as much by their feelings as by reason, the most earnest, vehement and impassioned speech, other things being equal, was of course the most effective. The object of panegyrical oratory was totally different; it was, itself, an end rather than a means. The audience was collected for no other purpose than to listen to it; it led to no measures—no action. The orator, therefore, whose mind was supposed to be possessed with no engrossing interest and quite at ease, was allowed to display himself to the greatest advantage according to his own fancy, and to sport with musical and balanced periods, adscititious embellishments, lively and brilliant imagery; in a word, to indulge even in the freedom of an excursive and poetical style.* Doubtless the same distinction is to ascertain degree, practically made, in all popular assemblies. We regard the failure of Burke, in the House of Commons, as a decisive proof of this. With incomparably more genius than either Fox or Pitt, he could never command the attention of the audience. Why? Not because of a bad delivery, for, important as elocution is, it is altogether extravagant to ascribe such an effect to the want of it—but because his speeches were dissertations, full of splendid common places and rambling declamation (very philosophical, no doubt, but still) suiting one occasion as well as another. A reader who takes them up at his leisure and passes an hour or two in the perusal of them, without considering well the place where they were delivered, is not a proper judge of their merit as popular harangues, and it is vain to say, at this time of day, that they ought to have made a greater impression than the more practical debating of his celebrated rivals. The fact was certainly otherwise, nor do we at all wonder at it. Now, the Greek assemblies judged their orators by the same criterion; but judged them, as will appear more fully in the sequel, with incomparably greater severity.†

An audience disciplined by the elegance and correctness of elaborate compositions, would, of course, become more fastidious in everything relating to style, than one accustomed to the slovenliness and irregularities even of the best extemporaneous speaking. Accordingly, there can be no question but that both the Greeks and Romans manifested a degree of sensibility upon this subject that is not to be met with even in the most cultivated assemblies of modern times. A striking illustration of this delicacy of ear, is seen in the effect which the rythm of

* Demosthenes λóyos 'Egwrixis-Dionys. Halïcarn. Judicium de Lysiâ, c. 12— Isocrates Пavanvaixòs-Plato apud Diogen. Laert.

The great end of a perfect elocution was to make the orator appear to be in earnest about the subject. Rhetoric. ad Herenn. Lib. iii. c. 14.

their sentences produced even on a promiscuous multitude; where a happy cadence not unfrequently excited the most rapturous applause. Cicero, for instance, informs us that he was present when Carbo pronounced the following words, in the course of a harangue—“ Patris dictum sapiens temeritas filii comprobavit❞—in which, the metre of the word comprobavit, drew forth "a shout which it was wonderful to hear."* Now, our readers must be informed, that the magic of that word consists in its containing precisely two poetical feet called chorei, (trochees) each made up of a long syllable followed by a short one. After this specimen, they will not be surprised to learn, that the ancient rhetoricianst lay down rules for the composition of this "numerous" prose, which are scarcely less nice and complicated than those of metrical harmony—especially the metres of the comic poets. This art, which was not known, it seems, to Herodotus and Thucydides, was first taught by Gorgias, and subsequently, carried to still greater perfection by Isocrates. But the greatest delicacy was required in the management of it, since nothing was more vicious than to let slip a whole verse in speaking, and nothing was more difficult than to avoid doing so;‡ and even to push the legitimate rythm of prose to excess, destroyed that appearance of earnestness and simplicity which was so essential to popular eloquence.§

Now that an orator should not be willing to encounter such audiences without preparation, if he had time to make it, is surely not at all to be wondered at; more especially when we consider the occasions-momentous and imposing almost beyond any thing that can be imagined in these times-on which he was required to address them. Before such audiences, on such occcasions, it would have been absurd in any speaker of great reputation, to have committed himself to the perils of extemporaneous debating. A lively and animated address-an enthusiastic.burst of eloquence upon a sudden emergency-may, indeed, be better done without premeditation, but such effusions are not to be compared with a perfect speech-perfect both in substance and form-perfect in the division of the subject, the arrangement of the topics, and the logical sequence of its reasonings perfect in saying neither too much nor too little, in bringing out fully all the strong points of the case, in suppressing or palliating the weak ones, in avoiding as far as possible every

+ Cicero, 1. c. Longinus.

