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Cornell University Library 
 PN 4021.S43 
 
 History of oratory from the age of Peric 
 
 3 1924 027 220 908 
 
THE 
 
 HISTORY OF ORATORY 
 
 AGE OF PERICLES TO THE 
 PRESENT TIME 
 
 LORENZO SEARS, L. H. D. 
 
 PROFESSOR IN BROWN UNIVERSITY 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY 
 
 1896 
 
A.^%3 
 
 1 
 
 Copyright, 189s 
 By S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY 
 
 ^it TLufitsitse ^nsa 
 
 DONNELLEY & SONS CO. CHICAGO 
 
TO 
 
 CYRUS NORTHROP, LL.D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, 
 
 AND SOMETIME 
 
 PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 IN YALE COLLEGE, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED 
 
 IN PLEASANT MEMORY OF ACADEMIC YEARS. 
 
Great thanks might justly be given to our days, most 
 excellent Ammseus, for an improvement in other branches 
 of culture, and particularly for the signal advance that has 
 been made by the study of Civil Oratory.— Dionysius of 
 Halicarnassus, on the Decline and Revival of Oratory. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 T F Oratory is what the ancients called it, " The Art of 
 J- Arts," it should have a history of its own, like the arts 
 of painting, sculpture, and architecture, of music, poetry, 
 and the drama. If, also, it is a science, as Aristotle and 
 his successors have shown, its fundamental principles 
 must have been derived from a series of experiments 
 whose record becomes historical. Again, if there is a 
 philosophy of public discourse, referring its laws to 
 methods of mental and moral action, such reference is 
 the better established and confirmed the farther back 
 observation extends and the more complete the account 
 becomes of such successes and failures as attend any 
 continuous endeavor. Furthermore, if modern methods 
 of study are to be applied to the art, the science, or the 
 philosophy of public address, something like a con- 
 nected narrative of its beginning and growth, its de- 
 cadences and revivals is requisite. 
 
 These phases of the subject cannot, of course, be 
 formally separated from each other in its historical treat- 
 ment. As in ordinary discourse itself they are mingled 
 in varying proportions, so in any continuous account of 
 it these several elements must appear in solution rather 
 than as precipitated or crystallized with exact formality ; 
 
 3 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 a process which has sometimes followed the other. 
 Nevertheless, notice may with propriety be taken of such 
 analytic and synthetic methods when they occur in the 
 history of public speech. 
 
 Such considerations have led to the preparation of 
 the following chapters, in the failure to find the fortunes 
 of oratory, during a period of about twenty-four cen- 
 turies, traced in any single work. 
 
 The treatment of the subject within the compass of 
 one volume has its obvious limitations. To do this as 
 exhaustively as Professor Jebb, following German and 
 English scholars, has treated the one section, from Anti- 
 phon to Isaeus, would require several volumes. The 
 immense body of oratorical literature, and of biograph- 
 ical and historical material related to it, imposes a con- 
 stant necessity of selection and condensation. In view 
 of this it has been attempted to give only a brief 
 account of each typical orator's place in the long suc- 
 cession, to note the rhetorical principles that he exem- 
 plified, and to observe the trend of eloquence in the 
 several periods which may be designated as the Greek, 
 Roman, Patristic, Mediaeval, Reformation, Revolution, 
 Restoration, Parliamentary, and American. 
 
 It should be added that the substance of these chap- 
 ters was originally delivered in a course of lectures, and 
 that the principal changes have been made in the way of 
 abridgement. It is also due to the writer, as well as to 
 the reader, to say that if in the course of composition 
 
PREFACE. 5 
 
 the possibility of publication had been clearer, references 
 might have been kept to authorities which are now be- 
 yond immediate recall. Still, the sources of helpful 
 material have been indicated with tolerable fulness in 
 the text. The editions of orations and speeches are, like- 
 wise, so many and various that no attempt at reference to 
 volume and page has been considered desirable in the 
 relatively few citations made. If, however, some notion 
 shall be conveyed of the elevations and depressions of 
 eloquence through many centuries, and some facts re- 
 called which contribute to a just appreciation of its 
 higher achievements ; above all, if any impulse shall be 
 imparted to the study of oratory, in which there are 
 present indications of revived interest, especially among 
 students ; if these results shall be in any degree attained, 
 the purpose of this sketch will be accomplished. 
 
 The author appends his grateful recognition of val- 
 uable assistance rendered in the reading of proof by his 
 friend, Mr. Harry Lyman Koopman, Librarian of the 
 University. 
 
 Brown University, Providence, R. I. 
 
 December, 1895. 
 
CONTEXTS. 
 
 L — Traces of Oratory ix Early Literature. 
 
 The b^imungs of liteiatnre itself in priiiiiti¥e veise concem- 
 ing Xatnie ; in later poetry r^arding human life ; suc- 
 ceeded bv philosophic prose. Appearance of the fiist 
 recorded ihetorical precept. Prose in history. Oratory in 
 the episodes of Herodotus' history. The speeches of his 
 characters. Thncydides also incorporated speeches with 
 his history. Oratory in the drama. Poetry and oratory 
 mingled by the dramatists and their successors. The 
 speeches finally predominate in the play. Theodectes, 
 tragedian and orator, marks the transition. Oratory tri- 
 umphs as a literary art. Public address in biblical ages. 
 
 n. — ^Forexsic Oratory is Sicily. 
 
 Sicily Hellenic in character. Syracuse a resort of literary men 
 in the fifth century b. c. Empedocles. Aristotle's estimate 
 of him as a rhetorician. The art of methodical speech is - 
 Hellenic. Favored by language, literature, and philos- 
 ophy, in fifth and sixth centuries b. C: and finally by a 
 democratic government in Syracuse. Practical character 
 of early forensic oratory. In theory every citizen his own 
 advocate. Leads to del^ated argumentation. Coras the 
 first instruGtor in I^al oratory. His five rules. Their 
 anticipations of later treatises. Their foundation in 
 unchanging principles. Summary. 
 
 III. — Professional Speech-write rs- 
 
 The occaaon of their appearance. Antiphon marks the transi- 
 tion from the ihetorical school to the law-court and the 
 assembly. Formalated briefs. His topic of general prob- 
 
 7 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 ability. Becomes the pioneer of political, l^islatire, and 
 deliberative discussion. Develops former principles. His 
 
 —^ style. Goigias. His methods of instruction. Plato's Gorgias. 
 Practical and teachable, useful and scientific rhetoric, the 
 orator and the rhetorician. Lysias. Marks the transfer 
 of the science to Greece. Socrates' mention of him. His 
 
 _^ rhetorical education. A wealthy manufacturer. Business 
 troubles force him into professional speech-writing. 
 Adapts his arguments to the characters of his clients. 
 Versatility of style. Master of prose-writing. His suc- 
 cess. Isocrates. Socrates" prophecy concerning his future. 
 Loss of fortune drives him into professional labors. His 
 school at Athens. His illustrious pupils. His improve- 
 ments upon the methods of his predecessors. Exalted 
 themes. Oratorical and ethical purpose. Restdts of his 
 instructions. The character of his professional work. The 
 extent of his literary influence- The pecuniary value of 
 his services and productions. Xot a mere rhetorician. 
 His advancement of Greek oratory. The anomalous char- 
 acter of this period. Its contributions to the art and science 
 of rhetoric The logographer's place in the growth of 
 forensic and deliberative oratorj-. 
 
 IV. — ^Attic Orators. 
 
 Andocides. Orator of natural ability, so-called. His faults. 
 Lack of clearness and orderly arrangement, of proportion 
 and precision in illustration, and of earnestness, charged by 
 Hermogenes. Plutarch's uncharitable criticism. Illustra- 
 tion of the obverse and reverse sides of rhetorical criticism. 
 Faults might have been less if he had been less natural 
 and self-sufficing. Issens. Suffers from his position be- 
 tween Lysias and Demosthenes. Transmits restdts of 
 former efforts to a greater successor. Catches the excel- 
 lencies and not the faults of his models- Qear, brief, and 
 graphic in diction ; flexible, vigorous, animated, and earn- 
 est in style. Rapid in movement and skilful in arrange- 
 ment. Cvmiidative reasoning crovmed with appeal. Ad- 
 vances his profesMon by limiting it to private causes. 
 Adapts arguments to clients. -\ master of forensic dis- 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 cussion. Instructor of Demosthenes. Bondage to con- 
 ventionalisms his mistake. Review of the progress of 
 forensic oratory. Leading traits of principal orators. 
 
 v.— Political Orators. 
 
 Forensic oratory leads to deliberative. Four orators of the 
 best period. Lycurgus, the conservative. Characteris- 
 tics. Hyperides, the progressive patriot. Qualities of his 
 oratory. Estimates by Hermogenes and Longinus. 
 ^schines. Natural gifts and acquired accomplishments. 
 Drawbacks. Demosthenes, the culmination of Attic elo- 
 quence. Its earlier types. Elements in his phenomenal 
 achievement. Necessity of effort through loss of inheri- 
 tance. Shares in prosecution of his guardians. Training . 
 under Isseus. Obstacles and hindrances. Apprenticeship 
 at speech-writing. Legal, historical, and political studies. 
 Beginning of professional career. Championship of 
 Athens. Manner and tone'of early speeches. Their per- 
 vading principle. Labor in composition. Characteristics 
 of argument and style. Recognition of his genius. 
 Its highest achievement. Variety and versatility. The 
 task imposed upon his oratory. The patriot soldier's 
 indorsement of his own speech. His primacy among 
 ancient orators. 
 
 VI.— Aristotle, the Rhetorician. 
 
 A century's growth of oratory, under Greek criticism, civil 
 liberty, and literary contests develops Attic excellencies. 
 Material accumulated for a science of rhetoric, in compo- 
 sitions of various styles and values. The power to analyze 
 and classify these is found in Aristotle. Favoring cir- 
 cumstances and qualifications. Literary and scientific 
 habits. Acquaintance with orators and their methods. 
 Reduction of particular modes to general principles of 
 speech. Substitution of laws for rules and precepts. His 
 estimate of predecessors. His definition of rhetoric. 
 Division of the subject. Proof in his system. Compre- 
 hensiveness and minuteness of his analysis. Example in 
 his division of Deliberative Oratory. Other examples. Not 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 a minute philosopher merely. Develops and exhausts the 
 subject in a large and manly way. The father of rhetorical 
 science. Permanent value of his work. His style. His 
 analytic methods useful to writers. Lack of emotive ele- 
 ment alleged. His theory and art of composition. His 
 philosophy of rhetoric. 
 
 VII.— Early Roman Orators. 
 
 Slow development of Latin literature. Its indebtedness to 
 Greek inspiration. Diffusion of the Greek language. 
 Persistence of the Latin. Prose composition favored by 
 the Roman character. A rugged speech natural to the 
 Latin race. A sturdy and martial oratory precedes other 
 forms of literature. Which in turn antedate the maturity 
 of eloquence. Cato the Censor and his vigorous prose. 
 Contemporaries of Cato. Scipio Africanus Major and 
 Minor. Sulpicius Galba. Rutilius Rufus. The Gracchi. 
 Tiberius and Caius. Other orators. Greek influence and 
 culture. Mark Antony. Crassus. Cicero's opinion of 
 him. Hortensius. His Asiatic style. 
 
 VIII. — Rhetorical Schools.— Cicero, the Rhetorician. 
 
 Conflict of literary tastes. The Attic and Asiatic controversy. 
 Its causes. Criteria of style. Quintilian's dictum. The 
 law of diversity. Rhetorical study becomes retrospective 
 and imitative. Hellenic teachers of oratory at Rome, and 
 Roman youth at Athens. Rhetoric a remunerative profes- 
 sion. The exalted position of oratory in ancient education. 
 The rhetorical works of Cicero. A digest of previous trea- 
 tises with his own additions. His division of the subject. 
 With Aristotle he emphasizes invention as the foundation 
 of the art. The De Oratore. Qualifications of an orator. 
 Symposia. The De Claris Oratoribus and Orator. His 
 rhetorical position as affected by his philosophical and 
 moral codes. Philosophical studies contribute to oratorical. 
 The ethical element in his system. His eloquence affected 
 by his times. Resume of influences and oratorical examples. 
 
CONTENTS. 1 1 
 
 IX. — Cicero, the Orator. 
 
 His life outlined. Fidelity to his own rhetorical system. De- 
 tails of construction and argumentation. Variety of method. 
 Adaptation. Latinity. Diction. Harmony of sound and 
 sense. Examples. Excellencies. Strictures. Overbalan- 
 cing merits. Compared with Demosthenes. In comprehen- 
 siveness ; multitude-moving power. Demosthenes' single- 
 ness of aim. Cicero's broader culture. Pleasantry; sobriety. 
 Cicero's advantage of living in a later age. Dififering mo- 
 tives and methods of address. Contrasting styles. Rapidity 
 of movement. Demands of modern taste. Values of con- 
 cise and copious expression. Roman taste pleased by 
 stately splendor. Cicero's ethical sentiments illustrated in 
 his eloquence. His struggles between the desire to please 
 and to do right. Quintilian's summary of his virtues. 
 
 X. — Cicero's Successors and Quintilian. 
 
 Oratory declines in vigor and advances in finish. Becomes 
 servile with the loss of liberty. Reactions and Asian ten- 
 dencies. Neglect of deliberative oratory under tyrants. 
 Public speech restricted to the courts ; and to rhetorical 
 schools. Ends in mere declamation. Rare exceptions. 
 Mostly " sound and fury." Temporary revival under Nerva. 
 The highest literary ambition. Pliny the Younger as an 
 advocate. Tacitus, the historian, as an orator. Weight, 
 force, and dramatic character of his eloquence. Return of 
 downward tendencies. Pedantry and affectation. Culmi- 
 nate in Fronto's praise of dust and smoke. Quintilian. 
 Early training. Imperial favor. Champion of the Cice- 
 ronian style. The training of an orator. Ethical element. - 
 Follows Aristotle. Wide reading. Elocution. Critical esti- 
 mates of Cicero, Caesar, and contemporary orators. Gen- 
 erosity of his criticism. A ripe scholar before he began to 
 write. Literary modesty. Exhaustive character of his 
 Institutes of Oratory. Outline of his system. Its compre- 
 hensiveness. Relation to his own and subsequent times. 
 
1 2 CONTENTS. 
 
 XL— Patristic Oratory — Greek. 
 
 Revival of Greek literature in the second century. Medley of 
 dogmas. Finally a new philosophy, literature, and ora- 
 tory. The new faith and its preacher. St. Paul at Athens 
 and Rome. Constantine makes speech free. Character 
 of the emancipated oratory. Conflicts of opinion. Nicene 
 controversy. Athanasius. Characteristics of his elo- 
 quence. Singleness of purpose. Recognition at Alexan- 
 dria. Literary labors. His logic and rhetoric. Chrysostom. 
 Legal training. Seclusion. Popularity. Power. Character 
 of his eloquence. Bishop of Constantinople. Unsparing 
 denunciations of evil. Reaction. Martyrdom. Basil of 
 Cassarea. Greek education. His eloquence. A central 
 idea. Practical preaching. Religion and science. 
 Examples. On vanity. Pagan doings. Larger themes. 
 Divine science. Gregory of Nazianzum. His tribute to 
 eloquence. His estimate of the ethical element. Eulogy 
 on Basil. Resum6. A stormy age. Formative and 
 reconstructive. Importance of issues. Its oratory com- 
 pared with that of Greek statesmen. Inspiring motive 
 and ruling ideas in each. 
 
 XII.— Patristic Oratory — Latin. 
 
 The Christian religion Greek at first. Its prestige transferred 
 to Rome. Tertullian of Carthage and African theology. 
 His gloomy "ana aggressive spirit. Ridicule of pagans. 
 Strictures on the laxity of believers. Creator of a Latin 
 ecclesiastical literature. Ambrose. Apostle of the Western 
 Church. Rhetorician and lawyer. Governor and bishop. 
 Fame of his preaching. Last struggles of paganism. 
 Eulogy on Gratian and Valentinian. Ambrose. His 
 oratory. Denunciation of vice and vanity. Augustine. 
 Professor of Rhetoric in Carthage, Rome, and Milan. 
 Eloquence as a preacher. Rhetoric in the fifth century. 
 His writings. Influence upon subsequent times. Leo the 
 Great. Eloquence and administrative methods. Speech 
 of Leo wards off barbarian hordes. Builds a new empire 
 upon the ruins of imperialism. The greatest man m Rome. 
 
CONTENTS. 1 3 
 
 The pulpit his vantage ground. His apostolic preaching. 
 Its cardinal doctrines. Personal humility and official arro- 
 gance. Influence of the pulpit then. Comparison of the 
 new oratory with the old in manner, motive, and results. 
 The later life breathed into the earlier forms. 
 
 XIII. — Mediaeval Preachers. ' 
 
 Decline of pulpit eloquence. Exaltation of papacy and 
 ritual. State of learning. Oratory ecclesiastical. Preach- 
 ing of Paulinus. Bede. His preaching. Learning in 
 Britain. Sermon on the Celestial Country. Monastic ora- 
 tory. Rhetorical instruction. Boniface. Mission preach- 
 ing. Homilies. Adaptation to a simple people. Transi- 
 tion from ancient to mediaeval oratory. Examples of 
 contemporary discourse. Rabanus' sermons. Damian's 
 expositions. Ignorance and illiteracy of the Saculum 
 Obscurum. 
 
 XIV. — Preachers of the Crusades. 
 
 The passing of the millennial year. Signs of revival. Rise of 
 the universities. Peter of Amiens. Described by William 
 of Tyre. A natural orator with scanty outfit. Impassioned 
 oratory. Demonstrative. Effect on auditors. Drives 
 Europe to Palestine. Finally fights for the cause he has 
 proclaimed. His eloquence cannot be criticized by later 
 standards. Anselm. Metaphysician and preacher: expos- 
 itory style. Ivo of Chartres. Bruno of Aste. Mystical 
 preaching. Hildebert. Guarric. Adam Scotus. Peter 
 Cellensis. Peter of Blois. Bernard of Clairvaux. Contests 
 of papacy and chivalry. Bernard's commanding eloquence. 
 A peacemaker. Preaches a crusade. Inspiring oratory. 
 Marvelous power. Antony of Padua. Followed by mul- 
 titudes. Mystical and imaginative. Type of his times. 
 Mediaeval oratory ends "without grace or glory." 
 
 XV. — Eccentric Eloquence. 
 
 Low estate of oratory in fourteenth century. Artificial and over- 
 strained. Graphic and grotesque. Exceptions. Gabriel Biel; 
 thoughtful and direct. John Raulin, satirist. Fables for 
 
 / 
 
1 4 CONTENTS. 
 
 clergy and people. Literary tastes of the age. Philip von 
 Hartung's vigor and originality. De Barzia's strong points. 
 Transition from expository to topical discourse. Beza's de- 
 vices to enliven long sermons. Vehement and picturesque. 
 Value of such discourse to after ages ; to our own time. 
 
 XVI.— Savonarola. 
 
 His ascetic life. Disorders of his day. A prophet to an evil 
 generation. First sermons didactic. Florentine indiffer- 
 entism. His antagonisms of style and manner. Denun- 
 ciations of vice. Critical audiences. Discouragements. 
 Mariano, his popular rival. Meditations and visions. Mes- 
 sage to a corrupt age. Responsive hearers at Brescia and 
 Genoa. Recalled to Florence. St. Mark's thronged. Pro- 
 phetic warnings. Popularity. Courted and beneficed. 
 Growth of his oratory. Disadvantages from lack of rhetor- 
 ical training. Sincerity and ardor. Restoration of genuine 
 eloquence. The house of Borgia. More visions and pro- 
 phecies. EfEects of his eloquence. Fulfilment of predic- 
 tions. The burden of his message. The day of his triumph. 
 Persecutions and martyrdom. His place among orators, 
 
 XVn. — Oratory of the Reformation. 
 
 Martin Luther. Monastic and university preaching. Freedom 
 and fearlessness, freshness and vigor. Eminence as an 
 orator. His appearance. Mental qualifications. Tem- 
 perament. Characteristics of his speech. Self-criticism. 
 What his oratory did for the Reformation. Bucer. Lec- 
 turer in Cambridge. Earns the title of "the eloquent." Ora- 
 tory becomes submerged in controversial writing. Hugh 
 Latimer. Pungent and indefatigable. Learned and original. 
 His versatility, wit, and drollery. His pulpit anywhere. 
 Boldness. Quaint English. Examples of his similitudes. 
 Colloquies with his audience. Last words. John Knox, the 
 irrepressible. Politics and religion. Preaches a crusade 
 against monasteries. Tirades in Edinburg. Denunciation 
 of St. Bartholomew massacre. 
 
CONTENTS. 1 5 
 
 XVIII. — Three French Orators in Reign of Louis XIV. 
 
 Tributary influences. Previous literary achievements. Poetry, 
 chronicles, romance, biography. Early criticism and phi- 
 losophy. Literary age of Louis XIV. Bossuet. His early 
 education. Precocity. A member of the Academy. Dis- 
 tinction in Paris. Patristic studies. Three periods of his 
 career. Attitude toward royalty, the common people, and 
 the truth. Natural eloquence. Lamartine's estimate of it. 
 The manner of the man. His funeral discourses. Bourda- 
 loue. Argumentation his strong point. Voltaire and Vinet's 
 opinions. Thought and expression. Suggestive logic. Ser- 
 mon before the king. Extracts. Massillon. His felicitous 
 exordiums. Grace and elegance of diction. The king's 
 commendation. The oration at the funeral of Louis the 
 Great. Characteristics of the three great preachers. Which 
 was greatest ? 
 
 XIX. — Oratory of the French Revolution. 
 
 Abnormal conditions produce a singular style of eloquence. 
 Long-suppressed freedom of speech became wild with its 
 restoration. Its purpose and its necessity. Mirabeau. 
 Early years. Pamphleteering first, and then spokesman 
 of a moderate party. His immense activity. His employ- 
 ment of helpers in composing. His assimilative and re- 
 creative powers. Characteristics of his oratory. Examples. 
 His extemporaneous speech. Independent attitude toward 
 king and people. Danton. Jacobins and Girondists. In- 
 spirations of the time. Vergniaud on the Jacobin con- 
 spiracy. Danton stands for the whirlwind as Mirabeau 
 has stood for the gathering storm. Napoleon's censorship. 
 Military addresses. Intuition. Motives which he appeals 
 to. Examples of his harangues to troops. His farewell. 
 His oratory as contributing to his success. 
 
1 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 XX. — Orators of the Restoration. 
 De Serre's brief but successful career. Points of excellence. 
 General Foy. His good sense and knowledge of the time. 
 Sensational but approved. Methods of preparation for 
 extemporaneous speech. Benjamin Constant. Writer and 
 orator by turns. Rostrum and press. Variety of treatment. 
 Other qualities. Adroit and artful speech. Royer Collard. 
 Elaborate and erudite. Aphoristic. Manuel. His patient 
 explication. Subtlety of his dialectics. Improvisations. 
 Art of delaying debate. Parliamentary tactics. Lafayette. 
 His speech dignified conversation addressed to the under- 
 standing. " French grace, American indifference, Roman 
 placidity.'' Odillon Barot, the staid and philosophic the- 
 orizer. Dupin, the versatile and impetuous advocate. 
 Lamartine, the Gorgias of France. Poetic, imaginative, 
 and flowing speech. Guizot. The writer contrasted with 
 the speaker. Lucidity of thought and expression. Too 
 cautious to be eloquent. His panegyric on the Constitution 
 of 1789 compared with similar passages in ancient and 
 modern oratory. Thiers, historian and orator. Readi- 
 ness, disorder, and precipitation. Amusing and convinc- 
 ing. Range of his information. Discordant elements in 
 the oratory of the age. 
 
 XXL — British Parliamentary Oratory. 
 
 The importance of the period. Lack of obvious causes for its 
 eloquence. Association of genius in groups. State of 
 national affairs. Harmony at home and ambition to extend 
 dominion. A time of dangerous prosperity demanded wise 
 counselors. Deliberative oratory of a high order appears. 
 The ambition and the possessions of the government. 
 Discussion of policy toward American colonies. Orators 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Elliot, Straf- 
 ford, Belhaven, Walpole, Chesterfield. William Pitt. Early 
 oratorical studies. Macaulay's sketch of him. Integrity 
 in office. Political triumph. Estimation of his rank among 
 orators. Natural powers. Cultivation of them. Person- 
 ality. Resources. His treatment of themes. Style. His 
 best speeches. Extracts. Prophetic words. 
 
CONTENTS. 1 7 
 
 XXII.— Mansfield.— Burke. 
 
 Mansfield's precocity. Study of ancient orators. Practice of 
 extemporary speech. Contests in debate with Pitt. Story's 
 tribute to him. Judicial oratory. His clear statement of a 
 case. Examples. Burke starts with Chatham's commenda- 
 tion. His preparation. His reading in ancient oratory and 
 poetry. Philosophical spirit. The period of his greatest 
 eloquence. Contemporary opinion of his first speech on 
 conciliation. His independence. Second speech on con- 
 ciliation with America. Value of his speeches to political 
 students and orators, and as literature. Characteristics of 
 diction and style. 
 
 XXIII. — Sheridan.— Fox. 
 
 The succession of Irish orators. Sheridan's literary career. 
 Gibbon's estimate of his eloquence. Tributes from Pitt and 
 Fox. His progress from the stage to Parliament. Disad- 
 vantage of a literary reputation to members of Parliament. 
 Sheridan's early failures. Diligent cultivation of native 
 abilities. His methods of preparation. The great speech 
 of his life. Structure of this speech. Testimony of con- 
 temporaries to its effects. Personal traits. Asiatic style. 
 Diction. Fox. Early influences. Classical training. Es- 
 pouses the cause of popular rights. The inspiring cause 
 of his eloquence. Ambition to become a powerful debater. 
 Argumentative character of his speeches. Straightfor- 
 wardness and sympathy. Oratorical methods. Strong 
 language from strong feeling. His illustrations. Fair- 
 ness toward an adversary. His most finished speech. His 
 ablest. 
 
