[30]
It is, however, a common practice with those who
have many cases to plead to write out the most
necessary portions, more especially the beginnings of
their speeches, to cover the remainder of that which
they are able to prepare by careful premeditation
and to trust to improvisation in emergency, a practice regularly adopted by Cicero, as is clear from his
note-books. But the notes of other orators are also
in circulation; some have been discovered by
chance, just as they were jotted down previous to a
speech, while others have been edited in book form,
[p. 151]
as in the case of the speeches delivered in the courts
by Servius Sulpicius, of whose works only three
speeches survive. These memoranda, however, of
which I am speaking are so carefully drawn up that
they seem to me to have been composed by himself
for the benefit of posterity.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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