re ignorant that they ever gave any such
rules. And if that is the case, (and I really believe it is,) what
then? Have they no senses of their own to be guided by? Have they no
natural idea of what is useless? None of what is harsh, cramped, lame,
or superfluous? When verses are being repeated, the whole theatre
raises an outcry if there is one syllable too few or too many.
Not that the mob knows anything about feet or metre; nor do they
understand what it is that offends them, or know why or in what it
offends them. But nevertheless nature herself has placed in our ears a
power of judging of all superfluous length and all undue shortness in
sounds, as much as of grave and acute syllables.

LII. Do you wish then, O Brutus, that we should give a more accurate
explanation of this whole topic, than those men themselves have done
who have delivered these and other rules to us? Or may we be content
with those which have been delivered by them? But why do I ask whether
you wish this? when I know from your letters, written in a most
scholar-like spirit, that you wish for it above all things. First of
all, then, the origin of a well-adapted and rhythmical oration shall
be explained, then the cause of it, then its nature, and last of all
its use.

For they who admire Isocrates above all things, place this among his
very highest panegyrics, that he was the first person who added rhythm
to prose writing. For they say that, as he perceived that orators were
listened to with seriousness, but poets with pleasure, he then aimed
at rhythm so as to use it in his orations both for the sake of giving
pleasure, and also that variety of sound might prevent weariness. And
this is said by them in some degree correctly, but not wholly so. For
we must confess that no one was ever more thoroughly skilled in that
sort of learning than Isocrates; but still the original inventor of
rhythm was Thrasymachus; all whose writings are even too carefully
rhythmical. For, as I said a little while ago, the principle of things
like one another being placed side by side, sentence after sentence
being ended in a similar manner, and contraries being compared
with contraries, so that, even if one took no pains about it, most
sentences would end musically, was first discovered by Gorgias; but he
used it without any moderation. And that is, as I have said before
one of the three divisions of arrangement. Both of these men were
predecessors of Isocrates; so that