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you and suit you better; for since I could not do the thing with any distinction, my best course was not to meddle with it; the next best to do so as sparingly as possible. But anyhow I did restrain myself. I modified many things, I struck out many things, and a great deal I never put down at all.^[1]

Exactly then as in the case of a ladder, if you were to remove some of the rungs, make deep cuts in others, and leave one here and there not properly fixed, you would be planning a not improbable fall for the climber, instead of providing a means of ascent, so, if in his literary efforts a man is not only bound down but crippled by so many cruel restrictions, what can he produce worth listening to, or likely to win approval?

⁴ When, however, I come upon Caesar's own name, I tremble in every limb, not from fear of punishment, but of what he will think of me; for I only partially know him. What do you suppose to be the state of my mind, when it communes thus with itself, "To this he will not object, but this word sounds suspicious; what if I change it? Well, I am afraid the alternative is even worse. Come now, suppose I say a good word for someone; surely I do not thereby offend him? When I proceed to reproach someone, what if he does not like it? He persecutes the pen of a man in arms against him; what will he do to that of a man defeated and not yet reinstated?"

You yourself too increase my fears when in your Orator^[2] you shelter yourself under the wing of Brutus and try to justify yourself by coupling his name with your own. Now, when you, who are every man's advocate, do this, how ought I to feel about it, I, an old client of yours, and now every