 XXIV. — Colonial Oratory. 
 
 Allied to that of Great Britain. Interest in parliamentary dis- 
 cussion. Its influence upon colonial thought and expres- 
 sion. Samuel Adams. His sturdy speech. Characteriza- 
 tion. Address to colonial governor. Its force and brevity. 
 His practical speech. To be measured by what it accom- 
 plished, James Otis. His rank as an orator of the Revolu- 
 
1 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 tion. Appearance and characteristics. Effects of his elo- 
 quence. Speech against taxation. Fisher Ames. Prepara- 
 tion for forensic speaking. Political writings. Debater in 
 Congress. Appreciation at home. His style. Patrick 
 Henry. Meager opportunities. Legal venture. Success 
 as an advocate. Power over juries. In the House of Bur- 
 gesses. Incendiary eloquence. Popularity. States-rights 
 advocate. Frequency of speeches. Their climax. Dra- 
 matic effects. Professional labors. Care in preparation of 
 arguments. Forensic triumphs. Methods of attack. De- 
 scriptions and estimates. Other orators of this period in 
 the South ; and in the North. 
 
 XXV.— Congressional Oratory. 
 
 John Randolph. Marks the transition between colonial and 
 congressional periods. Violence of his early speeches. 
 Their popularity. Characteristics and manner, His fore- 
 cast of national troubles. Emancipation suggested. Henry 
 Clay. Lack of early advantages. The Richmond debat- 
 ing-club. Law in Lexington. Practice in daily reading 
 and speaking. Campaign speech. In Congress. Speaker 
 of the House, and other positions. Elements in his oratory. 
 Sincerity and honesty of conviction. Clearness of state- 
 ment to the common intelligence. Unconstraint. Earnest- 
 ness. Majestic presence. Enthusiasm of his audiences. 
 Rank as a parliamentary orator. Qualities of his eloquence. 
 John C. Calhoun. Limited opportunities. Extemporary 
 speaking in the law school. In politics early. Contempo- 
 rary issues. The ruling element in his speeches. Logic. 
 Persistence. Massiveness and breadth. Manner and 
 method of his oratory. His greatest efforts. Characteriza- 
 tion and comparison with Clay and Webster. 
 
 XXVI. — Daniel Webster. 
 
 Difficulties of oratorical criticism. His early struggles. Pro- 
 ductive causes. Early proclivities. Promising boyhood. 
 College performances in speaking. Fourth of July ora- 
 tions. Exuberance of style. Later studies. Legal corh- 
 panions and instructors. The value of perspicuous state- 
 
CONTENTS. 1 9 
 
 ment. Effective diction. Lucidity of statement. His 
 manner with a jury. Their confidence in him. The Ken- 
 niston and White trials. Skill in discovering vital points — 
 Dartmouth College case. Emotional element. Major and>— 
 minor points in argument. In Congress. Improvement in 
 style. Statesmanship. Deliberative oratory. Replies to 
 Hayne. Occasion. Question at issue. Exordium. Method 
 of argumentation. Oratorical principles exemplified and 
 illustrated. Literary skill. Lofty spirit. Exposition of the 
 Constitution. Fairness to opponents. Kinds of argument 
 employed. Analytic power and grasp of principles ; earn- 
 estness of conviction ; force of appeal ; general adaptation. 
 Ethical element. His place in the history of oratory. 
 
 XXVII.— Occasional Oratory. 
 
 Definition. Edward Everett. Literary attainments. Professor 
 of Greek in Harvard. Beginning of oratorical career. His 
 services to the cause of letters. Qualities and character- 
 istics. Bequest of classic eloquence in the demonstrative 
 manner. Ruf us Choate. At Dartmouth College in a forensic 
 age. Later studies. In Congress. Deliberative oratory in 
 the fervid style. Legal argumentation. Skill in arrange- 
 ment. Imagination and humor. Literary tastes and studies. 
 Style in jonstruction and manner in expression. Occasional 
 addresses. 
 
 XXVIII.— Charles Sumner. 
 
 Antecedents. Studies and companions. First occasional ora- 
 tion. Its wealth of allusion. Recognition. Eulogy upon 
 Pickering, Story, Allston, and Channing. Succeeding ora- 
 tions. Classicism and stateliness. Development of anti- 
 slavery sentiments. Their unpopularity. Personal un- 
 concern. Determination and opposition. Attacks upon 
 slavery. Leader in the final struggle in Congress. Single- 
 ness of devotion. Ethical power. 
 
20 CONTENTS. 
 
 XXIX.— Wendell Phillips. 
 
 Early influences and position. The mob in broadcloth. Speech 
 in Fanueil Hall on the Alton mob. A reputation made. The 
 eloquent agitator. Lyceum platform discussions through- 
 out the North. Characteristics of his addresses. Methods 
 of composition and delivery. Estimate of his work and 
 rank as an orator. 
 
 XXX.— George William Curtis. 
 
 The orator and editor. Represents a transition period. Plat- 
 form and press complements of each other. Curtis' first 
 important speech both academic and political in character. 
 The Scholar in politics. The Philadelphia and Chicago 
 speeches illustrate his moral courage. War speeches. 
 Eulogies on Sumner. Phillips, Bryant, and Lowell. The 
 extent of Curtis' influence. Honors. Characteristics. Un- 
 mentioned orators, past and present. Prospect. The pres- 
 ent condition of oratory. The issues of a reconstructive 
 and commercial period as afifecting eloquence. Its revival 
 one of the repetitions of history. Indications of renewed 
 interest. In colleges. Retrospect. The horizon line. Its 
 elevations and depressions. Principal names. Oratory 
 and liberty go hand in hand. Phases of expression in dif- 
 ferent centuries. Conformity to universal laws. 
 
THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 I. 
 
 TRACES OF ORATORY IN EARLY LITERATURE. 
 
 PLATO makes the orator Gorgias say, in the dialogue 
 bearing his name, that in discoursing of his art he 
 can be as long as he pleases or as short as he pleases. 
 Socrates begs him to reserve his length for some other 
 occasion, and in this conversation to be as brief as pos- 
 sible. In consequence, his replies for some time are 
 simply— "Yes," "No," "Certainly," "Very true," "That 
 is evident," and others equally curt, until his interlocutor 
 cries out, "By Here, Gorgias, I admire the surpassing 
 brevity of your answers." Some minutes later, after a 
 question about the art which P'olus had called "the 
 noblest," joined with another concerning the greatest 
 good, Socrates gets the following rejoinder : " I should 
 say that the art of persuasion, which gives freedom to 
 all men, and to individuals power in the State, is the 
 greatest good ; " and then, after a little more of concise- 
 ness in reply, Gorgias is drawn out into a fuller and 
 longer exposition of his theory of public discourse. 
 
 A historical treatment of this subject induces a con- 
 stant balancing between these two moods of Gorgias. 
 However, on the one hand it is hardly desirable to 
 
22 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 adopt the brevity he assumed after he had been warned 
 to be short by the son of Sophroniscus, while on the 
 other the temptation to be long is as great as the litera- 
 ture of eloquence is va^t. In such a dilemma the prob- 
 able interest in the topic assigns a limit so moderate 
 that a representative presentation of the phases of oratory 
 in different centuries and countries is compelled, and a 
 comprehensive view of the diversities in its fortunes. 
 
 It will doubtless be admitted that in a survey which 
 is at all comprehensive, some inquiry should be made 
 for remote records and for the beginnings of a growth 
 which at length became wide-spread and vigorous. 
 
 Such investigation will necessarily meet with much 
 that is foreign to the immediate object of search. As an 
 abundance of material is encountered which is not the 
 vein of gold that is traced, so the vestiges of eloquence 
 are imbedded in other forms of literature in such intri- 
 cate ways as to be well-nigh obscured. It is possible, 
 however, that it may antedate them all, as speech pre- 
 cedes writing, and prose poetry in ordinary composition. 
 For if the latest conclusion of evolutionists be accepted, 
 supported as it is by ethnic examples, it will appear that 
 the germ of oratory is found in the primitive laudation of 
 a conqueror returning with the spoils of war, a brief and 
 simple proclamation of victory at first, developed later 
 into eulogistic speech. However this may be, it is evi- 
 dent that the orator left his mark upon primeval liter- 
 atures along with the poet and the historian, the philoso- 
 pher and the dramatist. In the compositions of such 
 Writers themselves public address often appears here and 
 there like a continuous thread running through the fabric 
 
TRACES OF ORATORY IN EARLY LITERATURE. 23 
 
 which primitive artisans were weaving. Protoplasmic 
 eloquence may not be found in early folk-songs to 
 Spring and to Autumn, to Apollo, Adonis, and Tammuz, 
 or in the verses of bard and minstrel, in epic, elegiac, 
 and choral poetry ; but there were brave speeches in 
 the Epos which underlay our present Iliad that were 
 not composed by jEolic poets and rhapsodists without 
 the living model in their memory. Neither is it prom- 
 ising ground to look for eloquence in the philosophic 
 prose which next follows ; still it is in the beginning of 
 a treatise of Diogenes of Apollonia that the following 
 rhetorical precept is found entombed like a trilobite in 
 limestone: " It appears to me that every one who begins 
 a discourse ought to state the subject with distinctness 
 and to make the style simple and dignified." 
 
 It is, however, when the domain of history is reached 
 that public address takes a definite place in literature. 
 Especially in the episodes of Herodotus appear numer- 
 ous examples of formal speech ; for into the historical 
 narrative, and to enforce certain dominant ideas, particu- 
 larly concerning the envy of the gods and the danger 
 of pride, Herodotus has introduced speeches, which he 
 puts into the mouths of one and another of his char- 
 acters. Being somewhat of a theologian and poet, as 
 well as historian, his speeches have a lyric rather than a 
 dramatic part to perform; that is, they set forth the com- 
 poser's own thoughts and feelings, rather than the ex- 
 ternal circumstances and events of the story. They are 
 the author's meditations and reflections upon the course 
 of time, the choral song which succeeds the dialogue in 
 the tragedy. As to the ethical character of these reflec- 
 
24 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 tions it has been remarked that they resemble the writ- 
 ings of the Old Testament both in matter and in the 
 oriental manner of their expression, as might be expected 
 from the historian's acquaintance with Persian affairs. 
 
 Thucydides also diversified his historical narrative 
 with imputed oratory — speeches of his heroes at impor- 
 tant crises, in which he exhibits their motives and their 
 thoughts as if he had seen them through and through. 
 And although he was criticised by contemporaries for 
 leaving the domain of history, his example was followed 
 by subsequent writers, who gave to Greek and Roman his- 
 tory a rhetorical flavor. There are forty-one such 
 speeches in his first seven books, panegyrical, judicial, 
 and deliberative. Fourteen are from generals to soldiers, 
 short and to the point. Others are obscure through too 
 great condensation and compression, and are faulty 
 through certain mannerisms, as repetitions of "nomi- 
 nally" and "really," "in word and in deed," needless 
 definitions and distinctions ; and in one place the mis- 
 take is made of attributing a spirit of niggardly detrac- 
 tion to his audience in the very opening of a speech 
 ascribed to Pericles. But there is much in these speeches 
 to illustrate the methods of the time, and as Grote re- 
 marks, " The modem historian strives in vain to convey 
 the impression which is made by the condensed, burning 
 phrases of Thucydides." There is not so much a crowd- 
 ing of ideas, as of aphorisms about an idea, which we 
 may best understand by reading a page of Carlyle or 
 Emerson. Expounding an obvious or familiar thought 
 he betrays a tendency to astonish the reader by the new 
 and strange way in which it is developed. 
 
TRACES OF ORATORY IN EARLY LITERATURE. 25 
 
 In accordance with the training which epic poetry 
 had given the Greeks, they expected the account of a 
 man's bodily deeds to be accompanied by his spoken 
 words, as an indication of his mental character. Histo- 
 rians, therefore, could not satisfy their readers with the 
 record of any hero's achievements without giving some 
 report of his intentions or reflections as revealed by his 
 public utterances. Accordingly, the speeches of gen- 
 erals and counselors are often incorporated with plain 
 narration of events. The artless simplicity with which 
 Thucydides makes the following admission in regard to 
 such speeches is creditable alike to his honesty as a his- 
 torian and his ability as a rhetorician. He says, "As 
 to the speeches made on the eve of war, or in its course, 
 I have found it difficult to retain a memory of the pre- 
 cise words which I had heard spoken ; and so it was with 
 those who brought me reports. But I have made per- 
 sons say what it seemed to me most opportune for them 
 to say in view of each situation ; at the same time I have 
 adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of 
 what was actually said." His frankness recalls the 
 naivete of an artist whose portraits of certain distin- 
 guished persons were charitably criticized by a brother 
 artist as "Beautiful productions, but not remarkable for 
 their resemblance to the originals." " But," replied the 
 undaunted idealist, "don't you know that is just how 
 they ought to look ?" 
 
 Thucydides' ingenuous confession might be made with 
 reference to much that has been set down in type as the 
 veritable utterance of many orators, both ancient and 
 modern. This accounts for the uniformity of style in 
 
26 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 which his generals addressed their troops, and his coun' 
 selors their auditors. One exception, however, is prom- 
 inent in the general Thucydidean host, namely, Pericles, 
 to whose eloquence the historian had listened so often 
 and so eagerly that, consciously or unconsciously, he 
 caught a distinctive manner and trafisferred it to his 
 reports of that orator's eloquence. A / 
 
 But in all these speeches Thucydides finds a place to 
 incorporate his own views, sentimentsf-and opinions. As 
 a relator of facts he is exact and faithful in the body of 
 his narrative; but when he comes to-njAking a speech for 
 one of the generals or ambassadors, he finds an excellent 
 opportunity to give the impression which the course of 
 events has made on the mind of Thucydides as a philo- 
 sophical historian, and not Thucydides the chronicler, 
 like Herodotus who was a very Frois^rt of Greece. 
 
 Any sketch preliminary to the»' study of oratory 
 would be incomplete without the mention, at least, of its 
 place in the Greek drama. Indeed, dramatic poetry and 
 oratory were so near one another from the beginning 
 "that they often joined hands over the gap which sepa- 
 rates poetry and prose." Accustomed to listen to long 
 speeches in their assemblies, the Athenians tolerated a 
 large interpolation of them in their tragedies, and so 
 kindly that the oratorical element outgrew the others, 
 and the speeches at length became the chief business of 
 the play. But as they lacked the reality of daily life, 
 their rhetoric resembled the speaking of the Sophists 
 rather than the genuine eloquence of the Attic orators, 
 and accordingly the people at last demanded the genu- 
 ine oratory instead of the dramatic speech. 
 
TRACES OF ORATORY IN EARLY LITERATURE. 2^ 
 
 The transition took place in the person of one Theo- 
 dectes, dramatist and rhetorician, orator and tragedian. 
 It was at the famous funeral of Mausolus that Theodec- 
 tes produced both a panegyric and a tragedy; and 
 although Theopompus carried off the prize from all the 
 orators on that occasion, Theodectes so hit the taste of 
 his age that he obtained eight victories in thirteen con- 
 tests. Even Aristotle found material in Theodectes' 
 tragedies to illustrate his Rhetoric. The time had come 
 when the drama was to yield the first place to oratory, 
 the play itself being largely made up of affecting 
 speeches, based on skilful argumentation and paradox- 
 ical assertions closely maintained. Dramatic style ap- 
 proximated more and more to prose, as a lofty poetical 
 tone ill became the subtleties of argument and the laby- 
 rinthine reasoning which had become the staple of trag- 
 edy. Finally, there followed the separation and estab- 
 lishment of oratory as a distinct form of expression, and 
 its eventual triumph over other phases of literary art in 
 the Hellenic states. 
 
 In any attempt to discover the origins of eloquence 
 it should not be assumed that there were no " speaking 
 men" before the middle of the fifth century b. c. 
 That faculty which, more than reason itself, distinguishes 
 man from beast could not have remained unemployed 
 during the existence of empires which were old when 
 Greece was young. The earliest documentary testimony 
 we possess brings to view first the poet and then the 
 prophet, speaking before kings and people of the wel- 
 fare and the woe to a nation which was to be carried into 
 captivity by one of the oldest powers of which there is 
 
28 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 any written or monumental record. The prophecy of 
 Isaiah is an example of what human speech had attained 
 to six generations before the age of Pericles. Passing 
 over contemporaries and successors during this period, 
 and turning backward for indications of eloquence, it is 
 not impossible to find them here and there in the histor- 
 ical documents of the Hebrews. They grow fainter with 
 every receding century, as might be expected, until the 
 first far-off fragment of the earliest recorded human 
 address is reached — the boastful defence of Lamech for 
 the crime of homicide. 
 
 To the question, was it originally spoken in verse? 
 it may be as difficult to reply as to say whether the audi- 
 ence consisted of Adah and Zillah only. 
 
 One corroborative instance in this retrospect toward 
 the primal age occurs in connection with what Her- 
 bert Spencer might call a germ-occasion of oratory, 
 when Miriam goes out to celebrate the victory of 
 "Jehovah, the man of war," over the Egyptians. The 
 song of triumph is attributed to. her brother Moses, 
 the poet-prophet, whose prose orations as literary com- 
 positions are of similar excellence. As a speaker, how- 
 ever, he confesses that he "is not eloquent, but slow 
 of speech, and of a slow tongue." In reply he is 
 assured by divine authority that his brother Aaron "can 
 speak well, and he shall be thy spokesman unto the 
 people." 
 
 Once more, what sort of speakers had the author of 
 the book of Job listened to that he could build upon 
 their suggestive words the dignified and sublime dis- 
 courses which fill his masterly dialogue ? 
 
TRACES OF ORATORY IN EARLY LITERATURE. 29 
 
 To make a characterization of primeval public speech 
 from its meagre records would be more difficult than to 
 portray a mastodon from a few bones found in a deposit 
 of the tertiary period. Collateral helps make the latter 
 achievement possible, while there is a great deficiency of 
 them in the instance of oratorical address. From the few 
 available specimens that have survived, together with 
 what can be inferred from the constant quality of human 
 nature, modified by diversities of experience and cultiva- 
 tion, it is safe to say that strength, plain honesty of 
 sentiment, and directness of diction belonged to the 
 primitive man who spoke to an assembly of his fellow 
 men. At the same time there is a corresponding lack of 
 such amenities of discourse as might not be essential in 
 rude and uncritical ages. Homeric speakers do not 
 hesitate to boast of their own virtues, while Thucydides, 
 who ought to have known better, makes his favorite 
 orator violate the first principle of persuasion in offend- 
 ing his audience at the outset of his address, and cer- 
 tainly the Hebrew orators uttered the weightiest words 
 in their exhortations and maledictions. 
 
 In general, primitive speech, like prehistoric man, 
 was unadorned and without much art, unpretentious and 
 lacking later refinements ; but though crude in form it 
 was direct in purpose, vigorous in manner, unmistakable 
 in expression, and often productive of marvelous results. 
 
II. 
 
 FORENSIC ORATORY IN SICILY. 
 
 NOT the least important of the islands that have 
 been famous in history is the ancient Trinacria, 
 the three-cornered. On the map Italy seems to have 
 crowded it down towards Africa, to lie in the track of the 
 East on its way to the West through the Mediterranean. 
 Greek navigators, sailing the Ionian Sea, would not fail 
 to wonder at a cloud of smoke in the horizon, and 
 steering westward would descry the ashy cone of .^Etna 
 rising from the waters like a beacon, beckoning them 
 toward Sicily. So far as relates to the subject of oratory, 
 interest centers in the city of Syracuse on the eastern 
 coast, nearest Greece. Here the old Greek drama of 
 government appears to have been re-enacted, very much 
 as at home, with varying fortune. Oligarchies, despot- 
 isms, and a sort of republicanism prevailed by turns. 
 In the year 478 b. c. a despotism happened to be the 
 dominant order, but with a strong leaning toward the 
 humanities. Hiero's patronage of literature made Syra- 
 cuse a famous resort for men of letters, and thither came 
 Greek poets and dramatists, among them .^schylus and 
 Pindar, Epicharmus and Sophron. Such a literary cul- 
 ture was soon to find more than one mode of expression, 
 and poetry became the precursor of philosophy and 
 oratory. 
 
 30 
 
FORENSIC ORATORY IN SICILY. 31 
 
 The figure which stands out clearest in this transition 
 period is Empedocles, a native of the island, born at 
 Agrigentum, on the south shore. Priest and poet, phy- 
 sician and philosopher, he received that adoration from 
 his contemporaries which easily passes into semi-deifica- 
 tion and canonization among posterity. Marvelous tra- 
 ditions of his powers have come down from an almost 
 mythical time, and he will always occupy the borderland 
 between fact and fable as something more than human, 
 if less than divine. On the other hand, he did not allow 
 an impressible populace to diminish their awe of him 
 when he appeared in public, attended by a retinue of 
 servants, with a crown upon his head, sandals of brass 
 upon his feet, and a branch of laurel in his hand. He 
 knew the value of appealing to the imagination of an 
 imaginative people. Notwithstanding his vanity there 
 was much of which Empedocles might be vain, even in 
 the literary age in which he lived. Plato found his doc- 
 trines worth developing in the Dialogues, and Aristotle 
 calls him a " Homeric spirit, personifying and deifying 
 everything, robing himself in symbols and mystery." 
 He may have been one of the early contributors to the 
 tradition of Dr. Faustus. 
 
 The same high authority for everything relating to 
 the science and literature of his predecessors, Aristotle, 
 also speaks of him as " the Father of Rhetoric, a mas- 
 ter of expression, and especially skilled in the use of 
 metaphor." Although the fragments of his works which 
 remain indicate that most of his compositions were in 
 verse, according to the fashion of the time — tragedies, 
 hymns, and epigrams — it is hardly possible that a man 
 
32 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 who was by no means of a retiring disposition should 
 not have found it convenient to address the populace 
 among whom he moved in such majestic state. Leader 
 of the popular party, opposing the restoration of a 
 tyranny, and saving the republic from a dangerous con- 
 spiracy, we cannot imagine that he did not sometimes do 
 as modern heads of parties do — make speeches to an 
 enthusiastic crowd, although these later party leaders 
 may not always imitate him in refusing supreme power, 
 or even political office when offered them, as he did. In 
 the main Aristotle must have been as near right as usual- 
 No doubt that Empedocles was the " Father of Oratory," 
 in spite of his laurel crown and his sandals of brass. 
 
 It is to later times and more cultured nations that we 
 must look for the cultivation of the art of methodical 
 speech for definite ends and purposes. And among the 
 nations there was none so completely equipped for this 
 work as the Greek. 
 
 Before considering Greek oratory in detail certain 
 conditions should be noted which greatly favored the 
 attainment of phenomenal excellence. In the first place 
 the Hellenic language was eminently adapted to the 
 expression of thought and feeling. The perfection of 
 structure, which it had acquired in the tenth century 
 before the Christian era, implies a long period of previous 
 culture, which was continued in subsequent centuries in 
 the usual order from poetry to prose until the highest 
 form was reached in the famous hundred years between 
 the middle of the sixth and the middle of the fifth cent- 
 uries B. C. For convenience let the year 500 be taken 
 as a point about which may be loosely grouped the 
 
FORENSIC ORATORY IN SICILY. 33 
 
 great lyric poet Pindar, and the dramatists ^schylus, 
 Sophocles, and Euripides, all between 525-480 b. c. 
 
 To this period also belong the prose compositions 
 of Herodotus, 484, the first great historian, and Thucy- 
 dides, 471, the first writer of philosophical history, and 
 Xenophon, 447, the graceful narrator of events and 
 graphic delineator of Greek life. Philosophy followed 
 history as history had succeeded to poetry, and Socrates, 
 468, teaches it to Plato, his junior by forty years, 
 whose pupil, Aristotle, appears forty-four years later, 
 establishing the Peripatetic school in imitation of Plato's 
 academy. 
 
 It is with such advantages of preparation that oratory 
 begins to appear as an art. The treasures of poetry in 
 its epic, lyric, and dramatic forms were spread out before 
 the imagination; history had accumulated the records of 
 the past, philosophy had gathered the harvest of reflec- 
 tion, and all things were ready for that form of compo- 
 sition which draws from every source to convince, to 
 please, and to persuade. It was the natural outcome of 
 all that had gone before in the literary life of the Greeks. 
 Of course we must move our grouping centre on a little, 
 but not far, if we take into account the speeches and 
 orations which had already been reported by the his- 
 torians ; for Solon, Miltiades, Pisistratus and Pericles, 
 Aristides and Themistocles were orators as well as legis- 
 lators, generals, and counselors. Pericles, 495, contem- 
 porary with Empedocles, may possibly share with the 
 Sicilian the credit of being the first orator at Athens, as 
 the other was at Agrigentum, cultivating oratory while 
 he adorned his mind with the teachings of philosophy 
 
34 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 and general literature. He was followed by an illustri- 
 ous company of Athenian orators of whom something 
 will be said further on. 
 
 But for the rise of the rhetorical art in its technical 
 character we must return to Sicily, and this time observe 
 its growth in Syracuse. 
 
 As has been observed already, King Hiero's patronage 
 of letters had brought to this city many literary men 
 whose writings naturally paved the way for the highest 
 expression in oratory. Still, other conditions besides a 
 literary atmosphere were necessary to its freest develop- 
 ment; for this form more than any other demands 
 favorable surroundings. Poetry may flourish in days of 
 adversity as among the captive Hebrews by the waters 
 of Babylon, or in disordered England when Milton 
 wrote his great epic. Sad prose may be written within 
 prison walls, like Sir Walter Raleigh's famous apostrophe 
 to death, but eloquence has never been successfully culti- 
 vated in captivities or under despotisms. It is in free 
 states and under popular governments alone that oratory 
 can flourish. The art of persuasion is valuable only as 
 the people can be appealed to on the subject of public 
 affairs, and where their judgments can be enlightened for 
 the enforcement of political measures, and their feelings 
 aroused sufficiently to lead them into personal activity 
 and sacrifice; and where eloquence and freedom go hand 
 in hand the most remarkable exhibitions of human abil- 
 ity occur. 
 
