M. Fabi Quintiliani institutionis oratoriae liber decimus
Hoc decimo Institutionis oratoriae libro Quintilianus docet quibus rationibus orator iam eruditus eam dicendi facilitatem firmitatemque comparare possit. Primum de copia verborum rerumque acquirenda disserit, ostendens quae et quomodo legenda sint; deinde celeberrimum illud iudicium de scriptoribus Graecis Latinisque exponit, singulos poetas, historicos, oratores philosophosque breviter recensens. Tum de imitatione, de scribendi ratione, de emendatione ac de cogitatione tractat, denique quemadmodum subito et ex tempore dicendum sit praecipit.
In hoc libro praecipua Quintiliani de litteris iudicia continentur, quae ad aetatis suae studia recensenda maximi sunt momenti; nam multos auctores commemorat quorum opera iam perierunt. Eminet illa de eloquentia comparanda doctrina, qua lectionem, imitationem et exercitationem inter se coniungit, ut non natura sola sed labore et arte orator perficiatur. Hic liber, et propter elegantiam sententiarum et propter copiam exemplorum, semper inter praestantissimas antiquitatis reliquias habitus est, atque ad institutionem oratoris et ad historiam criticae artis maxime pertinet.
How it begins
This volume has grown in my hands during the last eighteen months. If I had contented myself with a short commentary, it might have appeared sooner and in a slighter form. But in addition to the full and careful illustration required for the matter of Quintilian’s Tenth Book, the criticism of the text has become so important as to call for separate treatment. It has engaged, within recent years, a large share of the attention of some of the foremost scholars on the Continent. Even while this volume was passing through the press, fresh evidence of their continued activity was received in the shape of two valuable papers—an article by Moriz Kiderlin in one of the current numbers of the Rheinisches Museum , and Becher’s ‘Zum zehnten Buch des Quintilianus’ in the Programm des Königlichen Gymnasiums zu Aurich for Easter, 1891. The latter I have found especially interesting, as confirming many of the conclusions at which, with the help of one of the manuscripts in the British Museum (Harl. 4995), I had arrived in regard to textual difficulties. The importance ascribed to another English codex (Harl. 2664) will, I venture to think, be held to be justified by the account of it given in the Introduction. After I had examined it for myself, a collation of it was kindly put at my disposal by Mr. L. C.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain.