vice triumphed at large, and virtue had every thing to fear, the temper of the times was propitious to the corruptors of taste and liberal science.  The dignity of composition was no longer of use.  It had no power to stop the torrent of vice which deluged the city of Rome, and virtue found it a feeble protection.  In such a conjuncture it was not safe to speak the sentiments of the heart.  To be obscure, abrupt, and dark, was the best expedient.  Then it was that the affected sententious brevity came into vogue.  To speak concisely, and with an air of precipitation, was the general practice.  To work the ruin of a person accused, a single sentence, or a splendid phrase, was sufficient.  Men defended themselves in a short brilliant expression; and if that did not protect them, they died with a lively apophthegm, and their last words were wit.  This was the fashion introduced by Seneca.  The peculiar, but agreeable vices of his style, wrought the downfall of eloquence.  The solid was exchanged for the brilliant, and they, who ceased to be orators, studied to be ingenious.

7.  Of late, indeed, we have seen the dawn of better times.  In the course of the last six years Vespasian has revived our hopes [a].  The friend of regular manners, and the encourager of ancient virtue, by which Rome was raised to the highest pinnacle of glory, he has restored the public peace, and with it the blessings of liberty.  Under his propitious influence, the arts and sciences begin once more to flourish, and genius has been honoured with his munificence.  The example of his sons [b] has helped to kindle a spirit of emulation.  We beheld, with pleasure, the two princes adding to the dignity of their rank, and their fame in arms, all the grace and elegance of polite literature.  But it is fatally true, that when the public taste is once corrupted, the mind which has been warped, seldom recovers its former tone.  This difficulty was rendered still more insurmountable by the licentious spirit of our young men, and the popular applause, that encouraged the false taste of the times.  I need not, in this company, call to mind the unbridled presumption, with which, as soon as genuine eloquence expired, the young men of the age took possession of the forum.  Of modest worth and ancient manners nothing remained.  We know that in former times the youthful candidate was introduced in the forum by a person of consular rank [c], and by him set forward in his road to fame.  That laudable custom being at an end, all fences were thrown down:  no sense of shame remained, no respect for the tribunals of justice.  The aspiring genius wanted no patronage; he scorned the usual forms of a regular introduction; and, with full confidence in his own powers, he obtruded himself on the court.  Neither the solemnity of the place, nor the sanctity of laws, nor the importance of the oratorical character, could restrain the impetuosity of young ambition.  Unconscious of the importance of the undertaking, and less sensible of his own incapacity, the bold adventurer rushed at once into the most arduous business.  Arrogance supplied the place of talents.