 It was when this rule of the people was fairly estab- 
 lished in Sicily that oratory as an art began to be taught 
 and practiced there. Nor was it for political purposes, 
 
FORENSIC ORATORY IN SICILY. 35 
 
 as might be surmised, under the new and popular form 
 of government. There was something of more impor- 
 tance to be attended to first than elections and candida- 
 cies for office. For under Thrasybulus, estates had been 
 confiscated and bestowed upon favorites of the tyrant, 
 and now, the despot being disposed of, the original 
 holders and owners of landed property came forward 
 with their claims to estates which had been alienated, and 
 the law courts were full of citizens demanding their 
 rightful possessions. It is also probable that, as is usu- 
 ally the case in disturbed times, there were also some 
 pretended claims whose validity would be questioned, 
 and, accordingly, legal processes with proofs and plead- 
 ings would have to be instituted with due forms of law. 
 But up to this time all such arguing of cases appears to 
 have been in the hands of the original parties without 
 the intervention of an advocate. Each citizen, there- 
 fore, according to the Greek notion of citizenship, 
 would have to conduct his own affairs in court, stating 
 his claim and arguing his case. . Immense differences of 
 ability would of course occur then as now, if, in a simi- 
 lar state of things, one man and another should appear 
 in court to reclaim their titles. The plausible and talka- 
 tive citizen might secure his rights while his diffident 
 and tongue-tied neighbor might get no redress. 
 
 It was this inequality in speech and the general lack 
 of forensic skill in Syracuse that led one Corax to set up 
 for an instructor in the arts which avail most in legal 
 tribunals. Undoubtedly there was some information 
 given upon points of law, but the first purpose of his 
 teaching seems to have been to render the ordinary 
 
36 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 citizen capable of arguing his own cause before the 
 courts. Some Timoleon, for example, knowing of a 
 suburban estate out toward Plemyrium could say that it 
 was his by inheritance from his father, who owned it 
 before the usurpation of Thrasybulus. All this might be 
 strictly true, and justice be on his side, but such a state- 
 ment would be about as effective with the judges as for a 
 citizen now-a-days to go into the courts and attempt to es- 
 tablish a title to real estate which had been confiscated, 
 sold, and given away several times since war broke out in 
 1861. Accordingly Corax, for some reason or consider- 
 ation, undertook to assist the rightful claimants in the 
 orderly and proper presentation of their cases, arranging 
 the details of procedure, collecting documents, and sift- 
 ing evidence. Chiefly, however, he instructed his clients 
 in the art of forensic oratory, and of speaking so as to 
 appeal to the sense of justice and of right which is, or 
 ought to be, predominant in the judge. Moreover, the 
 average man of that age was susceptible to the power of 
 the spoken argument to a degree much beyond the im- 
 pressibility of the modern, for causes which will be men- 
 tioned in their proper place. 
 
 In this oratorical method which Corax taught, five 
 rules are observable, arising from the similarity of causes 
 to be argued. They are the beginnings of rhetorical art, 
 and take their rise from necessity and nature. At the 
 same time it is remarkable that this writer of the primer 
 of rhetoric should have anticipated so far the more elabo- 
 rate treatises of subsequent authors. The five divisions 
 which he thus early makes of the plea — to use the word 
 in its secondary meaning — are under the heads of Proem, 
 
FORENSIC ORATORY IN SICILY. 37 
 
 Narration, Argument, Subsidiary Remarks, and the Per- 
 oration. A better division it would be hard to find, 
 either in the days when great elaboration has been 
 studied, as in New England in the last century, for ex- 
 ample, or in the less formal age in which we are living. 
 The Proem, as the word signifies, is an opening strain, 
 giving the pitch of the piece. The Narration was a 
 plain statement of facts and circumstances ; the Argu- 
 ment was a fair induction from those facts. Subsidiary 
 Remarks gathered up the reasons which were auxiliary 
 and additional, and the Peroration was a persuasive and 
 fitting close to the whole. Thus early did rhetoric for- 
 mulate itself into a method which, with some artificial 
 deviations, has through all the centuries preserved its 
 essential character. This circumstance is also an early 
 testimony to the truth that the science of speaking is 
 based upon common laws of our nature, the same un- 
 changing fact from age to age. 
 
 One most interesting feature of the beginning of the 
 art is to be noticed here, that is, that its origin was in- 
 tensely practical. It was not " art for art's sake," as the 
 modern phrase goes, but for the sake of rightful posses- 
 sion of lands and houses and homes. Unlike the arts of 
 music and painting it did not attempt to please for the 
 sake of giving pleasure. It was simply and professedly 
 for regaining what had been wrongfully alienated. The 
 very divisions which Corax established grew up from a 
 perception of that form of conviction and persuasion 
 which is most effective with the reasonable mind. Facts 
 were established, and then the legitimate deduction of 
 moral obligation was drawn. It is the same practical 
 
38 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 necessity that has prevailed in the making of much of 
 the best literature, both in prose and verse — Shakespeare 
 writing for his daily bread and to ^purchase Stratford 
 New Place; Scott throwing off page after page of manu- 
 script to purchase Abbotsford or to discharge a debt of 
 honor; and so, if the secret could be discovered, of many 
 an ancient and many a modern classic. 
 
 The impression which is left by this earliest record of 
 methodical oratory, so far as it can be gathered from 
 fragmentary memorials, is, that while there must have 
 been speaking men in all antiquity, like Aaron at the 
 court of Pharaoh, there was in this fifth century before 
 our era, in a Grecian province, and as the fruit of pro- 
 longed literary cultivation, a sudden development of 
 forensic oratory, due largely to an unexpected acquisi- 
 tion of freedom — the essential condition of genuine 
 eloquence. Before this time oratory had a somewhat 
 irregular character and a natural and spontaneous utter- 
 ance, as is indicated by the very uniformity of the 
 speeches which Thucydides puts into the mouths of his 
 generals; but now oratory is reduced to a system, for 
 practical purposes, and begins to have the scientific 
 characteristics which poetry and narrative prose had 
 already acquired. 
 
III. 
 
 PROFESSIONAL SPEECH-WRITERS. 
 
 THE dem^d for forensic argument, which was created 
 by litigation consequent upon the return of land- 
 holders who had been exiled, was met at an early day by 
 men who made the composition of legal arguments a bus- 
 iness. Corax instructed citizens of Syracuse in the gen- 
 eral principles of forensics, but it naturally followed that 
 some preferred to have arguments written out for them 
 by another and to pay for the service, perhaps with a 
 goodly share of the restored estate, rather than to learn 
 the five principles and construct a brief. This substi- 
 tuted argumentation was an early example of division of 
 labor, and an indication of the advance of civilization. 
 Only a few, however, became famous in this depart- 
 ment of vicarious composition. Of these Antiphon is 
 the first, 480 b. c. He marks the transition from the 
 technical to the practical stage of oratory, from the 
 school of rhetoric to the court and the assembly. Four 
 of his Tetralogies are extant, in which he formulates 
 examples of prosecution and defence according to the 
 almost uniform necessities of a large class of similar 
 cases arising under the restoration of estates mentioned 
 above, estates which had been alienated by Hiero, Gelo, 
 and Thrasybulus. With a change of names and a filling 
 in of blanks an argument could be put in a client's pos- 
 
 39 
 
40 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 session as readily as a deed or mortgage is now drawn in 
 a lawyer's office. And, for all we know to the contrary, 
 the furnished argument was as effective in the tribunals 
 of Sicily as modern efforts are in our own courts. In 
 any case, it was a paying profession, which is the best 
 proof at this distant day that this sort of composition 
 and pleading by proxy answered an important purpose 
 for the property-holder, besides encouraging several men 
 of note to enter the profession. 
 
 Antiphon's strong point in argument was the topic of 
 General Probability. " Is it likely that such and such a 
 thing would have occurred?" "Would this little man 
 have been likely to attack this big one ; or if he did, 
 would he not have known beforehand that the presump- 
 tion would be against him?" This topic of general 
 probability was the favorite weapon of the earliest 
 Greek rhetoricians. Aristotle himself gives it an import- 
 ant place in his great treatise, in which he formulated 
 the principles that had prevailed in the usage of the early 
 orators. 
 
 But Antiphon did not confine himself to the con- 
 struction of legal arguments. He marks the first depart- 
 ure from the courts to the assembly, and becomes the 
 founder of political oratory, with its cognate branch of 
 legislative and deliberative discussion. Moreover, he re- 
 duced the art of public speaking to more definite rules 
 than the five principles which Corax had inculcated, 
 developing particularly, as has been mentioned, the doc- 
 trine of the probable. The strictness, however, with 
 which he adhered to his vocation of writing and teaching 
 is exemplified by the fact that while he composed many 
 
PROFESSIONAL SPEECH-WRITERS. 4 1 
 
 speeches for others he never addressed the people himself 
 until he made his own defence in the trial which resulted 
 in his condemnation and death. 
 
 His style, as compared with those of other orators of 
 his time, was rugged and sturdy, indicating that he was 
 not a mere writing-master of rhetorical flourishes. In- 
 stead, he is dignified in diction, bold but not florid in 
 imagery, with a weight and grandeur of thought which 
 speak plainly for the character of the orator as a man. 
 
 In these years Gorgias, 427 b. c, an orator and 
 rhetorician, came to Athens from Leontini in Sicily to 
 ask succor for the Leontines who had been attacked by 
 the Syracusans. He captivated the Athenians by his 
 eloquent appeals in which florid antithesis played an im- 
 portant part, and having gained such men as Alcibiades, 
 .^schines, and Antisthenes for pupils and imitators, he 
 set up a school of oratory at Athens. His methods dif- 
 fered from those of his contemporaries in that he taught 
 rhetoric by having prepared passages learned by heart. 
 Diction was his principal object, without much reference 
 to invention or arrangement of material. It is not 
 strange that such attention to manner merely brought 
 his art into temporary disrepute, and that Plato in his 
 light treatment of rhetoricians should have chosen to 
 give to the dialogue in which he does this the name of 
 Gorgias, after this exponent of the new profession that 
 was now springing up. 
 
 It may be observed here in regard to this new pro- 
 fession of oratory that, as in the case of other sciences, 
 its principles were first evolved by practice and deter- 
 mined by the demands of different times and communi- 
 
42 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 ties. The rules to which these principles were reduced 
 then became useful to any who might attempt to attain 
 the success which their predecessors had acquired by 
 many trials and some failures. Accordingly the rhetoric 
 which was called the "useful" or "practical" was soon 
 followed by the rhetoric which was termed the "teacha- 
 ble" or "scientific," and the orator was succeeded by the 
 rhetorician. In some instances both the rhetorician and 
 the orator were combined, as in Gorgias; and in others 
 the [rhetorician alone was paramount, as in Antiphon 
 and Isocrates. 
 
 The place which Antiphon occupies in the history of 
 rhetoric as an art is held by Lysias in the history of 
 oratory. He marks the transition of the science from 
 Sicily to Greece ; for although born in Athens, he re- 
 moved at the age of fifteen to Thurii, on the Italian 
 coast — the site of the ancient Sybaris — where he lived 
 for thirty-three years studying oratory, and then returned 
 to Athens in company with his brother Polemarchus, of 
 whom Socrates speaks in the opening paragraph of the 
 Republic. In a house favored with the guests there men- 
 tioned Lysias had literary associations that were of the 
 greatest value to him. In the years he was at Thurii he 
 had for his instructor Tisias, who had been a pupil of 
 Corax, the inventor of rhetoric, and for a townsman 
 Herodotus the historian, now in middle life. Political 
 troubles in that disturbed age before long drive him to 
 Athens, as has been remarked, where, with his brother, he 
 appears as a wealthy manufacturer of shields for seven 
 years. Then business reverses follow the doings of the 
 thirty tyrants, and he who had employed one hundred 
 
PROFESSIONAL SPEECH-WRITERS. 43 
 
 and twenty workmen becomes a laborious speech-writer, 
 his rhetorical education serving him well when his inher- 
 ited fortune and prosperous business both failed him. 
 For twenty-three years Lysias writes speeches for other 
 men to deliver in the courts of law. The arrangement 
 of them does not greatly differ from that of Corax — 
 introduction, narration of facts, proof, conclusion. Sub- 
 sidiary remarks only are left out, or more probably incor- 
 porated in the topic of proof. Although he was so long 
 a professional writer he possessed the rare gift of conceal- 
 ing his art. Speeches before his time were after a 
 uniform pattern, without much regard to the diversity 
 of clients. Lysias, on the contrary, adapted his argu- 
 ment to the character of the man who was to deliver 
 it in court as presumably his own. Accordingly he 
 abandoned the stiff, uniform, and monotonous splendor 
 of the earlier rhetoricians and introduced the idiom of 
 every-day life, making the ordinary citizen speak in his 
 own character and not as the noble and eloquent Peri- 
 cles. He could write, however, according to the termi- 
 nology of the day, in the grand, the middle, or the plain 
 style ; but he never made an artisan speak like Antiphon. 
 Perhaps it was for this reason that out of the two hun- 
 dred and thirty-three speeches that he wrote for his 
 clients, only two failed to bring a favorable verdict. 
 Thirty-four of these survive as evidence that, as Cicero 
 says of him, he was one of the most perfect masters of 
 Greek prcrse in his own province — lucid, simple, direct in 
 diction ; lively, graceful, entertaining in manner ; vary- 
 ing in tone according to the dignity of the subject, with 
 equal command over the periodic and the continuous 
 
44 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 sentence and paragraph, while through all runs a kindly 
 and genial nature, with a keen perception of character, 
 fine sense of humor, a flexible and graceful intelligence, 
 pervaded by a warmth of friendship and a loyalty to 
 country that stamp him greater than his vocation. All 
 this and more was brought out when he mounted the 
 bema and delivered his splendid denunciation of Dio- 
 nysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, at the Olympic festival, 
 in 388 B. c. But the highest reach of his eloquence 
 was attained when he prosecuted the legal murderer of 
 his brother, the tyrant Eratosthenes ; adding to his cus- 
 tomary winning introduction and convincing narration 
 of facts a pathos and fire of conclusion unusual with 
 him but irresistible by its moving force and terrific in its 
 execration. 
 
 In the Phadrus of Plato one of the interlocutors says 
 to Socrates, " But there is a friend of yours who ought 
 not to be forgotten." "Who is that?" "Isocrates 
 the fair." " Isocrates is still young, Phsedrus; but I 
 think that he has a genius which soars above the orations 
 of Lysias, and he has a character of a finer mould. My 
 impression of him is that he will marvelously improve 
 as he grows older, and that all former rhetoricians will 
 be as children in comparison of him. And I believe 
 that he will not be satisfied with this, but that some divine 
 impulse will lead him on to things higher still. For 
 there is an element of philosophy in his nature. This is 
 the message which comes from the gods dwelling in this 
 place and which I will myself deliver to Isocrates who is 
 my delight, and do you give the other to Lysias, who is 
 yours;" the message being that if the compositions of 
 
PROFESSIONAL SPEECH- WRITERS. 45 
 
 orators are based on knowledge of the truth and can be 
 defended and proved, then these writers should be called 
 lovers of wisdom or practical culture. 
 
 This prophecy of Socrates that Isocrates would sur- 
 pass his predecessors was abundantly fulfilled, and marks 
 an advance in the study, teaching, and practice of the 
 rhetorical art, as we shall see before his career is ended. 
 He must have been about twenty-six years of age, and 
 seven years the senior of Plato, when the above predic- 
 tion was uttered. Weakness of voice unfitted him to 
 enter the political assembly and the courts. He was also 
 deficient in the audacity which characterized the Athe- 
 nian demagogue in the age after Pericles. The loss of 
 his fortune was another reason for taking up the pro- 
 fession of a teacher. The proscription of the thirty 
 tyrants drove him to Chios where he had no remarkable 
 success, being chiefly interested in regulating the political 
 affairs of the island. Returning to Athens he was occu- 
 pied for ten years in the writer's profession, after which 
 he took new and larger views of rhetorical instruction. 
 Indeed, in subsequent years, he discarded his former 
 business of writing for other men and devoted himself 
 to teaching his clients and pupils to write and speak for 
 themselves, contrasting what he calls the petty concerns 
 of the forensic orator with those larger and nobler 
 themes which engage the politician. Having this high 
 purpose in view he opened a school at Athens at the age 
 of forty-four. His real vocation became apparent from 
 the day that he devoted himself to this work of teacher 
 and writer. Cicero says that this was the school in which 
 the eloquence of all Greece was trained and perfected, 
 
46 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 and forty-one illustrious pupils are mentioned as foremost 
 among the accomplished writers and debaters of that 
 intellectual age. 
 
 It is recorded that at a panegyrical contest instituted 
 by the widow of Mausolus at his funeral and participated 
 in by many orators, there was not one who had not been 
 a pupil in the school of Isocrates. Learners came from 
 every quarter, from ^gean coasts, from the cities of 
 Sicily, the early home of oratory, and from the shores 
 of the distant Euxine; so far had the fame of this great 
 teacher extended. The most eminent men of the day 
 were also frequenters of his school, where they discussed 
 political events and listened to orations which he had 
 spent years in writing. The instruction he gave followed 
 somewhat the rules laid down by his predecessors, but it 
 was signalized by a departure from the artificial methods 
 of style and teaching which had hitherto prevailed, espe- 
 cially in the abandonment of set pieces committed to 
 memory for the sake of communicating grandeur of ex- 
 pression. He began his reform with the Theme, leading 
 the attention of his pupils away from what was of mere 
 local and Athenian interest; at the same time keeping 
 before their minds questions of the day which had a 
 larger consequence and more extended relation to all 
 Greece. He hoped to turn the minds of his townsmen 
 from municipal politics, and neighboring tribes from 
 intestine strifes, to the nobler enterprise of union for 
 the conquest of Asia. He sought to enlarge the mental 
 horizon of his disciples in an age of political pam- 
 phleteering, that they might produce something of value 
 to posterity. It may be affirmed that many literary sur- 
 
PROFESSIONAL SPEECH-WRITERS. 47 
 
 vivals from his day owe their present existence to this 
 worthy ambition of Isocrates. After his exalted themes 
 came his technical teaching in applying rules and prin- 
 ciples to composition. Then he revised what had been 
 written. Such instruction produced the foremost orators 
 of a remarkable century, fuller than any other in the 
 political and intellectual life of Greece. 
 
 As a professional workman he was the first Greek to 
 give the true definition of rhetoric as the "art of per- 
 suasion," and also the first to give an artistic finish to 
 literary composition. He was, moreover, the best builder 
 of the periodic sentence, no longer rigid and monot- 
 onous like those of Antiphon, or too terse and com- 
 pact like those of Lysias, but ample and luxuriant in the 
 rhythm of prose, which, as much as poetry, has metrical 
 laws of its own, recognized and followed by those who 
 have an ear for its music. It was this writer also who 
 gave such form and melody to the standard literary 
 prose of his time that, transmitted to Rome, it became 
 incorporated in the works of her chief orators and 
 writers, and by them was handed on for centuries; so that 
 it has been computed with admitted accuracy that the 
 school of Isocrates lasted over nine hundred years. 
 
 It may help to the understanding of the esteem in 
 which public speaking was held to note the terms which 
 such a teacher as Isocrates could command for his in- 
 struction in days when money was worth twice what it 
 now is. The extent of his instruction in time, the length 
 and number of his courses, and the degree of proficiency 
 required of his pupils are not easy to determine ; but it 
 is on record that his charge for tuition was 1,000 drach- 
 
48 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 mse, about $250. Even at this rate he had a hundred 
 pupils at a time and a revenue of $25,000. This modest 
 income he was able to piece out with his literary produc- 
 tions, obtaining, for example, from the king of Cyprus 
 twenty talents, $20,000, for a single oration. It was such 
 productions as these, upon which the author sometimes 
 labored for ten years, that were copied and recited in all 
 the countries inhabited by the Greeks. His Panathe- 
 naicus, a eulogy on Athens, was written after he was 
 ninety-four years old, and at ninety-nine he was still at 
 work, revising and perfecting it with some of his pupils. 
 That he was something more than a mere rhetorician 
 is shown by the comprehensive views contained in his 
 political essays, in which he advocates a large panhellenic 
 policy. And when at last the cause of Greek liberty 
 seemed to have been forever lost at the battle of Chaero- 
 nea, his patriotism could not endure the shock, and, re- 
 fusing food, he ended his life by voluntary starvation. 
 By his teaching Greek oratory had been advanced into a 
 larger science and a nobler art. Freed from its restric- 
 tion to a few professed artisans of speeches, it was now 
 made the privilege and possession of any who had an 
 aptitude for writing and could be taught the graces of 
 delivery. Isocrates made that democratic which had 
 been oligarchic hitherto, and carried eloquence from the 
 classroom to the bema. In addition, he placed rhetor- 
 ical composition upon a philosophic basis, and formu- 
 lated principles of study and practice which were so rea- 
 sonable and sound that they outlasted his own genera- 
 tion, and remained the foundation of other men's sys- 
 tems for centuries. Velleius Paterculus, the Roman his- 
 
PROFESSIONAL SPEECH-WRITERS. 49 
 
 torian and critic, goes so far as to say that there was 
 nothing distinguished before Isocrates. It is not strange 
 that this herald of a larger freedom was called by 
 Milton, "The old man eloquent," as Cicero before had 
 named him, "The father of eloquence." 
 
 This entire group of professional speech-writers repre- 
 sents a singular epoch in the history of oratory. Such 
 a business could not have been supported in any age 
 that was not primitive in its ideas of the art. The un- 
 questioning spirit, in which one man was allowed to put 
 words into the mouth of another, marks the time of 
 childhood in the intellectual attitude of men. Imagine 
 a plaintiff or defendant in our own courts reciting an 
 argument which his lawyer had written out for him, and 
 a judge, jury, and assembled crowd gravely listening to 
 an argument written by an Antiphon or Lysias for some 
 farmer or artisan, the like of which they heard yester- 
 day and might listen to its duplicate to-morrow. But 
 custom, and the necessities of such procedure, took away 
 all thought of the inconsistency. Doubtless the chief 
 interest lay in the manner in which this bungler and 
 that would present the argument of the artist, or in what 
 Lysias or Isseus would do with the facts in this or that 
 case. What everybody did was a novelty to no one, and 
 causes were adjudged according to evidence and its 
 handling. On the other hand, this custom of speaking 
 by proxy had its valuable place in the progress of forensic 
 oratory. If every man in a rude age had gone into the 
 assembly with his own untutored address and what is 
 called " natural ability," the art of speaking effectively 
 and persuasively would have been confined to one or two 
 
so THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 in a thousand, to the disadvantage and loss of the many. 
 The practice of an art by the skilled few soon leads to 
 the imparting of it to several; and finally to all who can 
 learn and will learn. Accordingly the "logographer " be- 
 came eventually the instructor, spreading abroad the 
 knowledge and skill which was once entirely his own, 
 preparing the way for the diffusion of this branch of 
 science, as other branches in similar ways have always 
 been diffused, by those who have found it profitable to 
 lend the key of knowledge. 
 
IV. 
 ATTIC ORATORS. 
 
 THERE were a few orators belonging to the Attic 
 Group who were distinguished, not as the rest for 
 excellence of artistic composition, so much as for some 
 one strong point worth remembrance and perhaps imita- 
 tion. One of these was Andocides, the representative 
 of a large class of " natural orators," as they are called; 
 men who have a native ability upon which they rely, 
 despising the aid of rhetorical precepts and methods. 
 Such orators are found both among those classes who 
 are unable to avail themselves of the advantages of edu- 
 cation, and also among those upon whom such oppor- 
 tunities are actually forced. The resultant attainment is 
 about the same in either case, if allowance be made for 
 the unrecognized influence of collateral pursuits upon 
 the educated. Other studies in college, for example, 
 will impart something of rhetoric to the youth whose 
 conceit of his native ability permits him to neglect the 
 study itself. This was somewhat the case of Andocides. 
 With the minimum of rhetorical training he combined 
 the largest reliance upon his native wit. As a natural 
 consequence the minimum of attention has been paid 
 him. 
 
 As the distinction men gained by excellencies has 
 been noted, it may be worth while to observe first the 
 
 SI 
 
52 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 faults for which Andocides was conspicuous. It will be 
 evident that, for the most part, thev were those which a 
 diligent observ.mce of the established principles of rhet- 
 oric would have corrected ; thus, very likely placing 
 this orator on a plane with some others of the famous 
 ten. Starting with what were recognized in his times as 
 the chief excellencies of forensic speaking — clearness, the 
 stamp of truth, and tiery earnestness, Hermogenes the 
 critic declares that Andocides \^-as deficient in these car- 
 dinal virtues. "His arrangement of material is not lucid; 
 he amplifies in an irregular fashion; he tacks on clause to 
 clause, using parentheses to the loss of a distinct order, 
 seeming to some frivolous and obscure. He has little 
 discernment to see where each topic should be intro- 
 duced, dwells upon irrelevant circumstances, and adds as 
 afterthoughts things that should have occupied an im- 
 portant place." In his figures of rhetoric or of illustra- 
 tion his critic says that this orator did not use precision. 
 leaving them in the rough; and, in general, there was a 
 lack of finish or smoothness in his composition. Worse 
 than all, for a political speaker of that age, he lacked 
 earnestness, a fault fatal to the best eminence. Now, 
 with the exception of the last, all these faults might 
 h.ive been remedied bv the same attention to rhetorical 
 study which other orators of the time are known to 
 have paid. For it was a time when the literarv merit 
 of an address counted for as much as its oratorical merit. 
 In those dav'S it must read well, and not merely sound 
 well. The modern opinion has embodied itself in the 
 reverse statement that what is good when delivered is 
 prettv sure to be poor reading. If a question should be 
 
ATTIC ORATORS. 53 
 
 raised as to which theory is the correct one, it would be 
 safe to side with the ancients, at least for oratory pure 
 and simple, although the printing press might come in 
 as an element to affect modern judgment. If, however, 
 Andocides be judged by the standard of a natural elo- 
 quence which does not read well, something may be said 
 in his favor. Plutarch asserts that he was " simple and 
 inartificial in arrangement of thoughts, plain and sparing 
 of figures." 
 
