e public taste is once
corrupted, the mind which has been warped, seldom recovers its former
tone. This difficulty was rendered still more insurmountable by the
licentious spirit of our young men, and the popular applause, that
encouraged the false taste of the times. I need not, in this company,
call to mind the unbridled presumption, with which, as soon as genuine
eloquence expired, the young men of the age took possession of the
forum. Of modest worth and ancient manners nothing remained. We know
that in former times the youthful candidate was introduced in the
forum by a person of consular rank [c], and by him set forward in his
road to fame. That laudable custom being at an end, all fences were
thrown down: no sense of shame remained, no respect for the tribunals
of justice. The aspiring genius wanted no patronage; he scorned the
usual forms of a regular introduction; and, with full confidence in
his own powers, he obtruded himself on the court. Neither the
solemnity of the place, nor the sanctity of laws, nor the importance
of the oratorical character, could restrain the impetuosity of young
ambition. Unconscious of the importance of the undertaking, and less
sensible of his own incapacity, the bold adventurer rushed at once
into the most arduous business. Arrogance supplied the place of
talents.

8. To oppose the torrent, that bore down every thing, the danger of
losing all fair and honest fame was the only circumstance that could
afford a ray of hope. But even that slender fence was soon removed by
the arts of [a] Largius Licinius. He was the first that opened a new
road to ambition. He intrigued for fame, and filled the benches with
an audience suborned to applaud his declamations. He had his circle
round him, and shouts of approbation followed. It was upon that
occasion that Domitius Afer [b] emphatically said, Eloquence is now at
the last gasp. It had, indeed, at that time shewn manifest symptoms of
decay, but its total ruin may be dated from the introduction of a
mercenary band [c] to flatter and applaud. If we except a chosen few,
whose superior genius has not as yet been seduced from truth and
nature, the rest are followed by their partisans, like actors on the
stage, subsisting altogether on the bought suffrages of mean and
prostitute hirelings. Nor is this sordid traffic carried on with
secrecy: we see the bargain made in the face of the court; the bribe
is distributed with as little ceremony as if th