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each other, that thereafter nothing was so close to either of us as each was to the other. He wrote an excellent Latin satire, which has been published,^[1] wherein he excuses and explains the suddenness of our mutual understanding which so quickly reached its perfection. Having so short a time to last, and having begun so late (for we were both grown men and he a few years the elder),^[2] it had no time to lose and to fashion itself on the model of weak and orderly friendships, which require so many precautions in the way of long preliminary intercourse. Such a one as this has no other type than itself and can resemble only itself. (a) It was no one special consideration, nor two, nor three, nor four, nor a thousand; it was I know not what quintessence of all this blending which, having completely possessed itself of my will, led it to plunge into and lose itself in his; (c) and having completely possessed itself of his will, led it to plunge into and lose itself in mine, by force of a like eagerness and impulse. (a) I say “lose” with truth, for it left us nothing that was our own, or that was either his or mine.^[3]

When Lælius, in presence of the Roman consuls who, after the condemnation of Tiberius Gracchus, proceeded against all those who had held intercourse with him, enquired of Caius Blosius— who was his^[4] chief friend — how much he would have been willing to do for him, and he replied, “Every thing,” — “What, every thing?” rejoined Lælius. “But if he had ordered you to set fire to our temples?” — “He would never have ordered me to do that,” replied Blosius. — “But if he had?” Lælius persisted. — "I would have obeyed,” was the reply.^[5] If he was so wholly the friend of Gracchus as the histories say, he had no occasion to offend the consuls by this last and audacious admission, and should not have deviated from the confidence he had in the mind of Gracchus.^[6] But, moreover, they who blame this