The advantages gained in both cases by the form of dialogue are evident.

In controverted subjects he is not obliged to discover his own views, he can detail opposite arguments forcibly and luminously, and he is allowed the use of those oratorical powers in which, after all, his great strength lay. In those subjects, on the other hand, which are uninteresting because they are familiar, he may pause or digress before the mind is weary and the attention begins to flag; the reader is carried on by easy journeys and short stages, and novelty in the speaker supplies the want of novelty in the matter. Nor does Cicero discover less skill in the execution of these dialogues than address in their method. It were idle to enlarge upon the beauty, richness, and taste of compositions which have been the admiration of every age and country. In the dignity of his speakers, their high tone of mutual courtesy, the harmony of his groups, and the delicate relief of his contrasts, he is inimitable. The majesty and splendour of his introductions, which generally address themselves to the passions or the imagination, the eloquence with which both sides of a question are successively displayed, the clearness and terseness of his statements on abstract points, the grace of his illustrations, his exquisite allusions to the scene or time of the supposed conversation, his digressions in praise of philosophy or great men, his quotations from Grecian and Roman poetry; lastly, the melody and fulness of his style, unite to throw a charm round his writings peculiar to themselves. To the Roman reader they especially recommended themselves by their continual and most artful references to the heroes of the old republic, who now appeared but exemplars, and (as it were) patrons of that eternal philosophy, which he had before, perhaps, considered as the short-lived reveries of ingenious but inactive men. Nor is there any confusion, want of keeping, or appearance of effort in the introduction of the various beauties we have been enumerating, which are blended together with so much skill and propriety, that it is sometimes difficult to point out the particular sources of the admiration which they inspire.

9.

The series of his rhetorical works[201] has been preserved nearly complete, and consists of the _De Inventione_, _De Oratore_, _Brutus sive de claris Oratoribus_, _Orator sive de optimo genere Dicendi_, _De partitione Oratoria_, _Topica_, and _de optimo genere Oratorum_. The last-mentioned, which is a fragment, is understood to have been the proem to his translation (now lost) of the speeches of Demosthenes and aeschines, _De Corona_. These he translated with the view of defending, by the example of the Greek orators, his own style of eloquence, which, as we shall afterwards find, the critics of the day censured as too Asiatic in its character; and hence the proem, which still survives, is on the subject of the Attic style of oratory. This composition and his abstracts of his own orations[202] are his only rhetorical works not extant, and probably our loss is not very great. The _Treatise on Rhetoric_, addressed to Herennius, though edited with his works, and ascribed to him by several of the ancients, is now generally attributed to Cornificius, or some other writer of the day.

The works, which we have enumerated, consider the art of rhetoric in different points of view, and thus receive from each other mutual support and illustration, while they prevent the tediousness which might else arise, if they were moulded into one systematic treatise on the general subject. Three are in the form of dialogue; the rest are written in his own person. In all, except perhaps the _Orator_, he professes to have availed himself of the principles of the Aristotelic and Isocratean schools, selecting what was best in each of them, and, as occasion might offer, adding remarks and precepts of his own.[203] The subject of Oratory is considered in three distinct lights;[204] with reference to the case, the speaker, and the speech. The case, as respects its nature, is definite or indefinite; with reference to the hearer, it is judicial, deliberative, or descriptive; as regards the opponent, the division is fourfold--according as the fact, its nature, its quality, or its propriety is called in question. The art of the speaker is directed to five points: the discovery of persuasives (whether ethical, pathetical, or argumentative), arrangement, diction, memory, delivery.

And the speech itself consists of six parts: introduction, statement of the case, division of the subject, proof, refutation, and conclusion.

