To you, Rufus Metilius, whose worthy father is my most honoured friend, “I also offer this gift, dear child,” as Helen, in Homer, says while entertaining Telemachus. To-day you are keeping your first birthday after your arrival at man’s estate; and of all feasts this is to me the most welcome and most precious. I am not, however, sending you the work of my own hands (to quote Helen’s words when she offers the robe to her young guest), nor what is fitted only for the season of marriage and “meet to pleasure a bride withal.” No, it is the product and the child of my studies and my brain, and also something for you to keep and use in all the business of life which is effected through speech: an aid most necessary, if my estimate is of any account, to all alike who practise civil oratory, whatever their age and temperament, but especially to youths like you who are just beginning to take up the study.
We may say that in practically all speaking two things must have unremitting attention: the ideas and the words. In the former case, the sphere of subject matter is chiefly concerned; in the latter, that of expression; and all who aim at becoming good speakers give equally earnest attention to both these aspects of discourse. But the science which guides us to selection of matter, and to judgment in handling it, is hampered with difficulties for the young; indeed, for beardless striplings, its difficulties are insurmountable. The perfect grasp of things in all their bearings belongs rather to a matured understanding, and to an age that is disciplined by grey hairs, — an age whose powers are developed by prolonged investigation of discourse and action, and by many experiences of its own and much sharing in the fortunes of others. But the love of literary beauty flourishes naturally in the days of youth as much as in later life. For elegance of expression has a fascination for all young minds, making them feel impulses that are instinctive and akin to inspiration. Young people need, at the beginning, much prudent oversight and guidance, if they are not to utter
What word soe’er may have sprung
To the tip of an ill-timed tongue,
nor to form at random any chance combinations, but to select pure and noble words, and to place them in the beautiful setting of a composition that unites charm to dignity. So in this department, the first in which the young should exercise themselves, “for love’s service I lend you a strain,” in the shape of this treatise on literary composition. The subject has occurred to but few of all the ancients who have composed manuals of rhetoric or dialectic, and by none has it been, to the best of my belief, accurately or adequately treated up to the present time. If I find leisure, I will produce another book for you — one on the choice of words, in order that you may have the subject of expression exhaustively treated. You may expect that treatise next year at the same festive season, the gods guarding us from accident and disease, if it so be that our destiny has reserved for us the secure attainment of this blessing. But now accept the treatise which my good genius has suggested to me.
The chief heads under which I propose to treat the subject are the following: what is the nature of composition, and where its strength lies; what are its aims and how it attains them; what are its principal varieties, what is the distinctive feature of each, and which of them I believe to be the most effective; and still further, what is that poetical element, so pleasant on the tongue and so sweet to the ear, which naturally accompanies composition in prose, and wherein lies the effectiveness of that poetical art which imitates plain prose and succeeds excellently in doing so, and by what method each of those two results may be attained. Such, in broad outline, are the topics with which I intend to deal, and on this programme my treatise is based.