that serve as so many
degrees for pronunciation.

Cicero gives many names to the period, calling it a winding about, a
circuit, a comprehension, continuation, and circumscription. It is of
two kinds; the one simple when a single thought is drawn out into a
considerable number of words; the other compound, consisting of members
and articles which include several thoughts.

Wherever the orator has occasion to conduct himself severely, to press
home, to act boldly and resolutely, he should speak by members and
articles. This manner has vast power and efficacy in an oration. The
composition is to adapt itself to the nature of things, therefore, even
rough things being conceived in rough sounds and numbers, that the
hearer may be made to enter into all the passions of the speaker. It
would be advisable, for the most part, to make the narration in members;
or if periods are used, they ought to be more loose and less elaborate
than elsewhere. But I except such narrations as are calculated more for
ornament than for giving information.

THE USE OF PERIODS

The period is proper for the exordiums of greater causes, where the
matter requires solicitude, commendation, pity. Also in common places
and in every sort of amplification; but if you accuse, it ought to be
close and compact; if you praise, it should be full, round, and flowing.
It is likewise of good service in perorations, and may be used without
restriction wherever the composition requires to be set off in a
somewhat grand and noble manner, and when the judge not only has a
thorough knowledge of the matter before him, but is also captivated with
the beauty of the discourse and, trusting to the orator, allows himself
to be led away by the sense of pleasure.

History does not so much stand in need of a periodical flow of words, as
it likes to move around in a sort of perpetual circle, for all its
members are connected with each other, by its slipping and gliding along
from one subject to the next, just as men, strengthening their pace,
hold and are held, by grasping each other by the hand. Whatever belongs
to the demonstrative kind has freer and more flowing numbers. The
judicial and deliberative, being varied in their matter, occasionally
require a different form of composition.

FITTING EXPRESSION TO THOUGHT

Who doubts that some things are to be exprest in a gentle way, others
with more heat, others sublimely, others contentiously, and others
gravely? Feet