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FROM THESE authors, and others worthy to be read, must be acquired a stock of words, a variety of figures, and the art of composition. Our minds must be directed to the imitation of all their excellences, for it cannot be doubted that a great portion of art consists in imitation—for even though to invent was first in order of time and holds the first place in merit, it is nevertheless advantageous to copy what has been invented
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with success. Indeed, the whole conduct of life is based on the desire of doing ourselves that which we approve in others. Thus boys follow the traces of letters in order to acquire skill in writing; thus musicians follow the voice of their teachers, painters look for models to the works of preceding painters, and farmers adopt the system of culture approved by experience. We see, in short, that the beginnings of every kind of study are formed in accordance with some prescribed rule.
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We must indeed, be either like or unlike those who excel; and nature rarely forms one like, though imitation does so frequently. But the very circumstance that renders the study of all subjects so much more easy to us than it was to those who had nothing to imitate, will prove a disadvantage to us unless it be turned to account with caution and judgment.
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Undoubtedly, then, imitation is not sufficient of itself, if for no other reason than that it is the mark of an indolent nature to rest satisfied with what has been invented by others. For what would have been the case, if, in those times which were without any models, mankind had thought that they were not execute or imagine anything but what they already
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knew? Assuredly nothing would have been invented. Why then is it unlawful for anything to be devised by us which did exist before? Were our rude forefathers led, by the mere natural force of intellect, to the discovery of so many things, and shall not we be roused to inquiry by the certain knowledge
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that those who inquired did find new things? When those who had no master in any subject have transmitted so many discoveries to posterity, shall not the experience which we have in some things assist us to bring to light others, or shall we have nothing but what we derive from other men’s bounty, as some painters aim at nothing more than to know how to copy a picture by means of compasses and lines?
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It is dishonorable even to rest satisfied with simply equaling what we imitate. For what would have been the case, again, if no one had accomplished more than he whom he copied? We should have nothing in poetry superior to Livius Andronicus, nothing in history better than the Annals of the Pontiffs; we should still sail on rafts; there would be no painting but that of tracing the outlines of the shadow which bodies
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cast in the sunshine. If we take a view of all arts, no one can be found exactly as it was when it was invented; no one that has confined itself within its original limits; unless, indeed, we have to convict our own times, beyond all others, of this unhappy deficiency, and to consider that now at last nothing improves; for certainly nothing does improve by imitation
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only. But if it is not allowable to add to what has preceded us, how can we ever hope to see a complete orator, when among those whom we have hitherto recognized as the greatest no one has been found in whom there is not something defective or censurable? Even those who do not aim at the highest excellence should rather try to excel, than merely follow, their predecessors; for he who makes it his object to get before another, will possibly, if he does not go by him,
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at least, get abreast of him. But assuredly no one will come up with him in whose steps he thinks that he must tread, for he who follows another must of necessity always be behind him. Besides, it is generally easier to do more, than to do precisely the same; exact likeness is attended with such difficulty that not even nature herself has succeeded in contriving that the simplest objects, and such as may be thought most alike, shall not be distinguished by some perceptible difference.
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Moreover, everything that is the resemblance of something eles must necessarily be inferior to that of which it is a copy,
as the shadow to the substance, the portrait to the natural face, and the acting of the player to the real feeling. The same is the case with regard to oratorical composition; for in the originals, which we take for our models, there is nature and real power, while every imitation, on the contrary, is something counterfeit, and seems adapted to an object not its own.
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Hence it happens that declamations have less spirit and force than actual pleadings, because in one the subject is real, in the other fictitious. In addition to all this, whatever excellences are most remarkable in an orator are inimitable—natural talent, invention, energy, easiness of manner, and
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whatever cannot be taught by art. In consequence, many students, when they have selected certain words or acquired a certain rhythm of composition from any orator’s speeches, think that what they have read is admirably represented in their own sentences. However, words fall into desuetude, or come into use, according to the fashion of the day, so that the most certain rule for their use is found in custom. They are not in their own nature either good or bad (for in themselves they are only sounds), but only as they are suitable and properly applied, or otherwise; and when our composition is best adapted to our subject, it becomes most pleasing from its variety.
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Everything, therefore, relating to this department of study, is to be considered with the nicest judgment. First of all, we must be cautious as to the authors whom we would imitate, for many have been desirous to resemble the worst and most faulty originals. In the next place, we must examine what there is, in the authors whom we have chosen for models, that we should set ourselves to attain, for even in great writers there occur faulty passages and blemishes which have been censured by the learned in their remarks on one another. I wish that our youth would improve in their oratory by imitating what is good, as much as they are deteriorated in it by copying what is bad.
