they are in other respects. In the time of Cicero, a few months at most were deemed a sufficient space of time to be devoted to the study of the Roman jurisprudence. The twelve tables, the laws which the people established at the request of the senate, those which they enacted on the suggestion of the tribunes, and the decrees of the senate itself, all were comprised in a few intelligible volumes. The eminent advocates, such as the elder Antony, Črassus, Hortensius and Cicero, paid scarcely any attention to the legal part, which in truth was considered but a subordinate branch of their profession. Whenever points of legal or technical difficulty occurred, they were assisted by agents, who were experienced in this department of the profession, and who were counted amongst its less reputable members. But as for those whose names have come down to posterity connected with eminence in oratory, we find them, in the course of their lives, seldom fatigued with poring over dusty piles of law. We see them devoting their time to grammar, music and poetry, painting, sculpture and architecture, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and history-arts which they loved less for themselves, than because they considered them as so many handmaids of eloquence. We see them, even at advanced periods of life, attending the schools of the rhetoricians, exercising themselves constantly in elocution, endeavouring to attain gracefulness in gesture, correctness in pronunciation, and a flowing and various modulation of voice. We find them also travelling into foreign countries, and seeking instruction in foreign schools. All this labour was undertaken solely for the purpose of acquiring oratorical perfection. But the English counsel combines in his person two characters, which in Rome were distinct, namely, that of the advocate and the lawyer. The course of his studies is exactly the reverse of that which the Roman orator pursued. The little space of time which the Roman dedicated to the study of law, the English counsel can, or does, rarely spare to the study of eloquence. And that whole life of intense application which the Roman gave to eloquence, the English lawyer must devote to the voluminous jurisprudence of his country, if he mean to acquire even a moderate degree of skill in his profession. The consequence naturally follows. Law is preferred; eloquence is of necessity neglected. We have, at our bar, many names to rival those of Sulpicius and Papinian, but very few who have ascended to the level even of the Attic or second class of Roman orators. The house of Commons, resembling as it does in many respects a popular assembly, would seem to present the most ample and favourable field for the display of eloquence. Nor are time and means wanting to the members of that body, generally speaking, for the cultivation of it. Yet there are circumstances, connected with the practical situation of that branch of the legislature, which narrow the cultivation of eloquent public speaking. Not that the commons, as individuals, want acuteness of feeling, refinement of intellect, and sensibility to those appeals, which ardent imaginations are prone to make under every disadvantage of situation. But it is well understood that, as a body, they seldom come together on great questions in that unsettled state of opinion, which is capable of exciting high oratorical exertion, as being liable to be turned one way or another by the actual eloquence of an individual member. Whether a proposition originate at one side of the house or the other, the mover of it, before he rises to develope and enforce it, knows to a unit the numbers who will support or resist his motion. He does not hope, that by any argument which he can use, by any sublime or pathetic emotions which he can excite, he shall add one to the list of his friends, or remove one from that of his opponents. Thus the character of a parliamentary speech differs, in one of the most material ingredients of eloquence, from those ancient models, by which we are accustomed to estimate productions of this description. It is also to be observed, that a member of the House of Commons addresses his speech, not directly to the gentlemen around him, but to the Speaker. In strict parliamentary language he rises only to deliver his opinion upon the question in debate. This is his privilege. He has nothing to do with the opinions of other members, for their privilege is equally the same with his own. He may frequently wish that his own views of a measure should be adopted by a majority; but his means of conveying that wish, and of impressing it upon others, must be found in a circuitous and indirect course, which is not without very considerable disadvantages to oratorical energy. Indeed, the first duty of a member seems to be to express his own opinion clearly and firmly. Any thing beyond this appears to be more than he is called upon to do, unless, from office or from experience, he may carry with him an authority on particular occasions. These disadvantages, however, were felt more strongly by men of genius in former times, than in those in which we live. In the House of Lords, the Peers address their body directly, without passing through the medium of the woolsack; but, in all other respects, they laboured under the same disadvantages as the Commons, so long as the effect of their speeches was confined within the walls of the house itself. While that was the case, no member of either house had a motive powerful enough to stimulate him to that exertion, which success in oratory absolutely requires. But, as soon as these speeches found their way through the press to the public ear, as soon as a Peer or a Commoner felt that, in addressing the protectors or the representatives of the people, he was also, not in a mere constitutional but literal sense, address ing the people themselves, and that his words would be heard not only throughout the kingdom, but the most remote of our dependencies, then was a motive discovered, which roused exertion to energy. Since this change has taken place, which has produced, as it were, an unlimited enlargement of the audience, an orator in Parliament has, in one respect, even greater advantages than Cicero possessed, when he harangued the Roman senate. Accordingly, we have not been without men, who have turned those advantages to effect: the eloquence of Chatham, Burke, Sheridan, and Grattan, has not yet ceased to vibrate in our ears. Still it may be disputed, whether any of these great speakers came up to the standard of true oratory, as it was felt and understood by the ancients. Perhaps Sheridan came nearest to the mark. But it may also be disputed, whether it be necessary, for any personal or political purpose, to come exactly up to this standard of excellence, even if it were practicable. We take Demosthenes and Cicero to be the models of the art; yet the latter declares, that not only his own productions, but those of the Athenian, fall short of the perfection which he desired. Ita sunt avidœ et capaces meæ aures, he exclaims, ut semper aliquid immensum, infinitumque desiderent. The ancients