Their skill had been obtained at too great expense to be employed only from disinterested views.

Thus, the soldiers forgot that they were citizens, and the orators that they were statesmen.

I know not to what Demosthenes and his famous contemporaries can be so justly compared as to those mercenary troops who, in their time, overran Greece; or those who, from similar causes, were some centuries ago the scourge of the Italian republics,--perfectly acquainted with every part of their profession, irresistible in the field, powerful to defend or to destroy, but defending without love, and destroying without hatred.

We may despise the characters of these political Condottieri; but is impossible to examine the system of their tactics without being amazed at its perfection.
I had intended to proceed to this examination, and to consider separately the remains of Lysias, of Aeschines, of Demosthenes, and of Isocrates, who, though strictly speaking he was rather a pamphleteer than an orator, deserves, on many accounts, a place in such a disquisition.

The length of my prolegomena and digressions compels me to postpone this part of the subject to another occasion.