Two Books of the Elements of Rhetoric

from present affairs, from which the precepts are understood more easily than from those examples of theirs, which are remote from our use. This was the reason for our plan at the beginning.

Although the precepts of Rhetoric themselves seem light and very puerile, yet let adolescents persuade themselves that they are absolutely necessary both for judging and for explaining the greatest causes. Therefore, they are also to be exhorted not to linger on these little books of ours, but with these elements known, let them read Cicero and Quintilian, and let them not just taste them in passing, but read those authors long and often, as they will be profitable not only for eloquence, but also for wisdom, and let them learn from them to measure eloquence by its own magnitude. For we see commonly that there are certain sciolists persons with superficial knowledge who dream that they sit in the citadel of eloquence after they have learned to write a little letter of eight or ten verses, in which two or three hemistichs or proverbs are included, as if they were emblems. This opinion must be removed from the young, and it must be shown in what matters eloquence holds sway, namely, that it is necessary for all the greatest and most difficult causes in this whole civil habit of life to be explained, and for retaining religions, for interpreting and defending laws, for exercising judgments, and for giving counsel to the Republic in the greatest dangers. Diligently