This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this text, in whole or in part. Please contact project staff at eebotcp-info@umich.edu for further information or permissions.
A Rhetorician, or Orator, is one whose Speech is elevated to the height of the Ciceronian Pole, whose stile is copious, flexible and eloquent; he has gotten Erasmus's Copia verborum; He has a very well-tuned Genius, (as I may call it) for his Words are sweet
Harmony, that charmes men; He is one that minds the cadency, and chiming of words, as much as the density of the matter, his words are genuine and mas∣culine; He is very sententious, yea, as that famous Seneca, and he seems to have read Gabriel and Camaracensis books of Sentences.
Mercury the God of eloquence, is feigned by the Poets to have wings on his armes and feet, that he might fly to Heaven; so this our Mercury may be said to have so too, for he soars to the clouds sometimes with his winged Eloquence; His words are like Aresta's arrows that catch fire as they fly; surely Promethius is present with him with his heavenly fire, that doth inspire him; Mercury's Gol∣den tongue he has (which being a good tongue is) Aesops best dish, which makes a good relish in the Pallat of every Judi∣cious mans Judgement.
An Orator is a second Orpheus, who with the sweet Musick of his words, draws every one after him; He is a se∣cond Apelles, for he ran depict and sets forth every thing in lively Colours; He is another Proteus, for he can transform himself into what form and shape he
will; sometimes he will be a Dog to bark at all mens manners, a biteing Me∣nippus, sometimes a Serpent to sting men with reproaches, a stinging Hipponax; And thus he has as many delusions as a Jugler, but in them all, he shews that he has skill in Politicks, and is a Poli∣tician, for he doth all these things out of Policy; A Rhetorician is all Tongue, by which Instrument he overcomes and wins more then Mars by his Weapons, witnesse the Orator Cyneas, whom King Cyrus confessed he had gotten and won, more Towns by Cineas's Eloquence, then by Mars's Instruments; An Orator is so perswasive, that if he but say it, none can gain-say it; truly he by his charms of eloquence rocks men into such plea∣sing lul-la-bie, and dallies them in such a Dallilahs Lap of pleasure, that he takes all strength from such strong Sampsons.