 Here is a striking instance of the different view 
 which two critics take of the same qualities, according 
 to the attitude of each. Following the lenient and 
 charitable Plutarch the homely virtues of Andocides be- 
 gin to appear. What Hermogenes condemned as rough, 
 irregular, and obscure, becomes in the eyes of his later 
 critic simple, plain, and frugal. " His style is plain and 
 easy, without the least affectation or anything of a figur- 
 ative ornament." He condescends to employ the lan- 
 guage of daily life, as the greater Lysias did, but without 
 trying to hide the art. Still less does he attempt the 
 grand style like Antiphon and strive to rise above the 
 common language of the people, borrowing words from 
 far antiquity. While dispensing with figures of language 
 he uses largely those figures of thought which give life 
 to a speech — irony, indignant question, and others which 
 belong to what may be termed the natural oratory of a 
 strong but indolent or self-sufficient speaker. 
 
 Again observe the disagreement of critics. What one 
 calls a want of lucidity in arrangement and irrelevance 
 of statement another terms artlessness. " He had a long 
 story to tell and was unable, or did not try, to tell it con- 
 
54 THE mSTORT OF OBATOST. 
 
 cisely." One thing, hovcrerr seems to be ccnceeed — his 
 keying in srmpathy with his audience^ zzzl-zss^ than 
 with stories, potting his aignments in vivid shapes and 
 Dsing abundant il.^5tri~cn. He makes the most-of par- 
 ticnlais and avoids geneialities, and rhtis carries his 
 andience z^or.z with him br the power of an abeoilMng 
 intetest in Lis narradon of facts. His cescriptifHi is 
 lirdN- "airii.j-: straininj ro t-e grspbic. anc his address to 
 ■ -Ldzes and oppsaena is fnll of ihetCKical q-estion and 
 answer. His anecdotes are alwans amnsmg cr telling 
 raising a laz^h. or sneer which, with new ard Aen a 
 tmciiinj to low tastes and sometimes a lescxt to em- 
 phatic abnse. make him a political orator some centuries 
 in advance of his own times;, who might find srmpathizeis 
 and followers in o^rs. 
 
 Xaniraiiiess and self-saffiaencf are, thai, the excq>- 
 tional features whidi distingnish Andocides, in an age 
 when Mgti art was wmshiped and modestj- was no draw- 
 back to ot-ier virtnes and excellencies. With nxHe cnl- 
 tiration of genuine naturalness and ri-iTi-rfnerrshTv less of 
 that conceit wbich blinded him to his naniral d^ects 
 Andocides would not hare needed a stretch of dbaritj to 
 place him on a higher level with his contemporaries. 
 TTieie were sereral others who had exceLLencies of their 
 own and a rep^itadon in that age wlio did not attain the 
 first rank, as Po!ycra:es and Thrasymachns, Alcidaina% 
 Anaximenes, Theodectes, Nanorates, and othefs^ 
 
 One other there is. however, among the canonized 
 ten. wbo, it he had not had the misfortime to be jpe- 
 ceded bj a great orator, and foUowed bj another 
 greater stilL would hare beoi a more {Hwninoit mem- 
 
ATTIC ORATORS. 55 
 
 ber of the classic group. Standing alone IsiEus would 
 have had a distinction of his own; but with Lysias on 
 one side and Demosthenes on the other he naturally 
 suffers somewhat by comparison. If the above-named 
 critic, Dionysius — ^who lived three hundred years later, 
 and judged the Attic orators by the records and tradi- 
 tions of their work — if this critic charges him with 
 imitating Lysias, he also gives him the credit of 
 furnishing the beginnings of eloquence to Demosthenes. 
 In this position he occupies the honorable place of 
 one who, gathering up the teachings of his prede- 
 cessors, handed them on to a greater successor, as 
 the dramatic productions of Marlowe may have fur- 
 nished material if not inspiration to Shakespeare. 
 If Isseus was an imitator of Lysias, it was in those 
 respects which make that orator illustrious rather than 
 in the direction of his faults, as is too apt to be the case 
 when a great model is servilely followed. In brevity, 
 combined with clearness, he is equaled by his immediate 
 predecessor only, and in the avoidance of rare or novel 
 expressions by only two, Lysias and Isocrates; while for 
 bringing the circumstances narrated before the eye of 
 the hearer with vivid reality he resembles Lysias. 
 This for his diction. In his composition he marks a 
 farther removal from the uniform, rigid, and antithetical 
 style that had prevailed among the earlier orators. His 
 speech is free from such stateliness, having a movement 
 adapted to the occasion and the circumstances of which 
 he is speaking. Energetic, vigorous, vivacious, he uses 
 figures of thought in a way that indicates his earnestness. 
 He asks the rhetorical question, answering it himself. 
 
56 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 He introduces persons as speaking or raising objections 
 which he goes on to refute — "How many payments of 
 war-tax do your books show? " " So many." " What 
 sum was paid on each occasion?" " So much." " Who 
 received the money?" " Persons who are here." "What, 
 do you mean a paid army? I shall be asked." "Yes." 
 By such animated discourse does he keep his audience 
 awake and alive to the issues before them. Another of 
 his strong points -was his arrangement of materials, mov- 
 ing his forces with a rapidity and a skill which throw 
 the stress of the assault upon the enemy's weakest point. 
 This is an art which the ancients prized as much in 
 oratory as in war; so much that opposing speakers used 
 to demand of the judges that their own order be ad- 
 hered to by the speaker who was to follow, as .^schines 
 did when Demosthenes was about to demolish him. 
 Therefore Isaeus varies his disposition of arguments 
 according to present need, like a master of arts instead 
 of a servant of rules. Sometimes he drops the introduc- 
 tion altogether and begins with a brief statement of the 
 case with unconventional abruptness. Again he makes 
 the narrative short, or long, as he chooses, combining 
 luminous recital with perspicuous reasoning, going step 
 by step through his argument, satisfied with nothing but 
 a systematic and rigorous demonstration, laying close 
 siege to the understandings of the judges. Sometimes 
 he convinces without persuasion, though he seldom per- 
 suades without convincing. His reasoning, based on 
 positive law, iterated verbally, repeated in different forms 
 or summed up in a recapitulation, fall with cumulative 
 weight, increased rarely by an added appeal to the emo- 
 
ATTIC ORATORS. 57 
 
 tions — "I claim, judges, that Euphiletos is our brother 
 and your citizen, and that he has been subjected by the 
 conspirators to injurious and outrageous treatment. 
 Sufficient proof of this has, I think, been laid before 
 you." Thus does he close the argument for one who 
 had been struck off the list of his deme. But his usual 
 close is with a keen argument, swiftly thrust home. 
 
 Isaeus' place among the the orators of his time was 
 that of a professional writer of speeches, but he advanced 
 the profession by narrowing his work to private causes. 
 He comes nearer being an advocate in matters of inheri- 
 tance and property than a criminal lawyer, or the de- 
 liberative orator in the halls of legislation. As such a 
 writer of speeches for other men he too, like Lysias, tries 
 to make it seem as if the client were speaking his own 
 words instead of his lawyer's. It is not easy to imagine 
 at this day what a study of a client's character and man- 
 ners was involved in such a process of adaptation, but 
 the art from rude beginnings in the time of Corax had 
 been growing more complete and technical and trium- 
 phant, until in Isaeus we iind a man morally persuasive 
 and logically powerful, versatile in arrangement, elabo- 
 rate and systematic in proof, apt in law, and keen in 
 logic, having and keeping a close grip upon his oppo- 
 nent, with a twist and a trip at last, like a wrestler that 
 throws his adversary. Isseus stands forth as the earliest 
 master of forensic conflict. 
 
 But while he ought to be allowed to stand for himself 
 and his own work, he will always be associated with De- 
 mosthenes, his greater pupil. Dionysius is the first au- 
 thor of this association, saying that Demosthenes took 
 
58 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 the seeds and beginnings of his oratorical power from 
 IsEeus. Liice later judges, however, this critic made his 
 estimate chiefly from a literary point of comparison in 
 which the likeness mainly consists in the blending of 
 terse and vigorous periods with passages of more lax and 
 fluent ease ; in vividness and dramatic vivacity, in ques- 
 tion and answer, in irony, and other iigures of thought ; 
 in the unfolding and drawing out of systematic proof, 
 and more than in anything else do the two resemble each 
 other in the energetic struggle with an antagonist. 
 " What, in the name of heaven, are the guarantees of 
 credibility for statements?" asks Isaeus. " Are they not 
 witnesses ? And what are the guarantees of credibility 
 for a witness ? Are they not tortures ? Yes, and on 
 what ground are the adversaries to be disbelieved ? Is it 
 not because they shrink from our tests ? Assuredly. 
 You can see then that I am urging this inquiry and 
 bringing it to the touch of proof ; the plaintiff is shift- 
 ing them to a basis of slanders and hearsays — precisely 
 the course that would be taken by a grasping adven- 
 turer ! " There is a thrusting home here that comes 
 very near the argumentum ad hominem, and ad hostem 
 likewise ; a plain dealing worthy a modern court, having 
 little of the circuitous refinement of the high art of fifty 
 years before. Forensic oratory was growing practical, 
 and therefore advancing to the highest art, as was soon 
 to be exemplified in the pupil of Isaeus, Demosthenes 
 himself, who was already getting hints from his lawyer- 
 friend which would be expanded later into larger 
 principles. Isaeus. is an example of a man who just 
 missed of great achievement by not daring to forsake the 
 
ATTIC ORATORS 59 
 
 old Standards of plainness for which he had little apti- 
 tude, and adopting the powerful and expressive style 
 which was natural to him. 
 
 Bondage to conventionality, combined with the nar- 
 row scope of property-litigation, without the moral and 
 literary courage to follow the impulses of his native 
 ability, perhaps through fear of the critic, made him a 
 compromise when he should have been a departure. It 
 is the old story of the men who in various departments 
 have almost attained the prize that lay within easy reach, 
 but who through lack of courage or faith in themselves 
 have missed at the critical moment and left the discov- 
 ery, the invention, the success, and the victory to a 
 bolder or later man ; some man who did not ask if the 
 times were ripe for the new way, but launching forth led 
 the age to its approval and adoption. 
 
 It may be advantageous before passing from forensic 
 oratory to the deliberative to review its growth from 
 Corax to Isaeus. The foundation of it, after allowing 
 its grammatical substructure to be laid in the popular 
 dialectic and orthoepy of the eastern sophists, was 
 itself laid in the Sicilian rhetoric, particularly by Corax, 
 who drew up and committed to writing a system of rules 
 for forensic speaking, the earliest Greek treatise on the 
 theory of any art. Arrangement of a speech in five 
 parts and the topic of general probability are the two 
 important features of his system. Tisias, his pupil, de- 
 velops further the favorite topic of probability ; Gorgias 
 bases his method of teaching on the committing to mem- 
 ory of prepared passages with the purpose of inculca- 
 ting beautiful and effective expression. Rhythmic 
 
60 THE HISTORT OF ORATORY. 
 
 expression combined with a distingrushed *ir -was his 
 secTiet of poTTifx, canrini: eTerythiug before him 
 among a people who were familiar with the poei^" 
 of Homer and the pirose of Herodoni;^ But the 
 pieople were jusi emerging from lie rfajthmic age in 
 which everything lo be excelleni had :o be expnesied 
 in verse, into which they fell as easily as children fall 
 into rhym«. Acx-ordingly they were ple.ised with 
 the poetic Gorcias as they would hot have been in subse- 
 quent times when the true place of rhythm in prose had 
 been discovered. Then Pericles follo-w-s, embalmed in 
 the pages of Thucydides. famoxis for " the thoughis and 
 moral force which won him such renown for eloquence 
 as no one else ever secured without artistic aids. Tran- 
 quil and stately, rapid and yet persuasiTe;, he had the rare 
 art of leaving his words srioiing in the memoir of his 
 hearers."" 
 
 In Antiphon appejirs the first m.isiex of the compaia- 
 tivelv new .ut of rhetoric, now heooraing indispensable in 
 the courts and in the assembly of the people, which was 
 the legislature of Aihens. He represents the primitixTe 
 ideas and methods of oratory. Hitherto all expr^sions 
 had been in poetic measures or in common talk. Now a 
 speech a«s beginning to be evolved whidi w.is neither 
 common nor high-flown, but combined ihe excellencies 
 of both, "Having weight and grandeur rathex th.in life 
 and viv;iciiv. he is ambitious to bring the whole of his 
 thought down upon his hearers with a splendid and irre- 
 sistible force, d.ixtUng and overawing them." Harsh, 
 stem, or crabbed is the critical term for this style araong 
 the Greeks, emphasizing each word, clause, and seatenoe, 
 
ATTIC ORATORS. 6 1 
 
 employing a rough naturalness while choosing a majestic 
 rhythm, with slow and measured delivery. The nearest 
 modern representation of it is a French gentleman of the 
 old school, superb in decorum and artificial in ostenta- 
 tion. 
 
 Lysias should be remembered as the plain speaker 
 as distinguished from the grand styles that preceded 
 him. It was a lawyer's language of sober prose, a lawyer, 
 moreover, who had the daring in an age of stereotyped 
 professional work to adapt himself to the character of his 
 clients. Simple, clear, concise, and vivid, with a peculiar 
 power of seizing and portraying character, blended with 
 an accurate discernment of the properties of the subject, 
 the audience, and the occasion, Lysias added to all what 
 the ancient critics called his " charm," famous but not to 
 be explained, intangible and elusive as the harmony of 
 music and the beauty of a statue. " To write well," says 
 Dionysius, " is given to many men; but to write win- 
 ningly, gracefully, with loveliness is the gift of Lysias." 
 
 Isocrates, it will be borne in mind, was less an orator 
 proper than an artist of a literary rhetorical prose. The 
 stately flow of his periodic sentences was made harmoni- 
 ous by the prose rhythm of which he was the discoverer 
 and developer, although not the perfecter. He regarded 
 melodious prose as much a work of art as poetry, having 
 its sources in the music latent in language and revealed 
 to those who have the ear to hear it and write it. More- 
 over, he lifted rhetoric out of the courts and the myths 
 of the heroic age to the higher level of state affairs and 
 the interests of Greek citizenship. Still, he is the artist 
 of the school, developing a literary style chiefly for the 
 
62 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 historians, but not without its advantages to Demosthenes, 
 and later to Cicero, and through him to later times. 
 
 Andocides must stand for the natural orator who de- 
 pends upon his own resources rather than upon what the 
 experience of all ages can give him in the written laws 
 which have been gathered from that experience. His 
 simplicity and Inartificiality, with a certain vividness in 
 his narrative and a confident vigor which is apt to go 
 with self-making, rendered his speech effective with men 
 of his own rank. 
 
 In Isseus is seen the professional man narrowing, 
 and therefore advancing, the lawyer's business; a special- 
 ist in private causes of property and inheritance, but by 
 the same process narrowing his own ability to seize upon 
 the grand opportunity of becoming eminent in the larger 
 field of deliberative oratory in which Demosthenes, his 
 pupil, was successful. 
 
 This brief summary of the characteristics of orators, 
 chiefly forensic, belonging to the first period of Greek 
 rhetoric, may itself be reduced to a more diminutive scale 
 if we say: the solemn and sometimes pathetic Thucydides; 
 the majestic and restrained Pericles ; the grave and 
 stately Antiphon; the plain but versatile Lysias; the ele- 
 gant and artistic Isocrates; the inartificial and self-confi- 
 dent Andocides; the intense and vigorous Isaeus. Taken 
 together they represent a marvelous epoch in the history 
 of the high art of public speech, teaching us that ex- 
 cellence in it is not the exclusive property of any one 
 form and method, but that each one's own natural way, 
 improved by that careful study which appropriates the 
 best of others' ways, is the best way for him. That while 
 
ATTIC ORATORS. 63 
 
 imitation is fatal, and nature untrained is apt to blunder, 
 natural capacity guided by art will have its own kind of 
 success according to the mental and moral character of 
 the speaker. In this first age of oratory sincerity and 
 earnestness and knowledge of men, finding their expres- 
 sion with skill, vigor, and dignity, are the qualities and 
 methods which told most, and will always tell most, for 
 the speaker with his hearer. 
 
FHJIKAI. 
 
POLITICAL ORATORS. 65 
 
 der of time, was a noble and public spirited patriot, a 
 man of whom his biographer says, "he was outspoken 
 because he was noble." Without great elegance of 
 speech, somewhat harsh in his diction, and inapt in his 
 illustrations, he nevertheless is impressive in his earnest- 
 ness and majestic mien, and, according to Dionysius, 
 powerful in his denunciation. His literary sympathies 
 are with the elder poets and tragedians, and his moral 
 tone is that of older Athens. Archaic words mingle 
 with the newer dialect, and a lofty religious tone per- 
 vades his high discourse. It is as if a statesman and 
 orator, inbued with the spirit of our own early republi- 
 canism and puritan respect for religious things, should 
 address the legislative bodies of today. "Be sure, 
 judges, that each of you, by the vote which he now gives 
 in secret, will lay his thought bare to the gods. Who is so 
 foolish as, by saving this man, to place his own life at 
 the mercy of cowardly deserters? Who will conciliate 
 the gratitude of his country's betrayer in order to make 
 himself obnoxious to the vengeance of the gods ? " It 
 has been said that his character is the best comment on 
 his oratory, and that he was thrice elected to the office of 
 secretary of the treasury is an indication of the esteem in 
 which he was held while fearlessly lifting up his voice 
 against the prevailing apathy and luxury of his times. 
 "By restoring the festivals of the gods, by cherishing 
 a faithful tradition of the great poets against the 
 corruption of texts by actors, by enacting sumptuary 
 laws to restrain extravagance, by prosecuting disloyal 
 citizens," he tried to check the downward drift of his 
 age, and by his earnest and solemn speech to recall his 
 
66 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 countrymen to the higher rectitude and patriotism of 
 the past. 
 
 The second orator of this group was Hyperides, 395 
 B. c, who had begun his career as a professional speech- 
 writer. Unlike Lycurgus he had little love of the for- 
 mer days. He was a man of his own age, a true son of 
 the changed order, yet withal a loyal and intense patriot. 
 In his ordinary life, however, he was governed by his own 
 remark, that " he could not live beautifully until he 
 had learned what beautiful things there were in life." In 
 public afiairs he was energetic, but with his zeal and en- 
 ergy there he united an easy and pleasure-loving disposi- 
 tion in social life, which had its influence on his speeches. 
 Catching something from the elevated tone of Isocrates, 
 his master, he was not insensible to the value of tact, wit, 
 delicate allusion, and the use of homely idiom, making a 
 susceptible audience feel that he was in accord with their 
 sprightly life. Crafty beyond others in the disposition 
 of his subject-matter, surpassing in the adornment of 
 his diction, sticking to his subject and emphasizing its 
 strong points with large intellectual resources, seem- 
 ingly simple, but with much art concealed, he found his 
 way to the popular understanding. Hermogenes, the 
 critic, cannot endure his colloquialisms and quotations 
 from comedy, and says he has little finish ; but Longi- 
 nus thinks that if merits were to be counted instead of 
 weighed, Hyperides would outnumber Demosthenes in 
 his excellencies. He is not so good a specialist, but a 
 better general speaker, better in the range of his voice, 
 and variety of graces. His wit and sarcasm are in keep- 
 ing with political oratory and in harmony with the ex- 
 
POLITICAL ORATORS. 6y 
 
 quisite manner of the time. With beauty of style are 
 joined a power of pathos and a facile inspiration that 
 take him smoothly along in his narrative, while he varies 
 his expression with playful grace and graver eloquence. 
 Later estimates place him, for reasons that will appear 
 further on, second to Demosthenes, but second to him 
 alone. 
 
 The orator, however, who in modern minds is of- 
 tenest associated with Demosthenes, is .(Eschines, by 
 reason of his antagonism in the case of the crown ; but 
 properly for no other cause. He was a man of consid- 
 erable natural gifts of spontaneous eloquence, as distin- 
 guished by himself from the laborious methods of his 
 adversary, which, together with a familiarity with the old 
 literature of his country, made him a brilliant speaker. 
 At the same time he imitated the quiet style of the old 
 orators, and his habitual practice of composition and 
 declamation made up somewhat for his lack of art and 
 systematic training. There was in his style an equal 
 want of finish, purity, and rhythm. The old critics said 
 he was blatant and headlong and coarsely abusive, but 
 powerful, and as inartistic as self-educated orators are 
 apt to be. 
 
 His best education was acquired on the stage as an 
 actor, where he played showy parts until he stumbled 
 one day, without the happy recovery which William of 
 Normandy made at Pevensey. However he left the 
 disastrous boards with the possession of a magnificent 
 voice, a splendid diction, and a certain vehemence and 
 impetuosity of manner that doubtless engulfed little 
 offences and overbore minute criticism. The chief de- 
 
68 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 traction is, that his speeches are greater than himself, his 
 words than his character. The critic of .^Eschines' day 
 would have called him inartistic and superficial, lacking 
 in ithos or moral force, and would have said that with a 
 certain theatrical splendor he combined an impudent 
 and unscrupulous smartness. 
 
 The culmination of Attic eloquence occurs in Demos- 
 thenes. It had taken its rise partly in the dialectics of 
 the sophists and partly in the Sicilian rhetoric of the 
 courts. Early it began to manifest itself in two forms, 
 the dignified and harsh style of Antiphon and Thucyd- 
 ides, and the ornate manner of Gorgias, taken up and 
 corrected later by Isocrates. Between the embellish- 
 ments of this style and the plain talk of daily life Lysias 
 develops a sober expression, from which to strenuous 
 political oratory a transition is effected by Isseus. Then 
 comes the deliberative oratory of Demosthenes, who con- 
 tinues, combines, and perfects these earlier types. By 
 the concurrent testimony of scholars, statesmen, and 
 orators in subsequent times Demosthenes is conceded to 
 have produced " the greatest results ever attained in this 
 art. This he did without great natural gifts or good 
 voice or commanding presence or ornament or philoso- 
 phic generalizations, pathos or wit." 
 
 In these circumstances and under such unfavorable 
 conditions it is natural to inquire after the elements 
 within the man and the environments around him which 
 contributed to his phenomenal achievements. Fortun- 
 ately there are ample materials for such an investigation. 
 His very form and attitude as a speaker have been pre- 
 served in authentic copies of his statue. The particulars 
 
POLITICAL ORATORS. 6g 
 
 of his life, early and late, are contained in his own 
 speeches, substantiated by the comments and animad- 
 versions of his rivals and adversaries. He had the 
 advantage over his predecessors in living nearer the age 
 when literary history began to be extensively written, 
 and was himself the subject of ten different biographies. 
 
 The son of a prosperous manufacturer, he did not 
 lack the advantages of wealth and education. At his 
 father's death the boy of seven was left with a prospec- 
 tive fortune of fourteen talents, about $16,500, a fair in- 
 heritance for those days, when the legal rate of interest 
 was ten per cent. But, unfortunately, this property 
 was left in the charge of two cousins and a family friend, 
 and as a consequence when Demosthenes came of age he 
 found, instead of the ^35,000 to which his fortune ought 
 to have amounted, only §1,166 left. 
 
 But there were laws and courts and lawyers and plea- 
 writers in abundance, and Demosthenes was not slow to 
 avail himself of the services of Isceus, the most skilful 
 advocate in the matter of inheritances. With his help 
 he brought action against the main delinquent for ten 
 talents, a third part of the embezzled funds. In the 
 main, however, he composed his own speeches in this 
 litigation for the recovery of his property, and though 
 they are not brilliant they have a directness and force 
 which characterize his later productions. He won his 
 case, but by the law's delays and various pretexts he was 
 put off from time to time, and at last secured less dam- 
 ages than reputation out of the proceedings. This, how- 
 ever, was to be a better capital with which to start in life. 
 As in the case of many a rich young man before and 
 
, THE HISTORY OF ORATORT. 
 
 since, the loss of his inheritance threvr him apon his 
 own resources and developed feicolties that might have 
 lain idle. 
 
 Another kindred motive is also to be noticed. The 
 necessity of legal proceedings to right a personjl s—oag 
 was the b^innlng of Demosthenes' oratory, as it had 
 been the origin of Grecian oratorr at large in the foren- 
 sic contests of the coorts of Sicily. The hard, practical 
 demands of justice and equity came first to make men 
 speak for their rights, and afterward came the develop- 
 ment of the highest of arts in deliberative oratory, and 
 its highest attainment in Demosthenes. 
 
 In order to this there were first the three years of 
 training under Isaeus in the knowledge of law and in 
 the practice of vigorous reasoning with an antagonist at 
 dose quarters. Here, too, came the struggle with nat- 
 ural infirmities. Neither strong nor confident ia his 
 bodily presence, short-breathed, with defective articnla- 
 tion and clumsy manner, and a voice weak and ill-man- 
 aged, it is not strange that his first appearance ia the 
 assembly was followed by uproarious and derisive laugh- 
 ter. But like a few rare spirits since his day he deter- 
 mined to be heard further on. Demetrius of Phalemm 
 is the authority who says that Demosthenes told him how 
 he recited verses with pebbles in his mouth, declaimed 
 running or walking up hill, and practiced gestnres befoce 
 a mirror. Nor did he despise the instmction xad exam- 
 ple of actors in a day when a dramatic manner was in 
 vogue. 
 
 According to the custom of his predecessors he served 
 an apprenticeship at speech-writing for the courts, per- 
 
POLITICAL ORATORS. 7 1 
 
 haps for seven years after his Issean training and his own 
 law-sait with his guardians. History, law, and politics, 
 with questions of finance, occupied his days and rii oaths 
 of solitude, which were relieved by the hearing of law 
 cases and writing briefe and arguments for others. The 
 b^innings of his professional career in public were in 
 avil cases: but gTadnallr he came to the larger discussions 
 of stare afbiis and "to assert for Athens her proper place 
 in the Greek world, to reform domestic e^ils, and to 
 rouse the patriotism which he deemed slumbering but 
 not eitinct." 
 
