3.  Messala closed with a degree of vehemence, and then turning to Maternus and Secundus [a], It is yours, he said, to pursue this train of argument; or if any cause of the decay of eloquence lies still deeper, you will oblige us by bringing it to light.  Maternus, I presume, will find no difficulty:  a poetic genius holds commerce with the gods, and to him nothing will remain a secret.  As for Secundus, he has been long a shining ornament of the forum, and by his own experience knows how to distinguish genuine eloquence from the corrupt and vicious.  Maternus heard this sally of his friend’s good humour with a smile.  The task, he said, which you have imposed upon us, we will endeavour to execute.  But though I am the interpreter of the gods, I must notwithstanding request that Secundus may take the lead.  He is master of the subject, and, in questions of this kind, experience is better than inspiration.

4.  Secundus [a] complied with his friend’s request.  I yield, he said, the more willingly, as I shall hazard no new opinion, but rather confirm what has been urged by Messala.  It is certain, that, as painters are formed by painters, and poets by the example of poets, so the young orator must learn his art from orators only.  In the schools of rhetoricians [b], who think themselves the fountain-head of eloquence, every thing is false and vitiated.  The true principles of the persuasive art are never known to the professor, or if at any time there may be found a preceptor of superior genius, can it be expected that he shall be able to transfuse into the mind of his pupil all his own conceptions, pure, unmixed, and free from error?  The sensibility of the master, since we have allowed him genius, will be an impediment:  the uniformity of the same dull tedious round will give him disgust, and the student will turn from it with aversion.  And yet I am inclined to think, that the decay of eloquence would not have been so rapid, if other causes, more fatal than the corruption of the schools, had not co-operated.  When the worst models became the objects of imitation, and not only the young men of the age, but even the whole body of the people, admired the new way of speaking, eloquence fell at once into that state of degeneracy, from which nothing can recover it.  We, who came afterwards, found ourselves in a hopeless situation:  we were driven to wretched expedients, to forced conceits, and the glitter of frivolous sentences; we were obliged to hunt after wit, when we could be no longer eloquent.  By what pernicious examples this was accomplished, has been explained by our friend Messala.