Entered according to act of Congress, in the Year 1848, by GEORGE ALEX ANDER OTIS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

TO THE

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,

HELD AT

PHILADELPHIA, FOR THE PROMOTION OF

USEFUL KNOWLEDGE,

THIS fourth edition of "Otis's Botta," is dedicated, in token of acknowledgment for the distinction conferred upon the Translator, on the appearance of the first edition.

This honor was not the less flattering for having been imparted early, and in 1821, before the public voice had been declared upon the merit of the work. "Gloria est consentiens laus bonorum, incurrupta vox bene judicantium de excellenti virtute." The writer has not been unmindful of his obligations as a member of this Society, whose objects are the most noble that man can have in view; but has now in manuscript, a careful translation of Cicero's Offices, Old Age and Friendship, comprising the best system of moral Phi- . losophy, by common consent of the wiser part of mankind, for two thousand years, that the world has ever seen; and of which there has never been an American edition by any other author

Boston, January 9, 1834.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the Year 1848, by GEORGE ALEX ANDER OTIS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

THIS fourth edition of "Otis's Botta," is dedicated, in token of acknowledgment for the distinction conferred upon the Translator, on the appearance of the first edition.

upon

This honor was not the less flattering for having been imparted early, and in 1821, before the public voice had been declared the merit of the work. "Gloria est consentiens laus bonorum, incurrupta vox bene judicantium de excellenti virtute." The writer has not been unmindful of his obligations as a member of this Society, whose objects are the most noble that man can have in view; but has now in manuscript, a careful translation of Cicero's Offices, Old Age and Friendship, comprising the best system of moral Philosophy, by common consent of the wiser part of mankind, for two thousand years, that the world has ever seen; and of which there has never been an American edition by any other author

Boston, January 9, 1834.

THERE will be found, in the course of this history, several discourses of a certain length. Those I have put in the mouth of the different speakers have really been pronounced by them, and upon those very occasions which are treated of in the work. I should however, mention that I have sometimes made a single orator say what has been said in substance by others of the same party. Sometimes, also, but rarely, using the liberty granted in all times to historians, I have ventured to add a small number of phrases, which appeared to me to coincide perfectly with the sense of the orator, and proper to enforce his opinion; this has appeared especially in the two discourses pronounced before congress, for and against independence, by Richard Henry Lee and John Dickinson.

It will not escape attentive readers, that in some of these discourses are found predictions which time has accomplished. I affirm that these remarkable passages belong entirely to the authors cited. In order that these might not resemble those of the poets, always made after the fact, I have been so scrupulous as to translate them, word for word, from the original language.