Forty-four years before Christ, Julius Cæsar was assassinated by Brutus
and his associates in the senate-house of Rome, in the 56th year of his
age. He is said to have conquered three hundred nations, taken eight
hundred cities, defeated three hundred millions of men, and slain one
hundred millions on the field of battle. He was learned himself, and an
encourager of learning and the arts. He wrote the “Commentaries on the
wars of Gaul,” a book which bears his name, and which would have been
lost in the bay of Alexandria, if he had not swam from his ship with his
book in one hand, and his arms in the other. His ruling passion was
ambition, yet he was a slave to sensuality; with talents that might have
made him the protector of Roman liberty he destroyed it.
1784. Dr. Thomas Franklin, translator of Sophocles, Phalaris, and
Lucian, died. He was born about 1720, and wrote two tragedies, the “Earl
of Warwick” and “Matilda.”
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