Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/98

90 DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO. ing, wholly composed for real effect and seriousness ; not suielling of the lamp, as Pytheas scoffingly said, but of the temperance, thoughtfulness, austerity, and grave earnest- ness of his temper. Whereas Cicero's love of mockery often ran him into scurrility ; and in his love of laughing away serious arguments in judicial cases by jests and facetious remarks, with a view to the advantage of his clients, he paid too little regard to what was decent : say- ing, for example, in his defence of Caelius, that he had done no absurd thing in such plenty and affluence to in- dulge himself in pleasures, it being a kind of madness not to enjoy the things we possess, especially since the most eminent philosophers have asserted pleasure to be the chiefest good. So also we are told, that when Cicero, being consul, undertook the defence of Murena against Cato's prosecution, by way of bantering Cato, he made a long series of jokes upon the absurd paradoxes, as they are called, of the Stoic sect ; so that a loud laughter passing from the crowd to the judges, Cato, with a quiet smile, said to those that sat next him, " My friends, what an amusing consul we have." And, indeed, Cicero was by natural temper very much disposed to mirth and pleasantry, and always appeared with a smiling and serene countenance. But Demos- thenes had constant care and thoughtfulness in his look, and a serious anxiety, which he seldom, if ever, laid aside ; and, therefore, was accounted by his enemies, as he him- self confessed, morose and ill-mannered. Also, it is very evident, out of their several writings, that Demosthenes never touched upon his own praises but decently and without offence when there was need of it, and for some weightier end ; but, upon other occa- sions modestly and sparingly. But Cicero's immeasurable boasting of himself in his orations argues him guilty of an uncontrollable appetite for distinction, his cry being