. We are inclined to doubt whether too much of life is not
devoted to the purpose. It could not be done but by a people so greedy
of admiration as to feel that all other things should be abandoned by
those who desire to excel. The actor of to-day will do it, but it is his
business to act; and if he so applies himself to his profession as to
succeed, he has achieved his object. But oratory in the law court, as in
Parliament, or in addressing the public, is only the means of imbuing
the minds of others with the ideas which the speaker wishes to implant
there. To have those ideas, and to have the desire to teach them to
others, is more to him than the power of well expressing them. To know
the law is better than to talk of knowing it. But with the Romans so
great was the desire to shine that the reality was lost in its
appearance; and so prone were the people to indulge in the delight of
their senses that they would sacrifice a thing for a sound, and
preferred lies in perfect language to truth in halting syllables. This
feeling had sunk deep into Cicero's heart when he was a youth, and has
given to his character the only stain which it has. He would be
patriotic: to love his country was the first duty of a Roman. He would
be honest: so much was indispensable to his personal dignity. But he
must so charm his countrymen with his voice as to make them feel while
they listened to him that some god addressed them. In this way he became
permeated by the love of praise, till it was death to him not to be
before the lamps.

The "perfect orator" is, we may say, a person neither desired nor
desirable. We, who are the multitude of the world, and have been born to
hold our tongues and use our brains, would not put up with him were he
to show himself. But it was not so in Cicero's time; and this was the
way he took to sing the praises of his own profession and to magnify his
own glory. He speaks of that profession in language so excellent as to
make us who read his words believe that there was more in it than it did
in truth hold. But there was much in it, and the more so as the
performers reacted upon their audience. The delicacy of the powers of
expression had become so great, that the powers of listening and
distinguishing had become great also. As the instruments became fine, so
did the ears which were to receive their music. Cicero, and Quintilian
after him, tell us this. The latter, in speaking of the nature of the
voice, gives u