as in a man’s private affairs, the studies of literature, as of tunes and sounds, of measurement, of the stars, of horses, of hunting, of arms.  In the affairs of the commonwealth his eager pursuit of some particular kind of virtue, which he selects as his especial object of devotion, in discharging his duty to the gods, or in showing careful and remarkable affection to his relations, his friends, or those connected with family ties of hospitality.  And these then are the different kinds of virtue.  But those of vice are their exact contraries.

But these also must be examined carefully, so that those vices may not deceive us which appear to imitate virtue.  For cunning tries to assume the character of prudence, and moroseness, in despising pleasures, wishes to be taken for temperance; and pride, which puffs a man up, and which affects to despise legitimate honours, seeks to vaunt itself as magnanimity; prodigality calls itself liberality, audacity imitates courage, hardhearted sternness imitates patience, bitterness justice, superstition religion, weakness of mind lenity, timidity modesty, captiousness and carping at words wishes to pass for acuteness in arguing, and an empty fluency of language for this oratorical vigour at which we are aiming.  And those, too, appear akin to virtuous pursuits, which run to excess in the same class.

Wherefore all the force of praise or blame must be derived from these divisions of virtues and vices.  But in the whole context, as it were, of the oration, these points must above all others be made clear,—­how each person spoken of has been born, how he has been educated, how he has been trained, and what are his habits; and if any great or surprising thing has happened to any one, especially if anything which has happened should appear to have befallen him by the interposition of the gods; and also whatever the person in question has thought, or said, or done, must be adapted to the different kinds of virtue which have been enumerated, and from the same topics we must inquire into the causes of things, and the events, and the consequences.  Nor ought the death of those men, whose life is praised, to be passed over in silence; provided only, there be anything noticeable either in the manner of their death, or in the consequences which have resulted from their death.

XXIV. C.  F. I have attended to what you say, and I have learnt briefly, not only how to praise another, but also how to endeavour to deserve to be praised myself.  Let us, then, consider in the next place what system and what rules we are to observe in delivering our sentiments.