No More Learning

But as Virgil sweetly sings, Me let the sacred muses lead to
their soft retreats, their living fountains, and melodious groves,
where I may dwell remote from care, master of myself, and under no
necessity of doing every day what my heart condemns. Let me no more be
seen at the wrangling bar, a pale and anxious candidate for precarious
fame; and let neither the tumult of visitors crowding to my levee, nor
the eager haste of officious freedmen, disturb my morning rest. Let me
live free from solicitude, a stranger to the art of promising legacies
[e], in order to buy the friendship of the great; and when nature
shall give the signal to retire, may I possess no more than may be
safely bequeathed to such friends as I shall think proper. At my
funeral let no token of sorrow be seen, no pompous mockery of woe.
Crown [f] me with chaplets; strew flowers on my grave, and let my
friends erect no vain memorial, to tell where my remains are lodged.


XIV. Maternus finished with an air of enthusiasm, that seemed to lift
him above himself. In that moment [a], Vipstanius Messala entered the
room. From the attention that appeared in every countenance, he
concluded that some important business was the subject of debate. I am
afraid, said he, that I break in upon you at an unseasonable time. You
have some secret to discuss, or, perhaps, a consultation upon your
hands. Far from it, replied Secundus; I wish you had come sooner. You
would have had the pleasure of hearing an eloquent discourse from our
friend Aper, who has been endeavouring to persuade Maternus to
dedicate all his time to the business of the bar, and to give the
whole man to his profession. The answer of Maternus would have
entertained you: he has been defending his art, and but this moment
closed an animated speech, that held more of the poetical than the
oratorical character.

I should have been happy, replied Messala, to have heard both my
friends.
It is, however, some compensation for the loss, that I find
men of their talents, instead of giving all their time to the little
subtleties and knotty points of the forum, extending their views to
liberal science, and those questions of taste, which enlarge the mind,
and furnish it with ideas drawn from the treasures of polite
erudition. Enquiries of this kind afford improvement not only to those
who enter into the discussion, but to all who have the happiness of
being present at the debate. It is in consequence of this refined and
elegant way of thinking, that you, Secundus, have gained so much
applause, by the life of Julius Asiaticus [b], with which you have
lately obliged the world. From that specimen, we are taught to expect
other productions of equal beauty from the same hand. In like manner,
I see with pleasure, that our friend Aper loves to enliven his
imagination with topics of controversy, and still lays out his leisure
in questions of the schools [c], not, indeed, in imitation of the
ancient orators, but in the true taste of our modern rhetoricians.


XV. I am not surprised, returned Aper, at that stroke of raillery. It
is not enough for Messala, that the oratory of ancient times engrosses
all his admiration; he must have his fling at the moderns. Our talents
and our studies are sure to feel the sallies of his pleasantry [a]. I
have often heard you, my friend Messala, in the same humour. According
to you, the present age has not a single orator to boast of, though
your own eloquence, and that of your brother, are sufficient to refute
the charge. But you assert roundly, and maintain your proposition with
an air of confidence. You know how high you stand, and while in your
general censure of the age you include yourself, the smallest tincture
of malignity cannot be supposed to mingle in a decision, which denies
to your own genius, what by common consent is allowed to be your
undoubted right.

I have as yet, replied Messala, seen no reason to make me retract my
opinion; nor do I believe, that my two friends here, or even you
yourself (though you sometimes affect a different tone), can seriously
maintain the opposite doctrine. The decline of eloquence is too
apparent. The causes which have contributed to it, merit a serious
enquiry.