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Nor let those who have sufficient judgment for avoiding faults, be satisfied with forming a semblance, a mere cuticle, if I may so express myself, of excellence, or rather one of
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those images of Epicurus, which he says are perpetually flying off from the surfaces of bodies. This, however, is the fate of those who, having no thorough insight into the merits of a style, adapt their manner, as it were, to the first aspect of it; and even when their imitation proves most successful, and when they differ but little from their original author in language and harmony, they yet never fully attain to his force or fertility of language, but commonly degenerate into something worse, lay hold on such defects as border on excellences, and become tumid instead of great, weak instead of concise, rash instead of bold, licentious instead of exuberant, tripping
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instead of dignified, careless instead of simple. Accordingly, those who have produced something dry and inane, in a rough and inelegant dress, fancy themselves equal to the ancients; those who reject embellishment of language or thought, compare themselves, forsooth, to the Attic writers; those who become obscure by curtailing their periods, excel Sallust and Thucydides; the dry and jejune rival Pollio; and the dull and languid, if they but express themselves in a long period, declare that Cicero would have spoken just like themselves.
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I have known some, indeed, who thought that they had admirably represented the divine orator’s manner in their speeches, when they had put at the end of a period esse videatur.1 The first consideration, therefore, for the student, is, that he should understand what he proposes to imitate, and have a thorough conception why it is excellent.
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Next, in entering on his task, let him consult his own powers—for some things are inimitable by those whose natural weakness is not sufficient for attaining them, or whose natural inclination is repugnant to them—lest he who has but a feeble capacity, should attempt only what is arduous and rough, or lest he who has great but rude talent should waste his strength in the study of refinement, and fail of attaining the elegance of which he is desirous; for nothing is more ungraceful
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than to treat of delicate subjects with harshness. I did not suppose, indeed, that by the master whom I instructed
in my second book,2 those things only were to be taught to which he might see his pupils severally adapted by nature; he ought to improve whatever good qualities he finds in them; to supply, as far as he can, what is deficient; to correct some things and to alter others; for he is the director and regulator of the minds of others; to mold his own nature may
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be more difficult. But not even such a teacher, however he may wish everything that is right to be found in the highest excellence in his pupils, will labor to any purpose in that to which he shall see that nature is opposed.
There is another thing also to be avoided, a matter in which many err; we must not suppose that poets and historians are to be the objects of our imitation in oratorical composition,
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or orators and declaimers in poetry or history. Every species of writing has its own prescribed law, each its own appropriate dress; for comedy does not strut in tragic buskins, nor does tragedy step along in the slipper of comedy—yet all eloquence has something in common, and let us look on that
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which is common as what we must imitate. On those who have devoted themselves to one particular kind of style, there generally attends this inconvenience, that if, for example, the roughness of some writer has taken their fancy, they cannot divest themselves of it in pleading those causes which are of a quiet and subdued nature; or if a simple and pleasing manner has attracted them, they become unequal to the weight of their subject in complex and difficult causes; when not only the nature of one cause is different from that of another, but the nature of one part of a cause differs from that of another part, and some portions are to be delivered gently, others roughly, some in a vehement, others in an easy tone, some for the purpose of informing the hearer, others with a view to excite his feelings—all which require a different and
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distinct style. I should not, therefore, advise a student to devote himself entirely to any particular author, so as to imitate him in all respects. Of all the Greek orators Demosthenes is by far the most excellent, yet others on some occasions may
have expressed themselves better; and he himself has expressed many things better on some occasions than on others. But he who deserves to be imitated most, is not therefore the
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only author to be imitated. “What then?” the reader may ask, “is it not sufficient to speak on every subject as Cicero spoke?” To me, assuredly, it would be sufficient if I could attain all his excellences. Yet what disadvantage would it be to assume, on some occasions, the energy of Cæsar, the asperity of Cælius, the
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accuracy of Pollio, the judgment of Calvus? For besides that it is the part of a judicious student to make, if he can, whatever is excellent in each author his own, it is also to be considered, that if, in a matter of such difficulty as imitation, we fix our attention only on one author, scarcely any one portion of his excellence will allow us to become masters of it. Accordingly, since it is almost denied to human ability to copy fully the pattern which we have chosen, let us set before our eyes the excellences of several, that different qualities from different writers may fix themselves in our minds, and that we may adopt, for any subject, the style which is most suitable to it.
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But let imitation (for I must frequently repeat the same precept) not be confined merely to words. We ought to contemplate what propriety was observed by those great men with regard to things and persons; what judgment, what arrangement, and how everything—even what seems intended only to please—was directed to the attainment of success in their cause. Let us notice what is done in their exordium; how skillful and varied is their statement of facts; how great is their ability in proving and refuting; how consummate was their skill in exciting every species of emotion; and how even the applause which they gained from the public was turned to the advantage of their cause; applause which is most honorable when it follows unsolicited, not when it is anxiously courted. If we gain a thorough conception of all these matters, we shall then be such imitators as we ought to
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be. But he who shall add to these borrowed qualities excellences of his own, so as to supply what is deficient in his models and to trim off what is redundant, will be the complete orator whom we desire to see; and such an orator ought now
surely to be formed, when so many more examples of eloquence exist than fell to the lot of those who have hitherto been considered the best orators: for to them will belong the praise, not only of surpassing those who preceded them, but of instructing those who followed.
1 That is, by using an admired Ciceronian phrase. See Quintilian’s citation of this term (from Cicero’s Pro Ligario) in Institutio IX.iv.73.
2 That is, Chapter Eight of Book II.