Bu.-In passing I would have you consider, most excellent

Bu.-In passing I would have you consider, most excellent Nosoponus, what proportion of Cicero's books have perished, among which is that divine work, De Republica, a fragment of which by some fate or other preserved torments our souls with a constant desire for the other volumes and allows us -to judge the lion, as they say, by the claws-not to mention, for the moment, the many volumes of letters, the many orations stolen by the waste of time, the three volumes in which Cicero's freedman Tiro is said to have gathered his jokes and clever sayings, and the utter loss of his other writings How then can you be a perfect Ciceronian who have not read so many of his works? Add that Cicero has not handled all subjects. If, therefore, we are compelled to speak on themes which he has not touched, where, pray, shall we seek a store of phrases? Shall we go forth into the Elysian fields to ask him in what words he would have described such things?