ad eum mira celebritate:  cuncti detestantur, oderunt; et, quasi probent, quasi diligant, cursant, frequentant, utque breviter, quod sentio, enunciem, in Regulo demerendo, Regulum imitantur.  Tenet se trans Tyberim in hortis, in quibus latissimum solum porticibus immensis, ripam statuis suis occupavit; ut est, in summa avaritia sumptuosus, in summa infamia gloriosus. Lib. iv. ep. 2.  All this splendour, in which Regulus lived, was the fruit of a gainful and blood-thirsty eloquence; if that may be called eloquence, which Pliny says was nothing more than a crazed imagination; nihil praeter ingenium insanum.  Lib. iv. ep. 7.

[c] Orpheus, in poetic story, was the son of Calliope, and Linus boasted of Apollo for his father.

       ——­Nec Thracius Orpheus,

Nec Linus; huic mater quamvis, atque huic pater adsit,
Orphei Calliopea, Lino formosus Apollo. 

          
                                                    VIRG.  ECL. iv. ver. 55.

Not Orpheus’ self, nor Linus, should exceed
My lofty lays, or gain the poet’s meed,
Though Phoebus, though Calliope inspire,
And one the mother aid, and one the sire. 

          
                                          WHARTON’S VIRGIL.

Orpheus embarked in the Argonautic expedition.  His history of it, together with his hymns, is still extant; but whether genuine, is much doubted.

[d] Lysias, the celebrated orator, was a native of Syracuse, the chief town in Sicily.  He lived about four hundred years before the Christian aera.  Cicero says, that he did not addict himself to the practice of the bar; but his compositions were so judicious, so pure and elegant, that you might venture to pronounce him a perfect orator. Tum fuit Lysias, ipse quidem in causis forensibus non versatus sed egregie subtilis scriptor, atque elegans, quem jam prope audeas oratorem perfectum dicere. Cicero De Claris Orat. s. 35.  Quintilian gives the same opinion.  Lysias, he says, preceded Demosthenes:  he is acute and elegant, and if to teach the art of speaking were the only business of an orator, nothing more perfect can be found.  He has no redundancy, nothing superfluous, nothing too refined, or foreign to his purpose:  his style is flowing, but more like a pure fountain, than a noble river. His aetate Lysias major, subtilis atque elegans, et quo nihil, si oratori satis sit docere, quaeras perfectius.  Nihil enim est inane, nihil arcessitum; puro tamen fonti, quam magno flumini propior. Quint, lib. x. cap. 1.  A considerable number of his orations is still extant, all written with exquisite taste and inexpressible sweetness.  See a very pleasing translation by Dr. Gillies.