His treatises _De Inventione_ and _Topica_, the first and nearly the last of his compositions, are both on the invention of arguments, which he regards, with Aristotle, as the very foundation of the art; though he elsewhere confines the term eloquence, according to its derivation, to denote excellence of diction and delivery, to the exclusion of argumentative skill.[205] The former of these works was written at the age of twenty, and seems originally to have consisted of four books, of which but two remain.[206] In the first of these he considers rhetorical invention generally, supplies commonplaces for the six parts of an oration promiscuously, and gives a full analysis of the two forms of argument, syllogism and induction. In the second book he applies these rules particularly to the three subject-matters of rhetoric, the deliberative, the judicial, and the descriptive, dwelling principally on the judicial, as affording the most ample field for discussion. This treatise seems for the most part compiled from the writings of Aristotle, Isocrates, and Hermagoras;[207] and as such he alludes to it in the opening of his _De Oratore_ as deficient in the experience and judgment which nothing but time and practice can impart. Still it is an entertaining, nay, useful work; remarkable, even among Cicero's writings, for its uniform good sense, and less familiar to the scholar only because the greater part has been superseded by the compositions of his riper years.

His _Topica_, or treatise on commonplaces, has less extent and variety of plan, being little else than a compendium of Aristotle's work on the same subject. It was, as he informs us in its proem, drawn up from memory on his voyage from Italy to Greece, soon after Caesar's murder, and in compliance with the wishes of Trebatius, who had some time before urged him to undertake the translation.[208]

Cicero seems to have intended his _De Oratore_, _De claris Oratoribus_, and _Orator_, to form one complete system.[209] Of these three noble works the first lays down the principles and rules of the rhetorical art; the second exemplifies them in the most eminent speakers of Greece and Rome; and the third shadows out the features of that perfect orator, whose superhuman excellences should be the aim of our ambition. The _De Oratore_ was written when the author was fifty-two, two years after his return from exile; and is a dialogue between some of the most illustrious Romans of the preceding age on the subject of oratory. The principal speakers are the orators Crassus and Antonius, who are represented unfolding the principles of their art to Sulpicius and Cotta, young men just rising in the legal profession. In the first book, the conversation turns on the subject-matter of rhetoric, and the qualifications requisite for the perfect orator. Here Crassus maintains the necessity of his being acquainted with the whole circle of the arts, while Antonius confines eloquence to the province of speaking well. The dispute for the most part seems verbal; for Cicero himself, though he here sides with Crassus, yet elsewhere, as we have above noticed, pronounces eloquence, strictly speaking, to consist in beauty of diction. Scaevola, the celebrated lawyer, takes part in this preliminary discussion; but, in the ensuing meetings, makes way for Catulus and Caesar, the subject leading to such technical disquisitions as were hardly suitable to the dignity of the aged Augur.[210] The next morning Antonius enters upon the subject of invention, which Caesar completes by subjoining some remarks on the use of humour in oratory; and Antonius, relieving him, finishes the morning discussion with treating of arrangement and memory. In the afternoon the rules for propriety and elegance of diction are explained by Crassus, who was celebrated in this department of the art; and the work concludes with his handling the subject of delivery and action. Such is the plan of the _De Oratore_, the most finished perhaps of Cicero's compositions. An air of grandeur and magnificence reigns throughout. The characters of the aged senators are finely conceived, and the whole company is invested with an almost religious majesty, from the allusions interspersed to the melancholy destinies for which its members were reserved.

His treatise _De claris Oratoribus_ was written after an interval of nine years, about the time of Cato's death, when he was sixty-one, and is thrown into the shape of a dialogue between Brutus, Atticus, and himself. He begins with Solon, and after briefly mentioning the orators of Greece, proceeds to those of his own country, so as to take in the whole period from the time of Junius Brutus down to himself. About the same time he wrote his _Orator_; in which he directs his attention principally to diction and delivery, as in his _De Inventione_ and _Topica_ he considers the matter of an oration.[211] This treatise is of a less practical nature than the rest.[212] It adopts the principles of Plato, and delineates the perfect orator according to the abstract conceptions of the intellect rather than the deductions of observation and experience. Hence he sets out with a definition of the perfectly eloquent man, whose characteristic it is to express himself with propriety on all subjects, whether humble, great, or of an intermediate character;[213] and here he has an opportunity of paying some indirect compliments to himself. With this work he was so well satisfied that he does not scruple to declare, in a letter to a friend, that he was ready to rest on its merits his reputation for judgment in Oratory.[214]

The treatise _De partitione Oratoria_, or on the three parts of rhetoric, is a kind of catechism between Cicero and his son, drawn up for the use of the latter at the same time with the two preceding. It is the most systematic and perspicuous of his rhetorical works, but seems to be but the rough draught of what he originally intended.[215]

10.

