improving his judgment, which is a talent equally necessary in all military operations." "Your remark," said I, "is very just; and I have a higher opinion of the merit of eloquence, because, though there is scarcely any person so diffident as not to persuade himself, that he either has, or may acquire every other accomplishment which, formerly, could have given him consequence in the State; I can find no person who has been made an orator by the success of his military prowess.--But that we may carry on the conversation with greater ease, let us seat ourselves."--As my visitors had no objection to this, we accordingly took our seats in a private lawn, near a statue of Plato. Then resuming the conversation,--"to recommend the study of eloquence," said I, "and describe its force, and the great dignity it confers upon those who have acquired it, is neither our present design, nor has any necessary connection with it. But I will not hesitate to affirm, that whether it is acquired by art or practice, or the mere powers of nature, it is the most difficult of all attainments; for each of the five branches of which it is said to consist, is of itself a very important art; from whence it may easily be conjectured, how great and arduous must be the profession which unites and comprehends them all. "Greece alone is a sufficient witness of this:--for though she was fired with a wonderful love of Eloquence, and has long since excelled every other nation in the practice of it, yet she had all the rest of the arts much earlier; and had not only invented, but even compleated them, a considerable time before she was mistress of the full powers of elocution. But when I direct my eyes to Greece, your beloved Athens, my Atticus, first strikes my sight, and is the brightest object in my view: for in that illustrious city the _orator_ first made his appearance, and it is there we shall find the earliest records of eloquence, and the first specimens of a discourse conducted by rules of art. But even in Athens there is not a single production now extant which discovers any taste for ornament, or seems to have been the effort of a real orator, before the time of Pericles (whose name is prefixed to some orations which still remain) and his cotemporary Thucydides; who flourished,--not in the infancy of the State, but when it was arrived at its full maturity of power.