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He would often send out my brothers, instead of me, upon errands or chores, "to save me from interruption." What he admired most, was eloquence; and I think he did more than Cicero's De Oratore to inspire me with a similar feeling. I well remember his having been to Albany once, and having heard Hamilton, and the unbounded admiration with which he spoke of him.
Read over and over again the third book of 'Cicero de Oratore', in which he particularly treats of the ornamental parts of oratory; they are indeed properly oratory, for all the rest depends only upon common sense, and some knowledge of the subject you speak upon. But if you would please, persuade, and prevail in speaking, it must be by the ornamental parts of oratory.
In the hands of a skilled teacher of composition, however, and with much class-room practice, it undoubtedly would get rhetoric taught more effectively than would more philosophical or literary treatises. In more advanced classes it was supplemented by the De oratore, Orator, and what was known of Quintilian.
And yet, 'tis strange, he had never read Cicero, nor Quintilian de Oratore, nor Isocrates, nor Aristotle, nor Longinus, amongst the antients; nor Vossius, nor Skioppius, nor Ramus, nor Farnaby, amongst the moderns; and what is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon Crackenthorp or Burgersdicius or any Dutch logician or commentator; he knew not so much as in what the difference of an argument ad ignorantiam, and an argument ad hominem consisted; so that I well remember, when he went up along with me to enter my name at Jesus College in..., it was a matter of just wonder with my worthy tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society, that a man who knew not so much as the names of his tools, should be able to work after that fashion with them.
Hortensius was still alive, and highly revered, and Cicero had recently written his elaborate De Oratore in which, with the apparent calmness of a still unquestioned authority, he laid down the program of the writer of ornate prose who conceived it as his chief duty to heed the claims of art.
Our boys both share my prayer: of course, you will dine with me the day of your arrival. He was convicted of vis in B.C., 54. Gabinius was governor of Syria B.C. 57-54. Coss., Cu. In this year Cicero devoted much of his time and energy to the composition of the de Oratore.
Later on Cicero wrote his admirable dialogue de Oratore and other works on the same subject, ending with his Brutus, a catalogue raisonnée, invaluable to us, of all the great Roman orators down to his own time. In history writing the standard was not so high.
It is so in the De Oratore, as to which we must begin by believing that the speech-maker wanted is a man not to be found in any House of Commons. No Conservative and no Liberal need fear that he will be put out of court by the coming of this perfectly eloquent man. But this Cicero of whom we are speaking has been he who has been most often quoted for his perfections.
His Treatises de Oratore and de Republicâ, the most finished perhaps of his compositions, were written at a time when, to use his own words, "not a day passed without his taking part in forensic disputes." And in the last year of his life he composed at least eight of his philosophical works, besides the fourteen orations against Antony, which are known by the name of Philippics.
A trifle thinner in the face, though, than when he came in his first bloom to Florence eh? and, I vow, there are some lines just faintly hinting themselves about your mouth, Messer Oratore! Ah, mind is an enemy to beauty! I myself was thought beautiful by the women at one time when I was in my swaddling-bands. But now oime! I carry my unwritten poems in cipher on my face!"
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