What shall I say of Xenophon's unaffected agreeableness, so unattainable
by any imitation that the Graces themselves seem to have composed his
language? The testimony of the ancient comedy concerning Pericles, is
very justly applicable to him, "That the Goddess of Persuasion had
seated herself on his lips."


_Aristotle and Theophrastus_

And what shall I say of the elegance of the other disciples of Socrates?
What of Aristotle? I am at a loss to know what most to admire in him,
his vast and profound erudition, or the great number of his writings, or
his pleasing style and manner, or the inventions and penetration of his
wit, or the variety of his works. And as to Theophrastus, his elocution
has something so noble and so divine that it may be said that from these
qualities came his name.


_Vergil_

In regard to our Roman authors, we can not more happily begin than with
Vergil, who of all their poets and ours in the epic style, is without
any doubt the one who comes nearest to Homer. Tho obliged to give way to
Homer's heavenly and immortal genius, yet in Vergil are to be found a
greater exactness and care, it being incumbent on him to take more
pains; so that what we lose on the side of eminence of qualities, we
perhaps gain on that of justness and equability.


_Cicero_