re. He tells us, for instance,
that he who has created a beautiful thing must have beauty in his
soul,[266]--a charming idea, as to which we do not stop to inquire
whether it be true or not. He gives us a most excellent caution against
storing up good sayings, and using them from the storehouse of our
memory: "Let him avoid these studied things, not made of the moment, but
brought from the closet."[267] Then he rises into a grand description of
the perfect orator: "But that third man is he, rich, abundant,
dignified, and instructed, in whom there is a divine strength. This is
he whose fulness and culture of speech the nations have admired, and
whose eloquence has been allowed to prevail over the people.[268] * * *
Then will the orator make himself felt more abundantly. Then will he
rule their minds and turn their hearts. Then will he do with them as he
would wish."[269]

But in the teeth of all this it did not please Brutus himself. "When I
wrote to him," he said to Atticus, "in obedience to his wishes, 'De
Optimo Genere Dicendi,' he sent word, both to you and me, that that
which pleased me did not satisfy him."[270] "Let every man kiss his own
wife," says Cicero in his letter in the next words to those we have
quoted; and we cannot but love the man for being able to joke when he is
telling of the rebuff he has received. It must have been an additional
pang to him, that he for whom he had written his book should receive it
with stern rebuke.

At last we come to the Topica; the last instructions which Cicero gives
on the subject of oratory. The Romans seem to have esteemed much the
lessons which are here conveyed, but for us it has but little
attraction. He himself declares it to have been a translation from
Aristotle, but declares also that the translation has been made from
memory. He has been at sea, he says, in the first chapter, and has there
performed his task, and has sent it as soon as it has been done. There
is something in this which is unintelligible to us. He has translated a
treatise of Aristotle from memory--that is, without having the original
before him--and has done this at sea, on his intended journey to
Greece![271] I do not believe that Cicero has been false in so writing.
The work has been done for his young friend Trebatius, who had often
asked it, and was much too clever when he had received it not to
recognize its worth. But Cicero has, in accordance with his memory,
reduced to his own form Aris