ing the expulsion of all philosophers and rhetoricians from Rome. The lordly nation seems to have "Tu been as averse to thinking, as to speaking. regere imperio populos" was their only maxim, and they disdained to rule with any thing but a rod of iron. In proportion however as the Romans acquired a more intimate acquaintance with the Greeks, they became accessible to that all-subduing charm, which accompanies the elegant arts. These gradually obtained the same ascendency, which they had so long enjoyed in Greece, and eloquence was successively tolerated and encouraged, until the study became an indispensable part of education to every young man of fortune or distinction in the city. In the first instance, and for several ages, it was taught only in the Greek language and by Greek professors; insomuch, that when Plotius opened the first school of rhetoric in Latin, which had ever been known, Cicero, then a youth, burning with the ambition of acquiring the oratorical art, was dissuaded by his friends from attending the lessons of this Latin teacher, and adhered to the language and instructers of Greece. The progress of the art, in the public opinion, may be discerned in the rank and station of the persons, who at different

times engaged in the occupation of teaching it. During a certain period it was confined to the class of freedmen, the lowest order of Roman citizens. In process of time it was deemed worthy of employing the time and the faculties of a Roman knight; and thence continued to rise in reputation and influence, until Cato, the censor, Antonius, the orator, so highly celebrated by Cicero, and Cicero' himself, deemed it no disparagement to devote their faculties to the improvement of their fellow citizens in the art of speech. The writings of Cato and of Antonius on this subject have not reached us. And those of several other Roman writers, mentioned by Cicero and Quinctilian, are also lost. They are perhaps not much to be regretted, while we are in possession of Cicero and Quinctilian.

Of Cicero, considered as a practical orator, we shall have occasion to speak much at large in the course of these lectures. In that character he is more or less known to you all. In that character you all admire him already; and I trust, as you advance in years, and in knowledge, will admire him yet more. As a teacher of rhetoric and oratory, he is not so generally read; but his rhetorical works have a recommendation to the student,

beyond all others; because they are the lessons of a consummate master upon his own art. His theory holds a flambeau to his practice, and his practice is a comment upon his theory. It is a remark of Rochefoucault, that no man ever exerted his faculties to the full extent, of which they were capable. If there ever was an exception to the universality of this remark, it was Cicero. He presents the most perfect example of that rare and splendid combination, universal genius and indefatigable application, which the annals of the world can produce. There have been other men as liberally gifted by nature. There may pos

sibly have been men, whose exercise of their faculties has been as incessant. But of that mutual league between nature and study, that compact of ethereal spirit and terrestrial toil, that alliance of heaven and earth, to produce a wonder of the world in human shape, which he has described with such inimitable beauty, in one of his orations, there never was so illustrious, so sublime an instance, as himself.

His rhetorical treatises are seven in number, besides a system in four books, addressed to Herinnius, printed in all the general editions of his works, but probably not written by him.

As a

poet, a historian, a philosopher, a moralist, and an epistolary writer, the rank of Cicero is in the very first line. But by a singular fatality his reputation has been offuscated by its own splendor, and his writings in half a dozen departments of science, which would have carried as many silent writers to the pinnacle of fame, have been shorn of their beams, in the flood of glory, the one unclouded blaze of his eloquence.

1

The uncontrolable propensity of his mind was undoubtedly to oratory. From the twenty sixth year of his age, when he pronounced his oration for Quinctius, to the last year of his life, when he delivered the philippics against Mark Antony; that is, for the space of nearly forty years, his studies in the closet, and his practice in all the stages of oratory, were without intermission. Hence arose the numerous treatises upon the art, which at different times he composed. Some while yet a student, and before he plunged into the bustle of active life; others in the midst of those great political events, in which he bore so distinguished and so admirable a part. But the principal of these works, the work, over which the future orator must consume the last drop of his midnight oil, and hail the first beam of returning dawn, is the

treatise in three books, written in the form of dialogues, and entitled de oratore. They were composed at the request of his brother, when the author's judgment was matured by experience, and his genius in the meridian of its vigor. The. substance of his system is collected from those of Aristotle and Isocrates, the two rival systems of Greece. The form of dialogue, into which he has thrown the work, he adopted from Plato. He supposes a conversation, on the subject of oratory, to have arisen between Antonius, Crassus, and Caesar; three persons of high rank and distinction, the most celebrated orators of their age, and who lived about half a century before him. Each of these interlocutors had been noted for a peculiar characteristic manner, and Cicero, by observing to make each of them speak conformably to his known character, avails himself of the occasion to discuss the important questions, involved in the theories of the art.

The first of these dialogues begins by discussing the various opinions concerning the talents, essential to the composition of an orator. This is in substance only settling the true definition of the art. Yet this gives rise to a useful and instructive examination of fundamental principles.