H.  "How forcibly are we struck by the contrast, when we compare the preparatory toil of a Demosthenes and a Cicero with that of the orators of our own times. Theirs was the heroic age of eloquence, an age destined never to return. The ancient candidate for the prize of oratory devoted his whole faculties to a mastery over the instruments of persuasion. He neglected none of the means of success, however slight or insignificant in appearance. He explored every avenue of the mind, and took possession of all the inlets of delight through the medium of the senses. If he figured as a statesman, the study of eloquence included the whole mental discipline. If he appeared as an advocate, and won the cause, it was to the arts of persuasion he owed the victory."

Dr. B.  "True, Henry, but then how different is the training of the modern, whether he appear in the senate or the forum. His path is crowded and encumbered with the materials of almost unlimited extent and variety, which the labours of centuries have accumulated, and which he is required to shape to the ends of judicious speech. He is thrown on a scene of business, and into affairs of complexity, from the moment of his entrance on a public career. He has to combine and arrange a vast number of details, inconsistent with all unity of application. He cannot pursue eloquence as a separate branch of intellectual discipline, and of preparation for the conflicts of life. The ancients, having in their political assemblies no balancing of interests, no complicated adjustments, no compromises of policy, no schemes of concession, gave themselves up to a single point of discussion. They were never diverted from a certain unity of intellectual view by the distractions and divisions which pervade our mixed assemblies. Theirs was a singleness of purpose effected by simplicity of means. What weapons of signal power and proof did not these circumstances lend to the eloquence of antiquity."*

*Henry Arlington and Dr. Barton, "Life and Writings of Cicero," preface in Charles Anthon, Cicero, (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1865), p. xvi.