After the revival of learning the better Roman and Greek writers gradually returned into use. Some new treatises were also produced. Leonard Cox (d. wrote The Art or Craft of Rhetoryke, partly compiled, partly original, which was reprinted in Latin at Cracow. The Art of Rhetorique, by Thomas Wilson (1553), afterwards secretary of state, embodied rules chiefly from Aristotle, with help from Cicero and Quintilian. About the same time treatises on rhetoric were published in France by Tonquelin (1555) and Courcelles (1557). The general aim at this period was to revive the best teaching of the ancients. At Cambridge in 1570 the study of rhetoric was based on Quintilian, Hermogenes and the speeches of Cicero viewed as works of art. An Oxford statute of 1588 shows that the same books were used there. In 1620 George Herbert was delivering lectures on rhetoric at Cam bridge, where he held the office of public orator. The decay of rhetoric as a formal study at the universities set in during the i8th century. The function of the rhetoric lecturer passed over into that of correcting written themes; but his title remained long after his office had lost its primary meaning. If the theory of rhetoric fell into neglect, the practice, however, was encouraged by the public exercises ("acts" and "opponencies") in the schools. The college prizes for "declamations" served the same purpose.
The popularity enjoyed by Blair's Rhetoric in the latter part of the i8th and the earlier part of the 19th century was merited rather by the form than by the matter. Campbell's Philosophy of Rhe toric, which found less wide acceptance than its predecessor, was superior to it in depth, though often marred by an imperfect comprehension of logic. But undoubtedly the best modern book on the subject is Whately's Elements of Rhetoric. Starting from Aristotle's view, that rhetoric is "an offshoot from logic," Whately treats it as the art of "argumentative composition." He considers it under four heads : the address to the understanding (= Aristotle's Xoycic?) irLorce) ; the address to the will, or per suasion (=Aristotle's hOcK17 and Tannic?) ricrne); (3) style; (4) elocution, or delivery. But when it is thus urged that All a rhetorician's rules But teach him how to name his tools, the assumption is tacitly made that an accurate nomenclature and classification of these tools must be devoid of practical use. The conditions of modern life, and especially the invention of print ing, have to some extent diminished the importance which be longed in antiquity to the art of speaking, though modern demo cratic politics and forensic conditions still make it one which may be cultivated with advantage.