< Let our orator then reject every expreflion that is obsolete, and grown rufty, as it were, by age: let him ⚫ be careful not to weaken the force of his fentiments by a heavy and inartificial combination of words, like our < dull compilers of annals: let him avoid all low and infipid raillery; in a word, let him vary the structure of his periods, nor end every fentence ⚫ with the fame uniform close.

I will not expofe the meanness of 'Cicero's conceits, nor his affectation

of concluding almost every other period with, as it should seem, instead of ⚫ pointing them with fome lively and fpirited turn. I mention even these with reluctance, and pafs over many ⚫others of the fame injudicious caft. It is fingly, however, in little affectations of this kind, that they who are pleased to ftyle themselves antient orators feem to admire and imitate him. I shall content myself with defcribing their characters, without mentioning their names: but, you are fenfible, there are certain pretenders to taste who prefer Lucilius to Horace, and Lucretius to Virgil; who hold the 'eloquence of your favourite Baffus or Nonianus in the utmolt contempt, when compared with that of Sifenna or Varro; in a word, who defpife thè • productions of our modern rhetoricians, yet are in raptures with those of Calvus. Thefe curious orators " prate in the courts of judicature after the manner of the antients, (as they call it) till they are deferted by the whole audience, and are fcarce fup'portable even to their very clients. The truth of it is, that foundness of 'eloquence which they fo much boast, is but an evidence of the natural ⚫ weakness of their genius, as it is the effect alone of tame and cautious art. No physician would pronounce a man 'to enjoy a proper conftitution, whose health proceeded entirely from a studied and abftemious regimen. To be only not indifpofed, is but a small acquifition; it is fpirits, vivacity, and vigour, that I require: whatever comes 'fhort of this, is but one remove from ⚫ imbecillity.

Be it then (as with great ease it may, and in fact is) the glorious diftinction ' of you, my illuftrious friends, to en

noble our age with the moft refined eloquence. It is with infinite fatis faction, Meffalla, I obferve, that you fingle out the most florid among the antients for your model. And you, my other two ingenious friends *, fo happily unite ftrength of fentiment with beauty of expreffion; fuch a pregnancy of imagination, fuch a fym. C metry of ordonnance distinguish your fpeeches; fo copious or fo concife is your elocution, as different occafions require; fuch an inimitable gracefulnefs of style, and fuch an easy flow of wit, adorn and dignify your compofitions: in a word, fo abfolutely you command the paffions of your audience, and fo happily temper your own, that, however the envy and malignity of the prefent age may withold that applaufe which is fo justly your due, pofterity, you may rely upon it, will fpeak of you in the advantageous terms which you well deferve.'

When Aper had thus finished- It 'must be owned,' faid Maternus, 'our 'friend has spoken with much force and fpirit. What a torrent of learning and eloquence has he poured forth in defence of the moderns! and how 'compleatly vanquished the antients with thofe very weapons which he 'borrowed from them! However,' continued he, applying himself to Messalla, you must not recede from your engagement. Not that we expect you ⚫ thould enter into a defence of the antients, or fuppofe (however Aper is 'pleased to compliment) that any of us can ftand in competition with them.

Aper himself does not fincerely think fo, I dare fay; but takes the oppofite 'fide in the debate, merely in imitation ⚫ of the celebrated manner of antiquity.

We do not defire you, therefore, to entertain us with a panegyric upon "the antients: their well-established reputation places them far above the want of our encomiums. But what we request of you is, to account for our having fo widely departed from that noble species of eloquence which they difplayed: efpecially fince we are not, according to Aper's calculation, more than a hundred and twenty years diftant from Cicero.'

