Page:Demosthenes (Brodribb).djvu/104

90 he likes, and has adopted a different line of conduct by choice, surely it is quite evident that if he eludes justice now, he will again become the same Meidias that you know him for. You must not listen to him, then; you must not let the present occasion, when he is playing the hypocrite, have more weight and influence with you than the whole past of which you have had experience.

"Perhaps he will say of me, This man is an orator. Well; if one who advises what he thinks for your good, without being troublesome or intrusive, is an orator, I would not deny or refuse the name. But if an orator be what (to my knowledge and to your knowledge) certain of our speakers are—impudent fellows, enriched at your expense—I can hardly be that; for I have received nothing from you, but spent all my substance upon you, except a mere trifle. Probably, also, Meidias will say that all my speech is prepared. I admit that I have got it up as well as I possibly could. I were a complete simpleton indeed, if, having suffered and still suffering such injuries, I took no pains about the mode of stating them to you. I maintain that Meidias has composed my speech; he who has supplied the facts which the speech is about, may most fairly be deemed its author, not he who has merely prepared it or studied how to lay an honest case before you."

The speech is not, we think, one of Demosthenes' best; but it is often ingenious, and it certainly shows singular power of invective. It suggests that what we