar had only adopted the father of Octavius as his relative, and upon Louis Napoleon's kinship with Napoleon doubts have been cast. Augustus won his throne by a strange mixture of cruelty, cunning, and audacity. Louis Napoleon's throne was gained by craft more than by courage; it was founded in perjury and blood. He will, perhaps, endeavor to show, by and by, that France could be saved from anarchy only by destroying its liberty. So, doubtless, Julius Cesar reasoned, and so the first Napoleon.

The answer is simple: they never tried to save order and liberty. They attempted only the easier task of concentrating all power in their own hands. Theirs was the small ambition of founding a dynasty, and not the grand ambition of regenerating a country. With all their amazing gifts, history pronounces them little men, because they employed their gifts for an object beneath a great man, their own glory.

To my mind, poor Charles Goodyear, battling with Indiarubber, carrying his pot of lime up Broadway to. Greenwich village, wrestling with his material for ten years till he had sub

dued it to a thousand useful purposes, is a more august figure, than any of the Cæsars or either Napoleon. Nevertheless, while the majority of mankind are sunk in ignorance and superstition, Cæsars and Napoleons are inevitable. As a choice of evils, they are sometimes even to be desired. The school-master and the newspaper, good books and enlightened men will gradually render them, first unnecessary and then impossible.

PRESIDENT MADISON'S MARRIED LIFE.

DOROTHY PAYNE, who was the wife of President Madison, was the daughter of a Virginia planter, though she was not herself born in Virginia. It was while her parents were on a visit to some friends in North Carolina, in 1769, that her mother gave birth to the infant who was destined to have so remarkable and distinguished a career. Soon after this event, Mr. and Mrs. Payne, having conscientious scruples with regard to the holding of slaves, set theirs free, joined the Quakers, gave up their plantation, and removed to Phila 'elphia. Their daughter, Dorothy, was brought up in the strict tenets and sober habits of the Friends, and, when she was twenty years of age, married a young lawyer, of that persuasion, named Todd. Three years after, her husband died, leaving her the mother of a son, with little provision for their future maintenance.

At this time her mother was also a widow, and was living in Philadelphia in such narrow circumstances that she was compelled to add to her little income by taking boarders. Mrs. Todd went to reside with her mother, and assisted her in the care of her house. She was one of the most beautiful young women in Philadelphia. I have before me a portrait, taken of her in early life, which fully justifies her reputation for beauty. Her figure was nobly proportioned, and her face had the robust charms of a fresh and vigorous country girl. After her husband's death she laid aside the prim garments and the serious demeanor of the Quakers, and gave free play to the natural gayety of her disposition. Indeed, she formally ceased to be a Quakeress, and attended the more fashionable Episcopal Church. Dolly Todd, as she was then called, had considerable celebrity