'I fhall endeavour,' returned Meffalia, to pursue the plan you have laid

P

• down

4 down to me. I shall not enter into the question with Aper, (though indeed he is the firft that ever made it one) whether thofe who flourished above a century before us, can properly be styled antients. I am not difpofed to contend about words: let them be called antients, or ancestors, or wh tever other name he pledics, fo it be allowed their oratory was fuperior to ours. I admit too, what he just now advanced, that there are various kinds of cloquence diconible in the fame perioni; much more in different ages. But as among the Attic orators, Demosthenes is placed in the first rank, then Elchines, Hyperides next, and after him Lyfias and Lycurgus; an æra, which on all hands is agreed to have been the prime feafon of oratory: fo among us, Cicero is by universi content preferred to all his cout mporsies; as after him, Calvus, Allains, Cæfar, Coelius, and Brutus, are juitly acknowledged to have exceiled all our preceding or fubfequent orators. Nor is it of any importance to the prefent argument, that they differ in manner, fince they agree in kind. The compofitions of Calvus, it is confeffed, are diftinguished by their remarkable concifenefs; as thofe of Afinius are by the harmonious flow of his language. Brilliancy of fentiment is Cæfar's characteristic; as poignancy of wit is that of Coelius. Solidity recommends the fpeeches of Brutus; while copioufnels, ftrength, f and vehemence, are the predominant qualities in Cicero. Each of them, however, displays an equal foundness, ' of eloquence; and one may easily difcover a general resemblance and kind( ied likencis run through their feveral works, though diverfified, indeed, according to their refpective geniulės. That they mutually detracted from each other, (is it must be owned there are fome remaining traces of malignity ⚫ in their letters) is not to be imputed to them as orators, but as men. Calfvos, Afinius, and even Cicero himfelf, were liable, no doubt, to be infeted with jealoufy, as well as with other human frailties and imperfecdions. Brutus, however, I will tingly except from all imputations of magnity, as I am perfuaded he spoke the fincere and impartial fentiments of his heart: for can it be fuppofed that

HE fhould envy Cicero, who does not feem to have envied even Cæfar himfelf? As to Galba, Lælius, and fome others of the antients, whom Aper has thought proper to condemn, I am willing to admit that they have fome defects, which must be afcribed to a growing and yet immature eloquence.

ers,

After all, if we muft relinquish the nobler kind of oratory, and adopt fome lower fpecies, I fhould certainly prefer the impetuofity of Gracchus, or the incorrectness of Craffus, to the ftudied foppery of Mecenas, or the childish jingle of Gallio: so much ra⚫ther would I fee eloquence cloathed in the molt rude and negligent garb, • than decked out with the falle colours ' of affected ornament! There is fomething in our preient manner of elocution, which is fo far trom being oratorical, that it is not even manly; and one would imagine our modern pleadby the levity of their wit, the af. ⚫fected fimoothness of their periods, and ⚫ licentioufnefs of their tyle, had a view to the stage in all their compofitions. Accordingly, fome of them are not ashamed to boaft (which one can scarce even mention with ut a blush) that their speeches are adapted to the foft modulation of tage mufic. It is this depravity of rafte which has given rise to the very indecent and prepost rous, though very frequent, expreflion, that fuch an orator peaks fmoothly, and • fuch a dancer moves elequently. I am willing to admit, therefore, that Calfius Severns, (the fingle modern whom Aper has thought proper to name) when compared to thete his degenerate fucceflors, may juttly be deemed an orator; though, it is certain, in the greater part of his compofitions there appears far more ftrength than spirit. He was the first who neglected chality of thy ie, and propriety of method. Inexpert in the use of thofe very weapons with which he engages, he ever lays himself open to a thiuft, by always endeavouring to attack; and one

however, has Aper ventured to bring ⚫ into the field. I imagined, that after having depofed Afinius, and Cœlius, and Calvus, he would have fubitituted another fet of orators in their place, and that he had numbers to produce in oppofition to Cicero, to Cæfar, and the rest whom he rejected; or at least, one rival to each of them. On the contrary, he has diftinctly and • fepararely cenfured all the antients, while he has ventured to commend the moderns in general only. He thought, perhaps, if he fingled out fome, he should draw upon himself ⚫ the relentment of all the reft: for every ⚫ declaimer among them modestly ranks himfelf, in his own fond opinion, before Cicero, though indeed after Gabinianus. But what Aper was not hardy enough to undertake, I will be bold to execute for him; and draw out his oratorical heroes in full view, that it may appear by what degrees the fpirit and vigour of antient eloquence was impaired and broken.'

6

Let me rather intreat you,' faid Maternus, interrupting him, to enter, without any farther preface, upon the

4

For is it not

reft of this company. obvious that Eloquence, together with the rest of the politer arts, has fallen from her antient glory, not for want of admirers, but through the diflo ⚫lutenets of our youth, the negligence of parents, the ignorance of precep6 tors, and the univerial difregard of antient manners? Evils, which derived their fource from Rome, and thence fpread themselves through Italy, and over all the provinces; though the mifchief, indeed, is moft obfervable within our own walls. I fhall take notice, therefore, of those vices to which the youth of this city are more peculiarly expofed; which rife upon them in number as they increafe in years. But before I enter farther into this fubje&t, let me premife an obfervation or two concerning the judicious method of difcipline practifed by our ancestors, in training up their children.