The connection which we have been able to preserve between the rhetorical writings of Cicero cannot be attained in his moral, political, and metaphysical treatises; partly from the extent of the subject, partly from the losses occasioned by time, partly from the inconsistency which we have warned the reader to expect in his sentiments. In our enumeration, therefore, we shall observe no other order than that which the date of their composition furnishes.

The earliest now extant is part of his treatise _De Legibus_, in three books; being a sequel to his work on Politics. Both were written in imitation of Plato's treatises on the same subjects.[216] The latter of these (_De Republica_) was composed a year after the _De Oratore_,[217]

and seems to have vied with it in the majesty and interest of the dialogue. It consisted of a series of discussions in six books on the origin and principles of government, Scipio being the principal speaker, but Laelius, Philus, Manilius, and other personages of like gravity taking part in the conversation. Till lately, but a fragment of the fifth book was understood to be in existence, in which Scipio, under the fiction of a dream, inculcates the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. But in the year 1822, Monsignor Mai, librarian of the Vatican, published considerable portions of the first and second books, from a palimpsest manuscript of St. Austin's _Commentary on the Psalms_. In the part now recovered, Scipio discourses on the different kinds of constitutions and their respective advantages; with a particular reference to that of Rome. In the third book, the subject of justice was discussed by Laelius and Philus; in the fourth, Scipio treated of morals and education; while in the fifth and sixth, the duties of a magistrate were explained, and the best means of preventing changes and revolutions in the constitution itself. In the latter part of the treatise, allusion was made to the actual posture of affairs in Rome, when the conversation was supposed to have occurred, and the commotions excited by the Gracchi.

In his treatise _De Legibus_, which was written two years later than the _De Republica_, when he was fifty-five, and shortly after the murder of Clodius, he represents himself as explaining to his brother Quintus and Atticus, in their walks through the woods of Arpinum, the nature and origin of the laws and their actual state, both in other countries and in Rome. The first part only of the subject is contained in the books now extant; the introduction to which we have had occasion to notice, when speaking of his Stoical sentiments on questions connected with State policy. Law he pronounces to be the perfection of reason, the eternal mind, the divine energy, which, while it pervades and unites in one the whole universe, associates gods and men by the more intimate resemblance of reason and virtue, and still more closely men with men, by the participation of common faculties, affections, and situations. He then proves, at length, that justice is not merely created by civil institutions, from the power of conscience, the imperfections of human law, the moral sense, and the disinterestedness of virtue. He next proceeds to unfold the principles, first, of religious law, under the heads of divine worship; the observance of festivals and games; the office of priests, augurs, and heralds; the punishment of sacrilege and purjury; the consecration of land, and the rights of sepulchre; and, secondly, of civil law, which gives him an opportunity of noticing the respective duties of magistrates and citizens. In these discussions, though professedly speaking of the abstract question, he does not hesitate to anticipate the subject of the lost books, by frequent allusions to the history and customs of his own country. It must be added, that in no part of his writings do worse instances occur, than in this treatise, of that vanity which was notoriously his weakness, which are rendered doubly offensive by their being put into the mouth of his brother and Atticus.[218]

Here a period of seven or eight years intervenes, during which he composed little of importance besides his Orations. He then published the _De claris Oratoribus_ and _Orator_; and a year later, when he was sixty-three, his _Academicae Quaestiones_, in the retirement from public business to which he was driven by the dictatorship of Caesar. This work had originally consisted of two dialogues, which he entitled _Catulus_ and _Lucullus_, from the names of the respective speakers in each. These he now remodelled and enlarged into four books, dedicating them to Varro, whom he introduced as advocating, in the presence of Atticus, the tenets of Antiochus, while he himself defended those of Philo. Of this most valuable composition, only the second book (_Lucullus_) of the first edition and part of the first book of the second are now extant.

In the former of those two, Lucullus argues against, and Cicero for, the Academic sect, in the presence of Catulus and Hortensius; in the latter, Varro pursues the history of philosophy from Socrates to Arcesilas, and Cicero continues it down to the time of Carneades. In the second edition the style was corrected, the matter condensed, and the whole polished with extraordinary care and diligence.[219]

The same year he published his treatise _De Finibus_, or "On the chief good," in five books, in which are explained the sentiments of the Epicureans, Stoics, and Peripatetics on the subject. This is the earliest of his works in which the dialogue is of a disputatious character. It is opened with a defence of the Epicurean tenets, concerning pleasure, by Torquatus; to which Cicero replies at length.

The scene then shifts from the Cuman villa to the library of young Lucullus (his father being dead), where the Stoic Cato expatiates on the sublimity of the system which maintains the existence of one only good, and is answered by Cicero in the character of a Peripatetic. Lastly, Piso, in a conversation held at Athens, enters into an explanation of the doctrine of Aristotle, that happiness is the greatest good. The general style of this treatise is elegant and perspicuous; and the last book in particular has great variety and splendour of diction.

It was about this time that Cicero was especially courted by the heads of the dictator's party, of whom Hirtius and Dolabella went so far as to declaim daily at his house for the benefit of his instructions.[220] A visit of this nature to the Tusculan villa, soon after the publication of the _De Finibus_, gave rise to his work entitled _Tusculanae Quaestiones_, which professes to be the substance of five philosophical disputes between himself and friends, digested into as many books. He argues throughout after the manner of an Academic, even with an affectation of inconsistency; sometimes making use of the Socratic dialogue, sometimes launching out into the diffuse expositions which characterise his other treatises.[221] He first disputes against the fear of death; and in so doing he adopts the opinion of the Platonic school, as regards the nature of God and the soul. The succeeding discussions on enduring pain, on alleviating grief, on the other emotions of the mind, and on virtue, are conducted for the most part on Stoical principles.[222] This is a highly ornamental composition, and contains more quotations from the poets than any other of Cicero's treatises.

We have already had occasion to remark upon the singular activity of his mind, which becomes more and more conspicuous as we approach the period of his death. During the ensuing year, which is the last of his life, in the midst of the confusion and anxieties consequent on Caesar's death, and the party warfare of his Philippics, he found time to write the _De Natura Deorum_, _De Divinatione_, _De Fato_, _De Senectute_, _De Amicitia_, _De Officiis_, and _Paradoxa_, besides the treatise on Rhetorical Common Places above mentioned.

Of these, the first three were intended as a full exposition of the conflicting opinions entertained on their respective subjects; the _De Fato_, however, was not finished according to this plan.[223] His treatise _De Natura Deorum_, in three books, may be reckoned the most splendid of all his works, and shows that neither age nor disappointment had done injury to the richness and vigour of his mind. In the first book, Velleius, the Epicurean, sets forth the physical tenets of his sect, and is answered by Cotta, who is of the Academic school. In the second, Balbus, the disciple of the Porch, gives an account of his own system, and is, in turn, refuted by Cotta in the third. The eloquent extravagance of the Epicurean, the solemn enthusiasm of the Stoic, and the brilliant raillery of the Academic, are contrasted with extreme vivacity and humour;--while the sublimity of the subject itself imparts to the whole composition a grander and more elevated character, and discovers in the author imaginative powers, which, celebrated as he justly is for playfulness of fancy, might yet appear more the talent of the poet than the orator.

His treatise _De Divinatione_ is conveyed in a discussion between his brother Quintus and himself, in two books. In the former, Quintus, after dividing Divination into the heads of natural and artificial, argues with the Stoics for its sacred nature, from the evidence of facts, the agreement of all nations, and the existence of divine intelligences. In the latter, Cicero questions its authority, with Carneades, from the uncertain nature of its rules, the absurdity and uselessness of the art, and the possibility of accounting from natural causes for the phenomena on which it was founded. This is a curious work, from the numerous cases adduced from the histories of Greece and Rome to illustrate the subject in dispute.

His treatise _De Fato_ is quite a fragment; it purports to be the substance of a dissertation in which he explained to Hirtius (soon after Consul) the sentiments of Chrysippus, Diodorus, Epicurus, Carneades, and others, upon that abstruse subject. It is supposed to have consisted at least of two books, of which we have but the proem of the first, and a small portion of the second.

