upon your hands.  Far from it, replied Secundus; I wish you had come sooner.  You would have had the pleasure of hearing an eloquent discourse from our friend Aper, who has been endeavouring to persuade Maternus to dedicate all his time to the business of the bar, and to give the whole man to his profession.  The answer of Maternus would have entertained you:  he has been defending his art, and but this moment closed an animated speech, that held more of the poetical than the oratorical character.

I should have been happy, replied Messala, to have heard both my friends.  It is, however, some compensation for the loss, that I find men of their talents, instead of giving all their time to the little subtleties and knotty points of the forum, extending their views to liberal science, and those questions of taste, which enlarge the mind, and furnish it with ideas drawn from the treasures of polite erudition.  Enquiries of this kind afford improvement not only to those who enter into the discussion, but to all who have the happiness of being present at the debate.  It is in consequence of this refined and elegant way of thinking, that you, Secundus, have gained so much applause, by the life of Julius Asiaticus [b], with which you have lately obliged the world.  From that specimen, we are taught to expect other productions of equal beauty from the same hand.  In like manner, I see with pleasure, that our friend Aper loves to enliven his imagination with topics of controversy, and still lays out his leisure in questions of the schools [c], not, indeed, in imitation of the ancient orators, but in the true taste of our modern rhetoricians.

XV.  I am not surprised, returned Aper, at that stroke of raillery.  It is not enough for Messala, that the oratory of ancient times engrosses all his admiration; he must have his fling at the moderns.  Our talents and our studies are sure to feel the sallies of his pleasantry [a].  I have often heard you, my friend Messala, in the same humour.  According to you, the present age has not a single orator to boast of, though your own eloquence, and that of your brother, are sufficient to refute the charge.  But you assert roundly, and maintain your proposition with an air of confidence.  You know how high you stand, and while in your general censure of the age you include yourself, the smallest tincture of malignity cannot be supposed to mingle in a decision, which denies to your own genius, what by common consent is allowed to be your undoubted right.

I have as yet, replied Messala, seen no reason to make me retract my opinion; nor do I believe, that my two friends here, or even you yourself (though you sometimes affect a different tone), can seriously maintain the opposite doctrine.  The decline of eloquence is too apparent.  The causes which have contributed to it, merit a serious enquiry.  I shall be obliged to you, my friends, for a fair solution of the question.  I have often reflected upon