In the first place, then, the virtuous matrons of thofe wifer ages did not abandon their infants to the mean hovels of mercenary nurfes, but tenderly reared them up at their own breafts; eiteeming the careful regula

That we are inferior to the antients in point of eloquence, I by no means want to have proved, being entirely of that opinion; but my prefent enquiry is how to account for our finking to far below them? A question, it feems, you have examined, and which I am perfuaded you would dif'cufs with much calmness, if Aper's ⚫ unmerciful attack upon your favourite

orators had not a little difcompofed " you. I am nothing offended, returned Meffalla, with the fentiments which Aper has advanced; neither ought you, my friends, remembering always that it is an established law in ⚫ debates of this kind, that every man 'may with entire fecurity difclofe his ⚫ unreserved opinion.'-' Proceed then, 'I beseech you,' replied Maternus, to the examination of this point concerning the antients, with a freedom equal to theirs: from which I fufpect, alas! we have more widely degenerated, than even from their eloquence.'

The caufe,' faid Meffalia, refuming his difcourie, does not lie very remote; and, though you are pleate to call upon me to affign it, is well known, 'I doubt not, both to you and to the

concerns as the highest point of female merit. It was cuftomary with them likewife to chufe out fome elderly female relation, of approved conduct, with whom the family in general entrusted the care of their refpective children, during their i fant years. This venerable perfon ftrictly regulated, not only their more serious purfuits, but even their very amusements; reftraining them, by her respected prefence, from laying or acting any thing contrary to decency and good manners. In this manner, we are informed, Cornelia the mother of the two Gracchi, as alfo Aurelia and Attia, to whom Julius and Auguftus Cæfar owed their respective births, undertook this office of family education, and trained up thofe feveral noble youths to whom they were related. This method of discipline was attended with one very fingular advantage: the minds of young men were conducted found and untainted to the study of the noble arts. Accordingly, whatever profeffion they determined upon, whether that of arms, eloquence, or law, they entirely devoted themselves to that fingle purfuit, and with undif P 2 ipated

fipated application, poffeffed the whole compafs of their chofen fcience.

But, in the prefent age, the little boy is delegated to the care of fome paltry Greek chamber-maid, in eonjunction with two or three other fervants, (and even thofe generally of the worst kind) who are abfolutely unfit for every rational and ferious office. From the idle tales and grofs abfurdities of thefe worthless people, the tender and uninftructed mind is fuffered to receive it's earliest impreffions. It cannot, indeed, be fuppofed, that any caution fhould be obferved among the domeftics; fince the parents themselves are fo far from training their young families to virtue and modefty, that they fet them the firit examples of luxury and licentioufnels. Thus our youth gradually acquire a ⚫ confirmed habit of impudence, and a total difregard of that reverence they ⚫owe both to themselves and to others. To fay truth, it feems as if a fondnels for horses, actors, and gladiators, the peculiar and diftinguithing folly of this our city, was impreffed upon ⚫ them even in the womb: and when once a paffion of this contemptible fort has feized and engaged the mind, what opening is there left for the noble

arts?'

All converfation in general is infected with topics of this kind; as they are the conftant fubjects of difcourfe, not only amongit our youth in their academies, but even of their 'tutors themfelves. For it is not by establishing a strict difcipline, or by giving proofs of their genius, that this order of men gain pupils: it is by the ⚫ meanest compliances and mott fervile flattery. Not to mention how ill inthucted our youth are in the very elements of literature, fufficient pains is by no means taken in bringing them acquainted with the belt authors, or in giving them a proper notion of hiftory, together with a knowledge of men and things. The whole that feems to be confidered in their education, is, to find out a perion for them calle i a Rhetorician. I fhall take occasion immediately, to give you fome account of the rife and progrefs of this profeffion in Rome, and fhew you with what contempt it was received by our anceflors. But it will be neceffary to ⚫lay before you a previous view of that

<

fcheme of difcipline which the antient orators practifed; of whofe amazing industry and unwearied application to every branch of the polite arts, we meet with many remarkable accounts in their own writings.

I need not inform you, that Cicero, in the latter end of his treatise intitled Brutus, (the former part of which is employed in commemorating the an'tient orators) gives a sketch of the feveral progreffive fteps by which he formed his eloquence. He there acquaints us, that he ftudied the civil law under Q. Mucius; that he was in'ftructed in the feveral branches of philofophy by Philo the Academic, and Diodorus the Stoic; that not fatisfied with attending the lectures of thofe • eminent mafters, of which there were at that time great numbers in Rome, he made a voyage into Greece and Afia, in order to enlarge his knowledge, and embrace the whole circle of fciences. Accordingly he appears by his writings to have been master of logic, ethics, aftronomy, and natural philofophy, befides being well verfed in geometry, mufic, grammar, and, in short, in every one of the fine arts. For thus it is, my worthy friends; from deep learning and the united confluence of the arts and fciences, the relittlefs torrent of that amazing eloquence derived it's ftrength • and rapidity.

