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and groveling mind to creep along the rivulets, and not mount at once to the springhead; and especially is it incumbent on age and experience like ours, to derive our supplies from the main fountains, and to penetrate to the primal sources from which all things flow. That first-mentioned class of external proofs, placed at the disposal of the advocate, ought to be the subjects of his incessant meditation, for the purpose of general application to similar cases; for we are constantly called upon to speak for or against deeds, witnesses, examinations by torture, and other things of the same kind, either generally and in the abstract, or in connection with specified persons, times, and causes; and these commonplaces (to you, Cotta and Sulpicius, I particularly address this) ought by constant thought and meditation to be fully prepared and ready to your hands. It would be tedious to enumerate all the methods by which evidence, documents, and examinations may be confirmed or invalidated. All these things require very moderate ability, but immense practice; nor do they stand in need of any further aid from artificial precepts than what is necessary to invest them with the requisite amount of embellishment. Those proofs, also, which belong to the other class, and are originated altogether by the advocate himself, impose no great labor of thought, but demand much greater polish and splendor of illustration. In all causes, then, there are two subjects of inquiryfirst, What is to be said; and then, How we ought to say it. To discover what ought to be said, though apparently a subject thoroughly imbued with art, and certainly not altogether independent of it, asks for no extraordinary sagacity. It is in the treatment of the other that all the superhuman power and grandeur of the oratorical art are conspicuous, where the utmost skill of the speaker must be exerted to clothe his ideas in all the gorgeous, rich, and variegated coloring of language.

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THE ART OF VERDICT-GETTING

TENDS much to secure a favorable verdict when the morals, principles, character, and life of the pleader, and of those for whom he pleads, are irreproachable, while those of his opponents lie open to attack; and when the minds of those before whom the cause is litigated are strongly disposed to favor the advoas well as the party whose interests he is advocating. Now, the great conciliators of the mind are the high personal character of any individual, his achievements, the moral estimation in which he is held-particulars much more easily emblazoned where they are known to exist, than called into existence and attributed to the man who has them not. Greatly aiding also to the orator are suavity of voice and manner; his seeming diffidence, and the absence of all harsh and offensive language; and when such is imperatively demanded by the occasion, the apparent reluctance and almost compulsion with which it is employed. The evidences of affability, liberality, meekness, and piety—of a mind grateful, not envious

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rasping-are advantageous to the speaker; and all those properties which characterize the truly honorable and unassuming man-of a man not irritable, pertinacious, litigious, or bitter-strongly attract us to their possessors, as we are repelled from those who have them not. The opposite vices, therefore, are at the same time to be imputed to our adversary. This conciliatory style, however, will show to most advantage in those causes which are wanting in the exciting elements by which the minds of the judges may be kindled into exasperation. Nor is a powerful appeal always demanded, but often a placid, subdued, and gentle address, such as will best recommend the rei, or defendants,—a term not confined to those criminally arraigned, but embracing the defendants in any litigation, for such was the original accepta

tion of the term reus. To represent them as men of high moral character — just, irreproachable, religious, meek, and patient of injuries — has a wonderful effect; and, either in the exordium, narration, or peroration, is of such power, if unobtrusively and discreetly employed, as often to weigh more with the judges than even the merits of the cause. So much, indeed, is effected by the feeling and judgment with which the pleading is conducted, that the speech is made to appear a reflex image of the speaker's character. By the very cast of the sentiments and language, with the accompaniments of a gentle and insinuating action and expression, an impression is conveyed to the audience that we are honorable, well-conducted, and virtuous

men.

Contrasted with this is that very opposite style of address, which acts upon the minds of the judges by a totally different agency; which impels them to hate or to love, to be adverse or favorable; which inspires fear, hope, desire, disgust, joy, grief, commiseration, or severity, or leads the mind to those passions which touch upon and are akin to these and similar mental perturbations. And it is very desirable for the pleader that the judges should approach the question with a decided prepossession in favor of the interests he is advocating. For, according to the adage, it is easier to add wings to speed than speed to tardiness. But if the judges be perfectly free from prejudice, or of doubtful bias, I would follow the practice of the careful physician, who, before prescribing for the particular case of the patient, takes every pains to ascertain his general habit and the nature of his constitution when in health. Thus, when a doubtful cause is put into my hands, and one calculated to act powerfully on the feelings of the judges, I exert every energy of my mind, and all my sagacity, to penetrate into their sentiments, thoughts, expectations, and wishes, and to discover in what direction they may most easily be moved. If they yield themselves, and, as I said before, lean towards the point to which I would impel them, i take what is given, and unfurl my sails in the direction from which the lightest breeze may blow. But if the judges be passionless and impartial, the work will be more difficult; for then all those feelings are to be called forth by the sheer force of eloquence, without any aid from nature. But such is the power of that art, which has been rightly styled by an excellent poet "the molder of the mind and sovereign queen of all the affections," that it can not only make rigid the flexible, and flexible the rigid, but, like a good and able general, can coerce and make captive the most pugnacious and determined foe.

