Eloquence was, in his time, little more than a condiment which served to stimulate in a despot the jaded appetite for panegyric, an amusement for the travelled nobles and the blue-stocking matrons of Rome.

It is, therefore, with him, rather a sport than a war; it is a contest of foils, not of swords.

He appears to think more of the grace of the attitude than of the direction and vigour of the thrust.

It must be acknowledged, in justice to Quintilian, that this is an error to which Cicero has too often given the sanction, both of his precept and of his example.
Longinus seems to have had great sensibility, but little discrimination.
He gives us eloquent sentences, but no principles.

It was happily said that Montesquieu ought to have changed the name of his book from "L'Esprit des Lois" to "L'Esprit sur les Lois".