 In these speeches he illnstrates the vilie of his his- 
 torical studies by the way in which he reanimates exam- 
 ples and applies the principles they embodv to questions 
 of the present with force and heartfelt sincerity. Argu- 
 ment, irony, and indignation dose the first of these 
 speeches in a manner unlike the customarr Attic form 
 and generallv his own, betokening the fervor of the be- 
 ginner and the moral sense of the uncorrupted vouth. 
 In succeeding speeches the moral tone is equallv elevated. 
 In one the sacredness of public faith is the prevailing 
 thought, and commercial morality and the good name of 
 the dty rather than its riches and its honor, as if it were 
 that of a person; not even the pretest of reUgion is to 
 justify a dishonestv, and meanness of spirit is always 
 abhorrent. In another he maintains the guardian's 
 responsibility of Athens for other Hellenic states and 
 the dishonor of revenging private wrongs from them 
 and the necessity of individual action, while he opposes 
 an old dream of the visionarv about the invasion of 
 Persia by a united Greece and convinces the j)eople of 
 
f3 THE msroxr or tmAtOKr. 
 
 its fiiitiUtf. He was aoonsbMned to insisl Aat states as 
 «cll as indnidaals shoald be faootroUed by manl 
 motives^ and that josiioe is obBgatmiy opoa tlMm bf 
 icasoBof tliariainiortality; tfaatth^ «ere to pnanolK 
 hanntmj, kiiidly fediii^ and the impolse towaids dntf . 
 Hie statKsmaw most be smoer^ speaking tbe tralli at all 
 oogSs; he mast abo be possessed of peisoaal wgymsi- 
 bilitf. 
 
 ^^Hut is honondUe may be i^aided as tte <UeE 
 motive in die qieedies of Donosthenes. Not tbat vhidi 
 is most eas^, pleasant and ^ofitaU^ bot tliat vdudi 
 hon<w and do^ demand of tiie state and dK atiaen is 
 ibe bmden <tf tiie mtHal tearhing whidi disdagaishes 
 him from many of his «rmtempongie^ piaring him on 
 the same ediical plane with tbe modem onftoririio most 
 resembles him, Edmmid Bmte. He was above the 
 piejo^oe of a mere Atliauan; die level ttf his panb^ 
 lenic patriotism was libber dian dot of Fender and 
 equaled only, if at all, by diat ct fipanuncmdas. He 
 had a higb moial sotise «rf dtiaaiship and sgutiecEaft 
 and oom^diaisive views of intertribal obligations^ mak- 
 ing the foondatitm of his onlmy broad and de^ 
 Witfaoat these fondamoital princ^des no oomnand of 
 wtwds oonld be anjdiing more dian a display of vcxfaal 
 ppotedmics. Bat widi them as a salistiatnm on whiiA 
 to stand b^ore a people vdio weie sensible «rf moial 
 distinction^ even if dtcy did not ahnys follow die ri^t 
 and abjure die wcon^ it became an easier mattier to win 
 the fiist ^aoe. And yet in that day it was no easy diing 
 to trinm^ in an aitisdc way. Sound moial princq^es 
 were no doabt possessed hete ai^ there by one vdmse 
 
POLITICAL ORATORS. 73 
 
 name has not been Immortalized. Demosthenes' fame 
 rests upon his ability to add to these the graces of the 
 highest oratorical art. How he attained these is a mat- 
 ter of well-known biography, already recounted in part. 
 The slow, careful, painstaking toil for seven years pre- 
 paratory to his entrance upon public life, the equal dili- 
 gence in speech-writing for clients in which he puts forth 
 all his skill and strength, the care and labor which until 
 the last he continued to expend upon his speeches, all 
 indicate that toil was a large factor in his genius. He 
 does not resent the taunt of his would-be rivals that -his 
 writings smell of the lamp, nor does he aspire to the 
 modern equivalent of inspiration, extemporary speak- 
 ing. Everything is finished beforehand with special 
 reference to cutting away remorselessly whatever is not 
 absolutely essential to the instantaneous apprehension of 
 his meaning by the hearer. There were no long and 
 close trains of reasoning, no observations so profound 
 that they were obscure, no remote allusions, but rather a 
 series of plain remarks bearing directly upon his subject, 
 mingled with striking and stirring appeals to the moral 
 sense and patriotism of his audience. Clearness com- 
 bined with terseness was the demand of the Athenian 
 hearer, and adaptation to the subject the first requisite 
 of any speech. Consequently his style is now accepted 
 as the type of all that is simple, direct, and forcible. 
 
 Somewhat stately and elaborate in his early efforts 
 his mature eloquence becomes more varied and abun- 
 dant. Conversational vivacity mingles and alternates 
 with dignified periods, and popular idiom with artistic 
 expression. Every-day phrases are combined freshly and 
 
74 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 naturally without seeming commonplace, and similes, 
 sparsely introduced, are forcible in their apt homeliness, 
 while his metaphors are often vivid in their condensa- 
 tion into a single word. But in ail this ;irtisiic skill, 
 severe and restrained, there is a directness of purpose 
 whicli is seemingly unconscious of rhetorical effort. 
 However he may throw light upon his subject, now from 
 this side and again from that, there is the same toa\\ 
 point of which he never loses sight. " His aim is to 
 keep the whole subject before his audience all the time 
 by means of rapid turns, ingenious retrogression, antici- 
 pations, and constant recapitulation." He does not ap- 
 parently follow a plan closely ; much less, strongly 
 marked subdivision. He passes to and fro, combining 
 apology and invective, argument and narrative by transi- 
 tions which stand in the place of the ordinary orator's 
 numbers and heads of discourse. Narrative, repetition, 
 proof, exhortation, invective, are blended or separated ac- 
 cording to the requirements of the case. And yet there 
 is no haphazard confusion. Certain main-building 
 ideas have ordered the whole arrangement, but with ref- 
 erence to a single purpose, and the details are like those 
 of a temple or cathedral, understood by the master- 
 builder in the aggregate, rather than by the observer at 
 one point. 
 
 Therefore he became a recognized adviser and leader 
 of public opinion, one whose aim was to organize a pan- 
 hellenic league with Athens at the head. .\s a reward of 
 his efforts he beheld himself the supreme director of the 
 state for two years. It is by the record of these years 
 that he claims to be judged. Unfortunately the record 
 
POLITICAL ORATORS. 75 
 
 of his eloquence fails at the point when its highest suc- 
 cesses are achieved, no speeches of this stirring period 
 being preserved. Eloquence ended in immediate action, 
 the highest testimony to its supreme efficiency. Its 
 highest flight that has been transmitted to us is the 
 famous Crown-oration, unless the third Philippic be 
 excepted, which, according to the opinion of Lord 
 Brougham, is even more varied and pathetic But that 
 on the Crown has the mournful distinction of being his 
 last speech, and by the general judgment of all subse- 
 quent ages is considered to be the noblest monument of 
 ancient eloquence extant. 
 
 It is not possible to sum up genius in a single epithet, 
 but there is one phrase which is so inclusive that it com- 
 prehends many characteristics and qualities of illustrious 
 talent. It is true of the great in every department of 
 activity that their resources are not limited to narrow 
 and stereotyped forms, and also that they are able to see 
 the needs of each occasion and adapt themselves to it. 
 It is true of great generals and statesmen and of great 
 dramatists and orators as well. They go out of them- 
 selves to be the men for their time and opportunity. 
 Shakespeare's " infinite variety " was anticipated by Dem- 
 osthenes, so far as the limitations of his art would allow. 
 It is this that made him first among a race of speaking 
 men. He borrowed something from ever)' school and 
 master, but also added more than he took. He was 
 quick to discern the character of every occasion, and also 
 able to bring out its greatest possibilities and its hidden 
 powers. He had entrancing displa}' for the high fes- 
 tival, exposition and logic for the courts, and appeal to 
 
76 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 the moral sense in the deliberative assembly. He could 
 so use a common word as to give it an uncommon effect, 
 or create a phrase which thenceforward should have an 
 immortality in literature. His sentences and periods 
 were slow-moving and spacious at one time, at another 
 close and compact; his language grave and dignified, or 
 colloquial and vivacious and even exclamatory. It was in 
 these directions that he went beyond the strict canons of 
 contemporary criticism; but he also carried the public 
 with him in his intense and energetic action on the bema, 
 and finally the critics followed the throng, confessing that 
 the new and vehement style of the young politician had 
 great and enduring merit. Yet there was a peculiar 
 restraint of emotion which only provoked the more 
 demonstration in his auditors. He knew how to make 
 his facts carry their own pathos without wearisome detail; 
 a brief clause, a single word, and the wrong and the woe 
 fell like a shadow upon the land. Thought and feeling, 
 reason and emotion, are fused by the force of an intense 
 personality, too fervid to trifle, but also too keen in its 
 sense of what is true and fitting to violate the unaltera- 
 ble principles of that high art, which is a near approach 
 to nature at its best. Therefore it is that Longinus 
 says, " One might as soon face with steady eyes a de- 
 scending thunder-bolt as to oppose a calm front to the 
 storm of passions which Demosthenes can arouse." 
 
 The task imposed upon his oratory is the best proof 
 of its power. For thirteen years his eloquence was 
 pitted against the resources and diplomacy of an abso- 
 lute monarch. The nation awoke at last to his call, but 
 too late to avail itself of his counsel and to avert the 
 
POLITICAL ORATORS. 'J'] 
 
 calamity against which his warnings had been uttered in 
 heedless ears. 
 
 The orator went down in the ruins, after giving the 
 indorsement of a private soldier in the ranks to the 
 words uttered on the bema; and if clouds gather about 
 his last days we must remember the disasters of a 
 troubled time, and imagine what would have been had 
 his countrymen been as loyal and as high-minded as he 
 in the time when they might have prolonged the glory 
 of Greece. His own oratorical fame, however, is not 
 tarnished, and will outlast the memory of much that was 
 once considered of greater value. All in all he will 
 stand as the first orator of the ancient world. We may 
 not be able to see why, living under different skies, in a 
 distant age and a differing civilization ; but as the 
 standards of true art are restored, or exemplified, it will 
 be seen that Demosthenes has approached nearest to 
 perfection in the high art of communicating thought 
 and emotions from man to men. 
 
VL 
 ARISTOTLE, THE RHETrORICIAM. 
 
 PR a bnndred years oratory had been piactked 
 and taagfit among Heilouc people. Tbncyrdides 
 had given its fiist ^Eorts a d^nite torn in bis Ustoty, 
 and tbe speeiA^writets had taken car& to pot tihor own 
 prodncfions into manuscript for tbor dients and for 
 posteiitjr. A gcadnal growdi towaids tibe pofectioB of 
 the best natmafaieas bad been g<ring <m voder iSae criii- 
 dsn of a people wbose keen petoeption of die tme^ tbe 
 nsebd, and fbe beantifnl bas never beoi equaled. In an 
 age of marrdons creatire powa- iadindaad f ap a ri tiet 
 bad been exodtsed undo- die nM»t faworaiAe caa^&oaa, 
 and one styrle after anolber bad been devek^ed witfa 
 fieedom and judged witbont leseire by a cnltirated 
 people whose exqmaite discrinunation and Ugb idirii of 
 rhetorical exedHaux were coaAtmed wifb dieir a us cq i ii - 
 inlitf to tbe strongest emotions. It was ttvij observed 
 bj Qono tbat tbe most ordinary assembly bas a bar 
 better taste than it genexalty gets credit for; bat wlien 
 to oidinaiy common sense and intdlig^ice are added a 
 surp a ssi n g qnidcness ol wit and lividiness of understand- 
 ings it can be imagined tbat wbat was ill'timed or un- 
 ooutb or inharmonious would be reviled by a peofde 
 whose tongues were as livdy as tbor wifely and upon 
 uiiom die remotest allusion was never lost^ Oa tbe 
 
ARISTOTLE, THE RHETORICIAN. 79 
 
 Other hand, when it is remembered what an important 
 place public speech played in all Greek civic life, and 
 that every citizen was a member of an assembly which 
 debated and decided great issues, the value to each citi- 
 zen of correct and persuasive oratory becomes apparent. 
 When to this is added the fact that the business of the 
 Greek audience was to criticise, approve, and disapprove, 
 the power of its influence upon the orator in the prepara- 
 tion and delivery of his compositions can be imagined, 
 especially in the case of those literary contests at the 
 Olympic games, when the public of universal Hellas, an 
 august congress representing the total civilization of the 
 earth, sat in judgment upon the productions of its best 
 writers. All this tended to produce a painstaking care 
 in the elaboration of their compositions, which is com- 
 pared by Dionysius of Halicarnassus to the fine chasing 
 of gold or chiseling of sculpture. Isocrates, for example, 
 employed more years in refining his panegyric on the 
 Persian war than Alexander took to conquer all Asia, 
 and Plato continued correcting his dialogues up to his 
 eightieth year. By a note-book found after his death it 
 was discovered that he had written the first sentence of 
 the De Republica several times over with different arrange- 
 ments. As it now stands it reads, " I went down to the 
 Piraeus yesterday with Glaucon, the son of Ariston, that 
 I might offer up a prayer to the goddess; and also 
 because I wanted to see in what manner they would cele- 
 brate the festival of Bendis, which was a new thing." 
 Of course it is difficult for us to see through the medium 
 of a translation as faithful as Professor Jowett's even, 
 how Plato, whose diction has been termed gorgeous 
 
80 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 and magnificent, should have turned this sentence over 
 and over, succeeding at last in making it loose instead of 
 periodia But the judgment of antiquity is not to be 
 reversed by a single example, and repeated trials only 
 will show whether or not it can be further improved. 
 Moreover it must always be remembered that the Attic 
 writers endeavored to be perspicuous first of all, and the 
 simple grandeur of their best authors is like the perfect 
 proportion of their best architecture and sculpture, beau- 
 tiful in its expression of the true. 
 
 With this century of writings accumulated from 
 Herodotus to Demosthenes an opportunity was ofiered 
 for the beginnings of a science of rhetoric. Different 
 minds had expressed themselves with a freedom which 
 belongs to a creative age, before many or great models 
 had been set before the youthful intellect, by which it 
 might be consciously or unconsciously moulded. Con- 
 sequently there was an individuality which came from 
 fidelity to each writer's own cast of mind, which may not 
 be found among an equal number of authors in any 
 hundred years since. Indeed it is this distinctive ex- 
 pression which has done much to give a permanent value 
 to the literary survivals of that intellectual age ; for as 
 we have seen there were greater and lesser lights among 
 the immortals, and of course there were some distin- 
 guished writers and speakers in those days who have fall- 
 en into the obscurity of mere mention by contempora- 
 ries, and doubtless there were others of considerable 
 promise and notoriety in their day who have sunk into 
 utter oblivion. But out of the diverse individuality of 
 expression among at least ten strong writers enough 
 
ARISTOTLE, THE RHETORICIAN. 8 1 
 
 material could be gathered to formulate a system or 
 science of the art which had been practiced with success 
 and distinction. In order to such analysis and classifi- 
 cation a mind was needed with the analytic and induc- 
 tive faculty developed to a high and rare degree. Such 
 an intellect, fortunately, came upon the scene at the close 
 of the first great period of intellectual activity in Greece, 
 gathering up and classifying its productions, and lay- 
 ing the foundations of rhetorical science so broad and 
 true that they have never needed relaying. The man to 
 do this, the only man who could do it, was the great 
 master of all ancient science, the philosopher, Aristotle, 
 384 B. c. The expression of thought was interesting 
 to him as a part of that domain of nature in which he 
 was everywhere at home. 
 
 Preeminent, however, as Aristotle is among rhetori- 
 cians, there were natural causes which contributed to his 
 surpassing primacy. The Periclean glory had faded in 
 the sixty years since that great statesman's death, but the 
 thoughts and words he uttered had lived in the bright 
 afterglow as the inspiration of the Greek mind and 
 tongue down to Xenophon's time. Plato's Academy 
 was opened in season for Aristotle's instruction after 
 two years of study by himself, and the great teacher at 
 once bestowed the title of " The Reader " upon his distin- 
 guished pupil. Young, rich, and ambitious, every ad- 
 vantage of that intellectual age lay within his reach. 
 Keen and witty, logical and learned, a brilliant talker in 
 a city of talkers, no new and no old knowledge was likely 
 to escape him. Upon a mass of tradition, history, and 
 discovery he brought to bear the strong light of a mind 
 
82 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 which searched it through and through, separating 
 every ingredient from its alien elements and assigning 
 every particle to its congenial sphere. For seventeen years 
 he walked and conversed and studied with Plato, and for 
 twenty in all he moved about the streets of Athens, dis- 
 coursing of affairs and men ; of life, vegetable and ani- 
 mal; of nature, terrestial, human, and divine. Treating 
 
 A 
 
 of every subject in the range of ancient thought he 
 essayed to take up and carry out to scientific accuracy all 
 that the intellect of his countrymen had attempted. The 
 high art of public speech which he saw exemplified daily 
 all around him would not escape his contemplative and 
 analytic method. As Sir William Hamilton says of him, 
 " His seal was upon all the sciences and his speculations 
 have determined those of all subsequent thinkers." Ac- 
 cordingly after logic and the laws of thought, and dia- 
 lectic as the first law of expression in conversation 
 between man and man, it was natural that he should 
 take up rhetoric as the law of address from one man to 
 an assembly of his fellowmen. He had seen Isocrates 
 and his disciples upholding the renown of Athenian elo- 
 quence ; had heard the comments of his townsmen favor- 
 able and unfavorable ; had made his own criticisms and 
 drawn his own comparisons; saw wherein they agreed in 
 certain respects on all occasions and what idiosyncracies 
 caused variations from the general custom. He found 
 that a few general principles could be applied to the 
 almost uniform action of human thought and speech at 
 their best, and that exceptions belonged to phases 
 which were inferior in their character. 
 
 Out of the methods which speakers employed to 
 
ARISTOTLE, THE RHETORICIAN. 83 
 
 move the reason or the emotions of their hearers he 
 derived rules by which any orator of ability might be 
 able to do the same without stumbling his way to success, 
 losing much time and meeting with failure, early or late, 
 for want of proper guidance. This direction had hith- 
 erto been furnished personally by the great masters of 
 the art from Corax to Isseus ; but the system of each 
 was the system of one man modified by one or two more 
 antedating him. A science which should formulate uni- 
 versal laws of expression, founded upon the nature of 
 universal experience, was what Aristotle aimed to substi- 
 tute for the primitive and partial methods which were 
 the outcome of limited practice and observation. One 
 writer alone, before Aristotle, had attempted anything 
 like a technical treatment of the subject, and this one, 
 Anaximenes, succeeded in a practical, rather than in a 
 scientific way, indulging in sophistical tricks which 
 brought his system into disrepute. Other treatises, infe- 
 rior to his even, had been composed by writers who are 
 known only by report. As might be expected the 
 science of rhetoric which Aristotle formulated was 
 largely analytic. In his definition of it he takes occa- 
 sion to rank the art of expression side by side with the 
 faculty of thought, logic; perhaps with an eye to 
 Plato's slurs upon rhetoric in comparison with his own 
 favorite dialectics, which was not logic exactly, but 
 rather the larger art of conversation, which the ancients 
 cultivated as a science and of which logic was one ele- 
 ment. Having assigned rhetoric its honorable place 
 among the mental sciences, and disposed of his prede- 
 cessors by remarking that such as had compiled systems 
 
84 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 of oratory hitherto had executed a very trifling part of 
 it, by reason of their neglect of the factor of "proof," he 
 comes to his own definition of it as "A faculty of con- 
 sidering all the possible means of persuasion on every 
 subject." And after contrasting the extension of this 
 art with other arts, such as medicine, which is restricted 
 to matters of health, and mathematics to numbers, he 
 emphasizes the length and breadth and depth of the 
 rhetorical art and science by adding, that it is " able to 
 consider the means of persuasion on any given subject 
 whatsoever." Not much can be added by way of ex- i 
 tension to this definition. It covers the whole field of | 
 human knowledge, and claims for rhetoric the ability to ' _ 
 deal in one way and another with whatever is found ' 
 there. It becomes the authorized interpreter of every j 
 voice and every speech and every language in the uni- I 
 verse. J 
 
 Starting with this broad definition of the rights and 
 powers of rhetoric as prince of all the provinces of lit- 
 erature he begins to ramify from this trunk. Great 
 branches divide into smaller, and these into lesser still, 
 these again into twigs and stems, until a division is 
 reached which, in its amplification and logical derivation, 
 resembles nothing so much as the clear tracery of a leaf- 
 less tree against a winter sky. There is no foliage to 
 adorn and beautify. The language is plain, sometimes 
 jagged and uncouth, but there is no indefiniteness 
 about it, no mistaking the lineage of each minor and 
 major proposition. It is a science of expression con- 
 structed upon scientific and logical principles. -, 
 
 It is natural, therefore, that this master of all sciences ' 
 
ARISTOTLE, THE RHETORICIAN. 85 
 
 should lay more stress upon proofs than upon mere 
 appeals to anger, fear, envy, pity, or other affections and 
 emotions of his hearers. These he regards as additional 
 and supplemental to the real sphere of rhetoric ; and 
 X about them he says his predecessors had busied them- 
 
 / selves most mightily. Such emotions, he adds, do not 
 appertain to a case, but to the judge, and it is not right 
 
 1 that an orator should bias him by winning with anger or 
 
 1 pity or jealousy, making that crooked which should be 
 
 ^ straight and upright. A pleader's business is nothing 
 
 1 more than to prove the matter of fact, either that it has 
 
 I or has not happened. And because all men in some 
 sort attempt to prove their accusations or excuses, some 
 by chance and some by method, this method may be dis- 
 
 1 covered and taught as an art for all to use who will learn, 
 
 \^ So much for definition. Now, to return to the begin- 
 nings of his division of the subject, he first states that 
 there are three kinds of orations, deliberative, judicial, 
 and demonstrative, relating to the future, the past, and 
 the present, respectively as to their proper times. They 
 have their proper offices also. To the deliberative belong 
 exhortation and dissuasion; to the judicial, accusation and 
 
 ' defence; to the demonstrative, praise and blame. Cer- 
 tain ends or purposes also belong to each. To the 
 deliberative, the expedient or inexpedient; to the judi- 
 cial, the just or the unjust; to the demonstrative, the 
 honorable or the dishonorable. And the orator in these 
 several cases must have appropriate proof based upon 
 the common opinions men have formed, and also other 
 principles upon which to base his argument according 
 to the greater or less importance of facts in the case. 
 
85 THE HISTORY OF ORATOST. 
 
 To ill-^tr3.:e Aristotle's minnte analytic method let 
 OS tiace his division and sabdivision of the first branch 
 of the general sobject of oratoiy, the deliberative. In 
 this kind he says tboe are to be considered the snbject 
 and the olrjec: of speed. The subjects on vfaicfa men 
 del:ber2.:e are neaily all included in fire, namely, finann% 
 peace and var, sa^gnard of territory, imports and ex- 
 ports, and legislation. Take the last as an example of 
 his subdivision. To the maVingr of laws is necessary so 
 nmch political philosophy as to know what are the 
 seveial kinds of governments; by what means eacji is 
 preserved or destrojed, from vithont or within. This 
 knowledge is obtained partly by observing the several 
 govemtnents in times past, by history, and partly Iw- 
 obeoving govsnmenis in the present, by traveL Stick 
 is the snbdiviaon of the topic of legislation, under the 
 these celiberatiTe. undo- the general snbject of oratory. 
 A similar division is given of the ends of deliberative 
 CHatoiy. Happiness in some sort is soch an end pro- 
 posed by the orator; and is to be obtained by soch 
 things as we call good, as follows: notrility, riches, hozLor. 
 health, and nine other thinLgs ennmerated. 
 
 FtLrtaermore in deliboative cxatory the {sinci^es 
 £rom which the orat<M- is to draw |Hoofe, diat is, the cmn- 
 iii3^n opinions concerning good and evil, are absolute 
 or comparative; of the absolute again there are two kinds, 
 the disptitable and the indiqmtable. Of the last he 
 cri-ir= oti: twenty-seven particolar example^ and <rf the 
 disptitable twenty-two; making f<Kty-nine nnds' the 
 topic of jHinciples or eieiiieii3, onder the theme 
 deliberaiivi^ of the general subject of <»ations. 
 
ARISTOTLE, THE RHETORICIAN. 87 
 
 There is something in these commonplaces that reminds 
 one of Bacon's Essays. 
 
 Bearing in mind, now, that this enumeration of par- 
 ticulars relates only to the subdivision of the first branch [ 
 of a preliminary division of the large subject of rhetoric v; 
 it will be readily seen what a ramification is likely to 
 follow the mention of the judicial and demonstrative \ 
 branches in the lay-out of this analytic treatise in Book 
 I. The same minute yet logical partition prevails in 
 Book II. about principles of belief, as related to the 
 speaker and the hearer; and in Book III. about elocu- 
 tion and disposition. In the last, under the chapter on 
 the topic of crimination and purgation, fourteen specifi- 
 cations of ways in which this may be done are given, as 
 for example, to cite the fifth, " I did one thing, but meant 
 another;" or the third, " I did him harm, but withal I did 
 him honor." Such suggestions, no doubt, were a great 
 help in carrying out Aristotle's idea that ordinary men 
 could be made effective orators by a careful study of a 
 complete science, and lest they should fail he has put 
 into their hands directions for almost every imaginable 
 exigence that might arise in the ordinary life of his 
 times. For that matter it might be said that he has 
 furnished material that is available in any age if men 
 would take pains to quarry it. 
 
 But aside from his accurate, logical, and analytic 
 treatment of the art of expression, as a great scientist 
 should treat it, Aristotle in a large and manly way de- 
 velops all the various points which an orator must keep 
 in view, and indicates the kinds of knowledge which he 
 must acquire to be master of his profession. In this 
 
88 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 treatment he exhausts the subject, leaving hardly any- 
 thing of consequence for subsequent writers to add by 
 way of original and fresh material. His treatise would 
 hardly be acceptable to modern students on account of 
 its extreme analysis and its dry statements and seeming 
 remoteness from present modes of thought and style. 
 Add to this the importance which he lays upon evidence 
 and such proof as is required in courts of law, and his 
 equal neglect of whatever affects the sympathies or the 
 aversions of an audience, and a further reason is found 
 for his withdrawal from our curricula of study. Never- 
 theless he must be recognized as the father of rhetorical 
 science, and as the man who in an age of orators com- 
 passed the whole scale of their practice. It has been ob- 
 served that in the most perfect example of persuasive 
 oratory on record — the creation of the greatest genius 
 among the English speaking race — Shakespeare's speech of 
 Mark Antony, the rationale of it all had been set forth 
 by the great Greek scientist eighteen centuries before. 
 So uniform and permanent are the principles which un- 
 derlie all effective expression, that genius in every age, 
 one in one way, another in another, gives them kindred 
 forms. Accordingly eminent moderns have ranked 
 Aristotle's great work as the very foremost in point of 
 psychological knowledge which pagan literature has left 
 us, determining the main lines on which subsequent 
 writers have treated the science of rhetoric. 
 
