QUINTILIAN

Quintilian, years and years ago,

Was It on oratory;

Demosthenes and Cicero

He studied con amore;

He ran an elocution school

And taught the Roman lispers

The reason and the rote and rule

For requesting father, dear father, to come home with me now, in most pathetic whispers.

‘ Twas he who showed that thus and thus

One should appear when stating

The last remarks of Spartacus

On ceasing gladiating.

( Perchance the word we just have used

Escaped your dictionary.

We mean when Spartacus refused

To be butchered to make a Roman holiday exceedingly exciting and otherwise gladsome and merry. )

Quintilian's book on How to Speak

Is classic at this moment;

It tells the speaker when to shriek

And when his rage to foment.

The boy who on commencement day

Cites Patrick Henry's speeches

Must do so in Quintilian's way

When a single order of liberty, with a supplemental second choice of death, he beseeches.

The actor who would thrill the crowd

( A blood and marrow freezer )

By handing out in accents proud

“Mark Antony on Caesar,”

Must heed the rules set down by Quint.,

And so must he who rises

To heights of glowing fame by dint

Of the justly famous to be or not to be, center of the stage, two spotlights sizzling, when he as Hamlet soliloquizes.

Quintilian, we are fain to say,

Was It on oratory,

And even in this later day

Receives his share of glory,

Except when elocutionists

Our peace and comfort mangle,

By showing how fair Bessie's wrists

Were strained and bruised while swinging around in the belfry the time she said the curfew should not jangle.