had been ill-received, and
he was going home with his head covered, and in the greatest distress,
Satyrus, the player, who was an acquaintance of his, followed and went
in with him. Demosthenes lamented to him, "That though he was the most
laborious of all the orators, and had almost sacrificed his health to
that application, yet he could gain no favour with the people; but
drunken seamen and other unlettered persons were heard, and kept the
rostrum, while he was entirely disregarded." "You say true," answered
Satyrus, "but I will soon provide a remedy, if you will repeat to me
some speech in Euripides or Sophocles." When Demosthenes had done,
Satyrus pronounced the same speech; and he did it with such propriety
of action, and so much in character, that it appeared to the orator
quite a different passage. He now understood so well how much grace
and dignity action adds to the best oration that he thought it a small
matter to premeditate and compose, though with the utmost care, if the
pronunciation and propriety of gesture were not attended to. Upon this
he built himself a subterraneous study which remained to our times.
Thither he repaired every day to form his action and exercise his
voice; and he would often stay there for two or three months together,
shaving one side of his head, that, if he should happen to be ever so
desirous of going abroad, the shame of appearing in that condition
might keep him in.

When he did go out on a visit, or received one, he would take something
that passed in conversation, some business or fact that was reported to
him, for a subject to exercise himself upon. As soon as he had parted
from his friends, he went to his study, where he repeated the matter in
order as it passed, together with the arguments for and against it.
The substance of the speeches which he heard he committed to memory,
and afterward reduced them to regular sentences and periods, meditating
a variety of corrections and new forms of expression, both of what
others had said to him, and he had addressed to them. Hence, it was
concluded that he was not a man of much genius, and that all his
eloquence was the effect of labour. A strong proof of this seemed to
be that he was seldom heard to speak anything extempore, and though the
people often called upon him by name, as he sat in the assembly, to
speak to the point debated, he would not do it unless he came prepared.
For this many of the orators ridiculed him; an