by Lucilius) we should scarcely have known that a tribune of that name had existed."--"I believe so," replied Brutus: "but I have heard as little of the tribuneship of Scaevola, though I must naturally suppose that he was the colleague of Crassus."--"He was so," said I, "in all his other preferments; but he was not tribune till the year after him; and when he sat in the Rostrum in that capacity, Crassus spoke in support of the Servilian law. I must observe, however, that Crassus had not Scaevola for his colleague in the censorship; for none of the Scaevolas ever sued for that office. But when the last-mentioned Oration of Crassus was published (which I dare say you have frequently read) he was thirty-four years of age, which was exactly the difference between his age and mine. For he supported the law I have just been speaking of, in the very consulship under which I was born; whereas he himself was born in the consulship of Q. Caepio, and C. Laelius, about three years later than Antonius. I have particularly noticed this circumstance, to specify the time when the Roman Eloquence attained its first _maturity_; and was actually carried to such a degree of perfection, as to leave no room for any one to carry it higher, unless by the assistance of a more complete and extensive knowledge of philosophy, jurisprudence, and history."--"But does there," said Brutus, "or will there ever exist a man, who is furnished with all the united accomplishments you require?"--"I really don't know," said I; "but we have a speech made by Crassus in his consulship, in praise of Q. Caepio, intermingled with a defence of his conduct, which, though a short one if we consider it as an Oration, is not so as a Panegyric;--and another, which was his last, and which he spoke in the 48th year of his age, at the time he was censor. In these we have the genuine complexion of Eloquence, without any painting or disguise: but his periods (I mean Crassus's) were generally short and concise; and he was fond of expressing himself in those minuter sentences, or members, which the Greeks call Colons."--"As you have spoken so largely," said Brutus, "in praise of the two last-mentioned Orators, I heartily wish that Antonius had left us some other specimen of his abilities, than his trifling Essay on the Art of Speaking, and Crassus more than he has: by so doing, they would have transmitted their fame to _posterity_; and to us a valuable system of Eloquence. For as to the elegant language of Scaevola, we have sufficient proofs of it in the Orations he has left behind him."--"For my part," said I, "the Oration I was speaking of, on Caepio's case, has been my pattern, and my tutoress, from my very childhood. It supports the dignity of the Senate, which was deeply interested in the debate; and excites the jealousy of the audience against the party of the judges and accusers, whose power it was necessary to expose in the most popular terms. Many