The Orations which he is known to have composed amount in all to about eighty, of which fifty-nine, either entire or in part, are preserved. Of these some are deliberative, others judicial, others descriptive; some delivered from the rostrum, or in the senate; others in the forum, or before Caesar; and, as might be anticipated from the character already given of his talents, he is much more successful in pleading or in panegyric than in debate or invective. In deliberative oratory, indeed, great part of the effect of the composition depends on its creating in the hearer a high opinion of the speaker; and, though Cicero takes considerable pains to interest the audience in his favour, yet his style is not simple and grave enough, he is too ingenious, too declamatory, discovers too much personal feeling, to elicit that confidence in him, without which argument has little influence. His invectives, again, however grand and imposing, yet, compared with his calmer and more familiar productions, have a forced and unnatural air. Splendid as is the eloquence of his Catilinarians and Philippics, it is often the language of abuse rather than of indignation; and even his attack on Piso, the most brilliant and imaginative of its kind, becomes wearisome from want of ease and relief. His laudatory orations, on the other hand, are among his happiest efforts. Nothing can exceed the taste and beauty of those for the Manilian law, for Marcellus, for Ligarius, for Archias, and the ninth Philippic, which is principally in praise of Servius Sulpicius. But it is in judicial eloquence, particularly on subjects of a lively cast, as in his speeches for Caelius and Muraena, and against Caecilius, that his talents are displayed to the best advantage. In both these departments of oratory the grace and amiableness of his genius are manifested in their full lustre, though none of his orations are without tokens of those characteristic excellences. Historical allusions, philosophical sentiments, descriptions full of life and nature, and polite raillery, succeed each other in the most agreeable manner, without appearance of artifice or effort. Such are his pictures of the confusion of the Catilinarian conspirators on detection;[226] of the death of Metellus;[227] of Sulpicius undertaking the embassy to Antony;[228] the character he draws of Catiline;[229] and his fine sketch of old Appius, frowning on his degenerate descendant Clodia.[230]