And what an exploit is that, never, amid all your important occupations, to interrupt your study of philosophy!  You are always either writing something yourself or inviting me to write something.  Therefore, I began this work as soon as I had finished my Cato, which I should never have meddled with, being alarmed at the aspect of the times, so hostile to virtue, if I had not thought it wicked not to comply with your wishes, when you were exhorting me and awaking in me the recollection of that man who was so dear to me, and I call you to witness that I have only ventured to undertake this subject after many entreaties on your part, and many refusals on mine.  For I wish that you should appear implicated in this fault, so that if I myself should appear unable to support the weight of such a subject, you may bear the blame of having imposed such a burden on me, and I only that of having undertaken it.  And then the credit of having had such a commission given me by you, will make amends for the blame which the deficiency of my judgment will bring upon me.

XI.  But in everything it is very difficult to explain the form (that which is called in Greek [Greek:  charaktaer]) of perfection, because different things appear perfection to different people.  I am delighted with Ennius, says one person, because he never departs from the ordinary use of words.  I love Pacuvius, says another, all his verses are so ornamented and elaborate while Ennius is often so careless.  Another is all for Attius.  For there are many different opinions, as among the Greeks, nor is it easy to explain which form is the most excellent.  In pictures one man is delighted with what is rough harsh looking, obscure, and dark, others care only for what is neat cheerful and brilliant.  Why should you, then give any precise command or formula, when each is best in its own kind, and when there are many kinds?  However, these difficulties have not repelled me from this attempt, and I have thought that in everything there is some point of absolute perfection even though it is not easily seen, and, that it can be decided on by a man who understands the matter.

But since there are many kinds of speeches, and those different, and as they do not all fall under one form, the form of panegyric, and of declamation, and of narration, and of such discourses as Isocrates has left us in his panegyric, and many other writers also who are called sophists; and the form also of other kinds which have no connexion with forensic discussion, and of the whole of that class which is called in Greek [Greek:  epideiktikon], and which is made up as it were for the purpose of being looked at—­for the sake of amusement, I shall omit at the present time.  Not that they deserve to be entirely neglected; for they are as it were the nursery of the orator whom we wish to draw; and concerning whom we are endeavouring to say something worth hearing.