History of Roman Literature . . Volume 2; From Its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age (2nd. Ed., 1824) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1823 Excerpt: ...is argued, that the expressions arc affected, the sentences perplexed, and the transitions abrupt; and that their languor and want of animation render them wholly unworthy of Cicero. Markland particularly points out the absurd repetition of what the declaimer had considered Ciceronian phrases, --as, " Aras, focos, penates--Deos immortales--Res incredibiles--Esse videatur." Of the orations individually he remarks truly, that the one delivered by Cicero in the Se natc immediately after his return, was known to have been prepared with the greatest possible care, and to have been committed to writing before it was delivered; while the fictitious harangue which we now have in its place, is at all events quite unlike any thing that Cicero would have produced with elaborate study. The second is a sort of compendium of the first, and the same ideas and expressions arc slavishly repeated; which implies a barrenness of invention, and sterility of language, that cannot be supposed in Cicero. Of the third oration he speaks, in his letters to Atticus, as one of his happiest effortsbut nothing can be more wretched than that which we now have in its stead, --the first twelve chapters, indeed, being totally irrelevant to the question at issue. B' The oration for Marcellus, the genuineness of which has also been called in question, is somewhat in a different style from the other harangues of Cicero; for, though entitled Pro 3Iarcello, it is not so much a speech in his defence, as a panegyric on Caosar, for having granted the pardon of Marcellus at the intercession of the Senate. Marcellus had been one of the most violent opponents of the views of Caesar. He had recommended in the Senate, that he should be deprived of the province of Gaul: he had insulted the magistr...