Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/97

 COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO. These are the most memorable circumstances recorded in history of Demosthenes and Cicero which have come to our knowledge. But omitting an exact comparison of their respective faculties in speaking, j^et thus much seems fit to be said ; that Demosthenes, to make him- self a master in rhetoric, apphed all the faculties he had, natural or acquired, wholly that way; that he i'ar sur- passed in force and strength of eloquence all his contem- poraries in political and judicial speaking, in grandeur and majesty all the panegyrical orators, and in accuracy and science all the logicians and rhetoricians of his day ; * that Cicero was highly educated, and by his diligent study became a most accomplished general scholar in all these branches, having left behind him numerous philo- sophical treatises of his own on Academic principles ; as, indeed, even in his written speeches, both political and judicial, we see him continually trying to show his learning by the way. And one may discover the different temper of each of them in their speeches. For Demos- thenes's oratory was without all embellishment and jest- • The political, the judicial, and the practitioners in these are added the panegyrical departments were the sophista, the logic and rhetoric the three varieties of oratory. To masters. (89)