opinion that Demosthenes ought to be
particularly read, or, rather, committed to memory.

I must say, notwithstanding, that I judge them to be alike in most of
the great qualities they possest; alike in design, disposition, manner
of dividing, of preparing minds, of proving, in short in everything
belonging to invention. In elocution there is some difference. The one
is more compact, the other more copious; the one closes in with his
opponent, the other allows him more ground to fight in; the one is
always subtle and keen in argument, the other is perhaps less so, but
often has more weight; from the one nothing can be retrenched, neither
can anything be added to the other; the one has more study, the other
more nature.

Still ought we to yield, if for no other reason than because Demosthenes
lived before Cicero, and because the Roman orator, however great, is
indebted for a large part of his merit to the Athenian. For it seems to
me that Cicero, having bent all his thoughts on the Greeks, toward
forming himself on their model, had at length made constituents of his
character the force of Demosthenes, the abundance of Plato, and the
sweetness of Isocrates. Nor did he only, by his application, extract
what was best in these great originals, but by the happy fruitfulness of
his immortal genius he himself produced the greater part, or rather all,
of these same perfections. And to make use of an expression of Pindar,
he does not collect the water from rains to remedy a natural dryness,
but flows continually, himself, from a source of living waters, and
seems to have existed by a peculiar gift of Providence, that in him
eloquence might make trial of her whole strength and her most powerful
exertions.

For who can instruct with more exactness, and move with more vehemence?
What orator ever possest so pleasing a manner that the very things he
forcibly wrests from you, you fancy you grant him; and when by his
violence he carries away the judge, yet does the judge seem to himself
to obey his own volition, and not to be swept away by that of another?
Besides, in all he says there is so much authority and weight that you
are ashamed to differ from him in opinion; and it is not the zeal of an
advocate you find in him, but rather the faith and sincerity of a
witness or judge. And what, at the same time, is more admirable, all
these qualities, any one of which could not be attained by another
without infinite pains, seem to be his