‡ Orat. c. 56.

* Orator. c. 63. Ibid. c. 62. It may be added, that Dionysius of Halicarnassus, seems to consider this whole art as puerile.Iud. de Isocrat. cc. 2-12-13-20.

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thing odious or exceptionable-perfect in a sublimity that never becomes extravagance, a vehemence tempered with dignity, and a force every where regulated by the most exquisite sense of propriety-in short, such a speech as supposes in the orator an absolute and undisturbed control over all his talents and reSome men, there are, indeed, who seem to have a better command of their faculties in the excitement of a public discussion, than in the quiet solitude of the study ; but they are only those, as Cicero himself remarks, whose literary education has not been as complete as it might have been, and who, on that account, can never attain to the highest excellence in their art. Nay, we would ask whether, even in modern times, this inartificial and unpremeditated eloquence has always been the most successful? Were Mirabeau's harangues extemporaneous? Is it not probable that Sheridan's famous speeches were as curiously and anxiously prepared, as his comedies or bon-mots? Does any one imagine that the most celebrated passage in the most celebrated of Lord Erskine's pleadings→→ the expostulation of the Indian Chief in the defence of Stockdale-was not premeditated, aye, and wrought with most scrupulous care? We are unable to vouch our authority, but we have heard or seen it somewhere stated, that even Lord Chatham's appeal to the figure in the tapestry, was not absolutely the impulse of the moment.

In closing our remarks upon this head, (for the length of which we, perhaps, owe our Leaders an apology) we will only add, that far as we believe our extemporaneous debating to fall short of antique excellence, we have no doubt it is quite good enough for all practical purposes—at least under a government of laws, and in times of order and repose. The age of chivalrythe heroic age-of eloquence, as of every thing else in this degenerate world, is gone. We may have good speakers, able and skilful debaters-but for the voice of true eloquence-of that mighty eloquence which once shook whole democracies, it can no more return than the prowess which single-handed, ran upon embattled armies clad in iron," and put them to rout-than the shout of Stentor, or the blast of the dread horn at Fontarabia. "The schoolmaster has been abroad," as the cant is-and the press, is to the orator, precisely what the invention of gun-powder is represented, in the pathetic lamentations of Orlando and Don Quixotte, to have been to the knight-errantry of Europe-a mighty leveller of all distinctions, and the means of advancing the mass at the expense of the individual.

The in lefatigable labour, the unceasing assiduity with which the ancient orators cultivated their art, will appear from the

following sketch of Cicero's studies.* It is the most authentic and satisfactory that can be desired, having been drawn by his own hand. We have translated almost the whole of it, and that the more willingly, because we believe that it is not so familiar to the "general reader," as it well deserves to be. He begins by informing us that when he first went into the Forum, Hortensius was in the army serving one year as a private soldier, (such was the discipline of Rome!) and the next as a military tribune. Sulpicius was absent, and so was (the orator) Antony. Only a mob of speakers who were not worth the mentioning, were left behind. He was continually engaged in reading, writing, and meditation, and in oratorical exercises. He addicted himself esspecially to the study of the civil law under Q. Scævola, who did not formally instruct his élèves in that branch of knowledge, but only suffered them to assist at his consultations that they might pick up what they could in that way. In the meantime, P. Sulpicius, now elected a tribune of the commons, returned to the city, and as he spoke almost every day in some cause or other, Cicero had ample opportunity to study his style of oratory minutely. About the same period, Philo, the head of the Academy, driven from Athens by the Mithridatic war, went to Rome. Cicero immediately devoted himself with the greatest ardour to the study of philosophy, not only from a decided natural vocation for it, but also because he now considered his forensic pursuits as totally interrupted by the troubles of the times. Sulpicius had been just sacrificed to the vengeance of one triumphant faction, and the very next year M. Antony and other distinguished speakers, were most cruelly murdered by another. However, these discouraging prospects did not prevent him, within a few months after, taking lessons in oratory from Molo the Rhodian, an eminent pleader at the bar, as well as a teacher of rhetoric. After a few more sentences, he proceeds as follows:

