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The first work written in 46 was the Hortensius, or De Philosophia, now lost. It was founded on a lost dialogue of Aristotle, and set forth the advantages of studying Philosophy. During the same year Cicero completed several oratorical works, the Partitiones Oratoriae, the Brutus, or De Claris Oratoribus, and the Orator, all of which are extant.

The next work in the series is the invaluable Brutus sive de claris Oratoribus, a vast mine of information on the history of the Roman bar, and the progress of oratorical excellence. The scene is laid in the Tusculan villa, where Cicero meets some of his younger friends shortly after the death of Hortensius.

Clara, the canonizing Pope does not disdain a similar play upon her name: Clara Claris praeclara meritis, magnae in caelo claritate gloriae, ac in terra miraculorum sublimium, clare claret. Columba as another example in the same kind, seeing that this name was not his birthright, but one given to him by his scholars for the dove-like gentleness of his character.

There are in the dialogue De Claris Oratoribus which has had the name of Brutus always given to it some passages in which the orator tells us more of himself than in any other of his works. I will annex a translation of a small portion because of its intrinsic interest; but I will relegate it to an appendix, because it is too long either for insertion in the text or for a note.

His corpse was laid beside that of Alexandre Roussel, under the rampart of the fortress of Montpellier. Durand was the last of the preachers in France who had attended the synod of 1715. They had all been executed, excepting only Antoine Court, who was safe in Switzerland. The priests were not so successful with Claris, the preacher, who contrived to escape their clutches.

It was, they alleged, a great danger to the country that there should be in it two millions of men allowed to live without church and outside the law. The afflicted Church at this time had many misfortunes to contend with. In 1748, the noble, self-denying, indefatigable Claris died one of the few Protestant pastors who died in his bed.

In his inquiries he will find that the Cicero, if he look to Quintilian or Tacitus or the Crassus, if he look to Cicero is so set before him as the true model; and with that he may be content. The De Oratore is by far the longest of his works on rhetoric, and, as I think, the pleasantest to read. It was followed, after ten years, by the Brutus, or De Claris Oratoribus, and then by the Orator.

It was, as he informs us in its proem, drawn up from memory on his voyage from Italy to Greece, soon after Cæsar's murder, and in compliance with the wishes of Trebatius, who had some time before urged him to undertake the translation. Cicero seems to have intended his De Oratore, De claris Oratoribus, and Orator, to form one complete system.

Gothard, and the Rigi, present themselves to his eyes in the vast firmament as the ever-enduring symbols of liberty; whenever the lake of the Four Cantons presents a vessel wavering on the blue surface of its waters; whenever the cascade bursts in thunder from the heights of the Splugen, and shivers itself upon the rocks like tyranny against free hearts; whenever the ruins of an Austrian fortress darken with the remains of frowning walls the round eminences of Uri or Claris; and whenever a calm sunbeam gilds on the declivity of a village the green velvet of the meadows where the herds are feeding to the tinkling of bells and the echo of the Ranz des Vaches so often the imagination traces in all these varied scenes the hat on the summit of the pole the archer condemned to aim at the apple placed on the head of his own child the mark hurled to the ground, transfixed by the unerring arrow the father chained to the bottom of the boat, subduing night, the storm, and his own indignation, to save his executioner and finally, the outraged husband, threatened with the loss of all he holds most dear, yielding to the impulse of nature, and in his turn striking the murderer with a deathblow."

The series of his rhetorical works 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 Oratoriâ, Topica, and de optimo genere Oratorum.