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YOU HAVE prevailed on me, by your daily importunity, to proceed at once to publish the books on the Education of an Orator, which I had addressed to my friend Marcellus. For my own part, I thought that they were not yet sufficiently advanced toward perfection. On the composition of them, as you know, I spent little more than two years, while distracted by so many other occupations; and this time was devoted, not so much to the labor of writing, as to that of research for the almost boundless work which I had undertaken, and to the
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perusal of authors, who are innumerable. Following, besides, the advice of Horace, who, in Ars poetica, recommends that publication should not be hurried, and that a work should be retained till the ninth year, I allowed time for reconsidering them, in order that, when the ardor of invention had cooled, I might judge of them, on a more careful reperusal,
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as a mere reader. Yet if they are so much demanded, as you say, let us give our sails to the winds, and pray for success as we loose our cable. But much also depends on your faithfulness and care in order that they may come into the hands of the public in as correct a state as possible.
1 Trypho was an eminent bookseller at Rome.