3

doubt. Let us suppose that a man has attempted the life of a tyrant, and is brought to trial for the deed; will such an orator as is described by us, be unwilling that his life should be saved? and, if he undertake to defend him, will he not support his cause before the judge by the same kind of misrepresentation as he who advocates a bad cause? 41. Or what if a judge would condemn a man for something that was done with justice, unless we convince him that it was not done; would not an orator, by producing such conviction, save the life of a fellow-citizen, when he is not only innocent but deserving of praise? Or what if we know that certain political measures are in contemplation, which, though just in themselves, are rendered detrimental to the commonwealth by the state of the times, shall we not adopt artifices of eloquence to set them aside, artifices which, though wellintended, are nevertheless similar to those of an immoral character?

42. No man, again, will doubt, that if guilty persons can by any means be turned to a right course of life, and it is allowed that they sometimes may, it will be more for the advantage of the state that their lives should be spared than that they should be put to death. If, then, it appear certain to an orator, that a person against whom true accusations are brought, will, if acquitted, become a good member of society, will he not exert himself that he may be acquitted?

43. Suppose, again, that a man who is an excellent general, and without whose aid his country would be unable to overcome her enemies, is accused of a crime of which he is evidently guilty, will not the public good call upon an orator to plead his cause? It is certain that Fabricius made Cornelius Rufinus,* who was in other respects a bad citizen, and his personal enemy, consul, by voting for him when a war threatened the state, because he knew him to be a good general; and when some expressed their surprise at what he had done, he replied, that he had rather be robbed by a citizen than sold for a slave by the enemy. Had Fabricius, therefore, been an orator, would he not have pleaded for Rufinus even though he had been manifestly guilty of robbing his country? 44. Many similar cases might be supposed, but even any one of them is sufficient; for I do not insinuate that the * Cicero de Orat. ii. 66; Aul. Gell. iv. 8,

D D

orator whom I would form should often undertake such causes; I only wish to show that if such a motive as I have mentioned should induce him to do so, the definition of an orator, that he is a good man skilled in speaking, would still be

true.

45. It is necessary, too, for the master to teach, and for the pupil to learn, how difficult cases are to be treated in attempting to establish them; for very often even the best causes resemble bad ones, and an innocent person under accusation may be urged by many probabilities against him; and he must then be defended by the same process of pleading as if he were guilty. There are also innumerable particulars common alike to good and bad causes; as oral and written evidence, and suspicions and prejudices to be overcome. But what is probable is established or refuted by the same methods as what is true. The speech of the orator, therefore, will be modelled as circumstances shall require, uprightness of intention being always maintained.

CHAPTER II.

An orator must study to maintain a high moral character, § 1, 2. Tendencies to virtue implanted by nature may be strengthened by cultivation, 3-9. Division of philosophy into three parts, natural, moral, and dialectic; remarks on the last kind, 10-14. On moral philosophy, 15-20. On natural philosophy, 21-23. Observations on the different sects of philosophers; an orator need not attach himself to any sect in particular, but may be content with learning what is good wherever it is to be found, 24—31.

1. SINCE an orator, then, is a good man, and a good man cannot be conceived to exist without virtuous inclinations, and virtue, though it receives certain impulses from nature, requires notwithstanding to be brought to maturity by instruction, the orator must above all things study morality, and must obtain a thorough knowledge of all that is just and honourable, without which no one can either be a good man or an able speaker. 2. Unless, indeed, we feel inclined to adopt the opinion of those who think that the moral character is formed by nature, and is not at all influenced by discipline; and who

forsooth, acknowledge that manual operations, and even the meanest of them, cannot be acquired without the aid of teachers, but say that we possess virtue, (than which nothing has been given to man that raises him nearer to the immortal gods,) unsought and without labour, simply because we are born what we are. 3. But will that man be temperate, who does not know even what temperance is? Or will that

man be possessed of fortitude, who has used no means to free his mind from the terrors of pain, death, and superstition? Or will that man be just, who has entered into no examination of what is equitable and good, and who has never ascertained from any dissertation of the least learning, the principles either of the laws which are by nature prescribed to all men, or of those which are instituted among particular people and nations? Of how little consequence do they think all this, to whom it appears so easy! 4. But I shall say no more on this point, on which I think that no man, who has tasted of learning, as they say, with but the slightest touch of his lips, will entertain the least doubt.

