riches, is already acquitted; I mean Caius Verres. I have undertaken this prosecution (fathers) at the general desire, and with the great expectation of the Roman people, not that I might draw envy upon that illustrious order of which the accused happens to be; but with the direct design of clearing your justice and impartiality before the world. For I have brought upon his trial, one whose conduct has been such, that in passing a just sentence upon him, you will have an opportunity of re-establishing the credit of such trials; of recovering whatever may be lost of the favor of the Roman people; and of satisfying foreign states and kingdoms in alliance with us, or tributary to us. I demand justice of you (fathers) upon the robber of the public treasury, the oppressor of Asia Minor and Pamphylia, the invader of the rights and privileges of Romans, the scourge and curse of Sicily. If that sentence is passed upon him which his crimes deserve, your authority will be venerable and sacred in the eyes of the public. But if his great riches should bias you in his favour, I shall still gain one point, viz. to make it apparent to all the world, that what was wanting in this case was not a criminal nor a prosecutor; but justice, and adequate punishment.

For, as those acts of violence, by which he has got his exorbitant riches, were done openly, so have his attempts to pervert judgment, and escape due punishment, been public, and in open defiance of decency. He has accordingly said, that the only time he ever was afraid, was when he found the prosecution commenced against him by me; lest he should not have time enough to dispose of a sufficient number of presents in proper hands. Nor has he attempted to secure himself by the legal way of defence upon his trial. And, indeed, where is the learning, the eloquence, or the art, which would be sufficient to qualify any one for the defence of him, whose whole life has been a continued series of the most attrocious crimes. To pass over the shameful irregularities of

his youth, what does his quæstorship, the first pub. lic employment he held, what does it exhibit, but one continued scene of villanies; Cneius Carbo plundered of the public money by his own treasurer; a consul stripped and betrayed; an army deserted and reduced to want; a province robbed; the civil and reEigious rights of a people violated. The employment he held in Asia Minor and Pamphylia, what did it produce, but the ruin of those countries; in which houses, cities, and temples were robbed by him. There he acted over again the scene of his quæstorship, bringing by his bad practices Cneius Dolabella, whose substitute he was, into disgrace with the people, and then deserting him; not only deserting, but even accusing and betraying him. What was his conduct in his prætorship here at home? Let the plundered temples, and public works neglected, that he might embezzle the money intended for carrying them on, bear witness. How did he discharge the cffice of a judge? Let those who suffered by his injustice, answer. But his prætorship in Sicily, crowns all his works of wickedness, and finishes a lasting monument to his infamy. The mischiefs done by him in that unhappy country, during the three years of his iniquitous administration, are such, that many years under the wisest and best of prætors, will not be sufficient to restore things to the condition, in which he found them. For it is notorious, that, during the time of his tyranny, the Sicilians neither enjoyed the protection of their own original laws, of the regulations made for their benefit by the Roman senate, upon their coming under the protection of the commonwealth, nor of the natural and unalienable rights of men. No inhabitant of that ruined country has been able to keep possession of any thing, but what has either escaped the rapaciousness or been neglected by the satiety of that universal plunderer. His nod has decided all causes in Sicily for these three years. And his decisions have broke all law, all precedent, all right. The sums he has, by arbitrary tax-.

es, and unheard of impositions, extorted from the industrious poor, are not to be computed. The most faithful allies of the commonwealth have been treated as enemies. Roman citizens have, like slaves, been put to death with tortures. The most atrocious criminals, for money, have been exempted from the deserved punishments; and men of the most unexceptionable characters condemned and banished unheard. The harbours, though sufficiently fortified, and the gates of strong towns, opened to pirates and ravagers. The soldiery and sailors belonging to a province, under the protection of the commonwealth, starved to death. Whole fleets, to the great detriment of the province, suffered to perish. The ancient monuments of either Sicilian or Roman greatness, the statues of heroes and princes, carried off; and the temples stripped of their images. And these his atrocious crimes have been committed in so public a manner, that there is no one, who has heard of his name, but could reckon up his actions.

Now, Verres, I ask what you have to advance against this charge? Will you pretend to deny it? Will you pretend, that any thing false, that even any thing aggravated, is alledged against you? Had any prince, or any state, committed the same outrage against the privileges of Roman citizens, should we not think we had sufficient ground for declaring immediate war against them? What punishment ought, then, to be inflicted upon a tyrannical and wicked prætor, who dared, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast to put to the infamous death of crucifixion, that unfortunate and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus, only for his having asserted his privilege of citizenship, and declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country against a cruel oppressor, who had unjustly confined him in prison at Syracuse, from whence he had just made his escape? The unhappy man arrested, as he was going to embark for his native country, is brought before the wicked prætor. With eyes darting fury,

and a countenance distorted with cruelty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped and rods to be brought; accusing him, but without the least shadow of evidence, or even of suspicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy. It was in vain, that the unhappy man cried out, "I am a Roman citizen, I have served under Lucius Pretus, who is now at Panormus, and will attest my innocence." That blood-thirsty prætor, deaf to all he could urge in his own defence, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus, fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with scourging; while the only words he uttered amidst his cruel sufferings, were, "I am a Roman citizen." With these he hoped to defend himself from violence and infamy. But of so little service was this privilege to him, that while he was thus asserting his citizenship, the or der was given for his execution-for his execution upon the cross!

O liberty!-O sound once delightful to every Ro man ear!- sacred privilege of Roman citizenship! Once sacred! now trampled upon !-But what then! Is it come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate, a governor, who holds his whole power of the Roman people, in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, torture with fire and red hot plates of iron, and at last put to the infamous death of the cross, a Roman citizen? Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, nor the tears of pitying spectators, nor the majesty of the Roman commonwealth, nor the fear of the justice of his country, restrain the licentious and wanton cruelty of a monster, who, in confidence of his riches, strikes at the root of liberty, and sets mankind at defiance?

I conclude with expressing my hopes, that your wisdom and justice, fathers, will not, by suffering the atrocious and unexampled insolence of Caius Verres to escape the due punishment, leave room to appre hend the danger of a total subversion of authority, and introduction of general anarchy and confusion.

Chapter III.

ELOQUENCE OF THE PULPIT.

Section I.

REMARKS ON PULPIT ELOQUENCE.

Eloquence is the art of speaking with propriety, elegance, and effect. To enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passions, and influ ence the will, are the important ends it proposes to accomplish. The darkness which envelopes the human understanding, must be dispelled by a clear exhibition of truth.-A combination of noble images presented to the mind, in the rich or agreeable colouring of a finely finished picture, tends to swell the imagination with vast conceptions, and transport the soul with sublime ideas.-The creative faculty, from her exuberant stores, produces those expressive figures, and exhibits those vivid features, which, when associated with objects of desire or aversion, love or hatred, pity or contempt, awaken the liveliest sensibility and precipitate the passive assembly, into all the perturbation of passion.-Would the orator not only agitate the soul, and inspire generous feeling, but produce volition, and propel to action, he must employ an artful mixture of the truths which convince, and the imagery which interests; he must incorporate argumentation with pathos, and the efforts of reason with the ebullitions of passion, before he can force his way to the heart, and wield at will, its active powers.