INSTITUTES OF ORATORY:

OR,

EDUCATION OF AN ORATOR.

IN TWELVE BOOKS.

LITERALLY TRANSLATED WITH NOTES.

BY THE

REV. JOHN SELBY WATSON, M.A., M.R.S.L.,

VOL. I.

LONDON:

GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN,

AND NEW YORK.

1892.

LIBRARY OF THE

SELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY.

a.36840

LONDON

REPRINTED FROM THE STEREOTYPE PLATES BY WM. CLOWES & SONS, LTD.,

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.

PREFACE.

Ir was observed by Dr. Drake in his "Literary Hours." about fifty years ago, that no version of Quintilian at all adequate to the merits of the original existed in English, and that to translate him throughout with energy, spirit, and fidelity, would prove a task of the most arduous and difficult kind; such is the beauty of his diction, and such the peculiar propriety of his epithets.

The difficulties alleged by Dr. Drake are by no means exaggerated; and since his time no translator has applied himself to execute the task. The language of writers extremely nice in the choice of words and the collocation of phrases, is always difficult to render satisfactorily. What is graceful in the original can but seldom be made graceful in a version. But the present translator, if he has not entirely succeeded, hopes that he has no great cause to deprecate censure. He will only request that, should the student think some passages too freely rendered, he will bear in mind the necessity of endeavouring to satisfy the mere English reader; and that, if the English reader finds some passages too stiff, he will consider the necessity for a certain degree of closeness to answer the wants of the student.

Of the two translations which have previously appeared in English, those of Guthrie and Patsall, neither is complete, whole chapters being omitted in each. In regard to fidelity, Patsall is, on the whole, rather to be preferred; but neither