[54] _Le Manuscrit de Ma Mère; or, Extracts from the Journal of Madame de Lamartine._ Edited by her Son. Hachette & Co., Paris. 1871. [55] See Abbott’s _Napoleon_. A QUARTER OF AN HOUR IN THE OLD ROMAN FORUM DURING A SPEECH OF CICERO’S. A PASSAGE FROM CICERO’S SPEECH IN SUPPORT OF L. LICINIUS MURENA’S CANDIDACY FOR THE CONSULATE, AGAINST THAT OF SERVIUS SULPICIUS--TWENTY YEARS BEFORE CICERO’S ASSASSINATION--CICERO AND C. ANTONY BEING CONSULS--SIXTY-TWO YEARS BEFORE CHRIST. Introductory Note: Servius Sulpicius was perhaps the most eminent practitioner of his day in that branch of the law which belongs to the “special pleader” and the “conveyancer”; but so little of a speaker that he would not venture alone to recommend his own cause or to urge his claims before the Roman people. He employed Cneius Postumius, then very young, and Marcus Cato, a most weighty orator, whose character, however (and a reputation for unswerving principle and the austerest virtues), had a larger share than the mental power of his words in securing to them influence and authority. It was less important what Cato said than that it had been said by Cato. How very different was the case with Hortensius! A stranger, whose face, whose name, not one of the audience knew, fitly delivering any of Hortensius’ harangues, would have commanded attention from the first, retained it to the last, raised many an interrupting tempest of applause during its progress, and left, when he had finished, a powerful, a formidable impression. Hortensius was that Bolingbroke of the Roman Forum to whom the huge and intelligent assemblies he addressed were what the organ is to a Smart or the violin to a Sivori. He had hewn a lane through many a group of brilliant opponents and rivals, with an Excalibar forged by genius and by study _together_ (and few at last cared to face the weapon), to the very throne of contemporary eloquence. And there, for years, he sat at ease, _a king_. A suitor despaired of his cause beforehand upon learning that Hortensius had been retained on the other side. Of course, his wealth had become enormous, and his indirect influence (for, although he had had his year of the Consulate, he cared not very much about politics) was an element, a “quantity,” which had to be taken into account by statesmen and generals, by the senate, and by the consuls.