In his beautiful compositions, _De Senectute_ and _De Amicitia_, Cato the censor and Laelius are respectively introduced, delivering their sentiments on those subjects. The conclusion of the former, in which Cato discourses on the immortality of the soul, has been always celebrated; and the opening of the latter, in which Fannius and Scaevola come to console Laelius on the death of Scipio, is as exquisite an instance of delicacy and taste in composition as can be found in his works. In the latter he has borrowed largely from the eighth and ninth books of Aristotle's _Ethics_.

His treatise _De Officiis_ was finished about the time he wrote his second Philippic, a circumstance which illustrates the great versatility of his mental powers. Of a work so extensively celebrated, it is enough to have mentioned the name. Here he lays aside the less authoritative form of dialogue, and, with the dignity of the Roman Consul, unfolds, in his own person, the principles of morals, according to the views of the older schools, particularly of the Stoics. It is written in three books, with great perspicuity and elegance of style; the first book treats of the _honestum_, or _virtue_, the second of the _utile_, or _expedience_, and the third adjusts the claims of the two, when they happen to interfere with each other.

His _Paradoxa Stoicorum_ might have been more suitably, perhaps, included in his rhetorical works, being six short declamations in support of the positions of Zeno; in which that philosopher's subtleties are adapted to the comprehension of the vulgar, and the events of the times. The second, fourth, and sixth, are respectively directed against Antony, Clodius, and Crassus. They seem to have suffered from time.[224]

The sixth is the most eloquent, but the argument of the third is strikingly maintained.

Besides the works now enumerated, we have a considerable fragment of his translation of Plato's _Timaeus_, which he seems to have finished in his last year. His remaining philosophical works, viz.: the _Hortensius_, which was a defence of philosophy; _De Gloria_; _De Consolatione_, written upon Platonic principles on his daughter's death; _De Jure Civili_, _De Virtutibus_, _De Auguriis_, _Chorographia_, translations of Plato's _Protagoras_, and Xenophon's _OEconomics_, works on Natural History, Panegyric on Cato, and some miscellaneous writings, are, except a few fragments, entirely lost.

His Letters, about one thousand in all, are comprised in thirty-six books, sixteen of which are addressed to Atticus, three to his brother Quintus, one to Brutus, and sixteen to his different friends; and they form a history of his life from his fortieth year. Among those addressed to his friends, some occur from Brutus, Metellus, Plancius, Caelius, and others. For the preservation of this most valuable department of Cicero's writings, we are indebted to Tyro, the author's freedman, though we possess, at the present day, but a part of those originally published. As his correspondence with his friends belongs to his character as a man and politician, rather than to his literary aspect, we have already noticed it in the first part of this memoir.

His Poetical and Historical works have suffered a heavier fate. The latter class, consisting of his commentary on his consulship and his history of his own times, is altogether lost. Of the former, which consisted of the heroic poems _Halcyone_, _Limon_, _Marius_, and his Consulate, the elegy of _Tamelastes_, translations of Homer and Aratus, epigrams, etc., nothing remains, except some fragments of the _Phaenomena_ and _Diosemeia_ of Aratus. It may, however, be questioned whether literature has suffered much by these losses. We are far, indeed, from speaking contemptuously of the poetical talent of one who possessed so much fancy, so much taste, and so fine an ear.[225] But his poems were principally composed in his youth; and afterwards, when his powers were more mature, his occupations did not allow even to his active mind the time necessary for polishing a language still more rugged in metre than it was in prose. His contemporary history, on the other hand, can hardly have conveyed more explicit, and certainly would have contained less faithful, information than his private correspondence; while, with all the penetration he assuredly possessed, it may be doubted if his diffuse and graceful style was adapted for the deep and condensed thoughts and the grasp of facts and events which are the chief excellences of historical composition.

11.