These are those powers which Crassus lately, in his playful banter, affected such desire to hear me speak upon, describing them as wielded by me with such superhuman effect in what he flatteringly styled the nobly-acted causes of Manlius Aquilius, Caius Norbanus, and others, but which, when wielded by himself, send, I protest, a thrill of emotion through every fibre of my frame; such is his overwhelming rush of thought, such pathos speaks in his eye, his every look and gesture, even in the slightest movement of his very finger- such a torrent of the choicest and most nervous language, such perfect sentiments, so true, so new, so free from puerile gloss and pigment, that he seems to me not only to wrap the judges in a flame, but to be himself on fire. Nor is it possible for the hearer to grieve, or hate, or fear, or to be moved to commiseration and tears, unless the emotions which the speaker wishes to communicate are deeply impressed upon himself, and stamped on his own bosom in characters of fire. If this were merely a fictitious sorrow, assumed for the occasion-if, in appeals of this kind, everything were false and mimetic, some decidedly artificial process would perhaps be required. I cannot tell, indeed, what may be the case with you, Crassus, or with others, but, for my own part (and I see no reason why I should conceal the truth from men of your superior sense, and such especial friends of my own), never, I assure you, have I endeavored to excite in the

judges the emotions of grief, commiseration, envy, or hatred, without becoming sensibly touched myself with the passions I wished to communicate to them. It is not easy to excite the indignation of the judge against the man, to whom you yourself show no displeasure, or to inflame him with hatred, unless he sees you burning with the same passion, nor can he be moved to commiseration unless you yourself give evidence of the same by your language, feelings, voice, and countenance, and even by sympathetic tears; for as no material is so combustible as to ignite without the application of fire, so no mind is so susceptible as to burst into flame before the speaker has applied to it the brand of his own ardent feeling.

And do not suppose it something extraordinary and wonderful for the speaker to be so often subjected to the violent excitement of grief, and anger, and every other passion of the mind, especially in the interests of strangers; for there is an emotional power in the sentiments and topics themselves which supersedes the necessity of all simulation and falsehood; the very language of the speech employed to move the minds of others has a more powerful effect upon the speaker himself than on his audience. Nor let it be a matter of surprise that this should be the case in the causes we are pleading-in criminal trials, in the perils of our friends, and in the concentrated gaze of the city and the forum, where not only our professional reputation is at stake (which though comparatively a trifle, yet charged as we are with the responsibility of doing what can be done by few, ought not to be neglected), there are other and far more weighty considerations-honor, fidelity, duty to our clients, and diligence in discharging that duty, from regard to which, though advocating the rights of perfect strangers, they must no longer be strangers to us if we would the character of honorable men. But, as I have been observing, this ought not to be matter of surprise, for what can be more unreal than poetry, than fable, than the creations of the drama? yet often in this fictitious scene have I marked the eyes of the actor flashing fire through his mask when declaiming these lines:

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"What! did you then dare to spurn him from you?

Or to enter Salamis without him?

Did you not dread the aspect of his father?»

Never did I hear him pronounce the word "aspect» but Telamon started up before me, frantic and raving for the loss of his son. Then subduing his voice to the tone of commiseration he proceeded mournfully, and in seeming tears: —

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"Whom, in extremest age and penury,
You cruelly have lacerated, robbed
Of children, and of life, regardless of
Your brother's death, regardless of the child,
The little child committed to your charge."

the actor who had to declaim these verses daily could not do so effectually without an emotion of sorrow, can you suppose that Pacuvius himself, when composing them, was in an indifferent and listless state of mind? Impossible! for I Often heard, and the remark is confirmed by Democritus and Plato, that no can be a poet without extreme excitability of temperament and a certain furor

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of inspiration.

Do not imagine, therefore, that I, who was not engaged in some merely artistic effort to imitate and shadow forth the calamitous fall or fictitious sorrows of the heroes of antiquity, who was no actor of a foreign and personated part, but the asserter of my own,-do not imagine that what I did in my peroration to rescue

Manlius Aquilius from the threatened banishment was done without a feeling of deep and genuine sorrow. When I saw this man, whom I remembered as consul, whom I remembered as a commander loaded with honors by the senate, and ascending in triumph to the capitol,-when I saw him stricken, afflicted, bowed down with misery, and reduced to the last extremity of danger, no sooner did I attempt to move the pity of others than I felt myself pierced to the heart with the deepest commiseration. I saw how greatly the judges were affected when bringing forward the old man bowed down with grief, and clothed in the squalid garb of misery, I did what is so much commended by you, Crassus,-when, not in compliance with any rule of art (of which I know not what to say), but transported beyond myself by a sudden impulse of great sorrow, I tore open his tunic, and pointed to his scars, - when Caius Marius, there seated by my side, aided my mournful appeal by his own streaming tears, and, when repeatedly calling upon him by name, I commended his colleague to him, and adjured him to stand forth and advocate the common rights of the soldier. All this was not without tears on my part; nor without a feeling of deep anguish was my appeal to commiseration, my adjuration of gods and men, and of all his fellow-citizens and associates; and if every word employed by me had not been the genuine utterance of unacted sorrow, not only would it have failed to excite commiseration, but would have been laughed at as ridiculous. Wherefore, Sulpicius, I, beyond all question an excellent and erudite instructor, give you this lesson,—that in pleading you should learn how to be angry,-how to grieve and weep.

