Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/11

 DEMOSTHENES. 3 those -who have more leisure, and time enough yet before them for the occupation. And so in this fifth book of my Parallel Lives, in giving an account of Demosthenes and Cicero, my comparison of their natural dispositions and their characters will be formed upon their actions and their lives as statesmen, and I shall not pretend to criticize their orations one against the other, to show which of the two was the more charming or the more powerful speaker. For there, as Ion says, We are but like a fish upon dry land ; a proverb which Coecilius perhaps forgot, when he em- ployed his always adventurous talents in so ambitious an attempt as a comjjarison of Demosthenes and Cicero: and, possibly, if it were a thing obvious and easy for every man to Jcwiv himself, the precept had not passed for an oracle. The divine power seems originally to have designed Demosthenes and Cicero upon the same plan, giving them many similarities in their natural characters, a3 their passion for distinction and their love of Hberty in civil life, and their want of courage in dangers and war, and at the same time also to have added many accidental resemblances. I think there can hardly be found two other orators, who, from small and obscure beginnings, became so great and mighty ; who both contested with kings and tyrants ; both lost their daughters, were driven out of their country, and returned with honor; who, flying from thence again, were both seized upon by their enemies, and at last ended their lives with the liberty of their countrymen. So that if we were to suppose there had been a trial of skill between nature and fortune, aa there is sometimes between artists, it would be hard to