would allow no man to be an orator, so exalted was their idea of the character, unless he was gifted with an influence over the passions, which was almost more than human. His words must roll along in a deep, brilliant, and continued stream, filling the ear with its harmony, and overawing the soul with its majesty. If the people be sunk in despair, he must rouse them to a sense of glory-if they be in tumult, he must hush the wild storm-if they be infatuated by pride, he must bend their stubborn spirit, by the magic wonders of his tongue. Guilt must turn pale beneath the terrors of his indignant voice-innocence must smile in security beneath his omnipotent sceptre. He must have upon his language that spell which awakens or composes the emotions of the human soul; and whether he have to contend with power or prejudice, with the passions of the rude, or the interests of the enlightened, he must bear down every obstacle by the irresistible torrent of his eloquence. But where, in this cold climate, shall we find an audience capable of allowing their feelings to be wound up to such a height, that they will recognise and exult in the sway of a godlike intelligence? Mr. Burke, in the fine frenzy of his indignation against the French revolution, produced a dagger from his bosom one night in the House of Commons, as the most expressive emblem of the designs, which the republicans had in contemplation. But what was the effect of this extraordinary illustration? Some members deemed the sage mad; others scarcely suppressed their laughter; and his most attached friends blushed for the eccentricity of the thing, while they endeavoured, ineffectually, to work up their minds to that degree of enthusiasm which would enable them to praise it. That great man felt a zeal upon the subject of French affairs, in the warmth of which no other mind, at that time, could entirely correspond. In his conceptions, there was something of that extraordinary elevation and fire, which seem to belong more to prophetic inspiration, than to political sagacity. But he was mistaken in thinking that his auditors were as ardently excited as himself, or that they were sufficiently prepared for such an illustration as this. For him it was scarcely strong enough; for them it was extravagant. Yet the fervid glow of feeling, peculiar, I am afraid, to the Greeks and Romans, not only sustained, but encouraged, applauded, nay demanded, flights of oratory as great, if not greater than this. Witness the sublime oath by which Demosthenes made his fellow citizens forget the disastrous battle of Charonea. "No, my fellow citizens, no; you have not erred. I swear by the manes of those heroes, who fought for the same cause in the plains of Marathon and Platea!" Cicero, in one of his speeches against Verres, after painting in the strongest colours the ignominious death of a Roman citizen, whom that infamous prætor had caused to be crucified, breaks out into the following bold amplification:-" If I painted the horrors of this scene, not to Roman citizens, not to the allies of our state, not to those who have ever heard of the Roman name, not even to men, but to brute creatures; or even to go farther, if in some desolate solitude, I lifted up my voice in complaint and lamentation to the rocks and to the mountains, yet would these mute and inanimate parts of nature be moved at such a monstrous and disgraceful outrage as this."* Shakspeare has rendered Mark Antony's exhibition of the robe of Cæsar familiar to us. To what a state of excitement did that artful intriguer inflame the feelings of the people; and how susceptible, how quick, how "feather-springed" must those feelings have been, when such was the effect of Antony's address upon their minds, that they tore up the benches and the tables in the forum (as Plutarch relates) to make a funeral pile for the dead body. Not content with duly performing the last rites towards one, who they must have known meditated, in his life, the destruction of all their ancient privileges, they snatched the burning brands from Quod si hæc ad cives Romanos, non ad aliquos amicos nostræ civitatis, non ad eos qui populi Romani nomen audiissent; denique, si non ad homines, verum ad bestias; aut etiam, ut longiûs progrediar, si in aliqua desertissima solitudine, ad saxa et ad scopulos hæc conqueri et deplorare vellem, tamen omnia muta atque inanima, tanta et tam indigna rerum atrocitate commoverentur.-Cic in Ver. the pile, and went to attack the houses of those whom, until the close of this harangue, Antony dared not to call conspirators. His grandfather, of the same name, who was a much better orator than he, produced a marvellous effect, not on a popular assembly, but on a full bench of judges, by exposing the wounds of a military client, whom he defended on a charge of sedition. That client was his friend; to save him from banishment was the object of his address, and he hesitated not to mingle much of personal feeling and entreaty in all the passion, which he expressed. He saw near him that esteemed friend, whom he remembered to have been consul, to have been a general distinguished by the senate, to have mounted the steps of the capitol in triumph, but whom he now beheld reduced to the condition of an accused person, clothed in mourning robes, and in danger of being banished from his country. But Antony did not yield to the ardour of his own breast, until, by dwelling on the sorrows and dejection of the accused, he had succeeded in moving the judges even to tears; then he tore open the vest of the old warrior, showed the honourable scars, which he had received in maintaining the glory of Rome, and he appealed to gods, to men, to citizens, and friends, whether such a man ought to be banished? His client was saved. This, then, is the great and disadvantageous difference between us and the ancients-the difference in the characters, between a Roman or an Athenian, and an English audience. This essential difference pervades our senate, our forum, and our popular assemblies; and it must necessarily have a proportional effect in reducing the standard of our eloquence. For, surely, we are not destitute of all the other means of success in that brilliant department of literature. Philosophy, poetry, history, and the arts, have each arrived to a degree of perfection in this country, which, in Rome at least, was scarcely surpassed. The graces of style, the vivid lights of fancy, the associations of imagery and of thought, which are most apt to excite emotions, are thoroughly understood, and by many of our writers most felicitously pursued. Civil liberty, which is admitted to be as necessary to the support of eloquence as pure air is to the sustenance of animal life, is with us as abundantly enjoyed, and as highly valued, as it ever has been in any age or nation. That difference of national character alone remains as a drawback—a difference unfelt by the historian, for he writes in the presence of posterity-a difference despised by the poet, for he has lifted his mind To that unearthly mood, When each conception was a heavenly guest- Star-like, around until * They gather'd to a God. |