was the orator’s highest praise.  The prolix exordium, wasting itself in feeble preparation; the circumstantial narration, the ostentatious division of the argument under different heads, and the thousand proofs and logical distinctions, with whatever else is contained in the dry precepts of Hermagoras [b] and Apollodorus, were in that rude period received with universal applause.  To finish the picture, if your ancient orator could glean a little from the common places of philosophy, and interweave a few shreds and patches with the thread of his discourse, he was extolled to the very skies.  Nor can this be matter of wonder:  the maxims of the schools had not been divulged; they came with an air of novelty.  Even among the orators themselves, there were but few who had any tincture of philosophy.  Nor had they learned the rules of art from the teachers of eloquence.

In the present age, the tenets of philosophy and the precepts of rhetoric are no longer a secret.  The lowest of our popular assemblies are now, I will not say fully instructed, but certainly acquainted with the elements of literature.  The orator, by consequence, finds himself obliged to seek new avenues to the heart, and new graces to embellish his discourse, that he may not offend fastidious ears, especially before a tribunal where the judge is no longer bound by precedent, but determines according to his will and pleasure; not, as formerly, observing the measure of time allowed to the advocate, but taking upon himself to prescribe the limits.  Nor is this all:  the judge, at present, will not condescend to wait till the orator, in his own way, opens his case; but, of his own authority, reminds him of the point in question, and, if he wanders, calls him back from his digression, not without a hint that the court wishes to dispatch.

XX.  Who, at this time, would bear to hear an advocate introducing himself with a tedious preface about the infirmities of his constitution?  Yet that is the threadbare exordium of Corvinus.  We have five books against Verres [a].  Who can endure that vast redundance?  Who can listen to those endless arguments upon points of form, and cavilling exceptions [b], which we find in the orations of the same celebrated advocate for Marcus Tullius [c] and Aulus Caecina?  Our modern judges are able to anticipate the argument.  Their quickness goes before the speaker.  If not struck with the vivacity of his manner, the elegance of his sentiments, and the glowing colours of his descriptions, they soon grow weary of the flat insipid discourse.  Even in the lowest class of life, there is now a relish for rich and splendid ornament.  Their taste requires the gay, the florid, and the brilliant.  The unpolished style of antiquity would now succeed as ill at the bar, as the modern actor who should attempt to copy the deportment of Roscius [d], or Ambivius Turpio.  Even the young men who are preparing for the career of eloquence, and, for that purpose, attend the forum