The meaning of _plasma_, in the technical language of rhetoricians contemporary with Quintilian, seems different from that which it bears in Dionysius, p. 1060-1061. But whether Plutarch has exactly rendered to us what Demetrius Phalereus said of Demosthenes—whether Demetrius spoke of the modulation of Demosthenes as being _low_ and _vulgar_—I cannot but doubt. Æschines urges very different reproaches against him—overmuch labor and affectation, but combined with bitterness and malignity (adv. Ktesiph. p. 78-86). He denounces the _character_ of Demosthenes as low and vulgar—but not his oratorical delivery. The expression ὥσπερ ἐνθουσιῶν, which Plutarch cites from Demetrius Phalereus, hardly suits well with ταπεινὸν καὶ ἀγεννές. So great was the importance assigned by Demosthenes himself to these external means of effect, that he is said to have pronounced “Action” to be the first, second, and third requisite for an orator. If we grant this estimate to be correct, with reference to actual hearers, we must recollect that his speeches are, (not less truly than the history of Thucydides), “an everlasting possession rather than a display for momentary effect.” Even among his contemporaries, the effect of the speeches, when read apart from the speaker, was very powerful. There were some who thought that their full excellence could only be thus appreciated;[567] while to the after-world, who know them only by reading, they have been and still are the objects of an admiration reaching its highest pitch in the enthusiastic sentiment of the fastidious rhetor Dionysius.[568] The action of Demosthenes,—consummate as it doubtless was, and highly as he may himself have prized an accomplishment so laboriously earned,—produced its effect only in conjunction with the matter of Demosthenes; his thoughts, sentiments, words, and above all, his sagacity in appreciating and advising on the actual situation. His political wisdom, and his lofty patriotic _idéal_, are in truth quite as remarkable as his oratory. By what training he attained either the one or the other of these qualities, we are unfortunately not permitted to know. Our informants have little interest in him except as a speaker; they tell us neither what he learned, nor from whom, nor by what companions, or party-associates, his political point of view was formed. But we shall hardly err in supposing that his attentive meditation of Thucydides supplied him, not merely with force and majesty of expression, but also with that conception of Athens in her foretime which he is perpetually impressing on his countrymen,—Athens at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, in days of exuberant energy, and under the advice of her noblest statesman.