deret uxor. Quid horum non impeditissimum?
Vestitus? an vehiculum? an comes?_ A travelling-cloak could give
neither grace nor dignity to an orator at the bar. The business was
transacted in a kind of chat with the judges: what room for eloquence,
and that commanding action which springs from the emotions of the
soul, and inflames every breast with kindred passions? The cold
inanimate orator is described, by Quintilian, speaking with his hand
under his robe; _manum intra pallium continens._ Section XL.

[a] Maternus is now drawing to a conclusion, and, therefore, calls to
mind the proposition with which he set out; viz. that the flame of
oratory is kept alive by fresh materials, and always blazes forth in
times of danger and public commotion. The unimpassioned style, which
suited the _areopagus_ of Athens, or the courts of Rome, where the
advocate spoke by an hour-glass, does not deserve the name of genuine
eloquence. The orations of Cicero for Marcellus, Ligarius, and king
Dejotarus, were spoken before Caesar, when he was master of the Roman
world. In those speeches, what have we to admire, except delicacy of
sentiment, and elegance of diction? How different from the _torrent,
tempest, and whirlwind of passion_, that roused, inflamed, and
commanded the senate, and the people, against Catiline and Marc
Antony!

[b] For the account of Cicero's death by Velleius Paterculus, see s.
xvii. note [e]. Juvenal ascribes the murder of the great Roman orator
to the second Philippic against Antony.

----Ridenda poemata malo,
Quam te conspicuae divina Philippica famae,
Volveris a prima quae proxima.
SAT. x. ver. 124.

I rather would be Maevius, thrash for rhymes
Like his, the scorn and scandal of the times,
Than the _Philippic_, fatally divine,
Which is inscrib'd the second, should be mine.
DRYDEN'S JUVENAL.

What Cicero says of Antonius, the celebrated orator, may be applied to
himself: That head, which defended the commonwealth, was shewn from
that very rostrum, where the heads of so many Roman citizens had been
saved by his eloquence. _In his ipsis rostris, in quibus ille
rempublicam constantissime consul defenderat, positum caput illud
fuit, a quo erant multorum civium capita servata._ Cicero _De
Oratore_, lib. iii. s. 10.

Section XLII.

[a] The urbanity with which the Dialogue is conducted, and the perf