Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/76

 ing to give over Pleading, if Sylla's Death had not restored that Freedom which only gave Life to his Oratory: And when the Civil Wars between Pompey and Cæsar came on, he retired, because his Profession was superseded by a rougher Rhetorick, which commands an Attentive Audience in all Countries where it pleads.

When Orators are no longer Constituent Parts of a Government, or, at least, when Eloquence is not an almost certain Step to arrive at the chiefest Honours in a State, the Necessity of the Art of Speaking is, in a great measure, taken off; and as the Authority of Orators lessens. which it will insensibly do as Tyranny and Absolute Power prevail, their Art will dwindle into Declamation, and an Affectation of Sentences, and Forms of Wit. The Old Men, who out-live their former Splendor, will, perhaps, set their own Scholars and Auditors right, and give them a true Relish of what is Great and Noble; but that will hardly continue above one or two Generations. Which may be super-added as another Reason why there were no more Demosthenes's or Tullies, after the Macedonian and Roman Emperors had taken away the Liberty of their respective Commonwealths. It is