In oratory, as in architecture, I require ornament as well as use.  From the man of ample fortune, who undertakes to build, we expect elegance and proportion.  It is not enough that his house will keep out the wind and the rain; it must strike the eye, and present a pleasing object.  Nor will it suffice that the furniture may answer all domestic purposes; it should be rich, fashionable, elegant; it should have gold and gems so curiously wrought, that they will bear examination, often viewed, and always admired.  The common utensils, which are either mean or sordid, should be carefully removed out of sight.  In like manner, the true orator should avoid the trite and vulgar.  Let him reject the antiquated phrase, and whatever is covered with the rust of time; let his sentiments be expressed with spirit, not in careless, ill-constructed, languid periods, like a dull writer of annals; let him banish low scurrility, and, in short, let him know how to diversify his style, that he may not fatigue the ear with a monotony, ending for ever with the same unvaried cadence [b].

XXIII.  I shall say nothing of the false wit, and insipid play upon words, which we find in Cicero’s orations.  His pleasant conceits about the wheel of fortune [a], and the arch raillery on the equivocal meaning of the word verres [b], do not merit a moment’s attention.  I omit the perpetual recurrence of the phrase, esse videatur [c], which chimes in our ears at the close of so many sentences, sounding big, but signifying nothing.  These are petty blemishes; I mention them with reluctance.  I say nothing of other defects equally improper:  and yet those very defects are the delight of such as affect to call themselves ancient orators.  I need not single them out by name:  the men are sufficiently known; it is enough to allude, in general terms, to the whole class.

We all are sensible that there is a set of critics now existing, who prefer Lucilius [d] to Horace, and Lucretius [e] to Virgil; who despise the eloquence of Aufidius Bassus [f] and Servilius Nonianus, and yet admire Varro and [g] Sisenna.  By these pretenders to taste, the works of our modern rhetoricians are thrown by with neglect, and even fastidious disdain; while those of Calvus are held in the highest esteem.  We see these men prosing in their ancient style before the judges; but we see them left without an audience, deserted by the people, and hardly endured by their clients.  The truth is, their cold and spiritless manner has no attraction.  They call it sound oratory, but it is want of vigour; like that precarious state of health which weak constitutions preserve by abstinence.  What physician will pronounce that a strong habit of body, which requires constant care and anxiety of mind?  To say barely, that we are not ill, is surely not enough.  True health consists in vigour, a generous warmth, and a certain alacrity in the whole frame.  He who is only not indisposed, is little distant from actual illness.