A rhetor was one who was a master of style.

Venit si Rhetor ineptus, Limata et tersa, et qui bene cocta petit, Claude citus librum; nulla hic nisi ferrea verba, Offendent stomachum quae minus apta suum.

But the kind of oratory to be obtained by a constant practice of declamation such as that which occupied the schools of the Rhetors will be a very artificial lightning and a very imitated thundernot the artillery of heaven, but the Chinese fire and rolled bladders of the stage.

Corinthiorum amator iste verborum, Iste iste rhetor, namque quatenus totus Thucydides, Britannus, Attice febris!

It might be paraphrased: "a maniac for archaic words, a rhetor indeed, he is as much and as little a Thucydides as he is a British prince, the bane of Attic style!

It is clear, the professor maintains, that the reference is to pagan rhetors from Gaul whose arrogant presumption, founded on their learning, made them regard with disdain the comparatively illiterate apostle of the Scots.

τας τοις ἀλλοις χρησιμωτατας, Rhetor.

Johnson might here be glancing at the oratorical lectures of the modern Rhetor Sheridan, whose plans he delighted incessantly to ridicule.