"For this, my Lords, is a law not written upon tables, but impressed upon our hearts;--a law which we have not learned, or heard, or read, but eagerly caught and imbibed from the hand of Nature;--a law to which we have not been train'd, but originally form'd; and with the principles of which we have not been furnished by education, but tinctured and impregnated from the moment of our birth." In these forms of expression every circumstance is so aptly referred to some other circumstance, that the regular turn of them does not appear to have been studied, but to result entirely from the sense. The same effect is produced by contrasting opposite circumstances; as in the following lines, where it not only forms a measured sentence, but a verse: _Eam, quam nihil accusas, damnas,_ Her, whom you ne'er accus'd, you now condemn; (in prose we should say _condemnas_) and again, _Bene quam meritam esse autumas, dicis male mereri_, Her merit, once confess'd, you now deny; and, _Id quod scis, prodest nihil; id quod nescis, obest_, From what you've learnt no real good accrues, But ev'ry ill your ignorance pursues. Here you see the mere opposition of the terms produces a verse; but in prosaic composition, the proper form of the last line would be, _quod scis nihil prodest; quod nescis multum obest_. This contrasting of opposite circumstances, which the Greeks call an Antithesis, will necessarily produce what is styled _rhetorical metre_, even without our intending it. The ancient Orators, a considerable time before it was practised and recommended by _Isocrates_, were fond of using it; and particularly _Gorgias_, whose measured cadences are generally owing to the mere _concinnity_ of his language. I have frequently practised it myself; as, for instance, in the following passage of my fourth Invective against _Verres_: "Conferte _hanc Pacem_ cum _illo Bello_;--_hujus_ Praetoris _Adventum_, cum _illius_ Imperatoris _Victoria_;--hujas _Cohortem impuram_, cum illius _Exercitu invicto_;--hujus _Libidines_, cum illius _Continentia_;--ab illo qui cepit _conditas_; ab hoc, qui constitutas accepit, _captas_ dicetis Syracusas." "Compare this detestable _peace_ with that glorious _war_,--the _arrival_ of this governor with the _victory_ of that commander,--his _ruffian guards_, with the _invincible forces_ of the other;--the brutal luxury of the former, with the modest temperance of the latter;--and you will say, that Syracuse was really _founded_ by him who _stormed_ it, and _stormed_ by him who received it already _founded_ to his hands."--So much, then, for that kind of measure which results from particular forms of expression, and which ought to be known by every Orator.