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28 to go with him to hear one of the first speakers of the day, Callistratus, who was delivering a great political harangue on the cession of the border-town Oropus to the Thebans. The occasion may have been a turning-point in his life. But he had an unlucky infirmity; he, who was to be the greatest orator of all time, stammered in his boyhood and youth. It would seem as if his physical defects were too much for his mental vigour and his ambitious aspirations.

Plutarch in his 'Life of Demosthenes' gives us several interesting details about his study and preparation for the career of an orator, and it is satisfactory to find that so high an authority as Mr Grote thinks that they rest on good evidence. It appears that the youth put himself under the instruction of Isæus, one of the first advocates of the time, who was frequently retained in cases connected with wills and disputes about property. In his speeches against his guardians he is said to have availed himself of the counsel and guidance of this eminent lawyer. But the most fashionable rhetoric-professor of the day was Isocrates, and Demosthenes was among the number of his most attentive and admiring hearers; though perhaps we must not believe a story according to which he asked the great man to teach him a fifth part of his art for two minas, as he could not afford the regular fee of ten minas, about £40, to learn the whole. One would like to believe that he heard and admired some of the discourses of Plato, who was then in the height of his philosophical glory; and there is a tradition, mentioned by Cicero and Tacitus, to this effect. The literary styles of the