"I should," says Menage, "have received great pleasure to have conversed
with Cicero, had I lived in his time. He must have been a man very
agreeable in conversation, since even Cæsar carefully collected his
_bons mots_. Cicero has boasted of the great actions he has done for his
country, because there is no vanity in exulting in the performance of
our duties; but he has not boasted that he was the most eloquent orator
of his age, though he certainly was; because nothing is more disgusting
than to exult in our intellectual powers."
Whatever were the _bons mots_ of Cicero, of which few have come down to
us, it is certain that Cicero was an inveterate punster; and he seems to
have been more ready with them than with repartees. He said to a
senator, who was the son of a tailor, "_Rem acu tetigisti_." You have
touched it sharply; _acu_ means sharpness as well as the point of a
needle. To the son of a cook, "_ego quoque tibi jure favebo_." The
ancients pronounced _coce_ and _quoque_ like _co-ke_, which alludes to
the Latin _cocus_, cook, besides the ambiguity of _jure_, which applies
to _broth_ or _law--jus_. A Sicilian suspected of being a Jew, attempted
to get the cause of Verres into his own hands; Cicero, who knew that he
was a creature of the great culprit, opposed him, observing "What has a
Jew to do with swine's flesh?" The Romans called a boar pig Verres. I
regret to afford a respectable authority for forensic puns; however, to
have degraded his adversaries by such petty personalities, only proves
that Cicero's taste was not exquisite.
There is something very original in Montaigne's censure of Cicero.
Cotton's translation is admirable.
"Boldly to confess the truth, his way of writing, and that of all other
long-winded authors, appears to me very tedious; for his preface,
definitions, divisions, and etymologies, take up the greatest part of
his work; whatever there is of life and marrow, is smothered and lost in
the preparation. When I have spent an hour in reading him, which is a
great deal for me, and recollect what I have thence extracted of juice
and substance, for the most part I find nothing but wind: for he is not
yet come to the arguments that serve to his purpose, and the reasons
that should properly help to loose the knot I would untie. For me, who
only desired to become more wise, not more learned or eloquent, these
logical or Aristotelian disquisitions of poets are of no use. I look for
good and solid reasons at the first dash. I am for discourses that give
the first charge into the heart of the doubt; his languish about the
subject, and delay our expectation. Those are proper for the schools,
for the bar, and for the pulpit, where we have leisure to nod, and may
awake a quarter of an hour after, time enough to find again the thread
of the discourse. It is necessary to speak after this manner to judges,
whom a man has a design, right or wrong, to incline to favour his cause;
to children and common people, to whom a man must say all he can. I
would not have an author make it his business to render me attentive; or
that he should cry out fifty times _O yes_! as the clerks and heralds
do.
"As to Cicero, I am of the common opinion that, learning excepted, he
had no great natural parts. He was a good citizen, of an affable
nature, as all fat heavy men--(_gras et gausseurs_ are the words in the
original, meaning perhaps broad jokers, for Cicero was not fat)--such as
he was, usually are; but given to ease, and had a mighty share of vanity
and ambition. Neither do I know how to excuse him for thinking his
poetry fit to be published. 'Tis no great imperfection to write ill
verses; but it is an imperfection not to be able to judge how unworthy
bad verses were of the glory of his name. For what concerns his
eloquence, that is totally out of comparison, and I believe will never
be equalled."