[p. 516]
|516| by such a one, so that this preparation for everything may not remain in the same hands. This influence is altogether almost unconditional in an assembly where almost the sole, at least the main, address in a matter proceeds from the committee and, so to speak, it is actually not discussed at all.
The other thing worth noting is namely the manner of the addresses. One finds in the proceedings no freely delivered speeches but for the most part only addresses read out, fewer and only short oral utterances, in general no lively speech and reply; only once towards the end of the assembly, when instead of the matter the person of a dissenting member, Dr. Cotta, was made the object, the utterances, and among them rather indecent personalities, fell, not as otherwise usual as vota scripta, but this time without preparation blow upon blow; the natural eloquence showed itself which has still been preserved in our market-places for such cases; but the eloquence which prevailed on a Roman forum one has not seen appear. – That the reports of the committees were composed in writing and read out goes without saying elsewhere too. But what was called debating thereafter consisted for the most part in this, that, sometimes several days and weeks afterwards, one or several members read out a votum scriptum brought with them, and perhaps again days and weeks later another member produced a similar vote. In one and the same sitting there could therefore follow a reading out of several essays one after another, each of which related to an entirely different object, and quite often had no further sequel than that it had just been read out. Precisely the enlivening element which results from a gathering of men being placed face to face, in order to assert, prove, refute, move, from countenance to countenance, from mouth to mouth, with the lively presence of spirit, falls away as good as entirely through that written
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