[42]
Finally, they urge that all the earliest orators
spoke according to the dictates of nature, but that
subsequently there arose a class of speakers resembling poets rather than orators, who regarded
false and artificial methods of expression as positive
merits; they were, it is true, more sparing than
the poets in their use of such expressions, but none
the less worked on similar lines. There is some
truth in this contention, and we should therefore
be careful not to depart from the more exact usage
of ordinary speech to the extent that is done by
certain orators.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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