 To understand its value it should be read from begin- 
 ning to end. He who does this will find amidst much 
 that is tedious many suggestions embedded in a style 
 that is without graces in the original, which translation 
 
ARISTOTLE, THE RHETORICIAN. 89 
 
 has not improved. But ideas and principles are there 
 which will remain in the memory of the reader after 
 he has forgotten the angularity of the style. Aristotle at 
 least followed his own definition of the first excellence 
 of style, clearness, without being below or above the 
 dignity of the subject. 
 
 Perhaps the chief criticism to be passed upon his 
 ( treatment of the subject is that it is better for analyzing 
 I a speech than for showing how to make one. But it 
 V must be remembered that one of the most helpful pro- 
 cesses for any writer is the careful analysis of standard 
 compositions, together with the attempt to reconstruct 
 the same afterward in one's own way and words, followed 
 by a comparison of the result with the original. Again 
 it has been urged that his system places too little em- 
 phasis on the part the emotions have to play in dealing 
 with an audience. This may be due to the known scien- ' 
 tific habit of mind in the writer, and perhaps to the cir- 
 cumstance that the ordinary reader has been satisfied or 
 wearied by the first book, to the neglect of the second 
 and third. Furthermore it is sometimes forgotten that 
 different occasions require different distribution of proof 
 and of exhortation, and that the permanence of the im- 
 pression may be inversely in proportion to its vividness 
 after the mind comes back to its normal states. For the 
 place which emotions occupy in the art of persuasion, 
 the chapters on Anger and Reconciliation should be 
 read, and those on Fear and Assurance, Envy and Emu- 
 lation, Pity and Indignation, the Manners of Youth, 
 Middle Age and Old Age, of the Rich and the Noble, 
 and of Men in Power. 
 
90 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 f 
 
 I So also Book III. furnishes many practical instruc- 
 
 ') tions under the chapters on the Choice of Words, of 
 
 "^> Similitudes, of Purity of Language, of its Amplitude, of 
 
 / Things that Grace an Oration and, most salutary of all, 
 
 of the Things that Make an Oration Flat. 
 
 On the whole there is no better groundwork for the 
 philosophy of rhetoric than that which the great phi- 
 losopher of antiquity laid, broad and deep as the foun- 
 dations of the temples which he looked upon as he 
 walked and talked, and some of whose massive blocks 
 may have served as his writing table while penning this 
 immortal treatise. At all events the book has survived 
 the edifices, and while their fair proportions can only be 
 guessed from remaining fragments, the perishable scroll 
 which fluttered at their base has been treasured and re- 
 produced by admiring generations until it has to-day the 
 promise of a renewed immortality. 
 
VII. 
 EARLY ROMAN ORATORS. 
 
 THE classical literature of Greece closes with Aris- 
 totle, who in his own attention to literary style in 
 his youth and in his inattention to it in his mature age 
 symbolizes the transition from the better to the worse in 
 Greek oratory which followed his time. After an age of 
 original production always comes one of criticism, and 
 after Athens came Alexandria. Unapproachable models 
 in the works of the older masters furnished abundant 
 materials for second-rate orators, historians, and drama- 
 tists, but the age of originating anything new and grand 
 had passed, making way for critical and scientific ten- 
 dencies, which found a congenial atmosphere for their 
 growth beyond the limits of Greece. 
 
 Unlike Athens Rome came slowly and late to a lit- 
 erary attainment that can be called classic. It had been 
 founded five hundred years without exhibiting anything 
 more than the rudest germs of composition, or produc- 
 ing a single author in poetry or prose. About two hun- 
 dred and fifty years before Christ conquest made the 
 Romans acquainted for the first time with Greek art and 
 literature, and first directed to the pursuit of intellectual 
 cultivation a people who had been more ambitious of 
 military renown than of mental improvement. Roman 
 literature was therefore an imitation of the Greek, and 
 
 91 
 
92 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 while the copy is excellent, the inspiration of the living 
 original is often wanting. 
 
 The language, too, like the people, was sturdy, solid, 
 and energetic, expressing the thoughts of an active and 
 practical, but not an imaginative people; while the Greek 
 speech in its flexibility readily adapted itself to every 
 form, and remained comparatively unchanged from age 
 to age. Demosthenes and his friends were at home with 
 Homer, and the early Christian fathers wrote and spoke 
 the language of Plato. Early Roman historians even 
 were compelled to write in Greek, because their own lan- 
 guage could not so well express their thoughts. As late 
 as the times of Cicero Greek was the foundation of a 
 liberal education, and Athens was the university-town to 
 which Roman youth resorted to study literature and 
 philosophy. Like modern French the language was 
 well-nigh universal in Europe and the East, the favorite 
 dialect of literary men and the vehicle in which the 
 doctrines of a religion destined to spread over the earth 
 were given to the world. So late as the middle of the 
 fifteenth century the language of Plato and Aristotle was 
 spoken at the court of Constantinople with a dignity and 
 elegance which characterize the purest writers of the 
 classical ages. It is said that to-day a well-educated 
 modern Greek finds less difficulty in understanding the 
 writings of Xenophon than an Englishman would expe- 
 rience in reading Chaucer, or perhaps Spenser. But 
 what Latin lost in grace and delicacy it made up by a 
 certain weight and persistence in fastening itself upon 
 conquered nations, leaving its impress and stamp inef- 
 faceable upon barbarous and provincial dialects. The 
 
EARLY ROMAN ORATORS. 93 
 
 Gracchi fastened it upon the Iberian of Spain, Caesar 
 upon the Gaul of France, and Trajan upon the jargon 
 of the Scythian tribes. Accordingly if Greek still lives 
 in its own narrow peninsula with somewhat of purity, 
 Latin exists in the grain and fibre of the many Romance 
 dialects all over Europe, and in our own English and 
 American speech. And yet the best Latin scholar would 
 not understand Dante or Tasso, nor would a knowledge of 
 Italian enable one to read Horace and Virgil. 
 
 But prose was far more in accordance with the genius 
 of Romans than poetry. " The literature which tended 
 to statesmanship" had a charm for them which no other 
 literature possessed. History, jurisprudence, and oratory 
 engaged their attention, and were studied with a view to 
 their utility, in a scientific rather than an artistic spirit. 
 The graces of composition came late and, with the ex- 
 ception of Caius Gracchus, the earliest orators spoke with 
 a rude and vigorous eloquence. Erudition rather than 
 originality and invention characterized their style, which 
 always had a look backward in historical retrospect. 
 Jurisprudence and statesmanship also entered into the 
 oratory of the Romans, to make the man more efficient 
 as a legislator and a citizen. Even the great captain of 
 soldiers could not do without a rude and shrewd oratory. 
 Still the early features of Roman eloquence were vigorous 
 common sense, honest truthfulness, and indignant emo- 
 tion. The Latin race was hard, practical, and unimagi- 
 native, with good sense rather than a luxuriant fancy. 
 War, politics, legal and political rights were their ruling 
 ideas, without much reflection or introspection. The in- 
 tellectual life of Greece had been reflected in its poetry 
 
94 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 first, and afterward in an oratory almost as graceful and 
 rhythmical. The robust and practical Roman demanded 
 common sense enforced with vehemence. Where Athens 
 looked for glory or freedom, Rome sought for increase of 
 domain and the majestic sway of the laws. 
 
 It is not so true, therefore, that Rome was late in 
 coming to an appreciation of oratory as that its elo- 
 quence was of a ruder sort than that of Greece at a cor- 
 responding stage of its literary life. Public speaking 
 prevailed from the first in the legislative assembly, on 
 the battlefield, and on the return from a campaign, when 
 the victorious general found eloquence a path to civil 
 honors, as many a military man has learned since the 
 days of Caesar. Before the introduction of Greek litera- 
 ture the Romans struck out a strong vein of native ora- 
 tory. Whatever they accomplished in the earlier centuries 
 was solely by dint of practice rather than by any rules of 
 art. Oratory was, in fact, the unwritten literature of 
 active life, and recommended itself by its spirit to a war- 
 like and utilitarian people. Long, therefore, before the 
 historian was sufificiently advanced to record a speech, 
 as Herodotus and Thucydides did for the Greeks, the 
 forum, the senate, the battle field, and the courts had 
 been nurseries of Roman eloquence. There is the tradi- 
 tion of a speech recorded even before the poetry of 
 Nsevius was written, the first poet who really deserves 
 the name of Roman. It was delivered by Appius 
 Claudius, the blind man of strong will, against the elo- 
 quent ambassador, Cineas, whom Pyrrhus had sent to 
 negotiate peace. But he was no match for the blind 
 orator, and was obliged to quit Rome in defeat. In gen- 
 
EARLY ROMAN ORATORS. QS 
 
 eral, however, the maturity of oratory was preceded in 
 Rome, as at Athens, by the plays of such authors as 
 Livius Naevius, followed by poetic comedy and tragedy, 
 and these by epic and satire until we come to Cato, 
 THE Censor, 234 b. c, a man distinguished by almost 
 unexampled versatility and variety of talent. 
 
 With him Latin prose begins. A native of Tusculum, 
 of ancient family, he was distinguished for courage in 
 war and integrity in peace; a soldier first, then a lawyer, 
 rising to the eminence of quaestor, sedile, praetor, and 
 finally consul and censor, in which offices he manifested 
 his talents for administration, his fearlessness, his advo- 
 cacy of the oppressed, and his hatred of luxury and of 
 vice. A lover of strife his long life was one continued 
 combat. Loving truth he hated conventionalisms, de- 
 spised rank that was not based upon merit, rejected the 
 changes of fashion, and distrusted and condemned every- 
 thing Greek in literature because he despised the degen- 
 erate Greeks with whom he came in contact. Afterward 
 he relented in this respect like an honest man. Yet he 
 did not love right and virtue so much as he hated wrong, 
 and also those who opposed his prejudices. Austere, 
 unamiable, and reserved, he gave rise to the epigram, 
 since repeated in many forms, to the effect that he was 
 so morose that Proserpine herself would not receive him 
 into the infernal regions. 
 
 Some one states it mildly by saying that virtue did 
 not present itself to Cato in an amiable form. Never- 
 theless Cato was morally, as well as intellectually, one of 
 the greatest men that Rome ever produced. Self-edu- 
 cated and acquisitive, he was determined to excel in 
 
96 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 everything he undertook, whether war, politics, history, 
 or oratory. Such a man must have an originality of his 
 own, and his style will be his shadow. Cato's was rude, 
 unpolished, and ungraceful, partly because of his hearty 
 hatred of Greek culture and his horror of affectation. 
 Still his statements were clear, his arguments direct, and 
 his illustrations striking, his epithets apt, his wit keen, 
 but never offending against gravity and never irreverent. 
 He despised art and was too much wrapped up in his 
 subject to be careful of his language. An imitator of no 
 one no one was able to imitate him. Abrupt, concise, 
 witty, his style had the rapid alternations of light and 
 shade that are seen in nature, now rude and harsh, now 
 pathetic and affecting.! He spoke as if in a hand to hand 
 conflict with an adversary. He was a formidable accuser 
 and a powerful defender, pushing out with force, brevity, 
 strong sense, and galling asperity. Such was the man 
 and the style towards which it is a relief to turn back 
 from the glitter and polish of the Augustan age, as men 
 turn their eyes from the city to the mountains. Plu- 
 tarch likens him to the aggressive Socrates, and Niebuhr 
 pronounces him to be the only great man in his gener- 
 ation, and one of the greatest in Roman history. 
 
 There were contemporaries of Cato of no mean re- 
 pute — Quintus Metellus, Cornelius Cethegus, and that 
 SciPio Africanus Major, who, being accused, spoke till 
 dusk the day before the anniversary of the battle of Zama, 
 and on the day itself resuming his speech said, "I call 
 to remembrance, Romans, that this is the very day I van- 
 quished in bloody battle on the plains of Africa the 
 Carthaginian Hannibal, and obtained for you an un- 
 
EARLY ROMAN ORATORS. 97 
 
 looked for victory and peace. Let us then leave this 
 knave [himself] and at once offer thanksgiving to Jove, 
 supremely good and great." The people followed him, 
 forgetting the accusation that had been made against 
 him, and with loud acclaim accompanied him to the 
 Capitol. 
 
 SciPio Africanus Minor (viEmilianus) was a man 
 qualified to be the link between the old and the new 
 school of oratory. With the vigor of the old Roman 
 soldier-like character he combined a refinement of Greek 
 taste which did not destroy his frankness, while it 
 humanized his rough honesty and taught him to love the 
 beautiful as well as the good, and to see that beauty is 
 an outgrowth of goodness. 
 
 The orator, however, who was the first to understand 
 and apply the theoretical principles of rhetoric was Ser- 
 vius SuLPicius Galea. Still his application of them was 
 far from coldly theoretical, and he employed artifices 
 which would hardly be effective in these days. Not con- 
 tent to carry away the feelings of his audience by an 
 animated and vehement delivery he on one occasion, 
 for example, paraded before the assembly that brought 
 him to trial his two infant sons in order to touch the 
 heart of his judges by his lamentations over their pros- 
 pective bereavement. This external artifice succeeded in 
 securing his acquittal of perjury in spite of the dry and 
 antique style which was overlaid by such demonstra- 
 tion. 
 
 RuTiLius RuFUS stands forth in contrast as a man 
 who was too upright to appeal to the compassion of his 
 judges, and Laelius is a still greater contrast. Yet 
 
98 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 though the latter was wise and gentle and smooth and 
 learned in speech, there came a time when, after two inef- 
 fectual attempts to win a verdict, Rutilius was called in. 
 He prepared himself by practicing in a vaulted chamber 
 before a few intelligent slaves, and after they came out it 
 was discovered by their bruises that he had also practiced 
 on them in a most emphatic manner. He won the case 
 by transferring somewhat of his energy to the court 
 room. 
 
 But these are men of mediocrity. The great orator 
 is the product of stirring times energizing native ability. 
 The two conditions are inseparable. Such times were 
 the favoring elements which brought out the natural 
 capacity of the Gracchi and made them the founders of 
 classical Latin oratory. For nearly four centuries a 
 struggle had been going on between the patrician and 
 plebeian factions, with the result of destroying the distinc- 
 tions of blood and race, but only to make room for prop- 
 erty differences. This line of demarcation had become 
 hard and sharp, owing to the accumulation of wealth in 
 a few hands, and the old class hostility was revived on a 
 change of base. Added to this were the inherited tradi- 
 tions of the nobles, whose ancestors had held high 
 public oflfices, and the claims and pretensions of new 
 men. Both these repellent forces made the struggle for 
 political distinction fierce between competitors for popu- 
 lar favor. 
 
 Tiberius Gracchus may be considered the legitimate 
 fruit of this stirring age. He spoke from deep convic- 
 tions resting upon the eternal antagonism of right and 
 wrong, as became the grandson of that Scipio who be- 
 
EARLY ROMAN ORATORS. 99 
 
 lieved himself to be the communicator to the world of 
 divinely imparted ideas. Uniting the gift of a beautiful 
 voice to copiousness and fluency he added to these that 
 subdued power whose subtle influence penetrates the 
 mind and vanquishes the judgment. Hitherto this had 
 been an unknown force in literature, and its introduction 
 into oratory marks the rise of that high art which Horace 
 terms the vis temperata, distinguished now as an impres- 
 sive calmness, becoming and effective in those to whom 
 it is natural, but very hard to assume when it is not con- 
 sonant with the disposition of the speaker. In Tiber- 
 ius gentleness and kindness were the characteristics 
 of his race. His father had won the affection of Spain 
 by his mild administration. His mother, inheriting the 
 genius of Scipio, had added the accomplishments of learn- 
 ing and social graces. And to her care in early youth the 
 brothers Gracchi owed the development of their natural 
 abilities and the direction of their education. Although 
 their political principles were the same, their oratory 
 differed as their temperaments, and the reserved and 
 grave deliberation of Tiberius found a polar contrast in 
 the splendid impetuosity of Caius, by nine years the 
 younger brother. Morally inferior to the older he was 
 his superior intellectually. He possessed the higher 
 creative power, together with the soaring imagination 
 which, guided aright, reaches the domain above the 
 clouds, and sees objects from afar in their true relations 
 and proportions. Sometimes, however, his natural vehe- 
 mence would so far get the better of him that he found 
 it convenient to have a servant stand near him with a 
 pitch-pipe in order that he might regulate his voice when 
 
100 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 his emotion rendered his tones unmusical. The same 
 impetuosity made him leave unfinished much that he had 
 well begun. His language was noble, his sentiments wise 
 and grave, but his work often lacked the last finishing 
 touch. There were many grand beginnings which were 
 not brought to perfection. Still he got rid of the harsh- 
 ness of the old school and won the reputation of being 
 the father of Roman prose. Cicero says that he was an 
 orator of the loftiest talent, of burning enthusiasm, of 
 rich and exuberant diction. 
 
 Together the Gracchi mark the rise of a freer and 
 easier mode of speaking than that of their predecessors, 
 and together they also represent the two antithetical 
 methods of reserved and impetuous speech, in one or the 
 other of which the greatest orators have found their 
 strength to lie. Between these extremes, or combining 
 something resembling calmness and vehemence, less dis- 
 tinguished speakers have followed such leaders afar off, 
 at the same time doing much to move the world in their 
 time. 
 
 The interval between the Gracchi and Cicero boasted 
 of many distinguished names which would have shone 
 brighter if stars of the first magnitude had not been so 
 near. Curio, Fimbria, Scaevola, and Publius Sulpicius 
 began to practice oratory as an art and to invest it with 
 a polished garb. More illustrious names than these 
 were Marcus Antonius, Licinius Crassus, and Cicero's 
 immediate predecessor and most formidable rival, Hor- 
 tensius. Antony and Crassus, according to Cicero, were 
 the first Romans who elevated eloquence to the heights 
 to which it had been raised by Greek genius. This re- 
 
EARLY ROMAN ORATORS. 10 1 
 
 mark is an indication that the leading orators had ceased 
 to take the specimens of old Roman eloquence as their 
 models. Both Antony and Crassus owed their eminence 
 to Greek models, Antony attending lectures at Athens 
 and Rhodes, and Crassus speaking Greek as if it had been 
 his mother-tongue. It shows the unpopularity of every- 
 thing Greek at Rome at this time, that the one showed 
 open contempt for the Greeks and the other affected 
 not to know them at all. This, however, must be taken 
 as an indirect testimony to the element of perpetuity 
 in Attic eloquence which survived the deterioration of 
 Athenian character. It was Greek letters that Romans 
 reverenced while they despised Greek manners. The 
 modern parallel is the traditionary attitude of the English 
 toward French literary fashions, which is unfortunately 
 growing less pronounced. 
 
 Mark Antony, the orator, grandfather of the trium- 
 vir, entered public life as an advocate. Indefatigable in 
 preparing his cases he made every point tell, and being 
 a master of pathos he found his way to the hearts of the 
 judges. Although not free from the prevailing fault of 
 advocates in being somewhat unscrupulous in assertion 
 he left expressions and passages that remained indelibly 
 impressed on the memory of his hearers. His eloquence 
 in the forum was such that it gave him the reputation of 
 making Italy a rival of Greece in the persuasive art. 
 
 Crassus, his junior by four years, also began his 
 career in the Roman courts. Trained in the rhetorical 
 schools of Asia and Athens he attained an early eminence 
 as a pleader, and established his reputation by a power- 
 ful and triumphant oration in which he espoused the 
 
102 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 cause of the senate over that of the equestrian order in 
 the matter of the judiciary. His style is careful and yet 
 not labored, elegant, accurate, and perspicuous. He pos- 
 sessed great powers of clearness in explaining, defining, 
 and illustrating. His delivery was calm and self-pos- 
 sessed, his action vehement but not excessive. He took 
 especial pains with the commencement of his speech, the 
 first words which he uttered arresting attention and prov- 
 ing him worthy of it. He understood the rare art of 
 uniting elegance with brevity. Cicero esteemed him so 
 highly and sympathized with him so completely that he 
 chose Crassus to be the representative of his own senti- 
 ments in his imaginary conversation in the De Oratore. 
 Like Chatham he died almost in the act of supporting, 
 by his eloquent counsel, measures of wisdom. 
 
 The last of the orators who preceded Cicero was Hor- 
 TENSius. Scarcely eight years Cicero's senior, his con- 
 temporary and rival, he nevertheless belongs to an earlier 
 literary period and to an age of which he himself is the 
 last representative of the middle period of Roman 
 oratory. Born in 114 b. c. he began his career as 
 pleader at nineteen, with applause and success. Unfor- 
 tunately his eloquence lacked the element of sobriety 
 and therefore of lasting popularity. He was an orator 
 pleasing to the youth of his time, but did not wear well. 
 Brilliant and lively, he was admired for his high spirits 
 and poetic fancy rather than for dignity and gravity. 
 Moreover he was Asiatic in the luxuriance of his orna- 
 ment and manner rather than Greek in the chastened 
 simplicity and severity of style, and his juvenility, with a 
 foppish and theatrical delivery, counterbalanced the 
 
EARLY ROMAN ORATORS. tOj 
 
 finish, polish, and animation which were real excellencies 
 in his oratory. 
 
 In the century and a quarter from Cato to Hortensius 
 a gradual drift is observable from the ruggedness of 
 speech illustrated by the one to the refinements exhib- 
 ited by the other. More and more the influence of 
 Greek models, sometimes in spite of outspoken protests, 
 softened the angularity of early Latin speech, as the 
 Norman-French tempered the Anglo-Saxon twelve cen- 
 turies later, adding imported grace to native vigor. The 
 combination of these two elements furnished an admira- 
 ble foundation on which to build the crowning super- 
 structure of Roman eloquence in the creative and critical 
 achievements of Marcus TuUius Cicero. 
 
VIII. 
 
 RHETORICAL SCHOOLS— CICERO, THE 
 RHETORICIAN. 
 
 DURING the three centuries from Alexander to 
 Augustus the fortunes of oratory were determined 
 by the new condition of affairs in Hellenic domains. 
 Aristotle's science of rhetoric lived on for a while in the 
 Peripatetic school; the fashion of florid declamation pre- 
 vailed in the Rhodian school of Asiatics amid mixed 
 populations; the pure traditions of the best Greek taste 
 had been diverted from the use of the Greek language. 
 Hermagoras does something for the art by reviving a 
 higher conception of it, using both the practical rhetoric 
 of the times before Aristotle, and also the philosophical 
 theories of this great scientist; and working the two ele- 
 ments into a new system, the Scholastic, as distinguished 
 from the Practical and the Philosophical, he thus counter- 
 acted the view of Asianism, which made oratory a mere 
 knack founded upon constant practice in speaking, in- 
 stead of the severer basis of Atticism, which made elo- 
 quence the last product of the profoundest study and the 
 most painstaking toil. 
 
 One of the greatest controversies that ever stirred the 
 world of letters was that concerning the relative value of 
 the Attic and the Asiatic style, the Attic being regarded 
 as compressed and energetic, the Asiatic as florid and 
 
 104 
 
RHETORICAL SCHOOLS. 10 S 
 
 ambitious of splendor and striking points. This differ- 
 ence is supposed to have arisen from the circumstance 
 that, when the Greek tongue spread itself among the 
 people of Asia nearest to Greece, certain persons, aspir- 
 ing to eloquence, but not having a thorough mastery of 
 Greek, were obliged to express their thoughts in the 
 round-about way of circumlocution. A better reason, 
 however, is found in the respective character of the two 
 races. The Athenians, having a polished and refined 
 taste, could endure nothing useless and superfluous, 
 while the Asiatics, a people vain and ostentatious by 
 nature, were fond of a showy kind of eloquence. There 
 was a third kind, the Rhodian, partaking of the peculiar- 
 ities of each, neither so concise as the Attic nor so exu- 
 berant as the Asiatic, whose manner was the resultant of 
 the Asian influence and the modified Athenian taste of 
 .^schines, who carried to Rhodes in his exile the accom- 
 plishments then studied at Athens. In regard to this 
 controversy it might be said that underneath all styles 
 lie the laws of taste, which are not so rigid that any one 
 style can be said to be intrinsically better than another. 
 One may be more in accord with the mental constitution 
 of a given people or person than another. Or again 
 the time and the occasion may harmonize with one more 
 than another. The degree of effectiveness is the only 
 criterion by which the value of any mode of expression 
 can justly be determined. With the Greeks in Demos- 
 thenes' time nothing but the purest Atticism was re- 
 garded as deserving the highest praise. It was like the 
 beauty of the marble statue, cold but correct, without 
 warmth and without color. And yet it is to be observed 
 
I06 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 that coldness and correctness are not the only features of 
 this sort of oratory. So great a critic as Quintilian says 
 that "they are mistaken who think that the only orators 
 of the Attic style are such as are simple, clear, and ex- 
 pressive, restricting themselves to frugality in speech and 
 ornament and gesture. For the school of Isocrates sent 
 forth the most eminent of the Greek orators, and he is 
 very unlike Lysias, whom they recognize as the Attic 
 model. Doubtless Hyperides was Attic, yet he studied 
 agreeableness of style, and ^schines was broader and 
 \ bolder and loftier than the earlier orators. And Demos- 
 \ thenes surpassed all those dry and cautious speakers in 
 I force, animation, sublimity, and structure of periods, 
 / delighting in figures and giving splendor to his language 
 / by metaphors, even attributing speech to inanimate ob- 
 jects. Let these censors judge more favorably of this 
 distinction, and be convinced that to speak in the Attic 
 style is to speak in the best style." 
 