The Orations which he is known to have composed amount in all to about eighty, of which fifty-nine, either entire or in part, are preserved. Of these some are deliberative, others judicial, others descriptive; some delivered from the rostrum, or in the senate; others in the forum, or before Caesar; and, as might be anticipated from the character already given of his talents, he is much more successful in pleading or in panegyric than in debate or invective. In deliberative oratory, indeed, great part of the effect of the composition depends on its creating in the hearer a high opinion of the speaker; and, though Cicero takes considerable pains to interest the audience in his favour, yet his style is not simple and grave enough, he is too ingenious, too declamatory, discovers too much personal feeling, to elicit that confidence in him, without which argument has little influence. His invectives, again, however grand and imposing, yet, compared with his calmer and more familiar productions, have a forced and unnatural air. Splendid as is the eloquence of his Catilinarians and Philippics, it is often the language of abuse rather than of indignation; and even his attack on Piso, the most brilliant and imaginative of its kind, becomes wearisome from want of ease and relief. His laudatory orations, on the other hand, are among his happiest efforts. Nothing can exceed the taste and beauty of those for the Manilian law, for Marcellus, for Ligarius, for Archias, and the ninth Philippic, which is principally in praise of Servius Sulpicius. But it is in judicial eloquence, particularly on subjects of a lively cast, as in his speeches for Caelius and Muraena, and against Caecilius, that his talents are displayed to the best advantage. In both these departments of oratory the grace and amiableness of his genius are manifested in their full lustre, though none of his orations are without tokens of those characteristic excellences. Historical allusions, philosophical sentiments, descriptions full of life and nature, and polite raillery, succeed each other in the most agreeable manner, without appearance of artifice or effort. Such are his pictures of the confusion of the Catilinarian conspirators on detection;[226] of the death of Metellus;[227] of Sulpicius undertaking the embassy to Antony;[228] the character he draws of Catiline;[229] and his fine sketch of old Appius, frowning on his degenerate descendant Clodia.[230]

These, however, are but incidental and occasional artifices to divert and refresh the mind, since his Orations are generally laid out according to the plan proposed in rhetorical works; the introduction, containing the ethical proof; the body of the speech, the argument, and the peroration addressing itself to the passions of the judges. In opening his case, he commonly makes a profession of timidity and diffidence, with a view to conciliate the favour of his audience; the eloquence, for instance, of Hortensius, is so powerful,[231] or so much prejudice has been excited against his client,[232] or it is his first appearance in the rostrum,[233] or he is unused to speak in an armed assembly,[234] or to plead in a private apartment.[235] He proceeds to entreat the patience of his judges; drops out some generous or popular sentiment, or contrives to excite prejudice against his opponent. He then states the circumstances of his case, and the intended plan of his oration; and here he is particularly clear. But it is when he comes actually to prove his point that his oratorical powers begin to have their full play. He accounts for everything so naturally, makes trivial circumstances tell so happily, so adroitly converts apparent objections into confirmations of his argument, connects independent facts with such ease and plausibility, that it becomes impossible to entertain a question on the truth of his statement. This is particularly observable in his defence of Cluentius, where prejudices, suspicions, and difficulties are encountered with the most triumphant ingenuity; in the antecedent probabilities of his _Pro Milone_;[236] in his apology for Muraena's public,[237] and Caelius's private life,[238] and his disparagement of Verres's military services in Sicily;[239] it is observable too in the address with which the Agrarian law of Rullus,[240] and the accusation of Rabirius,[241] both popular measures, are represented to be hostile to public liberty; with which Milo's impolitic unconcern is made a touching incident;[242] and Cato's attack upon the crowd of clients which accompanied the candidate for office, a tyrannical disregard for the feelings of the poor.[243] So great indeed is his talent, that he even hurts a good cause by an excess of plausibility.

But it is not enough to have barely proved his point; he proceeds, either immediately, or towards the conclusion of his speech, to heighten the effect by amplification.[244] Here he goes (as it were) round and round his object; surveys it in every light; examines it in all its parts; retires, and then advances; turns and re-turns it; compares and contrasts it; illustrates, confirms, enforces his view of the question, till at last the hearer feels ashamed of doubting a position which seems built on a foundation so strictly argumentative. Of this nature is his justification of Rabirius in taking up arms against Saturninus;[245] his account of the imprisonment of the Roman citizens by Verres, and of the crucifixion of Gavius;[246] his comparison of Antony with Tarquin;[247]

and the contrast he draws of Verres with Fabius, Scipio, and Marius.[248]

