speaking on a sudden occasion; and if we believe Eratosthenes,
Demetrius the Phalerean, and the comic poets, there was a greater
spirit and boldness in his unpremeditated orations than in those he had
committed to writing. Eratosthenes says that in his extemporaneous
harangues he often spoke as from a supernatural impulse; and Demetrius
tells us that in an address to the people, like a man inspired, he once
uttered this oath in verse:

By earth, by all her fountains, streams, and floods! . . .

As for his personal defects, Demetrius the Phalerean gives us an
account of the remedies he applied to them; and he says he had it from
Demosthenes in his old age. The hesitation and stammering of his
tongue he corrected by practising to speak with pebbles in his mouth;
and he strengthened his voice by running or walking uphill, and
pronouncing some passage in an oration or a poem during the difficulty
of breath which that caused. He had, moreover, a looking-glass in his
house before which he used to declaim and adjust all his motions.

It was said that a man came to him one day, and desired him to be his
advocate against a person from whom he had suffered by assault. "Not
you, indeed," said Demosthenes, "you have suffered no such thing."
"What," said the man, raising his voice, "have I not received those
blows?" "Ay, _now_," replied Demosthenes, "you do speak like a person
that has been injured." So much in his opinion do the tone of voice
and the action contribute to gain the speaker credit in what he affirms.

His action pleased the commonalty much; but people of taste (among whom
was Demetrius the Phalerean) thought there was something in it low,
inelegant, and unmanly. Hermippus acquaints us, Aesion being asked his