either to fupport his own allegations, or to refute those AS HORTENSIUS was nearer to me in age, and his manner more agreeable to the natural ardor of my temper, I confidered him as the proper object of my competition; and I obferved that when COTTA and HORTENSIUS were both engaged in the fame caufe, though the FORMER was generally employed by the client to open the defence, the most important parts of it were left to the management of HORTENSIUS: for a crowded audience and a clamorous forum require an orator who is lively, animated, full of action, and able to exert his voice to the highest pitch. The first year after my return from Afia, I undertook feveral capital caufes; and in the interior I put up as a candidate for the Quæftorfhip, COTTA for the Confulate, and HORTENSIUS for the Edileship. After I was chosen quæftor, I paffed a year in Sicily, the province affigned to me by lot: COTTA went as conful into Gaul and HORTENSIUS, whofe new office required his prefence at Rome, was left of course the undifputed fovereign of the forum. In the fucceeding year, when I returned from Sicily, my my oratorial talents, fuch as they were, difplayed themfelves in their full perfection and maturity. After fpending the five fucceeding years in pleading a variety of caufes, and with the ableft advocates of the time, I was declared an edile, and undertook the patronage of the Sicilians, with whom I had formerly lived. HORTENSIUS after his appointment to the confulfhip, very probably because he saw none of confular dignity, who were able to rival him, and defpifed the competition of others of inferior rank, had begun to remit his intense application, which he had hitherto persevered in from his childhood; and having fettled himself in very affluent circumstances, he chofe to live for the future a life of eafe and dignity. I, at the fame time, spared no pains to improve and enlarge my talents, fuch as they were, by every exercife that was proper for the purpose, but particularly by that of writing. In the three fucceeding years, the beauty of HORTENSIUS'S colouring was fo much impaired, as to be very perceptible to a skilful, though not to a common, obferver. After that, he grew every day more unlike himself than before, not only in other parts of eloquence, but by a gradual decay of the former celerity and elegant texture of his language. When HORTENSIUS there fore, fore, the once eloquent and admired HORTENSIUS, had almost vanished from the forum, my appointment to the confulship, which happened about fix years after his own promotion to that office, revived his dying emulation; for he was unwilling that, after I had equalled him in rank and dignity, I should become his fuperior in any other respect. But in the twelve fucceeding years, by a mutual deference to each other's abilities, we united our efforts at the bar in the most amicable manner: and my confulship, which at first had given a fhort claim to his jealoufy, afterwards cemented our friendfhip, by the generous candor with which he applauded my conduct. Perhaps, my BRUTUS, I may appear to have been saying too much in praise of myself; but my design in it, is not to make a parade of my eloquence, but only to fet forth the great pains and labour, which I have taken, in order that I might obtain it. Hence it was, that CICERO became the orator, who could speak upon trivial subjects with fimplicity,-upon indifferent ones with moderation,-and upon weighty fubjects with energy and pathos. His eloquence was embellished with all the brilliant figures of rhetoric, and studded with sentiment. He has unfolded the most extenfive and refined topics of philofophy. What need I fay more? Such fpeakers are the offfpring of philosophy; and were the nervous and more striking orator out of fight, these alone would fully answer all our wishes. For they are masters of a brilliant, a florid, a picturesque, and a well-wrought elocution, which is interwoven with all the beautiful embroidery both of language and fentiment. This character firft ftreamed from the limpid fountain of the academicians into the forum: but being furpaffed by the nervous and weighty orator, he is compelled to take a fuperior, though a fecondary, station. SECT. SECT. LXI. OF AMBITION. Sweet is the concord of harmonious founds, ALTHOUGH imitation is one of the great inftruments used by PROVIDENCE in bringing our nature towards its perfection, yet if men gave themselves up to imitation entirely, and each followed the other, and fo on in an eternal circle, it is easy to fee that there never could be any improvement amongst them, Men must remain as brutes do, the fame at the end as they are at this day, and that they were in the be ginning of the world. To prevent this, God has planted |