And now, having established his case, he opens upon his opponent a discharge of raillery, so delicate and good-natured, that it is impossible for the latter to maintain his ground against it. Or where the subject is too grave to admit this, he colours his exaggeration with all the bitterness of irony or vehemence of passion. Such are his frequent delineations of Gabinius, Piso, Clodius, and Antony;[249]

particularly his vivid and almost humorous contrast of the two consuls, who sanctioned his banishment, in his oration for Sextius.[250] Such the celebrated account (already referred to) of the crucifixion of Gavius by Verres, which it is difficult to read, even at the present day, without having our feelings roused against the merciless Praetor. But the appeal to the gentler emotions of the soul is reserved (perhaps with somewhat of sameness) for the close of his oration; as in his defence of Cluentius, Muraena, Caelius, Milo, Sylla, Flaccus, and Rabirius Postumus; the most striking instances of which are the poetical burst of feeling with which he addresses his client Plancius,[251] and his picture of the desolate condition of the Vestal Fonteia, should her brother be condemned.[252] At other times, his peroration contains more heroic and elevated sentiments; as in his invocation of the Alban groves and altars in the peroration of the _Pro Milone_, the panegyric on patriotism, and the love of glory in his defence of Sextius, and that on liberty at the close of the third and tenth Philippics.[253]

12.

But it is by the invention of a style, which adapts itself with singular felicity to every class of subjects, whether lofty or familiar, philosophical or forensic, that Cicero answers even more exactly to his own definition of a perfect orator[254] than by his plausibility, pathos, and brilliancy. It is not, however, here intended to enter upon the consideration of a subject so ample and so familiar to all scholars as Cicero's diction, much less to take an extended view of it through the range of his philosophical writings and familiar correspondence.

Among many excellences, the greatest is its suitableness to the genius of the Latin language; though the diffuseness thence necessarily resulting has exposed it, both in his own days and since his time, to the criticisms of those who have affected to condemn its Asiatic character, in comparison with the simplicity of Attic writers, and the strength of Demosthenes.[255] Greek, however, is celebrated for its copiousness in vocabulary, for its perspicuity, and its reproductive power; and its consequent facility of expressing the most novel or abstruse ideas with precision and elegance. Hence the Attic style of eloquence was plain and simple, because simplicity and plainness were not incompatible with clearness, energy, and harmony. But it was a singular want of judgment, an ignorance of the very principles of composition, which induced Brutus, Calvus, Sallust, and others to imitate this terse and severe beauty in their own defective language, and even to pronounce the opposite kind of diction deficient in taste and purity. In Greek, indeed, the words fall, as it were, naturally, into a distinct and harmonious order; and, from the exuberant richness of the materials, less is left to the ingenuity of the artist. But the Latin language is comparatively weak, scanty, and unmusical; and requires considerable skill and management to render it expressive and graceful. Simplicity in Latin is scarcely separable from baldness; and justly as Terence is celebrated for chaste and unadorned diction, yet, even he, compared with Attic writers, is flat and heavy.[256] Again, the perfection of strength is clearness united to brevity; but to this combination Latin is utterly unequal. From the vagueness and uncertainty of meaning which characterises its separate words, to be perspicuous it must be full. What Livy, and much more Tacitus, have gained in energy, they have lost in lucidity and elegance; the correspondence of Brutus with Cicero is forcible, indeed, but harsh and abrupt. Latin, in short, is not a philosophical language, not a language in which a deep thinker is likely to express himself with purity or neatness. Cicero found it barren and dissonant, and as such he had to deal with it. His good sense enabled him to perceive what could be done, and what it was in vain to attempt; and happily his talents answered precisely to the purpose required. He may be compared to a clever landscape-gardener, who gives depth and richness to narrow and confined premises by ingenuity and skill in the disposition of his trees and walks. Terence and Lucretius had cultivated simplicity; Cotta, Brutus, and Calvus had attempted strength; but Cicero rather made a language than a style; yet not so much by the invention as by the combination of words. Some terms, indeed, his philosophical subjects obliged him to coin;[257] but his great art lies in the application of existing materials, in converting the very disadvantages of the language into beauties,[258] in enriching it with circumlocutions and metaphors, in pruning it of harsh and uncouth expressions, in systematizing the structure of a sentence.[259]

This is that _copia dicendi_ which gained Cicero the high testimony of Caesar to his inventive powers,[260] and which, we may add, constitutes him the greatest master of composition that the world has seen.

