The speeches of Hortensius, it has been already mentioned, lost part of their effect by the orator’s advance in years, but they suffered still more by being transferred to paper. As his chief excellence consisted in action and delivery, his writings were much inferior to what was expected from the high fame he had enjoyed; and, accordingly, after death, he retained little of that esteem, which he had so abundantly possessed during his life(280). Although, therefore, his orations had been preserved, they would have given us but an imperfect idea of the eloquence of Hortensius; but even this aid has been denied us, and we must, therefore, now chiefly trust for his oratorical character to the opinion of his great but unprejudiced rival. The friendship and honourable competition of Hortensius and Cicero, present an agreeable contrast to the animosities of Æschines and Demosthenes, the two great orators of Greece. It was by means of Hortensius that Cicero was chosen one of the college of Augurs—a service of which his gratified vanity ever appears to have retained an agreeable recollection. In a few of his letters, indeed, written during the despondency of his exile, he hints a suspicion that Hortensius had been instrumental in his banishment, with a view of engrossing to himself the whole glory of the bar(281); but this mistrust ended with his recall, which Hortensius, though originally he had advised him to yield to the storm, urged on with all the influence of which he was possessed. Hortensius also appears to have been free from every feeling of jealousy or envy, which in him was still more creditable, as his rival was younger than himself, and yet ultimately forced him from the supremacy. Such having been their sentiments of mutual esteem, Cicero has done his oratoric talents ample justice—representing him as endued with almost all the qualities necessary to form a distinguished speaker. His imagination was fertile—his voice was sweet and harmonious—his demeanour dignified—his language rich and elegant—his acquaintance with literature extensive. So prodigious was his memory, that, without the aid of writing, he recollected every word he had meditated, and every sentence of his adversary’s oration, even to the titles and documents brought forward to support the case against him—a faculty which greatly aided his peculiarly happy art of recapitulating the substance of what had been said by his antagonists or by himself(282). He also originally possessed an indefatigable application; and scarcely a day passed in which he did not speak in the Forum, or exercise himself in forensic studies or preparation. But, of all the various arts of oratory, he most remarkably excelled in a happy and perspicuous arrangement of his subject. Cicero only reproaches him, and that but slightly, with showing more study and art in his gestures than was suitable for an orator. It appears, however, from Macrobius, that he was much ridiculed by his contemporaries, on