[57]
But to avoid all display of art in itself
requires consummate art: this admirable canon has
been insisted on by all writers, though its force has
been somewhat impaired by present conditions, since
in certain trials, more especially those brought on
capital charges or in the centumviral1 court, the
judges themselves demand the most finished and
[p. 39]
elaborate speeches, think themselves insulted, unless
the orator shows signs of having exercised the
utmost diligence in the preparation of his speech,
and desire not merely to be instructed, but to be
charmed.
1 The court of the cettumviri was specially concerned with cases of inheritance.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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