PREFACE. THE text adopted in this selection is that of Baiter and Kayser. In their edition of Cicero's works the letters of Cicero to his friends, and to his brother Quintus, occupy the ninth volume (Leipsic, 1866); and those to Atticus and Brutus the tenth volume (1867.) There are some passages in these selected letters which Baiter and Kayser, and all critical editors, are obliged to print in a hopelessly corrupt state. But inasmuch as the present edition is intended for the use of schools, it seemed desirable to adopt in most cases such conjectural emendations as might enable the passage to bear translation. Besides these graver departures from the text of Baiter, some deviations in spelling have been adopted. The brackets and italics are from Baiter and Kayser, and denote respectively that the words so treated ought probably to be omitted, or inserted. The letters of Cicero appear to have been widely known down to the latest times of the Western Empire, but to have wholly fallen out of knowledge before the middle of the twelfth century. Their rediscovery was reserved for a man who merited such fortune, one of the foremost of the revivers of literature. In the year 1345 the poet Petrarch found at |