The faculties of the orator are not exercised, indeed, as in other sciences, within certain precife and determinate limits: on the contrary, eloquence is the most comprehenfive of the whole circle of arts. Thus he alone can juftiy be deemed an orator, who 'knows how to employ the most perfuafive arguments upon every queftion; who can exprefs himself suitably to the dignity of his fubject, with all the powers of grace and harmony; in a word, who can penetrate into every minute circumitance, and manage the whole train of incidents to the greateft advantage of his caufe. Such, at leaf, was the high idea which the antients formed of this illuftrious character. In order however to attain this eminent qualification, they did not think it neceffary to declaim in the fchools, and idlywatte their breath upon feigned or frivolous controverfies. It was their wifer method, to apply themfelves

'themselves to the study of fuch useful

arts as concern life and manners, as treat of moral good and evil, of justice " and injustice, of the decent and the unbecoming in actions. And, indeed,

it is upon points of this nature that the 'bufinefs of the orator principally turns. For example, in the judiciary kind it ' relates to matters of equity; as in the 'deliberate it is employed in determin'ing the fit and the expedient: ftill, however, thefe two branches are not

'fo abfolutely diftinct, but that they are frequently blended with each other. 'Now it is impoffible, when questions

of this kind fall under the confidera'tion of an orator, to enlarge upon 'them in all the elegant and enlivening

"

fpirit of an efficacious eloquence, unles he is perfectly well acquainted 'with human nature; unless he underftands the power and extent of moral duties, and can diftinguish thofe ac'tions which do not partake either of 'vice or virtue.

From the fame fource, likewife, he 'mult derive his influence over the paf'lons. For if he is fkilled, for instance, in the nature of indignation, he will be fo much the more capable of foothing or enflaming the breafts of his juages: if he knows wherein compaf'fion confifts, and by what workings of 'the heart it is moved, he will the more

eafily raife that tender affection of the 'foul. An orator trained up in this difcipline, and practifed in thefe arts, will have full command over the 'breasts of his audience, in whatever difpofition it may he his chance to find them: and thus furnished with all the numberless powers of perfuafion, will judiciously vary and accommodate his eloquence, as particular circumstances

and conjunctures fhall require. There

are fome, we find, who are most struck 'with that manner of elocution, where the arguments are drawn up in a fhort and clofe ftyle: upon fuch an occafion the orator will experience the great advantage of being converfant in logic. Others, on the contrary, admire flow

ing and diffufive periods, where the 'illuftrations are borrowed from the ordinary and familiar images of common 'obfervation: here the Peripatetic writers will give him fome affiftance; as ' indeed they will, in general, fupply him with many useful hints in all the 'different methods of popular address.

The Academics will infpire him with a becoming warmth: Plato with fublimity of fentiments, and Xenophon with an eafy and elegant diction. Even the exclamatory manner of Epicurus, or Metrodorus, may be found, in fome circumstances, not altogether unferviceable. In a word, what the Stoics pretend of their wife man, ought to be verified in our orator; and he fhould actually poffefs all human knowledge. Accordingly, the antients who applied themfelves to eloquence, not only ftudied the civil laws, but alfo grammar, poetry, mufic, and geometry. Indeed, there are few caufes (perhaps I might justly fay there are none) wherein a skill in the first is not abfolutely neceffary; as there are many in which an acquaint· ance with the last mentioned sciences is highly requifite.

If it should be objected, that "Eloquence is the fingle science requifite "for the orator; as an occafional re"course to the others will be fufficient "for all his purposes:" I answer; in the first place, there will always be a remarkable difference in the manner of applying what we take up, as it were, upon loan, and what we properly poffefs; fo that it will ever be manifeft, whether the orator is indebted to others for what he produces, or derives it from his own unborrowed fund. And in the next, the sciences throw an inexpreffible grace over our compofitions, even where they are not 'immediately concerned; as their ef'fects are difcernible where we leaft ex

charm is not only diftinguished by the learned and the judicious, but strikes even the most common and popular clafs of auditors; infomuch that one may frequently hear them applauding a fpeaker of this improved kind, as a man of genuine erudition; as enriched with the whole treasures of eloquence; and, in one word, acknowledge the 'complete orator. But I will take the liberty to affirm, that no man ever did, nor indeed ever can, maintain that exalted character, unlefs he enters the forum fupported by the full ftrength of the united arts. Accomplishments, however, of this fort, are now fo totally neglected, that the pleadings of our orators are debafed by the lowest ' expreffions; as a general ignorance • both