 Yet in spite of Quintilian's narrowing of the terms 
 there were, and probably always will be, some who will 
 cultivate the plain, accurate, and moderate form of Lysias, 
 and others the more luxuriant adornment of Gorgias; 
 the first two representatives of tendencies which are as 
 universal as the love of plainness and of ornament the 
 world over. And an equally large number, perhaps 
 larger than either, will be pleased with a mingling of 
 understanding and imagination, of thought and fancy, 
 the one relieving or illuminating the other. These last 
 have on their side the analogy of nature in all its diver- 
 sity and benignity — the stern mountain softened and 
 beautified with foliage, with light and shadow; the 
 
RHETORICAL SCHOOLS. I07 
 
 monotonous level of the sea broken up with waves and 
 sunlight and changing color. Such, it would appear, is 
 the taste of our own age, whose culture is a resultant of 
 Saxon good sense and the study of artistic work in all 
 departments of human labor. The very plainness of the 
 Attic style, carried into the domain of thought, produced 
 the exuberance of the Asians, who, in the deficiency of 
 their literature and philosophy in ideas, strove to hide 
 this defect by external ornaments of language. At 
 length Athens itself was not able to resist this tendency, 
 the two schools having about an equal hold upon the 
 Attic city in the days of Cicero. Another generation 
 saw the supremacy of the florid style at Rome, and some 
 time after the Asiatic taste itself was in the ascendant at 
 Athens. 
 
 These two styles of oratory were cultivated in the 
 schools of rhetoric which sprang up after the age of 
 Demosthenes. Eloquence had begun to decline after 
 the diminution of Greek freedom, and in the lack of 
 original production men turned to the study of by-gone 
 glories. Athens, Alexandria, Rhodes, and other centres 
 of learning had their schools, in which teachers of greater 
 or less repute endeavored to reproduce the achievements 
 of the illustrious orators who had won everlasting renown. 
 Naturally they succeeded in merely prolonging the echo 
 through a race of imitators, who lacked both the genius 
 and the motive which made their predecessors famous. 
 However these schools served the good purpose of keep- 
 ing alive the love of the art for two and a half centuries 
 until its revival at Rome, when the inspiring cause of it 
 passed out of Greece, with its liberty and works of art, to 
 
I08 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 the seven-hilled city. With this transportation went 
 Hellenists, like the poet Archias, eminent in literature 
 and qualified to teach martial Romans, who in turn sent 
 their youth to Athens to complete their education. The 
 result of such intercommunication is seen at length in 
 the reappearance of oratory in the rhetorical age of 
 which Cicero is the best representative, which is also 
 marked by a return to the days of Demosthenes for classic 
 models for study and imitation. Cicero himself had 
 Antiochus of Ascalon, Philo, the Academic, and Apol- 
 lonius, the son of Molon of Rhodes, for his instructors, 
 besides visiting the principal rhetoricians of Asia. ] The 
 last of these, not understanding Latin, requested Cicero to 
 declaim in Greek. When he had done so, Apollonius re- 
 marked, " You have my praise and admiration, Cicero, 
 and Greece my pity and commiseration, since those arts 
 and that eloquence which are the only glories that re- 
 main to her will now be transferred by you to Rome." 
 
 An interesting feature of this instruction in the schools 
 of rhetoric is the immensity of the fees paid by pupils, 
 showing the estimate that was placed upon the art in the 
 three or four centuries before our era. When we remem- 
 ber that Isocrates received the equivalent of ^20,000 for 
 a single example of high oratorical art, written to be 
 read rather than to be spoken, and that he took pupils 
 for ^250 each; that Euthalus paid Protagoras of Abdera 
 ^5,000 for teaching him the art of rhetoric; that Cicero 
 and Hortensius bought villa after villa with the wages 
 of their oratory; that Quintilian received a regular sal- 
 ary of ^4,000 as late as Vespasian's reign; that Caesar 
 Augustus and Tiberius Caesar attended lectures upon 
 
RHETORICAL SCHOOLS. lOQ 
 
 rhetoric assiduously — when such indications of devotion 
 to the art appear, we can form some idea of the relative 
 place which it held in the educational systems of the 
 ancients, as well as in the higher occupations of their 
 daily life. It took its position among the fine arts, enter- 
 taining the populace as music and the drama did, stirring 
 their emotions and sympathies, raising their minds to 
 sublime and pleasing contemplations, and elevating their 
 moral sense to the reality, or semblance, at least, of ex- 
 alted sentiments. Again it would direct their ridicule, 
 their scorn, or their indignation toward the base and 
 the criminal with a singleness of contagious thirst for 
 revenge, retribution, or blood, like the fell intent of 
 hounds in full cry for their game. Or once more it 
 would recall the dignity and renown of a golden age of 
 heroes, so dear to the Greek memory, and fill the soul 
 with complacent reminiscences of an illustrious past and 
 of the mighty dead. 
 
 After this survey of the period of decadence and 
 transition following the age of Demosthenes it will be 
 convenient to consider the work of Cicero as a writer 
 upon rhetoric and oratory. That he was a voluminous 
 writer is seen in the titles of his works alone, the whole 
 series of which has been preserved nearly complete, con- 
 sisting of the volume on Invention; The Orator; Bru- 
 tus, or Concerning Illustrious Orators ; of the Best Kind 
 of Speaking; of the Oratorical Division; and Topics about 
 the Best Class of Orators; the last a fragment on the 
 subject of the Attic style of oratory. These works con- 
 sidered the art of rhetoric from different points of view, 
 thus supporting and illustrating each other. Written for 
 
no THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 the most part in the form of dialogue they digested the 
 principles of Aristotle and Isocrates and their followers 
 into a complete system, selecting what was best in each, 
 to which remarks and precepts of his own were added 
 by Cicero himself. 
 
 The divisions under which he treats the subject of 
 discourse are three: the Case in Hand, the Speaker, and 
 the Speech. The Case includes considerations regarding 
 the hearer, as well as its own character as judicial, des- 
 criptive, or deliberative. With respect to the opponent 
 there is a fourfold division according to the fact, the 
 nature, quality, or propriety of the case. The art of the 
 Speaker is directed to five points : the discovery of per- 
 suasions, argumentative, rijoral, or emotional in charac- 
 ter; to arrangement, diction, memory, and delivery. 
 The Speech itself consists of six parts : introduction, 
 statement of the case, division of the subject, proof, 
 refutation, and conclusion. 
 
 To go somewhat more into detail he regards, with 
 Aristotle, the invention or finding of arguments and 
 material of discourse as the very foundation of the art. 
 Gjving a full analysis of the two forms of argument, 
 f^ityllogism and induction, he applied their principles to 
 f the three subject matters of rhetoric : the deliberative, 
 the judicial, and the descriptive, dwelling principally on 
 the judicial as affording the most ample field for discus- 
 sion. We note here a return to the early and practical 
 character of oratory in the Sicilian tribunals, instead of 
 its later exhibitions in the popular or deliberative assem- 
 bly. This treatise, De Inventione, was almost entirely 
 compiled from the writings of Aristotle, Isocrates, and 
 
RHETORICAL SCHOOLS. Ill 
 
 Hermagoras, but it was a useful work and remarkable 
 for its uniform good sense. The Topica, or treatise on 
 commonplaces, is little else than a compend of Aris- 
 totle's work on the same subject, drawn up from mem- 
 ory at the request of a friend, on a sea voyage, soon after 
 Caesar's murder. 
 
 The De Oratore, Brutus, and Orator may be regarded 
 as a complete system of rhetoric. The first lays down 
 principles and rules of the art, the second illustrates 
 them by examples from the most emiiient speakers of 
 Greece and Rome, and the third portrays the character- 
 istics and qualities of the ideal orator. 
 
 The De Oratore is a dialogue between some of the 
 most illustrious Romans, of the age preceding his own, 
 on the subject of oratory. The principal speakers are 
 the orators Crassus and Antonius, who are represented as 
 unfolding the principles of their art to Sulpicius and 
 Cotta, rising young lawyers. In the first book conver- 
 sation turns on the qualifications requisite for a perfect 
 orator. Crassus maintains the necessity of his being ac- 
 quainted with the whole circle of the arts, while Anto- 
 nius limits eloquence to the province of speaking well. 
 Catulus and Caesar join in the dialogue later, when, to 
 Antonius' remarks on invention, Caesar adds something 
 on the use of humor in oratory. Antonius finishes the 
 morning's discussion with the principles of arrangement 
 and memory. In the afternoon Crassus explains the 
 rules for propriety and elegance of diction, he himself 
 being celebrated for these qualities of speech. The 
 book concludes with a discussion of delivery and action, 
 which were of great importance in ancient oratory. 
 
112 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 A lofty Style and tone pervade the whole work, which is 
 almost dramatic in its allusions to the destinies for which 
 its members were reserved. 
 
 In the De Claris Oratoribus, written nine years later, 
 is given another dialogue among Brutus, Atticus, and 
 Cicero himself. He begins with Solon, and after briefly 
 mentioning the orators of Greece, proceeds to those of 
 his own country, from Junius Brutus to himself. In the 
 Orator he directs attention, principally, to diction and 
 delivery, adopting a somewhat abstract and ideal con- 
 ception of what the orator should be rather than of what 
 he generally is. The perfectly eloquent man he defines 
 as one who expresses himself with propriety on all sub- 
 jects, great or small. So excellent was his opinion of this 
 treatise that he does not hesitate to declare that he is 
 ready to risk his reputation for judgment in oratory on 
 its merits. 
 
 His position as a writer upon rhetoric cannot be fully 
 understood without some reference to his philosophical, 
 moral, and physical compositions. An enthusiastic stu- 
 dent of philosophy, having an energy and range of in- 
 tellect by which he was able to pursue a variety of objects 
 at once, losing no spare moments in idleness, dictating 
 his thoughts to attendants even when walking, he found 
 time for business of state, for the courts, and for philo- 
 sophical studies. His treatises were composed when he 
 was engaged in daily disputes in questions of litigation. 
 
 In the last year of his life he composed eight of his 
 philosophical works, besides fourteen orations against 
 Antony. Being thus ardent in the cause of philosophy 
 he recommended it to the notice of his countrymen. 
 
RHETORICAL SCHOOLS. II3 
 
 whose haughtiness had hitherto conspired with the stub- 
 bornness of the Latin tongue to keep speculative thought 
 subordinate to practical activities. In doing this he 
 gained honor for himself, but he also did it with the 
 zeal of one who esteemed philosophy as the guide of life, 
 the parent of virtue, the guardian in difficulty, and the 
 tranquilizer in misfortune. Interesting as it was to 
 him, however, he cultivated philosophical studies chiefly 
 with a view to his own improvement in oratory. Ac- 
 cordingly he undertook the cause of the Stoic, the Epi- 
 curean, or the Platonist as an exercise of his powers of 
 argumentation; although in his private judgment he pre- 
 ferred the sceptical tenets of the New Academy, which, 
 lying midway between the other philosophies, was at- 
 tacked and appealed to in turn by all. From this atti- 
 tude of being liable on all sides to attack it became as 
 much a school of rhetoric as of philosophy, and was 
 celebrated among the ancients for the eloquence of its 
 masters. Cicero himself declares how much he owed to 
 the gardens of the Academy, and Quintilian says that 
 so wonderful a fertility of mind could not have showed 
 itself in him if he had circumscribed his genius by the 
 limits of the forum, and not allowed it to range through 
 all the domains of nature. His acquaintance with Aris- 
 totle's writings amounted to a considerable proficiency 
 in philosophy and science, while for the most of the 
 principles laid down in his rhetorical discussions he is 
 indebted to this great philosopher. He made no pre- 
 tensions to originality in philosophy; nevertheless he was 
 a candid and diligent inquirer after truth, and a firm 
 believer in the great cardinal doctrines of a divine 
 
114 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 providence and a future state, and was clear and de- 
 cided in his views of moral obligation, preferring right 
 to expediency, and giving vitality to virtue, clothing it 
 in the flesh and blood of a living example in his own 
 life. No one more than he has emphasized the value 
 of the ethical element in the character of an orator, 
 and no one, not even Socrates, has more frequently 
 drawn philosophy from above to walk among men, in 
 attractive garb. 
 
 Cicero's rhetorical compositions were the product of 
 theories and influences which preceded him, modified by 
 contemporary elements and his own strong sense of what 
 was good and right. What these influences were can be 
 inferred from a brief retrospect of the two and a quarter 
 centuries from Cato, the Elder, to Cicero. 
 
 The first period of Latin eloquence, represented by 
 Carbo and the Gracchi, was learned, majestic, and harmo- 
 nious in the style of its speech. The next and middle 
 age, in which flourished Antonius, Crassus, Cotta, Sulpic- 
 ius, and Hortensius, exhibited greater liveliness and 
 variety of manner. But in the following age the art was 
 exemplified and adorned by an assemblage of orators 
 which, in Quintilian's opinion, could not be overmatched 
 by Greece itself. Its most illustrious names, besides 
 Cicero, are Csesar, Curio, Brutus, Caelius, Calvus, and 
 Callidus. The oratory of Csesar, pure and forcible, was 
 surpassed only by his military achievements. If he had 
 devoted himself wholly to the forum, no other Roman 
 would have approached Cicero so nearly as he. Per- 
 spicuous, energetic, and full of fire, he is said. to have 
 spoken with the same spirit with which he fought. All 
 
RHETORICAL SCHOOLS. II5 
 
 these qualities he adorns with a remarkable elegance of 
 diction, of which he was particularly studious. 
 
 Caelius was a speaker of much ability and pleasant 
 wit, especially skilled in bringing an accusation before 
 the courts. Some ancient critics preferred Calvus to all 
 other orators, being forcible, correct, and spirited, 
 although he had diminished his natural energy by too 
 severe criticism of himself and by too closely imitating 
 the chastened style of the Attics, becoming cold, cau- 
 tious, accurate, and sententious. 
 
 Brutus was gravely philosophic as a rule, although 
 he sometimes indulged in a warmer and bolder vein; 
 Callidus, delicate and harmonious; Curio, bold and flow- 
 ing. Together they form an illustrious company, some- 
 what majestic and formal, like their own age, but better 
 than the degenerate brood which succeeded them. 
 Orators of the Republic they found opportunities for 
 effective appeals to the emotions of their hearers in the 
 nature of the government, while from Greek literature 
 and philosophy they were able to draw sentiments and 
 wise apothegms, which served to ornament their speech 
 and delight their hearers. Their exordiums were long, 
 their statements diffuse, divisions ample, digressions fre- 
 quent, their perorations gradual and sedate. Yet so 
 long as literature was the property of the few, and public 
 virtue synonymous with the name of the Republic, these 
 speaking men were the delight of the popular assembly, 
 and the pride of an uncorrupted nation. 
 
IX. 
 CICERO, THE ORATOR. 
 
 THE literary high-water mark was reached at Rome 
 during the first century before the Christian era, 
 and its prose representative was the orator Marcus Tul- 
 Lius Cicero. Born in io6 b. c, at Arpinum, he was 
 educated at Rome from his fourteenth year in grammar, 
 philosophy, and the technical rules of verse, although 
 the poet Archias, his teacher, could not give to the greater 
 orator his own poetic faculty. After he was sixteen 
 years of age Cicero frequented the forum and, by care- 
 fully exercising himself in composition, made the elo- 
 quence of the celebrated orators to whom he listened his 
 own. At twenty-five he argued his first cause. After- 
 ward he traveled in Greece and Asia, employing his 
 time in the cultivation of oratory. At thirty-nine he be- 
 gan to distinguish himself as a deliberative orator, his 
 speeches hitherto having been entirely of the judicial kind. 
 At forty-three, when he attained to the consulship, the 
 moral qualities of his character were the highest, and his 
 genius shone forth with the greatest splendor. It was 
 at this time that the famous oration against Catiline was 
 delivered, and the plot which had been dignified with 
 the title of war was broken up by the eloquence of one 
 who wore the peaceful toga. Other triumphs of his 
 oratorical power followed, until the year of his death, 
 
 ii6 
 
CICERO, THE ORATOR. II7 
 
 when he delivered the twelve Philippic orations — "that 
 torrent of indignant and eloquent invective." 
 
 When the oratory of Cicero becomes a subject of 
 analysis there are a few characteristics of it which stand 
 forth with special prominence. His methodical laying 
 out of his orations, according to the plan proposed in his 
 rhetorical works, relates merely to the form in which his 
 brilliant capacities show themselves; but it is also clear 
 that such abilities did not spura the so-called trammels 
 of rule and order, for the reason that such an order has 
 its origin and justification in the immutability of human 
 nature. Accordingly he was careful about his introduc- 
 tions containing the ethical proof; the body of the speech 
 with its statement of facts; the argument containing his 
 inferences from those facts; and finally the peroration, 
 addressing itself to the moral sense of the judges. And 
 it is no disparagement that he sometimes resorts to com- 
 monplaces to conciliate the favor of the audience, or 
 attempts to set the plane of their criticism as low as pos- 
 sible, rather than to allow them to expect too much of 
 him at the start, and thus be disappointed with his effort 
 at the close of it. 
 
 It is, however, in the part known as "the proof" that 
 his oratorical powers begin to have their full play. He 
 accounts for everything so naturally, makes trivial cir- 
 cumstance? tell so happily, and so adroitly converts ap- 
 parent objections into confirmations of his argument, 
 that it becomes impossible to question the truth of his 
 statement. Then he proceeds to heighten the effect of 
 his proof by amplification and exaggeration. He goes 
 round and round his subject ; surveys it in every light ; 
 
Il8 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 examines it in all its parts ; compares and contrasts it ; 
 illustrates, confirms, and enforces his views till the hearer 
 cannot doubt a conclusion which rests on such strict and 
 copious argumentation. Then he opens upon his op- 
 ponent with polite raillery, or if the subject is a grave 
 one, with the bitterness of irony or the vehemence of 
 invective. At other times his peroration contains more 
 heroic and elevated sentiments, perhaps a panegyric on 
 patriotism and love of glory or liberty. As he himself 
 says of all this variety of method, "Our model orator 
 will turn the same subject about in many ways ; dwell and 
 linger on the same thought ; frequently extenuate cir- 
 cumstances ; sometimes depart from his object and direct 
 his view another way ; propound what he means to speak; 
 define what he has effected ; repeat what he has said ; 
 conclude his address with an argument; leave and 
 neglect something occasionally ; guard his case before- 
 hand ; describe the language and characters of men ; in- 
 troduce inanimate objects speaking; divert attention 
 from the main point ; anticipate an objection ; employ 
 examples ; turn a matter into jest ; decline a little from 
 his object; speak with boldness and freedom, with indig- 
 nation and invective and execration, or implore and 
 entreat and heal an offence — ^in a word, put himself on 
 terms of familiarity with his audience." 
 
 Agreeably to his own precepts Cicero does all this 
 and more, adapting himself with felicity to every class of 
 subjects, familiar or lofty, philosophic or forensic. And 
 this he accomplishes more by his flexible style than by 
 his brilliancy, plausibility, or pathos. He brought himself 
 into harmony with the spirit and capacities of the Latin 
 
CICERO, THE ORATOR. IIQ 
 
 language, whose possibilities were far less than the Greek, 
 and required fulness in order to be perspicuous. As 
 Quintilian says, "Let him who demands from Latin 
 writers that peculiar charm of the Attic style grant me 
 the same sweetness of expression and equal copiousness 
 of language. If this is denied Latins, as it is, then we 
 must express ourselves in such words as we have, and not 
 introduce confusion by discussing subtle arguments in a 
 language which is too strong, if not too heavy. We can 
 not attain the elegance of the Greeks; let us then excel 
 them in vigor." This is the plan on which Cicero has 
 proceeded. The first age of Roman orators had culti- 
 vated stateliness, the second had attempted strength, but 
 Cicero made a language rather than a style, not by find- 
 ing new words so much as by the combination of old 
 and familiar ones. His great art lies, where it always 
 lies with the true artist, in the application of materials at 
 hand to the production of amazing results. It is his en- 
 richments and his prunings, his systematic construction 
 of sentences, his copiousness of diction, which constitute 
 him the greatest master of composition, as such, that the 
 world has ever seen. Other orators have excelled in 
 other departments of the art, but none in the wealth and 
 variety and adaptation of words to the purpose in view. 
 Without the force of Demosthenes he doubtless has the 
 other two of the qualities which an ancient critic ascribes 
 to him, " the copiousness of Plato and the sweetness of 
 Isocrates." Strength and simplicity cannot be claimed 
 for him, but copiousness, fulness, and soundness of 
 treatment no one will deny him. These are apparent 
 everywhere — numerous verbs, nouns, and adjectives. 
 
120 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 sometimes meaning nearly the same thing, but used in 
 order to make the roll and the swell, the fulness and the 
 rhythm, the balance and the cadence of the sentence. 
 The pleonastic "I implore and beseech," "stable and not 
 changed," "brave and the spirited," remind one of the 
 redundancy of the days when our own English was half- 
 Saxon and half-Norman, and the mixed congregation 
 was exhorted to "acknowledge and confess" its sins and 
 wickedness, and not to "dissemble nor cloak" them when 
 they " assemble and meet together," to ask those things 
 which are "requisite and necessary." But Cicero had no 
 such reason for the pleonastic use of words. There was 
 but one Latin speech among an unconquered and united 
 people. Being somewhat meagre, however, for philo- 
 sophical and oratorical purposes he determined to make 
 the most of the language and make it sonorous. He 
 loved such far-sounding words as would suggest the long 
 roll of the wave thundering on the shore. Ad ever- 
 tandam. rempublicam, occidendum Milonem. Qui spe am- 
 plissimorum premiorum. Metu crudelissimorum. 
 . . But while there is sound there is harmony and 
 rhythm everywhere. The Roman loved frequent recur- 
 rence of long syllables, the Greek more of the short. 
 Here are two illustrative examples from the English: 
 "Soon the laurels of yonder hero will have withered; 
 and all that active and successful talent which adorns this 
 age will disappear; and its honored possessors, con- 
 ducted in succession to their graves, will moulder amid 
 sepulchral ashes, forgotten or remembered only by the 
 monuments of glory they shall have during their transi- 
 tory life erected." Here is a different measure: "Though 
 
CICERO, THE ORATOR. 121 
 
 he who utters this should die, yet the immortal fire shall 
 outlast the humble organ who conveys it, and the breath of 
 liberty, like the word of the holy man, will not die with the 
 prophet, but survive him." The last word of one sylla- 
 ble would not have pleased the ear of Cicero. Three 
 short syllables and a long was his favorite ending, like 
 the famous esse videatur, or justa repetenda silentium 
 pollicentur. All this better comports with the Roman 
 character than with the English, and with Latin language 
 than ours. Such copiousness runs into verbosity, and 
 the sound is sometimes mightier than the sense, is too 
 artificial and too full of display. But within proper 
 limits the wealth of language, the brilliance, the beauty, 
 the harmony, the graphic sketching, the lucidity, and the 
 occasional pathos are Roman virtues of composition 
 which are worthy of all praise and occasional imitation. 
 The faults that have been attributed to Cicero are 
 / that this copiousness sometimes runs into wordiness; 
 that the sound sometimes exceeds the sense; that the 
 style is too artificial in the whole structure, with a too 
 bold display of the speaker's verbal power, sacrificing 
 the subject to his vanity. The excellencies have already 
 been enumerated — wealth and harmony of diction, solid 
 and sententious argument, illumined with the brilliance 
 of a poetic imagination, to which may be added the 
 rhythmical harmony of his periods and the frequent 
 splendor of his figures. There was argumentation for 
 the reason, philosophical sentiments for the intellect, 
 fervid and vehement declamation for the emotions, but 
 most of all he would captivate his hearers, flatter 
 their vanity, rouse their selfishness, stir their hopes and 
 
122 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 fears, and thus, by persuasion rather than by conviction, 
 carry his points. The effect of this may not be so gen- 
 eral or great as that of the Grecian school, but it is in all 
 cases very different. Perhaps we may best understan(f 
 the domain of both kinds by noticing those points in 
 which the two great exponents of each can be compared 
 and contrasted. 
 
 It must be granted that Demosthenes was the pattern 
 by which Cicero formed himself, whom he emulated with 
 such success as to merit what Jerome calls that beautiful 
 eulogium in Brutus, "Demosthenes has snatched from 
 thee the glory of being the first orator ; thou hast de- 
 prived him of the glory of being the only one." The 
 genius, the capacity, the style and manner of them both 
 were much the same ; their eloquence, of that great, sub- 
 lime, and comprehensive kind which dignified every sub- 
 ject and gave it all the force and beauty of which it was 
 capable. It was that "roundness of speaking," as the 
 ancients call it, where there was nothing redundant or 
 deficient, nothing to be added or retrenched. Their per- 
 fections are so transcendent and yet so similar that 
 critics are not agreed to whom to give the preference, 
 Quintilian, the judicious, giving it to Cicero, possibly 
 for patriotic reasons. 
 
 If Cicero had not all the energy of Demosthenes, he 
 excelled him in the elegance of his diction, the variety 
 of his sentiments, and the vivacity of his wit ; for, as Lon- 
 ginus says, whenever Demosthenes attempted pleasan- 
 tries he made himself ridiculous, and, if he succeeded in 
 raising a laugh, it was at his own expense ; whereas Cic- 
 ero, from a perpetual fund of wit and ridicule, had the 
 
CICERO, THE ORATOR. 1 23 
 
 power to please when he failed to convince, and could 
 often save his clients from impending ruin by a well 
 timed witticism. In common, again, with the great Greek 
 orator he had that sublime and sonorous speech which 
 not only instructs but also moves an audience, an elo- 
 quence born for the multitude, exciting admiration and 
 extorting applause, on which there was never any dif- 
 ference of judgment between the learned and the pop- 
 ulace. With this consent of free Rome in its best 
 age agrees the concurrent sense of nations since, which 
 has neglected the productions of his rivals and contem- 
 poraries, and preserved his works as perfect specimens of 
 oratory, according him the praise of an ancient, that 
 " Cicero is not so much the name of a man, as of elo- 
 quence itself." 
 
