Such was the process by which he became confessedly the greatest orator among the people by whom eloquence was cultivated, as it has never been since by any nation upon earth. He brought it to its highest state of perfection, as did Sophocles the tragic drama, by the harmonious union of excellences which had before only existed apart. The quality in his writings, which excited the highest admiration of the most intelligent judges among his countrymen in the later critical age, was the Protean versatility with which he adapted his style to every theme, so as to furnish the most perfect examples of every order and kind of eloquence. Demosthenes, like Pericles, never willingly appeared before his audience with any but the ripest fruits of his private studies, though he was quite capable of speaking on the impulse of the moment in a manner worthy of his reputation. That he continued to the end of his career to cultivate the art with unabated diligence, and that, even in the midst of public business, his habits were those of a severe student, is well known. The first manifestation of that just jealousy of Philip, the ambitious king of Macedon, which became the leading principle of his life, was made 252 B. C., when the orator delivered the first of those celebrated speeches called Philippics. This word has been naturalized in Latin and most European languages, as a concise term to signify indignant invective. From this time forward, it was the main object of Demosthenes to inspire and keep alive in the minds of the Athenians a constant jealousy of Philip’s power and intentions, and to unite the other states of Greece in confederacy against him. The policy and the disinterestedness of his conduct have both been questioned; the former, by those who have judged, from the event, that resistance to the power of Macedonia was rashly to accelerate a certain and inevitable evil; the latter, by those, both of his contemporaries and among posterity, who believe that he received bribes from Persia, as the price of finding employment in Greece for an enemy, whose ambition threatened the monarch of the East. With respect to the former, however, it was at least the most generous policy, and like that of the elder Athenians in their most illustrious days—not to await the ruin of their independence submissively, until every means had been tried for averting it; for the latter, such charges are hard either to be proved or refuted. The character of Demosthenes certainly does not stand above the suspicion of pecuniary corruption, but it has not been shown, nor is it necessary or probable to suppose, that his jealousy of Philip of Macedon was not, in the first instance, far-sighted and patriotic. During fourteen years, from 352 to 338, he exhausted every resource of eloquence and diplomatic skill to check the progress of that aspiring monarch; and whatever may be thought of his moral worth, none can