13.

Such, then, are the principal characteristics of Cicero's oratory; on a review of which we may, with some reason, conclude that Roman eloquence stands scarcely less indebted to his works than Roman philosophy. For, though in his _De claris Oratoribus_ he begins his review from the age of Junius Brutus, yet, soberly speaking (and as he seems to allow in the opening of the _De Oratore_), we cannot assign an earlier date to the rise of eloquence among his countrymen, than that of the same Athenian embassy which introduced the study of philosophy. To aim, indeed, at persuasion, by appeals to the reason or passions, is so natural, that no country, whether refined or barbarous, is without its orators. If, however, eloquence be the mere power of persuading, it is but a relative term, limited to time and place, connected with a particular audience, and leaving to posterity no test of its merits but the report of those whom it has been successful in influencing; but we are speaking of it as the subject-matter of an art.[261]

The eloquence of Carneades and his associates had made (to use a familiar term) a great sensation among the Roman orators, who soon split into two parties,--the one adhering to the rough unpolished manners of their forefathers, the other favouring the artificial graces which distinguished the Grecian rhetoricians. In the former class were Cato and Laelius,[262] both men of cultivated minds, particularly Cato, whose opposition to Greek literature was founded solely on political considerations. But, as might have been expected, the Athenian cause had prevailed; and Carbo and the two Gracchi, who are the principal orators of the next generation, are praised as masters of an oratory learned, majestic, and harmonious in its character.[263] These were succeeded by Antonius, Crassus, Cotta, Sulpicius, and Hortensius; who, adopting greater liveliness and variety of manner, form a middle age in the history of Roman eloquence. But it was in that which immediately followed that the art was adorned by an assemblage of orators, which even Greece will find it difficult to match. Of these Caesar, Cicero, Curio, Brutus, Caelius, Calvus, and Callidius, are the most celebrated.

The talents, indeed, of Caesar were not more conspicuous in arms than in his style, which was noted for its force and purity.[264] Caelius, whom Cicero brought forward into public life, excelled in natural quickness, loftiness of sentiment, and politeness in attack;[265] Brutus in philosophical gravity, though he sometimes indulged himself in a warmer and bolder style.[266] Callidius was delicate and harmonious; Curio bold and flowing; Calvus, from studied opposition to Cicero's peculiarities, cold, cautious, and accurate.[267] Brutus and Calvus have been before noticed as the advocates of the dry sententious mode of speaking, which they dignified by the name of Attic; a kind of eloquence which seems to have been popular from the comparative facility with which it was attained.

In the Ciceronian age the general character of the oratory was dignified and graceful. The popular nature of the government gave opportunities for effective appeals to the passions; and, Greek literature being as yet a novelty, philosophical sentiments were introduced with corresponding success. The republican orators were long in their introductions, diffuse in their statements, ample in their divisions, frequent in their digressions, gradual and sedate in their perorations.[268] Under the Emperors, however, the people were less consulted in state affairs; and the judges, instead of possessing an almost independent authority, being but delegates of the executive, from interested politicians became men of business; literature, too, was now familiar to all classes; and taste began sensibly to decline. The national appetite felt a craving for stronger and more stimulating compositions. Impatience was manifested at the tedious majesty and formal graces, the parade of arguments, grave sayings, and shreds of philosophy,[269] which characterized their fathers; and a smarter and more sparkling kind of oratory succeeded,[270] just as in our own country the minuet of the last century has been supplanted by the quadrille, and the stately movements of Giardini have given way to Rossini's brisker and more artificial melodies. Corvinus, even before the time of Augustus, had shown himself more elaborate and fastidious in his choice of expressions.[271] Cassius Severus, the first who openly deviated from the old style of oratory, introduced an acrimonious and virulent mode of pleading.[272] It now became the fashion to decry Cicero as inflated, languid, tame, and even deficient in ornament;[273]

Mecaenas and Gallio followed in the career of degeneracy; till flippancy of attack, prettiness of expression, and glitter of decoration prevailed over the bold and manly eloquence of free Rome.

FOOTNOTES:

[93] De Legg. i. 1, ii. 1.

[94] Contra Rull. ii. 1.