**To find any Trope or Figure in the Latin part of Elo-
cution: Find, by the Index, the Trope or Figure in the English
part, and the number of the one in the English will be found to
correspond to the same in Latin.

INTRODUCTION.

THE Greeks attributed the invention of Rhetoric to Mercury; and hence they denominated him Egns which radically signifies to speak. And the inhabitants of Lystra, in consequence of the cure of the impotent man by Barnabas and Paul, called the former Jupiter, and latter Mercury, "because he was the chief speaker."

But to pass over the legendary fictions of pagan theology, no satisfactory account can be given to whom the origin of this art is to be ascribed. Its first lineaments, as Aristotle justly observes, were no doubt, extremely rude and imperfect. Pausanias, in his description of Greece, says that Pittheus, the uncle of Theseus, who flourished about twelve hundred years before the christian era, taught it at Trezene, a city of Peloponnesus. Be this, however, as it may, it was certainly held in high estimation at the time of the Trojan war, or Homer would never have given such unbounded applause to the eloquent speeches of Ulysses and Nestor. And in addition to this circumstance, the principal tropes and figures which are now used, may be found in that sublime and distinguished writer.

Of the orators who flourished from the Trojan down to the Peloponnesian war, no particular mention is made in history. But as eloquence then became the means by which the most obscure and indigent individual might rise to the highest post of honour and influence, a multitude of orators arose about that period. Of these Corax and Tisias of Sicily, laid down rules for the methodical arrangement of a discourse, and the artificial adjustment of its particular parts. Gorgias, the pupil of Empedocles, succeeded these. * Diodorus Siculus says that he was the

*Gorgias the Leontine, was a Sicilian, and father of the Sophists. He was held in such universal esteem throughout Greece, that a statue was erected to his honour, in the temple of Apollo at Delphos, of solid gold.

first who made use of studied figures and laboured antithe-ses of equal length and the same termination. Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, Protagoras of Abdera, Prodicus of Cea, and Theodore of Byzantium; as also Antiphon * and Polycrates were his cotemporaries; and all contributed to the improvement of this art. Quintilian says that Protogoros, Gorgias, Prodicus and Thrasymachus were the first who treated of Common-places, and exhibited their use for the invention of arguments upon every subject..

Posterior to these flourished Isocrates the scholar of Gorgias. "The style of Gorgias of Leontium was formed into short sentences composed generally of two members balanced against each other. The style of Isocrates, on the contrary, was swelling and full; and he is said to have been the first who introduced the method of composing in regular periods, which had a studied music and harmonious cadence." It was the celebrity of Isocrates which induced the far famed Aristotle to write his "Institutions of Rhetoric:" a work universally admitted to be the best and most complete of any, on the same subject, in the Greek language.

Lysias and Isæus belong to this age. Lysias was the model of that style which the ancient rhetoricians denominated "apugov acycv," the polished style; and, for this reason, Cicero calls him venustissimum oratorem. Isæus was the pupil of Lysias, and was the first who applied eloquence to political, or state affairs, in which he was followed by his celebrated scholar, Demosthenes.

In this age Grecian eloquence appeared in its meridian. Demosthenes by indefatigable industry, by a surprising genius, and a patriotic love for his country, became one of the greatest orators that ever existed-an orator who was an honour to humanity, and whose name shall descend with imperishable lustre to the latest posterity. The style of this Prince of Grecian eloquence is conscise, nervous,

* Antiphon the Athenian, was the first writer of orations. + Twenty-one of his orations are extant. He employed ten years in composing his discourse entitled the Panegyric.

Plutarch says that four hundred and twenty-five orations were formerly exhibited under the name of Lysias; of these only thirty-four are now extant.