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In the first place, then, I make a point of considering what is demanded by the cause; for these fervid appeals are not to be employed either on ordinary occasions, or when the minds of the hearers are in such a state of prejudice and excitement as to defy the utmost efforts of the orator, lest we lay ourselves open either to ridicule or to odium, by assuming tragic airs wholly disproportionate to the occasion, or by a vain attempt to move the immovable. For, as the principal passions to be worked upon in the breasts of the judges, or of any other arbiters, are love, hatred, envy, pity, hope, joy, fear, and sorrow, we must be aware that the favor of an audience will be best secured by our appearing to advocate what serves their interests, or to be exerting ourselves in behalf of good men, or of those at least who may prove good and serviceable to them; for this especially attracts our regard, while the defense of virtue merely secures our approbation, and the prospect of future benefit to be derived from any one is a stronger recommendation than past services. It must be our endeavor to show that the cause we are pleading immediately concerns either their interest or their honor, and to insinuate that the party for whom we are bespeaking their favor has had no view to his own advantage, nor taken a single step to serve himself. For men regard with an invidious eye whatever we do for our own benefit, but are favorably disposed to what is done for the benefit of others. Great care must be taken, at the same time, not to dwell too strongly on the glory and meritorious achievements of those we are recommending; for these are the especial incentives to envy; and from the same sources we learn to heap odium on our opponents, and to divert it from ourselves and our clients. In either exciting or allaying the angry passions of the mind also, the same course must be pursued; we excite the aversion of our audience by exaggerating what brings no advantage to them, or is positively injurious to their interests; but if only affecting the deserving, and those on whom no reflections ought to be cast, or the community at large, the feeling does not amount to actual hatred, though very near akin to it. Fear, too, is awakened by the apprehension of injury to ourselves, or to the community to which we belong; but though our own immediate danger is the deeper feeling, the common danger is to be treated as having a similar tendency.

The same treatment is applicable to hope, joy, and sorrow, but of all the passions I question if envy be not the most powerful, equally difficult to allay as to excite. Men, for the most part, regard with a jealous eye their equals or inferiors, when mortified by seeing themselves neglected and others exalted so much above them; but with a still more jaundiced eye do they regard their superiors, especially if they bear themselves haughtily, and, in the arrogance inspired by superior rank or fortune, presume to trample on the rights of others. If our object, then, be to excite envy, it will be for us to show that these advantages have not been the reward of superior merit, but, on the contrary, the wages of infamy and crime, and even admitting them to have been honorably earned and richly merited, still that they are not such as to warrant the insolence and haughty superciliousness of the possessor. But if our object, on the contrary, be to allay envy, we must endeavor to show that those advantages have been purchased at the price of immense labor and extreme peril, that they have not been applied to the private benefit of the individual, but to the benefit of others; and that, though the glory acquired by him was no more than a just reward for the dangers he had encountered, yet, so far from pluming himself upon it, he was ready to resign and abandon it altogether; and, as envy is a vice common to all,-a vice always in action, and especially excited by exalted rank and flourishing fortune,—we should endeavor to show that this prosperity, so dazzling to the vulgar eye, is mixed up with much alloy of toil and anxious misery. Now, the commiseration of the hearer may be easily excited, if, in listening to the recital of the misfortunes of others, he can be made to or apprehend similar sufferings of his own, so that the image he contemplates in another may be reflected upon himself. Thus, while every instance of suffering humanity when described with feeling painfully affects the mind, the description of prostrate and afflicted virtue appeals most strongly to our sympathies; and as that part of a discourse which is meant to recommend the speaker by the indications it gives of a truly benevolent character, ought, as I have observed, to be gentle and subdued in tone, so that portion, on the other hand, which labors to effect a total revolution in the minds of his audience, and by every possible means to bend and mold them to his purpose, must be intensely vehement and impassioned.

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HOW TO CULTIVATE THE MEMORY

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HY speak here of the value of memory to the orator?- why enlarge on its importance and power?-to retain everything you have heard from your client in undertaking his cause - everything that you yourself know concerning it-to have all your ideas firmly fixed in your mind-all the verbal appainscribed there-so distinctly to retain what has been said by your client, and by the party to whom you have to reply, that their words seem not merely to have

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poured into your ear, but indelibly imprinted on your memory? Accordingly, only for men of vigorous memory to know exactly what, to what extent, and in what manner they have to speak-what has been answered-what still remains for them to answer-retaining in memory also the precedents which have occurred in the cases carried on by themselves, as well as those which they have heard in the pleadings of others. I must acknowledge, however, that nature is the originator of this, as of every other qualification of which I have been speaking; for the whole art of oratory, if art it may be called, and not rather the image and semblance of art, has no creative power to engender in the mind what had not a previous existence there, but only to foster and forward the growth of the embryo, already partially

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