those three effects which I have just observed an Orator should be able to
produce. He then proceeded to remark that it was evidently the intention
and the will of the testator, that in cafe, either by death, or default of
issue, there should happen to be no son to fall to his charge, the
inheritance should devolve to Curius:--'that most people in a similar case
would express themselves in the same manner, and that it would certainly
stand good in law, and always had. By these, and many other observations
of the same kind, he gained the assent of his hearers; which is another of
the three duties of an Orator. Lastly, he supported, at all events, the
true meaning and spirit of a will, against the literal construction:
justly observing, that there would be an endless cavilling about words,
not only in wills, but in all other legal deeds, if the real intention of
the party was to be disregarded: and hinting very smartly, that his
friend Scaevola had assumed a most unwarrantable degree of importance, if
no person must afterwards presume to indite a legacy, but in the musty
form which he himself might please to prescribe. As he enlarged on each of
these arguments with great force and propriety, supported them by a number
of precedents, exhibited them in a variety of views, and enlivened them
with many occasional turns of wit and pleasantry, he gained so much
applause, and gave such general satisfaction, that it was scarcely
remembered that any thing had been said on the contrary side of the
question. This was the third, and the most important duty we assigned to
an Orator.

"Here, if one of the people was to be judge, the same person who had heard
the first Speaker with a degree of admiration, would, on hearing the
second, despise himself for his former want of judgment:--whereas a man of
taste and erudition, on hearing Scaevola, would have observed that he was
really master of a rich and ornamental style; but if, on comparing the
manner in which each of them concluded his cause, it was to be enquired