[a] Pliny tells us, that he employed much of his time in pleading causes before the _centumviri_; but he grew ashamed of the business, when he found those courts attended by a set of bold young men, and not by lawyers of any note or consequence. But still the service of his friends, and his time of life, induced him to continue his practice for some while longer, lest he should seem, by quitting it abruptly, to fly from fatigue, not from the indecorum of the place. He contrived however to appear but seldom, in order to withdraw himself by degrees. _Nos tamen adhuc et utilitas amicorum, et ratio ætatis, moratur ac retinet. Veremur enim ne fortè non has indignitates reliquisse, sed laborem fugisse videamur. Sumus tamen solito rariores, quod initium est gradatim desinendi._ Lib. ii. epist. 14. Section 11. [a] The person here distinguished from the rest of the rhetoricians, is the celebrated Quintilian, of whose elegant taste and superior judgement it were superfluous to say a word. Martial has given his character in two lines:-- Quintiliane, vagæ moderator summe juventæ, Gloria Romanæ, Quintiliane, togæ. Lib. ii. epig. 90. It is generally supposed that he was a native of _Calaguris_ (now _Calahorra_), a city in Spain, rendered famous by the martial spirit of Sertorius, who there stood a siege against Pompey. Vossius, however, thinks that he was born a Roman; and GEDOYN, the elegant translator mentioned section 6. note [a], accedes to that opinion, since Martial does not claim him as his countryman. The same writer says, that it is still uncertain when Quintilian was born, and when he died; but, after a diligent enquiry, he thinks it probable that the great critic was born towards the latter end of Tiberius; and, of course, when Domitius Afer died in the reign of Nero, A.U.C. 812, A.D. 59, that he was then two and twenty. His Institutions of an Orator were written in the latter end of Domitian, when Quintilian, as he himself says, was far advanced in years. The time of his death is no where mentioned, but it probably was under Nerva or Trajan. It must not be dissembled, that this admirable author was not exempt from the epidemic vice of the age in which he lived. He flattered Domitian, and that strain of adulation is the only blemish in his work. The love of literature may be said to have been his ruling passion; but, in his estimation, learning and genius are subordinate to honour, truth, and virtue. Section 12. [a] Maternus, without contradicting Messala or Secundus, gives his opinion, viz. that the decline of eloquence, however other causes might conspire, was chiefly occasioned by the ruin of a free constitution. To this he adds another observation, which seems to be founded in truth, as we find that, since the revival of letters, Spain has produced one CERVANTES; France, one MOLIERE; England, one SHAKSPEARE, and one MILTON. Section 13.