my olive; it will spread more beautifully into a round form, and will produce fruit on more branches.  A horse with slender flanks is considered handsomer than one not framed in that manner, and the same quality also shows that he excels in swiftness.  An athlete whose arms from exercise show a full spring and play of the muscles, is a beautiful sight, and he, likewise, is best fitted as a combatant.  Thus the true species is never without its utility, as even a meager judgment easily may discern.

DEVELOPING VARIETY OF STYLE

But it will be of more importance to observe that this decent attire ought to be varied according to the nature of the subject.  To begin with our first division, the same style will not suit equally demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial causes.  The first, calculated for ostentation, aims at nothing but the pleasure of the auditory.  It, therefore, displays all the riches of art, and exposes to full view all the pomp of eloquence; not acting by stratagem, nor striving for victory, but making praise and glory its sole and ultimate end.  Whatever may be pleasing in the thought, beautiful in the expression, agreeable in the turn, magnificent in the metaphor, elaborate in the composition, the orator will lay open for inspection and, if it were possible, for handling, as a merchant exposes his wares; for here the success wholly regards him and not the cause.

But when the serious part of a trial is on hand, and the contest is truly in earnest, care of reputation ought to be the orator’s last concern.  For this reason, when everything in a way is at stake, no one ought to be solicitous about words.  I do not say that no ornaments ought to have place in them, but that they should be more modest and severe, less apparent, and above all suited to the subject.  For in deliberations the senate require something more elevated; the assemblies of the people, something more spirited; and at the bar, public and capital causes, something more accurate.  But a private deliberation, and causes of trivial consequence, as the stating of accounts and the like, need little beyond the plain and easy manner of common discourse.  Would it not be quite shameful to demand in elaborate periods the payment of money lent, or appeal to the emotions in speaking of the repairs of a gutter or sink?

THE CHOICE OF WORDS

As the ornament, as well as perspicuity, of speech consists either in single words or in many together, we shall consider what they require separately and what in conjunction.  Tho there is good reason for saying that perspicuity is best suited by proper words, and ornament by metaphorical, yet we should always know that an impropriety is never ornamental.  But as many words very often signify the same thing, and therefore are called synonymous, some of these must be more sublime, more bright, more agreeable,