Oh, says Aper, let Bassus and others, who cannot compass oratory, cultivate poetry if they like. Here is Maternus who can: so he is wasting his time. And he embarks on a warm and by no means ineloquent eulogy of eloquence from its practical side, urging not merely its great political importance but other points. Eloquence opens positions of opulence and power, makes you valuable to your friends and the State, is a safeguard to yourself, gives fame, wealth, dignity. As for poetry, it brings none of these things. It is of no use, and the pleasure it gives is short, idle, and unprofitable. What is the good of it? Who thinks much even of Bassus himself? And if he or his friends are in any difficulty, to whom will they go? Why, to an orator. The poet spends an infinity of labour on his poem, compasses heaven and earth to whip an audience together, and gets nothing from it. Certainly Vespasian did give Bassus five hundred sestertia, and very noble it was of him; but this was mere alms. An orator _earns_ his money. Besides, your poets have to skulk in the country, and even if they stay in town, who cares about them, or goes to see them? Of course, as before said, if a man cannot be an orator, why, let him be a poet. But eloquence is as great a thing from the merely literary point of view, and far more useful. Footnote 372: I say this in some fear and trembling, with such an authority as the late Mr Nettleship against me. But I have been accustomed for a good many years to compare styles in more languages than one or two, and I think these most unlike. Even the argument that a man may suit his style to his work is not conclusive, for here it is the _general_ unlikeness of tone and flavour, which cannot be wholly disguised, that decides me. Footnote 373: _Causidici._