conquireremus, ejusdem nunc honor præsentis et gratia quasi satietate
languescet? At hoc pravum malignumque est, non admirari hominem
admiratione dignissimum, quia videre, alloqui, audire, complecti, nec
laudare tantum, verum etiam amare contingit._ Lib. i. ep. 16.


Section XXIV.

[a] In the Dialogues of Plato, and others of the academic school, the
ablest philosophers occasionally supported a wrong hypothesis, in
order to provoke a thorough discussion of some important question.

[b] Cicero was killed on the seventh of December, in the consulship of
Hirtius and Pansa, A.U.C. 711; before Christ, 43. From that time to
the sixth of Vespasian the number of years is exactly 117; though in
the Dialogue said to be 120. See s. xvii. note [e].


Section XXV.

[a] See Plutarch's Lives of Lysias, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, and
Hyperides. See also the elegant translation of the Orations of Lysias,
by Dr. Gillies.

[b] For Quintilian's opinion of Cæsar's eloquence, see s. xvii. note
[b]. To what is there said may be added the authority of Cicero, who
fairly owns, that Cæsar's constant habit of speaking his language with
purity and correctness, exempted him from all the vices of the
corrupt style adopted by others. To that politeness of expression
which every well-bred citizen, though he does not aspire to be an