The Fifth and Sixth books, which are in the same fragmentary condition, have no introductions at all; but the seventh is in better case. Like the others, it is mainly devoted to the characteristics of a single orator—in this case Silius Albucius. Some of the things said about him touch us nearly, as, for instance, Pollio’s—the severe Pollio’s—description of his _sentences_ (axioms, maxims, apophthegms) as “white”—that is to say, simple, clear, with nothing obscure or unexpected,—but “vocal” and “splendid.” It was impossible, continues Seneca, to complain of the poverty of the Latin tongue when you heard him: he was never in the very least in pain for a word. Yet, on the other hand, he was not equal. His language was at one moment magnificent, at another he would mention the most sordid things—"vinegar, and pennyroyal, and lanterns, and pumice, and sponges." He thought “nothing must _not_ be named in a declamation [and the reason is valuable or invaluable] because he feared to smack of the Schools.” And yet further we get the important _obiter dictum_: “Familiar phrase is, among oratorical virtues, a thing which rarely succeeds.” And then there is a very luminous and jocund anecdote of the real trouble into which the devotion to Figures might even then bring men. Albucius had rhetorically proposed to administer certain oaths. His opponent, L. Arruntius, very coolly rose and said, “We accept the condition: he shall swear.” Albucius protested that this would do away with Figures altogether. Quoth Arruntius (very sensibly), “Let them go—we can do without them”: and the _centumviri_ allowed the catch. The unlucky orator was so annoyed that he renounced actual pleading from that day, because of the insult done to his beloved Figures. The Eighth Book is again without its preface; but though there is a very large lacuna in ix., we have part of the introduction. It yields little. The last is in better case, but still not very fertile, though we have another instance of the mania for Figures. It is said of the above-quoted Oscus: “Dum nihil non schemate dicere cupit, oratio ejus non figurata erat sed prava.” Certainly there are no few examples of this “pravity” in the declamations themselves, which it would be interesting, but in our space impossible, to examine, as we have examined the prefaces.[301] Footnote 301: It has always to be remembered that they are not integral and complete, but centos of quoted flights, conceits, &c., on the stock hard cases.