NOTES TO THE TEXT

In the following notes, numbers refer to pages and lines in the present text. All translations from the Latin are from Loeb Classical Library editions.

6:1-8. Thomas Sheridan, British Education (London, 1756), p. 52.

6:24-7:7. Ibid., p. 53.

12:4-6. Aeneid, V, 194. Trans. H. Ruston Fairclough. "No more do I seek the first place ... it were a shame to return last."

17:7-22. British Education, p. 85.

17:26-18:15. Ibid., pp. 85-86.

19:24-20:5. De Oratore, III.xxxv.143. Trans. H. Rackham. "But if on the contrary we are trying to find the one thing that stands top of the whole list, the prize must go to the orator who possesses the learning. And if they allow him also to be a philosopher, that is the end of the dispute; but if they keep the two separate, they will come off second best in this, that the consummate orator possesses all the knowledge of the philosophers, but the range of philosophers does not necessarily include eloquence."

37:22-24. Brutus, vi. 23.

38:11-12. Horace, Epistles, I.ii.43. Trans. H. Ruston Fairclough. "... waiting for the river to run out: yet on it glides, and on it will glide, rolling its flood forever."

38:20-23. Richard Steele, Spectator, 484, 15 September 1712.

38:25-39:3. George Berkeley, "The Querist," in Works, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (London, 1948), IV, Query 203.

39:7-41:11. John Locke, "Some Thoughts Concerning Education," in Works (London, 1823), IX, 181-182.

47:10-19. Ibid., p. 182.

48:9-15. Ibid., p. 179. Sheridan indicates that Locke is discussing elocution, but his topic is writing and speaking.

49:9-13. Rhetorica ad Herennium, I.ii.3.

56:14-57:3. John Milton, "Of Education," Works (New York, 1931), IV, 290-291.

57:3-10. Ibid., pp. 286-287.

58:17-59:23. Institutio Oratoria, XII.xi. 25-26, 29-30. Trans. H. E. Butler. "To which I reply that sufficient encouragement for study may be found in the fact, firstly, that nature does not forbid such achievement and it does not follow that, because a thing never has been done, it therefore never can be done, and secondly, that all great achievements have required time for their first accomplishment.... Finally, whatever is best in its own sphere must at some previous time have been nonexistent. But even if a man despair of reaching supreme excellence (and why should he despair, if he have talents, health, capacity and teachers to aid him?), it is none the less a fine achievement, as Cicero says, to win the rank of second or even third.... Add to this the further consideration that even moderate eloquence is often productive of great results and, if such studies are to be measured solely by their utility, is almost equal to the perfect eloquence for which we seek. Nor would it be difficult to produce either ancient or recent examples to show that there is no other source from which men have reaped such a harvest of wealth, honour, friendship and glory, both present and to come. But it would be a disgrace to learning to follow the fashion of those who say that they pursue not virtue, but only the pleasure derived from virtue, and to demand this meaner recompense from the noblest of all arts, whose practice and even whose possession is ample reward for all our labours. Wherefore let us seek with all our hearts that true majesty of oratory, the fairest gift of god to man, without which all things are stricken dumb and robbed alike of present glory and the immortal record of posterity; and let us press forward to whatsoever is best, since, if we do this, we shall either reach the summit or at least see many others far beneath us."