Quintilian
gives a decided
opinion.
opinion.
Tacitus
_ b.
ii.
s.
94. Biography was, in that evil period, a tribute paid by the friends
of departed merit, and the only kind of writing, in which men could
dare faintly to utter a sentiment in favour of virtue and public
liberty.
[c] In the declamations of Seneca and Quintilian, we have abundant
examples of these scholastic exercises, which Juvenal has placed in a
ridiculous light.
Et nos ergo manum ferulæ subduximus, et nos
Consilium dedimus Syllæ, privatus ut altum
Dormiret.
Sat. i. ver. 15.
Provok'd by these incorrigible fools,
I left declaiming in pedantic schools;
Where, with men-boys, I strove to get renown,
Advising Sylla to a private gown.
DRYDEN'S JUVENAL.
Section XV.
[a] The eloquence of Cicero, and the eminent orators of that age, was
preferred by all men of sound judgement to the unnatural and affected
style that prevailed under the emperors.
Quintilian gives a decided
opinion. Cicero, he says, was allowed to be the reigning orator of his
time, and his name, with posterity, is not so much that of a man, as
of eloquence itself. _Quare non immerito ab hominibus ætatis suæ,
regnare in judiciis dictus est: apud posteros vero id consecutus, ut
Cicero jam non hominis, sed eloquentiæ nomen habeatur. _ Lib. x. cap.
1. Pliny the younger professed that Cicero was the orator with whom he
aspired to enter into competition. Not content with the eloquence of
his own times, he held it absurd not to follow the best examples of a
former age. _Est enim mihi cum Cicerone æmulatio, nec sum contentus
eloquentiâ sæculi nostri. Nam stultissimum credo, ad imitandum non
optima quæque præponere. _ Lib. i. epist. 5.
[b] Nicetes was a native of Smyrna, and a rhetorician in great
celebrity.
94. Biography was, in that evil period, a tribute paid by the friends
of departed merit, and the only kind of writing, in which men could
dare faintly to utter a sentiment in favour of virtue and public
liberty.
[c] In the declamations of Seneca and Quintilian, we have abundant
examples of these scholastic exercises, which Juvenal has placed in a
ridiculous light.
Et nos ergo manum ferulæ subduximus, et nos
Consilium dedimus Syllæ, privatus ut altum
Dormiret.
Sat. i. ver. 15.
Provok'd by these incorrigible fools,
I left declaiming in pedantic schools;
Where, with men-boys, I strove to get renown,
Advising Sylla to a private gown.
DRYDEN'S JUVENAL.
Section XV.
[a] The eloquence of Cicero, and the eminent orators of that age, was
preferred by all men of sound judgement to the unnatural and affected
style that prevailed under the emperors.
Quintilian gives a decided
opinion. Cicero, he says, was allowed to be the reigning orator of his
time, and his name, with posterity, is not so much that of a man, as
of eloquence itself. _Quare non immerito ab hominibus ætatis suæ,
regnare in judiciis dictus est: apud posteros vero id consecutus, ut
Cicero jam non hominis, sed eloquentiæ nomen habeatur. _ Lib. x. cap.
1. Pliny the younger professed that Cicero was the orator with whom he
aspired to enter into competition. Not content with the eloquence of
his own times, he held it absurd not to follow the best examples of a
former age. _Est enim mihi cum Cicerone æmulatio, nec sum contentus
eloquentiâ sæculi nostri. Nam stultissimum credo, ad imitandum non
optima quæque præponere. _ Lib. i. epist. 5.
[b] Nicetes was a native of Smyrna, and a rhetorician in great
celebrity.
