Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

I know that those who asked me to write this work were specially interested in that portion on which I am now entering, and which, owing to the necessity of examining a great diversity of opinions, at once forms by far the most difficult section of this work, and also, I fear, may be the least attractive to my readers, since it necessitates a dry exposition of rules.

In other portions of this work I have attempted to introduce a certain amount of ornateness, not, I may say, to advertise my style (if I had wished to do that, I could have chosen a more fertile theme), but in order that I might thus do something to lure our young men to make themselves acquainted with those principles which I regarded as necessary to the study of rhetoric: for I hoped that by giving them something which was not unpleasant to read I might induce a greater readiness to learn those rules which I feared

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might, by the dryness and aridity which must necessarily characterise their exposition, revolt their minds and offend their ears which are nowadays grown somewhat over-sensitive.

Lucretilus has the same object in mind when he states that he has set forth his philosophical system in verse; for you will remember the well known simile which he uses [*](iv. 11. See also i. 936.) :—

  1. And as physicians when they seek to give
  2. A draught of bitter wormwood to a child,
  3. First smear along the edge that rims the cup
  4. The liquid sweets of honey, golden-hued,
and the rest.