it did not attempt long and labored trains of reasoning, but it usually presented to its hearers an unbroken series of facts and considerations, such as would lead most directly to the desired conclusion or the desired action, and always in the most attractive form which the orator could command; it often gave prominence to motives rather than reasons, to inducements rather than arguments, and yet fine specimens of compact logical reasoning are by no means wanting in the great masterpieces of Greek and Roman oratory. 45. Cicero and Demosthenes Compared. Demosthenes and Cicero, the heads of the two great schools of ancient oratory, have often been compared. I think we may safely concur in the judgment of Quintilian, that they were alike in most of the great qualities which they possessed, yet each had his distinctive and characteristic excellence. Each was without a peer in his special sphere, Demosthenes in strength and the convincing power of argument, Cicero in grace and felicity of diction. The Roman orator cheerfully acknowledges his indebtedness to his Athenian master. "What I have attempted," he writes, "Demosthenes achieved," and yet he tells us that he was constantly striving after an ideal excellence which he had never been able to reach, and that enshrined in his inmost soul was an ideal of eloquence, never attained by mortal man, not even by Demosthenes himself. 46. Their Influence upon Modern Oratory. It would be difficult to exaggerate the influence which these two men have exerted upon the history of oratory for almost twenty centuries. They have had many brilliant representatives in the English Parliament and in the American Congress. I recognize in William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, and in Daniel Webster, true disciples of the Athenian orator, an Gladstone, Edward Everett, and Rufus Choate, Cicero of the purest type. CICERO A LEARNED SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 47. De Oratore, Brutus, Orator. But Cicero was only an accomplished orator, but also a learned sch and author. One of the earliest and perhaps one of most interesting of his works is the De Oratore, whic regarded by many critics as the most finished exampl our author's best style. This was followed some y later by the Brutus de Claris Oratoribus and the Or All these works belong to a field of study and invest tion in which Cicero was a perfect master. The Bruti a historical sketch of Roman eloquence, and the Or portrays the characteristics of the true orator. Ci believed that none but a good man could be a great ora and that even he must renounce all pleasures, avoid amusements, and bid farewell to recreation, games, entertainments. In his judgment the candidate for torical fame must ever be of the number of those "Who scorn delights and live laborious days." 48. Academica and Timaeus. —The other principal wo of Cicero treat the three kindred subjects of Philosop Ethics, and Religion, and perhaps it is to these that must look for our author's most valuable contribution letters and to human thought. In philosophy he lays claim to originality, and yet it has been justly said in behalf that "no man ever approached the subject m richly laden with philosophic lore." Socrates, Plato, a Aristotle were his great teachers and models. He had a great admiration for Greek philosophy; he regarded it as the knowledge of things human and divine, the guide of life and the mother of all good deeds. It was his laudable ambition to bring within the reach of his fellow-citizens the rich treasures of Greek learning and Greek thought, which had been to him a source alike of joy and of strength. He tells us that all he hoped to do was to clothe Plato in a Latin dress and to present this stranger from over the seas with the freedom of his own cherished city All this he has accomplished and more. He has left a popular treatise on philosophy for the students of all time. 49. De Officiis. The treatise De Officiis, on the common duties of life, was addressed by Cicero to his son, then a student of philosophy at Athens. A recent English writer declares this to be "the noblest present ever made by a father to his son." It discusses subjects of scarcely less interest to the modern scholar than to the ancient philosopher, and the moral tone of the entire discussion is surprisingly high. The author tells us that there is no condition in life without its duties and obligations; that the faithful discharge of these duties gives the highest nobility, and that the neglect of them is at once a crime and a disgrace; that we are born, not for ourselves only, but for our kindred, neighbors, and country; and that we owe duties not only to those who have done us favors, but even to those who have wronged us. "The noblest inheritance,” he tells us, "that a father can ever leave to his son, infinitely more valuable than that of houses and lands, is the fame of his virtues and glorious deeds, and no sadder fate can befall a noble house than to be disgraced by a degenerate son." HARKNESS' CICERO- 3 50. De Natura Deorum. In the dialogue entitle Natura Deorum is discussed a subject upon which C and his associates were not able to throw much 1 The scene is laid at the house of Aurelius Cotta, the tifex Maximus. The speakers are Velleius, the E rean; Balbus, the Stoic; Cotta, the Pontifex Maximus; Cicero. Velleius first sets forth with the utmost dence the Epicurean view: that the popular mytholo a mere collection of fables; that there are gods ind but that they do not trouble themselves about the we of mankind; that exempt from labor and free from they spend a blissful eternity. "Why," he asks, “sh the Deity concern himself with the affairs of mank why assume the duties of a Roman aedile and ligh and decorate the world?” 51. In reply Cotta says that his friend, the Epicur speaks with such confidence that one might almost i that he had just returned from heaven, where he been in converse with the gods themselves, but that s careless and idle beings as he had described would be gods at all. 52. Balbus next proceeds to set forth the grounds the Stoic's belief in the existence of a divine being. attaches special importance to the argument from des instancing the dial or water-clock intended to mark hour, which some authors regard as the original of Pal well-known illustration of the watch, cited in his Evide of Christianity. Balbus finally ventures the opinion the Deity is the animating Spirit of the Universe. 53. Cotta, though a priest by profession, sees no dence of an overruling Providence. The good suffer the wicked often prosper; crimes are committed and thunders of Jupiter are silent. Thus are grave questions discussed but left undecided, and the learned philosophers find themselves very much in the situation of the poet Simonides at the court of Hiero of Syracuse, when asked by his royal patron who and what God was. At first he is said to have requested a day's time for deliberation, but on the following day he asked that the time might be extended two days, and at the termination of each subsequent period he doubled the time for deliberation, assigning as a reason for this strange course that the longer he studied the subject, the more difficult did it appear. 54. In this treatise Cicero appears in the character of an interested listener rather than as a disputant. His views, therefore, in regard to the questions here discussed must be gathered from his other works. Some of the beautiful sentiments which he put into the mouth of Cato the Censor in his treatise on Old Age are of special interest in this connection: "I am persuaded that Publius and Gaius, my old and dearly loved friends, long dead, are living still, and living that life which alone deserves to be called life; for this prison-house of the body is not the true home of the heaven-born soul. . . . Therefore, I depart from this life as from a temporary lodging. O glorious day! when I shall join that blessed company, that assembly of disembodied spirits, for I shall see not only those great men of whom I have spoken, but also my own son, Cato, whose body I placed on the funeral pile, an office he should have performed for me." 55. Dream of Scipio. In this connection should also be mentioned the testimony of an important fragment, called the Dream of Scipio, which has come down to us |