2. Grammar was succeeded by Rhetoric—the study of literature by the study of literary expression and quasi-forensic argument. The two were not sharply distinguished in practice, and had some elements in common. The conception of the one no less than of the other had widened with time, and Rhetoric, like Grammar, was variously defined and divided. It was taught partly by precept, partly by example, and partly by practice. The professor either dictated rules and gave lists of selected passages of ancient authors, or he read such passages with comments upon the style, or he delivered model speeches of his own. The first of these methods has its literary monument in the hand-books which remain.[19] The second survives as an institution in modern times, and on a large scale, in the University “lecture,” and it has also left important literary monuments in the _Scholia_ upon Homer and other great writers. The third method gave birth to an institution which also survives in modern times. Each of these methods was followed by the student. He began by committing to memory both the professor’s rules and also selected passages of good authors: the latter he recited, with appropriate modulations and gestures, in the presence of the professor. In the next stage, he made his comments upon them. Here is a short example which is embedded in Epictetus:[20] the student reads the first sentence of Xenophon’s _Memorabilia_, and makes his criticism upon it: “‘I have often wondered what in the world were the grounds on which....’ Rather ... ‘the ground on which....’ It is neater.” From this, or concurrently with this, the student proceeded to compositions of his own. Beginning with mere imitation of style, he was gradually led to invent the structure as well as the style of what he wrote, and to vary both the style and the subject-matter. Sometimes he had the use of the professor’s library;[21] and though writing in his native language, he had to construct his periods according to rules of art, and to avoid all words for which an authority could not be quoted, just as if he were an English undergraduate writing his Greek prose. The crown of all was the acquisition of the art of speaking extempore. A student’s education in Rhetoric was finished when he had the power to talk off-hand on any subject that might be proposed. But whether he recited a prepared speech or spoke off-hand, he was expected to show the same artificiality of structure and the same pedantry of diction. “You must strip off all that boundless length of sentences that is wrapped round you,” says Charon to the rhetorician who is just stepping into his boat, “and those antitheses of yours, and balancings of clauses, and strange expressions, and all the other heavy weights of speech (or you will make my boat too heavy).”[22]