ft, in accordance with the drift of the cause.[253] The mind
rejects the idea that it can be the part of a perfect man to make
another believe that which he believes to be false. If it be necessary
that an orator should do so, then must the orator be imperfect. We have
the same lesson taught throughout. It is the great gift of the orator,
says Antony, to turn the judge's mind so that he shall hate or love,
shall fear or hope, shall rejoice or grieve, or desire to pity or desire
to punish.[254] No doubt it is a great power. All that is said as to
eloquence is true. It may be necessary that to obtain the use of it you
shall educate yourself with more precision than for any other purpose.
But there will be the danger that they who have fitted the dagger to the
hand will use it. It cannot be right to make another man believe that
which you think to be false.

In the use of raillery in eloquence the Roman seems to have been very
backward; so much so that it is only by the examples given of it by
themselves as examples that we learn that it existed. They can appall us
by the cruelty which they denounce. They can melt us by their appeals
to our pity. They can terrify; they can horrify; they can fill us with
fear or hope, with anger, with despair, or with rage; but they cannot
cause us to laugh. Their attempts at a joke amuse us because we
recognize the attempt. Here Caesar is put forward to give us the benefit
of his wit. We are lost in surprise when we find how miserable are his
jokes, and take a pride in finding that in one line we are the masters
of the Romans. I will give an instance, and I pick it out as the best
among those selected by Cicero. Nasica goes to call upon Ennius, and is
informed by the maid-servant that her master is not at home. Ennius
returns the visit, and Nasica halloos out from the window that he is not
within. "Not within!" says Ennius; "don't I know your voice?" Upon which
Nasica replies, "You are an impudent fellow! I had the grace to believe
your maid, and now you will not believe me myself."[255] How this got
into a law-case we do not know; it is told, however, just as I have told
it. But there are enough of them here to make a small Joe Miller; and
yet, in the midst of language that is almost divine in its expressions,
they are given as having been worthy of all attention.

The third book is commenced by the finest passage in the whole treatise.
Cicero remembers that Crassus is dead, and then tell