The orator Æschines was born in 398 B.C. He is regarded as the father of extemporaneous speaking among the Greeks, but is chiefly distinguished as the rival of Demosthenes, rather than for his few orations (but three in number) that have come down to us, although he was endowed by nature with extraordinary rhetorical powers, and his orations are characterized by ease, order, clearness, and precision. "The eloquence of Æschines," says an American scholar and statesman, [Footnote: Hugh S. Legaré, of Charleston, South Carolina, in an article on "Demosthenes" in the New York Review.] "is of a brilliant and showy character, running occasionally, though very rarely, into a Ciceronean declamation. In general his taste is unexceptionable; he is clear in statement, close and cogent in argument, lucid in arrangement, remarkably graphic and animated in style, and full of spirit and pleasantry, without the least appearance of emphasis or effort. He is particularly successful in description and the portraiture of character. That his powers were appreciated by his great rival is evident from the latter's frequent admonitions to the assembly to remember that their debates are no theatrical exhibitions of voice and oratory, but deliberations involving the safety of their country." On leaving Athens, after his defeat in the celebrated contest with Demosthenes, Æschines went to Rhodes, where he established a school of rhetoric. It is stated that on one occasion he began his instruction by reading the two orations that had been the cause of his banishment. His hearers loudly applauded his own speech, but when he read that of Demosthenes they were wild with delight. "If you thus praise it from my reading it," exclaimed Æschines, "what would you have said if you had heard Demosthenes himself deliver it?" By the common consent of ancient and modern times, Demosthenes stands pre-eminent for his eloquence, his patriotism, and his influence over the Athenian people. He was born about 383 B.C. On attaining his majority, his first speech was directed against a cousin to whom his inheritance had been intrusted, and who refused to surrender to him what was left of it. Demosthenes won his case, and his victory brought him into such prominent notice that he was soon engaged to write pleadings for litigants in the courts. He devoted himself to incessant study and practice in oratory, and, overcoming by various means a weakly body and an impediment in his speech, he became the chief of orators. Of his public life we have already seen something in the history of Athens. With all his moral and intellectual force, the closing years of his life were shaded with misery and disgrace. Fifty years after his death the Athenians erected a bronze statue to his memory, and upon the pedestal placed this inscription: