Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker.Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Philosophy
Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Oratory -- Early works to 1800
humour, as I have never seen it done by any of the modern pretenders to
Atticism, though they cannot deny that this is entirely in the Attic
taste.
Such, then, is the idea which I have formed of a _simple and an easy
Speaker_, who is likewise a very masterly one, and a genuine Athenian; for
whatever is smart and pertinent is unquestionably _Attic_, though some of
the Attic Speakers were not remarkable for their wit. _Lysias_, indeed,
and _Hyperides_ were sufficiently so; and _Demades_, it is said, was more
so than all the others. Demosthenes, however, is thought by many to have
but little merit of the kind; but to me nothing can be more genteel than
he is; though, perhaps, he was rather smart than humourous. The one
requires a quicker genius, but the other more art and address.
But there is a second character, which is more diffusive, and somewhat
stronger than the simple and artless, one we have been describing,--though
considerably inferior to that copious and all-commanding Eloquence we
shall notice in the sequel. In this, though there is but a moderate
exertion of the nerves and sinews of Oratory, there is abundance of melody
and sweetness. It is much fuller and richer than the close and accurate
style above-mentioned; but less elevated than the pompous and diffusive.
In _this_ all the ornaments of language may be employed without reserve;
and _here_ the flow of our numbers is ever soft and harmonious. Many of
the Greeks have pursued it with success: but, in my opinion, they must all
yield the palm to _Demetrius Phalereus_, whose Eloquence is ever mild and
placid, and bespangled with a most elegant variety of metaphors and other
tropes, like so many _stars_. By _metaphors_, as I have frequently
observed, I mean expressions which, either for the sake of ornament, or
through the natural poverty of our language, are removed and as it were
_transplanted_ from their proper objects to others, by way of similitude.
As to _tropes_ in general, they are particular forms of expression, in
which the proper name of a thing is supplied by another, which conveys the
same meaning, but is borrowed from its adjuncts or effects: for, though,
in this case, there is a kind of metaphor, (because the word is shifted
from its primary object) yet the remove is performed by _Ennius_ in a
different manner, when he says metaphorically,--"_You bereave the citadel
and the city of their offspring_,"--from what it would have been, if he
had put the citadel alone for the whole state: and thus again, when he
tells us that,--"_rugged Africa was shaken by a dreadful tumult_,"--he
puts Africa for the inhabitants. The Rhetoricians call this an
_Hypallage_, because one word is substituted for another: but the
Grammarians call it a _Metonymy_, because the words are shifted and
interchanged. Aristotle, however, subjoins it to the metaphor, as he
likewise does the _Abuse_ or _Catachresis_; by which, for instance, we say
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