the united accomplishments you require?"--"I really don't know," said I;
"but we have a speech made by Crassus in his consulship, in praise of Q.
Caepio, intermingled with a defence of his conduct, which, though a short
one if we consider it as an Oration, is not so as a Panegyric;--and
another, which was his last, and which he spoke in the 48th year of his
age, at the time he was censor. In these we have the genuine complexion of
Eloquence, without any painting or disguise: but his periods (I mean
Crassus's) were generally short and concise; and he was fond of expressing
himself in those minuter sentences, or members, which the Greeks call
Colons."--"As you have spoken so largely," said Brutus, "in praise of the
two last-mentioned Orators, I heartily wish that Antonius had left us some
other specimen of his abilities, than his trifling Essay on the Art of
Speaking, and Crassus more than he has: by so doing, they would have
transmitted their fame to _posterity_; and to us a valuable system of
Eloquence. For as to the elegant language of Scaevola, we have sufficient
proofs of it in the Orations he has left behind him."--"For my part," said
I, "the Oration I was speaking of, on Caepio's case, has been my pattern,
and my tutoress, from my very childhood. It supports the dignity of the
Senate, which was deeply interested in the debate; and excites the
jealousy of the audience against the party of the judges and accusers,
whose power it was necessary to expose in the most popular terms. Many
parts of it are very strong and nervous, many others very cool and
composed; and some are distinguished by the asperity of their language,
and not a few by their wit and pleasantry: but much more was said than was
committed to writing, as is sufficiently evident from several heads of the
Oration, which are merely proposed without any enlargement or explanation.
But the oration in his censorship against his colleague Cn. Domitius, is
not so much an Oration, as an analysis of the subject, or a general sketch
of what he had said, with here and there a few ornamental touches, by way
of specimen: for no contest was ever conducted with greater spirit than