To trace our melody from Chaucer to Tennyson is matter of interest to us all.

Of Cicero as a poet we may say that he found Latin versification rough, and left it smooth and musical.

Now, as we go on with the orator's life and prose works, we need not return to his poetry.
The names of many masters have been given to us as those under whom Cicero's education was carried on.

Among others he is supposed, at a very early age, to have been confided to Archias.

Archias was a Greek, born at Antioch, who devoted himself to letters, and, if we are to believe what Cicero says, when speaking as an advocate, excelled all his rivals of the day.