No More Learning

In the course of that
correspondence, we plainly see what was Cicero's opinion of those
eminent men. The former [k] appeared to him cold and languid; the
latter [l], disjointed, loose, and negligent. On the other hand, we
know what they thought in return: Calvus did not hesitate to say, that
Cicero was diffuse luxuriant to a fault, and florid without vigour.
Brutus, in express terms, says, he was weakened into length, and
wanted sinew. If you ask my opinion, each of them had reason on his
side. I shall hereafter examine them separately. My business at
present, is not in the detail: I speak of them in general terms.


XIX. The æra of ancient oratory is, I think, extended by its admirers
no farther back than the time of Cassius Severus [a]. He, they tell
us, was the first who dared to deviate from the plain and simple style
of his predecessors. I admit the fact. He departed from the
established forms, not through want of genius, or of learning, but
guided by his own good sense and superior judgement. He saw that the
public ear was formed to a new manner; and eloquence, he knew, was to
find new approaches to the heart. In the early periods of the
commonwealth, a rough unpolished people might well be satisfied with
the tedious length of unskilful speeches, at a time when to make an
harangue that took up the whole day, was the orator's highest praise.
The prolix exordium, wasting itself in feeble preparation; the
circumstantial narration, the ostentatious division of the argument
under different heads, and the thousand proofs and logical
distinctions, with whatever else is contained in the dry precepts of
Hermagoras [b] and Apollodorus, were in that rude period received with
universal applause.
To finish the picture, if your ancient orator
could glean a little from the common places of philosophy, and
interweave a few shreds and patches with the thread of his discourse,
he was extolled to the very skies. Nor can this be matter of wonder:
the maxims of the schools had not been divulged; they came with an air
of novelty. Even among the orators themselves, there were but few who
had any tincture of philosophy. Nor had they learned the rules of art
from the teachers of eloquence.

In the present age, the tenets of philosophy and the precepts of
rhetoric are no longer a secret. The lowest of our popular assemblies
are now, I will not say fully instructed, but certainly acquainted
with the elements of literature. The orator, by consequence, finds
himself obliged to seek new avenues to the heart, and new graces to
embellish his discourse, that he may not offend fastidious ears,
especially before a tribunal where the judge is no longer bound by
precedent, but determines according to his will and pleasure; not, as
formerly, observing the measure of time allowed to the advocate, but
taking upon himself to prescribe the limits. Nor is this all: the
judge, at present, will not condescend to wait till the orator, in his
own way, opens his case; but, of his own authority, reminds him of the
point in question, and, if he wanders, calls him back from his
digression, not without a hint that the court wishes to dispatch.


XX. Who, at this time, would bear to hear an advocate introducing
himself with a tedious preface about the infirmities of his
constitution? Yet that is the threadbare exordium of Corvinus. We have
five books against Verres [a]. Who can endure that vast redundance?
Who can listen to those endless arguments upon points of form, and
cavilling exceptions [b], which we find in the orations of the same
celebrated advocate for Marcus Tullius [c] and Aulus Cæcina? Our
modern judges are able to anticipate the argument. Their quickness
goes before the speaker.