I pass on to my second proposition,* that no man will ever be thoroughly accomplished in eloquence, who has not gained a deep insight into the impulses of human nature, and formed i his moral character on the precepts of others and on his own reflection. 5. It is not without reason that Lucius Crassus, in the third book De Oratore, asserts that everything that can come under discussion respecting equity, justice, truth, goodness, and whatever is of an opposite nature, are the proper concerns of the orator; and that the philosophers, when they inculcate those virtues with the force of eloquence, use the arms of the orator and not their own. Yet he admits that the knowledge of these subjects must now be sought from philosophy, because philosophy, apparently, seems to him to be more fully in possession of them. 6. Hence also it is that Cicero remarks, in many passages both of his books and of his letters, that the power of eloquence is to be derived

*This must be understood as contained in the latter half of sect. 1. + C. 19, 27, 31.

It would be tedious to refer to passages; and I wish that I could point out a greater number in the letters than I can. But I find one, which I may notice here, in the epistle to Cato (Ad. Fam. xiv. 4) where he says that philosophy was introduced both by Cato and him

from the deepest sources of wisdom, and that accordingly the same persons were for a considerable time the teachers at once of eloquence and of morality.

This exhortation of mine, however, is not designed to intimate that I should wish the orator to be a philosopher, since no other mode of life has withdrawn itself further from the duties of civil society, and all that concerns the orator. 7. Which of the philosophers, indeed, ever frequented courts of justice, or distinguished himself in public assemblies? Which of them ever engaged even in the management of political affairs, on which most of them have given such earnest precepts?* But I should desire the orator, whom I am trying to form, to be a kind of Roman wise man,t who may prove himself a true statesman, not by discussions in retirement, but by personal experience and exertions in public life. 8. But because the pursuits of philosophy have been deserted by those who have devoted their minds to eloquence, and because they no longer display themselves in their proper field of action, and in the open light of the forum, but have retreated, at first into the porticoes and gymnasia, and since into the assemblies of the schools, the orator must seek that which is necessary for him, and which is not taught by the masters of eloquence, among those with whom it has remained, by perusing with the most diligent application the authors that give instruction in virtue, that his life may be in conformity with a thorough knowledge of divine and human things; and how much more important and noble would these things appear, if those were to teach them who could discourse on them with the highest eloquence? 9. Would that there may some day come a time, when some orator, perfect as we wish him to be, may vindicate to himself the study of philosophy, (which has been rendered odious as well by the arrogant assumptions, as by the vices, of those who have disgraced its excellent nature,) and, by a reself to the forum. See de Orat. iii. 15; Tuscul. i. 3; Orat. c. 21. Spalding.

* Quam maximè plerique præcipiunt.] I translate these words according to the notion of Spalding and Gedoyn, believing them to be in the right.

Romanum sapientem.] As Romanus pudor, viii. 3, 39.

Quintilian alludes first to the condition of philosophy among the ancient Greeks, and then to its condition among the Romans in his own. time. Spalding.

conquest as it were, annex it again to the domain of eloquence!

10. As philosophy is divided into three parts, physics, ethics, and dialectics, by which of the three is it not allied with the business of the orator?

To consider them in the order contrary to that in which I have named them, no man can surely doubt whether the last, which is wholly employed about words, concerns the orator, if it be his business to know the exact significations of terms, to clear ambiguities, to disentangle perplexities, to distinguish falsehood from truth, and to establish or refute what he may desire; 11. though, indeed, we shall not have to use these arts with such exactness and preciseness in pleadings in the forum, as is observed in the disputations of the schools; because the orator must not only instruct his audience, but must move and delight them, and to effect that object there is need of energy, animation, and grace; the difference between the orator and the dialectician being as great as that in the courses of rivers of an opposite character; for the force of streams that flow between high banks, and with a full flood, is far greater than that of shallow brooks, with water struggling against the obstructions of pebbles. 12. And as the teachers of wrestling do not instruct their pupils in all the attitudes,† as they call them, that they may use all that they have learned in an actual struggle with an adversary, (for more may be effected by weight, and firmness, and ardour,) but that they may have a large number of artifices, of which they may adopt one or other as occasion may require; 13. so the art of logic, or of disputation, if we had rather give it that name, though it is often of the greatest use in definitions and deductions, in marking differences and in explaining ambiguities, in distinguishing and dividing, in perplexing and entangling, yet, if it assumes to itself the whole conduct of a cause in the forum, will prove but a hindrance to what is better than itself, and will waste, by its very subtilty, the strength that is divided to suit its niceties. 14. We may accordingly see that some people, extremely acute in disputations, are, when they are

*See Sidon. Apollin, carm. xv. Cicero Acad. Quæst. i. 5. Almeloveen. See also Quintilian's Preface, sect. 16, and note. The same division of philosophy is given by Macrobius, Somn. Scip. sub fin., and by Seneca, Epist. lxxxix. Numeros.] Comp. x. 1, 4.