Page:The Letters of Cicero Shuckburg III.pdf/261

 *ingly from the high style of Homer I transfer myself to the true maxims of Euripides:

"Out on the sage that cannot guide himself!"

This is a verse that the elder Precilius praises to the skies, and says that a man may be able to see both "before and behind," and yet

"Still may excel and rise above the crowd."

But to return to what I began with: you will greatly oblige me, if you give this young man the benefit of the kindness which so distinguishes you, and will add to what I think you would do for the sake of the Precilii themselves as much as my recommendation may be worth. I have adopted a new style of letter to you, that you might understand that my recommendation is no common one.

DLXXI (F V, 13)

TO L. LUCCEIUS



Although the consolation contained in your letter is in itself exceedingly gratifying to me—for it displays the greatest kindness joined to an equal amount of good sense—yet quite the greatest profit which I received from that letter was the assurance that you were shewing a noble disdain of human vicissitudes, and were thoroughly armed and pre-*