Cicero's Brutus, or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker

a crime which threatened your life? Where was that expression of resentment which is so natural to the injured? Where that ardour, that eagerness, which extorts the most pathetic language even from men of the dullest capacities? There was no visible disorder in your mind, no emotion in your looks and gesture, no smiting of the thigh or the forehead, nor even a single stamp of the foot. You was, therefore, so far from interesting our passions in your favour, that we could scarcely keep our eyes open, while you was relating the dangers you had so narrowly escaped. Thus we employed the natural defect, or if you please, the sensible calmness of an excellent Orator, as an argument to invalidate his charge."—"But is it possible to doubt," cried Brutus, "whether this was a sensible quality, or a defect? For as the greatest merit of an Orator is to be able to inflame the passions, and give them such a biass as shall best answer his purpose; he who is destitute of this must certainly be deficient in the most capital part of his profession."—"I am of the same opinion," said I; "but let us now proceed to him (Hortensius) who is the only remaining Orator worth noticing; after which, as you may seem to insist upon it, I shall say something of myself. I must first, however, do justice to the memory of two promising youths, who, if they had lived to a riper age, would have acquired the highest reputation for their Eloquence."—"You mean, I suppose," said Brutus, "C. Curio, and C. Licinius Calvus."—"The very same," replied I. "One of them, besides his plausible manner, had such an easy and voluble flow of expression, and such an inexhaustible variety, and sometimes accuracy of sentiment, that he was one of the most ready and ornamental speakers of his time. Though he had received but little instruction from the professed masters of the art, Nature had furnished him with an admirable capacity of the practice of it. I never, indeed, discovered in him any great degree of application; but he was certainly very ambitious to distinguish himself; and if he had continued to listen to my advice, as he had begun to do, he would have preferred the acquisition of real honour to that of untimely grandeur."— "What do you mean," said Brutus? "Or in what manner are these two objects to be distinguished?"—"I distinguish them thus," replied I: "As honour is the reward of virtue, conferred upon a man by the choice and affection of his fellow-citizens, he who obtains it by their free votes and suffrages is to be considered, in my opinion, as an honourable member of the community. But he who acquires his power and authority by taking advantage of every unhappy incident, and without the consent of his fellow-citizens, as Curio aimed to do, acquires only the name of honour, without the substance. Whereas, if he had hearkened to me, he would have risen to the highest dignity, in an honourable manner, and with the hearty approbation of all men, by a gradual advancement to public offices, as his father and many other eminent citizens had done before. I often gave the same advice to P. Crassus, the son of Marcus, who courted my friendship in the early part of his life; and recommended it to him very warmly, to consider that as the truest path to honour which had been already marked out to him by the example of his ancestors. For he had been extremely well educated, and was perfectly versed in every branch of polite literature: he had likewise a penetrating genius, and an elegant variety of expression; and appeared grave and sententious without arrogance, and modest and diffident without dejection. But like many other young men he was carried away by the tide of ambition; and after serving a short time with reputation as a volunteer, nothing could satisfy him but to try his fortune as a General,—an employment which was confined by the wisdom of our ancestors to men who had arrived at a certain age, and who, even then, were obliged to submit their pretensions to the uncertain issue of a public decision. Thus, by exposing himself to a fatal catastrophe, while he was endeavouring to rival the fame of Cyrus and Alexander, who lived to finish their desperate career, he lost all resemblance of L. Crassus, and his other worthy Progenitors.