Note 6 — DISSERTATION I.
Reading edition
The same taste prevailed in Rome, under the Emperors, when genius was prostituted to the mean purposes of flattery. "It must be acknowleged indeed, that after the dissolution of the Roman republic, this art began to be perverted by being too much admired. Men grew excessively fond of the numerous stile, and readily sacrificed the strength and energy of their discourse to the harmony of their language. Pliny the younger often complains of this contemptible affectation: And Quintilian speaks of certain prose writers in his time, who boasted that their compositions were so strictly numerous, that their hearers might even beat time to their measures. And it should seem that even in Tully's time, this matter was carried to excess; since even then the orators dealt so much in numbers, that it was made a question, wherein they differed from the Poets."——Mason's Essay on the Power and Harmony of Prosaic Numbers. Introduction, page 4.
This was an abuse of the art. Melody should be studied; but not principally.