not only to instruct, but to move an audience,—whose excitement and admiration form the true criterions of eloquence. The remainder of the treatise is occupied with the three things to be attended to by an orator,—what he is to say, in what order his topics are to be arranged, and how they are to be expressed. In discussing the last point, the author enters very fully into the collocation of words, and that measured cadence, which, to a certain extent, prevails even in prose;—a subject on which Brutus wished particularly to be instructed, and which he accordingly treats in detail. This tract is rather confusedly arranged; and the dissertation on prosaic harmony, though curious, appears to us somewhat too minute in its object for the attention of an orator. Cicero, however, set a high value on this production; and, in a letter to Lepta, he declares, that whatever judgment he possessed on the subject of oratory, he had thrown it all into that work, and was ready to stake his reputation on its merits(349). The _Topica_ may also be considered as another work on the subject of rhetoric. Aristotle, as is well known, wrote a book with this title. The lawyer, Caius Trebatius, a friend of Cicero, being curious to know the contents and import of the Greek work, which he had accidentally seen in Cicero’s Tusculan library, but being deterred from its study by the obscurity of the writer, (though it certainly is not one of the most difficult of Aristotle’s productions,) requested Cicero to draw up this extract, or commentary, in order to explain the various _topics_, or common-places, which are the foundation of rhetorical argument. Of this request Cicero was some time afterwards reminded by the view of Velia, (the marine villa of Trebatius,) during a coasting voyage which he undertook, with the intention of retiring to Greece, in consequence of the troubles which followed the death of Cæsar. Though he had neither Aristotle nor any other book at hand to assist him, he drew it up from memory as he sailed along, and finished it before he arrived at Rhegium, whence he sent it to Trebatius(350). This treatise shows, that Cicero had most diligently studied Aristotle’s _Topics_. It is not, however, a translation, but an extract or explanation of that work; and, as it was addressed to a lawyer, he has taken his examples chiefly from the civil law of the Romans, which he conceived Trebatius would understand better than illustrations drawn, like those of Aristotle, from the philosophy of the Greeks. It is impossible sufficiently to admire Cicero’s industry and love of letters, which neither the inconveniences of a sea voyage, which he always disliked, nor the harassing thoughts of leaving Italy at such a conjuncture, could divert from the calm and regular pursuit of his favourite studies.