The familiar epistles of M.T. Cicero Englished and conferred with the: French Italian and other translations

Cicero vice-Consull to Caius Cassius. Epist. 16.

I Perswade my selfe, that you will be halfe ashamed to see your selfe sur∣prised with this third Epistle, before I can get so much as a lyne, or a letter from you. But I write not these to vrge you to so small a matter, for I expect, nay, I challenge longer discourses from you. If I had opportunitie, I would send you euery houre three letters. For in writing to you, methinkes I haue a kind of a representation of your owne person euer before me; though I allow not of these phantasticke apparitions of Catius, who approues of those mentall visions of Idols: on whose authoritie your new friends relying, affirme, that the phantasie is able to frame in it selfe, the similitude of any imagined bodie. And to the end you may vnderstand, that Catius the Insubrian, of the sect of Epicurus, lately dead, calleth those Spectra, which Gargesius, and before him D••mocritus, by another title terme•• Idols. And though it may be that these Spectra, may be seene, because they re∣present thems••lues vnto the eye. Yet I would faine haue any man tell me, how they can also penetrate the minde. And how is it probable, that thought or co∣gitation

should haue this priuiledge, that as soone as I thinke of you, your Spectrum should present it selfe vnto my minde? And not onely of yours, who are seated, in the most secret cell of my memorie; but if a conceipt should rise in my imagination, in what forme the Island of Britannia lyeth, should I be∣leeue that the Idoll of it, would be pre∣sented vnto me? But I'le reserue this present subiect till another time. Now I mean•• to trie you: and if I perceiue, that you should grow choleri••ke, or that you take it as an affront, I will goe further: and I will grieue for the v••o∣lence hath beene offered you•• pr••ying that you may be restored to that here∣sie, from whence you were by A••mes expelled. Neither will it suf••ice to al∣ledge, that for these two, or three years, you haue voluntarily exiled your selfe from vertue, that you haue beene allured by the sweet bait of plea∣sures, and delights; but with whom speake I? Marie, with a man of grauitie and maturi••ie: who since you dedica∣ted your selfe to publicke negotiations, haue in all times gouerned your selfe with that prudence, that you haue re∣plenished Rome, with honourable, and rare examples So that a doubt growes in me, whether this sect sprung not out of a better Trunke then we imagine, seeing you affected, to insert your selfe

thereinto. But what new conceit leads thee, O Cicero? Why I'le tell you the truth: It neither being secure, nor I be∣ing willing, to write what I thinke, a∣bout the Common-wealth, I entred into these phantasies, thinking it better to write of them then nothing. Fare∣well.