"During this whole period, I was engaged night and day in the assiduous study of every branch of knowledge. I used to be with Diodotus the Stoic, who died lately at my house, where he had long resided. From him I learned, among other things, the principles of dialectics, which deserves to be considered as a more contracted and circumscribed eloquence, and, without which, you too Brutus, have judged it impossible to attain to that higher kind of eloquence which is regarded as only a diffusive or expanded dialectics. To this teacher, and to the various branches of knowledge he professed, I devoted myself, but not so exclusively, as not to continue my oratorical exercises regularly every day. I studied and declaimed together, often with M. Piso and

* Brut. e. 89, et seqq.

Q. Pompey, or with somebody else, sometimes in Latin, but more frequently in Greek, both because the Greek being richer in oratorical embellishments, naturally led to the same perfection in the use of the Latin language, and because I could not be instructed, nor have my errors corrected by Greek masters, unless I spoke Greek. In the meantime came the tumult about re-establishing the commonwealth, and the cruel deaths of Scævola, Carbo, Antistius-the return of Cotta, Curio, Crassus, the Lentuli, Pompey-law and judicature restoredthe republic recovered-out of the number of orators, however, three perished, Pomponius, Censorinus, Murena. Then, for the first time, we began to be concerned in causes, both private and public, not to learn our business in the Forum, as many do, but that as far as posssible, we should go into it ready prepared. At the same time, we studied once more under Molo, who had come as ambassador to the Senate, touching the rewards of the Rhodians. Thus it was, that our first speech in a public (or criminal) cause, that, namely, for Sextus Roscius,* was so highly commended, that no undertaking of the kind was thought beyond our talents; and from that time foward, we appeared in many others, in which we prepared ourselves elaborately, and even by midnight studies.

"And since it is your wish to know me, not by a few prominent marks, but by a full length portrait, I shall include some things in this account of myself, which may, perhaps, seem to be of minor importance. I was at that time remarkably spare, and feeble of body-with a long, attenuated neck—and altogether, such a frame and constitution as is thought to make any extraordinary exertion of the lungs, imminently dangerous. The concern of those to whom I was dear, was so much the more increased, that I spoke always without the least remission or variety, with my voice stretched to the utmost pitch, and my whole body labouring and agitated. So that my friends and the physicians advised me to abandon all idea of the Forum, but I thought it better to encounter any peril, than renounce the pursuit of that glory which I believed to be within my reach. And thinking that by altering my manner of speaking, and modulating my voice with greater skill, I should at once avoid all danger, and improve my elocution, with a view of effecting such a change, I determined to go to Asia. So after having been engaged in practice as an advocate for two years, and when my name was now become celebrated in the Forum, I left Rome. At Athens I staid six months, attending the prælections of Antiochus, the most renowned and able philosopher of the old Academy, and thus renewed, under the directions of a great master, the study of philosophy, which I had cultivated from my earliest youth, and progressively improved myself in ever since. At the same time I used sedulously to

* It appears from Aul. Geliius, that Cicero was twenty-seven years of age when he defended Roscius.-Noct. Attic. 1. xv. c. 28. Nepos had erroneously made him less.

Why go to Asia, not to Athens? Cicero answers this question in another place. Athenis jam diu doctrina ipsorum Atheniensium interiit, domicilium tantum in illâ urbe remanet studiorum, quibus vacant cives, peregrini fruuntur et tamen eruditissimos homines Asiaticos quivis Atheniensis indoctus, non verbis, sed sono vocis, nec tam bene quam suaviter loquendo, facile superabit.-De Orat. 1. iii. c. ii.