e better party, or the supporters of the
commonwealth. He is thought by some to have been deficient in courage,
but he has given an excellent reply to this charge, when he says that
he was timid, not in encountering dangers, but in taking precautions
against them; an assertion of which he proved the truth at his death,
to which he submitted with the noblest fortitude. But even should the
height of virtue have been wanting to these eminent men, I shall reply
to those who ask me whether they were orators as the Stoics reply when
they are asked whether Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus were wise men;
they say that they were great and deserving of veneration, but that
they did not attain the highest excellence of which human nature is
susceptible.

Pythagoras desired to be called, not wise, like those who preceded
him, but a lover of wisdom. I, however, in speaking of Cicero, have
often said, according to the common mode of speech, and shall continue
to say, that he was a perfect orator, as we term our friends, in
ordinary discourse, good and prudent men, tho such epithets can be
justly given only to the perfectly wise. But when I have to speak
precisely, and in conformity with the exactness of truth, I shall
express myself as longing to see such an orator as he himself also
longed to see; for tho I acknowledge that Cicero stood at the head of
eloquence, and that I can scarcely find a passage in his speeches to
which anything can be added, however many I might find which I may
imagine that he would have pruned (for the learned have in general
been of opinion that he had numerous excellences and some faults, and
he himself says that he had cut off most of his juvenile exuberance),
yet, since he did not claim to himself, tho he had no mean opinion of
his merits, the praise of perfection, and since he might certainly
have spoken better if a longer life had been granted him, and a more
tranquil season for composition, I may not unreasonably believe that
the summit of excellence was not attained by him, to which,
notwithstanding, no man made nearer approaches. If I had thought
otherwise, I might have maintained my opinion with still greater
determination and freedom. Did Marcus Antonius declare that he had
seen no man truly eloquent, tho to be eloquent is much less than to be
a perfect orator; does Cicero himself say that he is still seeking for
an orator, and merely conceives and imagines one; and shall I fear to
say that in tha