 Cicero and Demosthenes resembled each other, first of 
 all, in the pains they both took to acquire the best ora- 
 torical gifts. They both sought the best masters, cor- 
 rected every fault they could, and brought out every 
 practicable excellence. They perfected, according to 
 their respective notions, their style and manner ; were 
 alike in vehemence and profusion of action, in the care- 
 fulness of preparation, in skilful repetition, presenting 
 again and again strong points, facts and arguments in 
 different ways and connections. If there is any differ- 
 ence in the method of their seeking success in their 
 chosen profession, it is in the singleness of Demosthenes' 
 aim, applying all the faculties he had to make himself a 
 master of his art without turning aside to a broader cul- 
 ture; while Cicero was widely educated and accom- 
 plished in other branches of learning, particularly in 
 
124 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 philosophy. This he does not hesitate to show, by the 
 way, in a manner which the modesty of Demosthenes 
 would hardly have allowed him to exhibit, who never 
 spoke his own praises except when there was a necessity 
 for it, and then in a reserved manner. Whereas Cicero's 
 good opinion of himself was only equaled by the readi- 
 ness with which he made it public. He never hesitated 
 to proclaim the superiority of the pen over the sword, 
 or of the tongue, either, for that matter, and his own 
 eloquence was a favorite theme with him ; while Demos- 
 thenes was accustomed to account his talent nothing 
 more than a matter of practice, depending largely upon 
 the good will and candor of his hearers. 
 
 The tone which prevailed throughout much of their 
 work also differed in each. Cicero was by nature dis- 
 posed to mirth and pleasantry, and was always smiling 
 and serene. Sometimes this geniality ran him into long 
 series of jokes, and even into indecency and scurrility, 
 when he wished to dispose of the arguments of an op- 
 ponent that were otherwise difificult to overthrow. It 
 may be said, however, that he has never ceased to have 
 imitators in this respect, perhaps more than in his more 
 admirable qualities as a forensic orator. Demosthenes, 
 on the contrary, in his oratory was without jest or embel- 
 lishment, was serious and always in earnest, was tempe- 
 rate, thoughtful, and sincere ; so much so, indeed, that 
 his enemies called him morose and ill-mannered. 
 
 In the construction of their respective compositions 
 Cicero has the advantage of Demosthenes in clear, 
 methodical arrangement. He can be followed with ease 
 from point to point, in a logical order. This is accounted 
 
CICERO, THE ORATOR. 1 25 
 
 for by the fact that Cicero lived at a time when rhetoric 
 had come to be a science, deduced from the practice of 
 many illustrious orators, a science which Demosthenes' 
 untrammeled and unsurpassed talent had done much to 
 create by masterly achievement. Accordingly there is 
 more of nature in the Greek orator, and more of art in 
 the Roman. This also was determined by the motive of 
 each. Demosthenes had a single object and a rigid 
 purpose; he spoke in a severe, intense state of mind, 
 meaning to accomplish something and make men act. 
 He aimed to convince the hearer and sweep him along 
 in his own direction to the same goal for which he him- 
 self was making. Cicero, on the other hand, was some- 
 times less in earnest, more easy and sportive; pleasing, 
 charming, and winning admiration. Consequently he 
 makes the orator and his oratory prominent, never for- 
 getting the importance of the speaker, while Demosthe- 
 nes so links and identifies himself with the cause that he 
 is lost in it. Therefore while the audience and the 
 reader have unbounded admiration for the great Roman, 
 the Greek gets his own better praise when his auditors, 
 at the end of one of his Philippics, rise up and cry out, 
 "Let us march against Philip!" 
 
 In the matter of style there is just as marked a differ- 
 ence. The Grecian is frugal in the use of figures and 
 ornaments, rarely going abroad for them or using them 
 for their own sake. The Roman sought after them and 
 invented figures for their effect, and accumulated epi- 
 thets from the love and relish of adornment. Therefore 
 he was flowing and redundant, or at times verbose in 
 his speech, where Demosthenes was concise, strong, and 
 
126 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 practical, dealing more with the idea, the substance, and 
 the argument. There was much display of flash and 
 fire, and beautiful clouds of smoke when Cicero was 
 speaking, but when Demosthenes had the bema, heavy- 
 bolts were striking and entire throngs were swept down 
 by the chain-shot of his close-linked speech. 
 
 There is an element in the oratory of Greece which 
 Cicero discerned and cultivated until he was equal to 
 the best of Greeks in his mastery of it; that is, a certain 
 rapidity of movement, which, by the way, is never to be 
 confounded with hurry and haste. It is rather a con- 
 tinuous movement right on toward the desired end and 
 object of discourse, and when the Latin orator could 
 refrain from lingering over and amplifying his figures or 
 thoughts, rolling them as a sweet morsel under his tongue, 
 he becomes strongly effective in his direct progress and 
 rapid advance. Here is an example: " He has obtruded 
 himself into the most hallowed rites of religion; he has 
 broken the most solemn decrees of the senate; he has 
 bribed the judges, driven me from my country, plundered 
 my goods, burned my house, declared an atrocious war 
 against Pompey, laid waste Etruria, has urged on his ne- 
 farious course till the city, Italy, provinces, kingdoms, 
 could not hold his madness.'' In this sketching, ampli- 
 fying, but condensing movement, Cicero abounds. He is 
 best paralleled in recent times by Dr. Chalmers. 
 
 If it be debated as to which is to be preferred, the con- 
 ciseness of the Greek or the copiousness of the Latin 
 orator, the decision of modern taste would be for a 
 mingling of the two. The extreme of either is faulty, 
 as all extremes are. Copiousness, indeed, has always 
 
CICERO, THE ORATOR. 12/ 
 
 been condemned. It tires and leaves nothing for the 
 reader or hearer to supply; an activity in which every 
 attentive and thoughtful listener likes to indulge. On 
 the other hand conciseness in eloquence has been 
 praised so much and in such a way as to convey and 
 give prevalence to the idea that the greater the concise- 
 ness the greater the power. There was a school holding 
 this doctrine at Rome in the time of Cicero, imitators 
 of the Attic method, whose disciples greatly censured 
 the Roman orator for his verboseness. They affected a 
 minute and fastidious correctness — pointed sentences, 
 short and concise periods, without a syllable to spare in 
 them; as if perfection in oratory consisted in frugality in 
 words, and in crowding sentiments into the narrowest 
 possible compass. O'Connell, the Irish orator, has been 
 considered by some to be the modern representative of 
 this style, but not to the extent that has been imagined 
 does he fling his thoughts unclad upon the audience. 
 There is also something of a mistake in supposing that 
 Demosthenes always favors extreme conciseness. He 
 illustrates its beauty and power where it is needful, but his 
 practice does not commend an employment of it which 
 would be fatal, unless all auditors were equally and 
 highly endowed with the gift of ready apprehension. 
 Copiousness is needful to the laggard understanding 
 which is found in every assembly. Also the diversity of 
 importance in different topics in the same discourse calls 
 for a difference in the fulness with which they are treated. 
 This Demosthenes knew as well as the Roman orators, 
 and also knew better than they when to be copious and 
 when concise. He might have said, " While the states- 
 
128 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 men of Greece were all corrupted by Philip, nothing 
 ever prevailed on me to betray, in the least, the interests 
 of my country." This expresses the idea fully, clearly, 
 and in the fewest words. But he is not satisfied with 
 such conciseness. Instead he employs copiousness to 
 give emphasis to the sentiment, as follows: "While the 
 statesmen of Greece were all corrupted by Philip, neither 
 opportunity, nor fair speeches, nor lavish promises, nor 
 hopes, nor fears, nor favor, nor any other earthly con- 
 sideration, ever prevailed over me, driving me to betray, 
 in any one particular, what I deemed the right and in- 
 terests of my country." This is copiousness worthy of 
 Cicero, reminding us of that passage of St. Paul's, "For 
 I am persuaded that neither life nor death, nor things 
 present nor things to come," etc. Verbosity is another 
 thing, unmeaning, heavy, wordy, and cold. Strong feel- 
 ing may demand copiousness, but never verbosity. When 
 we wish to prolong attention we enumerate slowly and 
 fully, and in the order of climax, dwelling upon one thing 
 after another in a cumulative way. But if we wish to 
 force such a sentiment upon another, it is done concisely 
 after such a preparation of the feeling has been made. 
 Therefore among his full and flowing sentences the 
 Greek orator intersperses bright and sharp ones, as sun- 
 dry great English orators have done, catching his spirit. 
 
 While, then, copiousness and conciseness both have 
 their place and value, it is to be remembered that only 
 as they relieve and supplement each other are they 
 greatly valuable. Either, used exclusively or generally, 
 produces a monotony which is tiresome. 
 
 Recurring to the style of Cicero it must not be con- 
 
CICERO, THE ORATOR. I2g 
 
 eluded that it is not good and useful in its time and 
 place. As it pleased the great body of the Romans by- 
 its stately splendor, so it must be borne in mind that 
 there is a Roman taste always largely prevalent, more 
 largely perhaps than the severe Greek. The great par- 
 liamentary orators of the last century in Great Britain 
 caught its spirit, and our own orators of the last generation 
 followed in their steps. When the object is to soothe or 
 please or attract or persuade, its fulness and melody are 
 demanded. When instant and vehement action is de- 
 sired, the sharp conciseness of the Greek, when he was 
 urgingan immediate deed, isequally requisite. Such is the 
 speech for war. But in peace when the virtues of citi- 
 zenship under the laws, and of learning and of morality 
 and of religion are to be commended and cultivated, the 
 leisurely style of the Roman orator, with its agreeable 
 suggestion, its sound reasoning, its brilliant fancy, its mel- 
 lifluous roll and cadence, its long and flowing periods, is 
 the style which best presents peaceful truth to self-satis- 
 fied hearers. 
 
 No account of Cicero's eloquence can be complete 
 without some mention of the ethical element which was 
 one great factor in its power. According to his own 
 theory, as well as that of his best predecessors, "the per- 
 fect orator is the perfect man;" and, according to his 
 knowledge and in view of the times in which he lived, 
 Cicero came as near his own ideal as the infirmities of a 
 somewhat defective nature would permit. It was a 
 character of mingled weakness and strength, tried by 
 prosperity and adversity and praised and maligned by 
 turns according to the bias of contemporaries or the 
 
130 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 whim of subsequent critics. His last biographer, striking 
 a balance between the judgments of half a dozen others, 
 says that he would have been more consistent if he had 
 been less scrupulous. The moral instinct was too strong 
 to allow him to resort to means of which his conscience 
 disapproved. His standard of morality was as high as it 
 was possible to elevate it by the mere light of nature. 
 To fall below that standard made him feel dissatisfied 
 with himself and ashamed. His constant aim was to do 
 right, and his mistakes were those of his judgment rather 
 than of his heart. The desire to please and be all things 
 to all men was his misfortune, leading him to praise men 
 whose characters he abhorred. His weakness showed 
 itself again in his vanity, a harmless failing which did 
 others less injury than it did Cicero good. One of the 
 most forgiving of men he loved to say that his -enmities 
 were mortal, his friendships eternal. Feeling warmly he 
 expressed himself strongly, and for this reason must have 
 carried with his words the appearance of truth and sin- 
 cerity, the first requisite in an orator, without which the 
 graces of rhetoric may please, but are no better than 
 curling smoke for effective conviction. 
 
 Quintilian gives, after all, as good a summary of his 
 virtues as any when he says, "Though I acknowledge 
 that Cicero stood at the head of eloquence. . . . yet 
 since he did not lay claim to the praise of perfection for 
 himself — though he had no mean opinion of his own 
 merits — I may not unreasonably believe that the summit 
 of excellence was not attained by him. Notwithstand- 
 ing no man has made nearer approaches to it." And he 
 ends a whole chapter on the proposition that a great 
 
CICERO, THE ORATOR. I3I 
 
 Orator must be a good man by saying, " I only wish to 
 show that the definition of an orator, given by Cato, the 
 Censor, 'a good man skilled in speaking,' is a true defi- 
 nition." 
 
X. 
 
 CICERO'S SUCCESSORS, AND QUINTILIAN. 
 
 THE age following Cicero's was marked by a long 
 list of writers inferior in vigor and boldness to 
 their predecessors, but surpassing them all, except Cic- 
 ero, in finish and artistic skill. It was an age which 
 dwelt upon words, when the impulse to great thoughts 
 was removed. Augustus received an adulation which 
 amounted to worship, accompanied by a willingness to 
 surrender all political power into his hands. As a con- 
 sequence the privileges and rights of the people were 
 gradually abridged, and the loss was made up to them 
 by abundance of food and amusement. As a further 
 consequence literature became enervated, having, indeed, 
 broad sympathies and great beauty of expression, which 
 ran naturally into poetry and poetic prose. It was an 
 age of poets and prose writers of an imaginative turn — 
 historians, philosophers, and moralists, who flattered Au- 
 gustus and were in turn patronized by him. 
 
 Roman oratory sunk with liberty, and instead of 
 the recent copious and flowing eloquence there succeeded 
 a dry, guarded, sententious kind, full of labored terms 
 and studied points, panegyrics, and servile compliments 
 to tyrants. 
 
 This extreme refinement was not without an attempt 
 at reaction, as is seen in the tendency toward absence of 
 
 132 
 
CICERO S SUCCESSORS, AND QUINTILIAN. 1 33 
 
 literary finish on the part of a few ; but it was only a 
 variation of affectation, forming a pleasant relief to the 
 high-wrought refinement which generally prevailed. It 
 was simply a protest against the surfeit of good things. 
 Another tendency, at the other extreme, was an overdo- 
 ing of elaborate writing, and a substitution of rich dic- 
 tion for an ornamentation which was classic already, a 
 gilding of gold, an overlaying of Greek simplicity with 
 Asian magnificence, painting the perfect statue. Such 
 was the character of literature in general, faring far bet- 
 ter than the particular branch of it under consideration. 
 For the very conditions which gave poetry and related 
 prose a hot-house luxuriance withered and weakened ora- 
 tory, which flourishes only in the bracing atmosphere of 
 liberty. 
 
 In the curtailment of popular rights by the emperor, 
 and a too willing hastening of them away by an amused 
 populace the freedom of debate upon matters of public 
 concern first fell into neglect. For of what use was it to 
 discuss questions of state in the forum, when a council 
 in secret session was deciding them beyond the power of 
 the people to alter or modify its decrees? Nothing 
 was left to eloquence except abstract discussions upon 
 which it was next to impossible to employ itself. Mean- 
 time growing servility to the established despotism made 
 it perilous to utter plain truths, as a few found whose 
 traditions of the Republic compelled them to cry out 
 against the growth of tyranny and luxury. Oratory, 
 therefore, in these unfavoring circumstances, narrowed 
 its sphere to those themes which were safe to discuss, and 
 found its chief occupation in the forensic strife of the 
 
134 TME HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 courts. In fact it was remanded to the position it occu- 
 pied in its early days in Sicily, but without possessing 
 the nobler attitude of a growing liberty under a waning 
 or departed despotism. Instead freedom was on the 
 wane, and tyranny was waxing stronger every day. 
 Much of the oratory of the Augustan age had not even 
 the motive of a civil suit at law to inspire it. The larger 
 part of it was mere declamation in the schools of the 
 rhetoricians, who continued to keep up its form without 
 its power, an empty echo of the voices which were once 
 lifted up in the cause of freedom in two nations. Pollio, 
 a man who might have deserved a place among the 
 illustrious ten, was restricted to noisy declamation of 
 what were called " suasorial " pieces, among which was 
 the probable speech of Leonidas to his three hun- 
 dred at Thermopylae, imagined and written out to be 
 spoken by the members of his school. Thus oratory 
 lived on in a sort of retrospective life, reproducing the 
 traditions of the ancients, growing more and more for- 
 mal and scholastic, growing less and less real and objec- 
 tive, having no particular object to secure. It became 
 a mere art without motive or purpose and therefore, 
 artificial and empty, until at Tiberius' accession in the 
 year fourteen of our era it had well-nigh ceased to ex- 
 ist, or was confined to declamation of celebrated pas- 
 sages out of the old orators. 
 
 Now and then, in this general dearth of eloquence, a 
 man like Celsus would appear and carry his hearers 
 away by a native power and dignity, in spite of faults and 
 carelessness of speech. And sometimes personal indig- 
 nation would boil over against the tyrant; but such men 
 
Cicero's successors, and QtiMTiLiAN. 135 
 
 were likely to be regarded as semi-lunatics or self-devot- 
 ing martyrs in a hopeless revolt against the established 
 despotism, which in turn paid no attention to their 
 stormy diatribes, or found a way to silence them most 
 effectually. In this phase of oratory there was much 
 that resembled a later development of it in France — full 
 of vehemence and gesticulation, yet preserving the 
 proper modulations of the voice without violating sym- 
 metry and decorum. The art of the rhetorical schools 
 would regulate all that, even if it added a tinsel orna- 
 mentation belonging to an unreal age, which even so 
 great a man as Seneca might have done something to 
 recommend by his own manner of life and writing. For 
 although there is much in this man of comprehensive 
 mind and wide attainments, he was apt to dwell upon 
 the petty and minute rather than to confine himself to 
 the grander phases of thought. 
 
 It was not until Nerva's reign, a. d. 96-98, that any- 
 thing resembling liberty of speech was restored. This 
 emperor's policy of toleration seems to have extended to 
 orators as well as to the political exiles of his predecessor's 
 term of office. But eloquence could not recover its 
 former high estate at a bound in the days when kings 
 were made by armies and unmade by assassins. Still it 
 had its place among the liberal pursuits and remained 
 the highest career that an ambitious man could adopt. 
 Even under tyrants it had served as the keenest weapon 
 of attack and the surest means of defence, and now it 
 promised to have a temporary revival. 
 
 Pliny the Younger, a. d. 62-116, may be taken as 
 the best representative of this time of renewal, being far 
 
136 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 ahead of his contemporaries in accusation and defence, 
 as well as a most telling advocate before the tribunals 
 and the boldest orator in the revived debates in the sen- 
 ate. He was specially distinguished as the defender of 
 persons who had been pillaged by rapacious governors. 
 Only one specimen of his oratorical talent remains, 
 the panegyric addressed to the emperor Trajan, which is 
 replete with point and elegance, and no fuller of flattery 
 than was essential to the governor of a province. He 
 was also a champion of the ancient school of eloquence, 
 as Tacitus was of the modern; two factions into which 
 Roman oratory had split in the days of its decline. 
 
 Tacitus is commonly thought of as a historian, but 
 according to the custom of his time an educated man 
 must have studied many things which were then included 
 under the name of rhetoric, as this writer had under 
 Aper Secundus and .perhaps Quintilian. Afterward he 
 argued with such success in the courts that Pliny himself 
 mentions it as his highest ambition to be ranked next to 
 Tacitus. He says that there was a "peculiar solemnity in 
 his language, which gave the greatest weight to all he 
 uttered. His style is free and flowing, full of imitations 
 of Cicero. After wavering long between the ancient and 
 the modern styles he adopted the latter, which he has 
 exalted by making it concentrated, powerful, and dra- 
 matic, the fit vehicle for portraying the sombre annals of 
 a declining empire. The rhetorician has not become 
 extinct in the historian, and his history becomes almost 
 oratory." Says a French critic, " The historian rises to 
 the sublimity of a judge. He summons the guilty to his 
 tribunal, and in the name of the future and of posterity 
 
CICERO S SUCCESSORS, AND QUINTILIAN. 1 37 
 
 pronounces an implacable and irreversible verdict. An- 
 ger and pity in turn never cease to move him, and give 
 to his style an expressiveness and a rich glow of senti- 
 ment of which antiquity affords no other example." 
 
 The Romans now showed all the signs of a decaying 
 people, losing interest in everything, even in amuse- 
 ments; and in literature, substituting minute learning 
 for original thought. Writing grammars and commen- 
 taries on the poets was the chief occupation of men of 
 letters, while professional rhetoricians confined their 
 efforts to declaiming in Greek. 
 
 The downward tendencies of the age culminated in 
 Fronto, 90-168, who was learned enough to be chosen by 
 Antoninus Pius to educate Marcus Aurelius. A pedant 
 of corrupt taste and clumsy affectation he could pane- 
 gyrize an emperor or compose a rhetorical exercise on 
 the "Praise of Dust and Smoke," with equal facility. 
 Other rhetoricians, like Antonius, Julianus, ApoUinaris, 
 and Arruntius Celsus, devoted their talents to disputa- 
 tions on trivial subjects, such as afterward were dis- 
 cussed with grave formality in the scholastic debates of 
 the middle ages. 
 
 One writer upon rhetoric there was who so far sur- 
 passed all the rest from Cicero to Fronto that the con- 
 sideration of his work has been reserved until the others 
 were disposed of, the last of whom he antedates by some 
 fifty years. This was Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, 
 who taught at Rome, a. d. 90-110. 
 
 After an age of great literary activity generally comes 
 one of reflection upon its products and a classification of 
 them, in the form of a science, by some analytic and 
 
138 THE History of oratory. 
 
 inductive mind. Such a one was Aristotle, reducing the 
 practical rhetoric of the Attic orators to a science, fol- 
 lowed by others, of whom Cicero was chief. Another 
 writer on oratory now appears to perform a similar ofi&ce 
 for the Latins, after the age of Cicero and his contem- 
 poraries. He was a native of Spain, the son of a rhet- 
 orician who had removed to Rome. For twenty years 
 after the accession of Galba he was at the head of the 
 foremost school of oratory in the imperial city. He was 
 not without some experience of his own in the courts of 
 law, having gained some repute as an advocate, espe- 
 cially in the defence of the queen, Berenice, on some 
 charge which is not reported. Vespasian placed him in 
 a chair of rhetoric endowed with public funds, and from 
 that time he was somewhat grandiloquently called the 
 "supreme controller of restless youth." In this capac- 
 ity he continued until he retired in order to compose his 
 great work on the training of an orator. Ten years 
 later he was intrusted by the emperor Domitian with 
 the education of the two grand-nephews who he in- 
 tended should succeed him. 
 
 Quintilian's relation to the literature and culture of 
 his time is powerful and intimate, and illustrates the 
 change which had come over Roman taste, feeling, and 
 society. In the days of Cicero the Greeks had kept the 
 monopoly of rhetorical teaching. The great orator 
 himself half apologizes for writing rhetorical works, say- 
 ing that it could not be disgraceful to teach what it was 
 not disgraceful to learn. The Greek language, too, still 
 remained the vehicle of instruction, and contained the 
 masterpieces of oratory in the original form. The first 
 
CICERO S SUCCESSORS, AND QUINTILIAN. 1 39 
 
 attempt to open a Latin rhetorical school was crushed by 
 authority, and no teacher of rhetoric had been born to the 
 full rights of a Roman citizen till Augustus' time. Quin- 
 tilian's appointment, therefore, marks the last stage in the 
 emancipation of rhetorical teaching from the old Roman 
 prejudices. 
 
 Education had spread enormously in the hundred 
 years between Cicero and Quintilian, and its climax and 
 end was in rhetoric. All other studies were tributary to 
 skill in speaking, which in turn was the paramount quali- 
 fication for a public career. Rome and the provinces 
 resounded with declamations and exercises which were 
 promoted by professorships of Greek, first, and then of 
 Latin rhetoric, endowed with public money. Mock con- 
 tests of oratory excited great interest among the people. 
 The provinces, as usual, outdid the capital in the energy 
 with which the pursuit was carried on, and bore richer 
 fruit in the West than in the worn-out East. Especially 
 from Spain came teachers who dominated literature at 
 Rome, and the voluble Gaul was not altogether silent in 
 the second century. 
 
 Quintilian, as an orator, teacher, and author, set him- 
 self to stem the tendency of his age to decry the Cice- 
 ronian style. Political reasons had made it unsafe to 
 admire the great orator after his death, and it was not 
 until the age of Seneca the Elder that many dared to 
 esteem him highly. Quintilian makes Cicero his great 
 model, who was to him almost without the possibility of 
 a fault. He is at war incessantly with the fashion of his 
 day, which was to rank the great Roman with rude an- 
 tiquity, to poetize prose, and to practice a thousand 
 
140 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 tricks to produce startling effects upon judges, juries, and 
 audiences. The Institutes of Oratory are a long protest 
 against the tastes of his age. He takes the child from 
 the cradle, and omits no detail of training from in- 
 fancy upward through boyhood and youth. He demands 
 for him the widest culture, that he may extract some- 
 thing from every kind of knowledge, and insists upon 
 method while pleading for nature and reality. 
 
 He also develops the technicalities of rhetoric with 
 unequaled fulness, and illustrates his subject in so apt 
 and dignified a way that the reader is carried along with 
 less fatigue than in the rhetorical writings of Aristotle 
 and Cicero. He is the Roman gentleman of culture, of 
 wide sympathies, and generous disposition and fair judg- 
 ment, justifying the opinion that ancient literary criti- 
 cism reached its highest point in Quintilian. Modest, 
 winning, and attractive in demeanor, he was full of 
 pathos and 6thos, always maintaining that ethical educa- 
 tion should be a part of the instruction which a rhe- 
 torician was set to impart. He was courtly and a bit of a 
 flatterer to royalty, withal, as he was obliged to be if he 
 wished to preserve that part of himself which is most use- 
 ful in literary work; but courtiers in England two genera- 
 tions ago showed their wisdom in a similar manner. 
 
 In the discussion of oratory he follows Aristotle, with 
 changes to suit the different requirements of a later age 
 and another people. There are constant references to 
 the practice of celebrated masters of the art, with exam- 
 ples introduced from the poets and historians. He in- 
 sists upon a wide reading in order to acquire facility of 
 speech, and gives an entire book to the cultivation of 
 
CICERO S SUCCESSORS, AND QUINTILIAN. I4I 
 
 the memory, an important factor in the oratory of the 
 ancients, before the use of aids in the shape of notes and 
 manuscript were introduced. Delivery was another im- 
 portant feature of Roman oratory, receiving the most 
 minute and extreme care as to the smallest details of 
 action in order to produce desired effects. Gesture was 
 freely used and the voice trained to the fullest compass. 
 The moral qualities were also insisted on as the basis of 
 all worthy eloquence, the good orator, in his view, being 
 possible only as the good man. This is one cause of his 
 admiration for Cicero, of whom he says, " I will boldly 
 pitch him against any of the champions of the Greeks." 
 His integrity, honor, and uprightness are insisted upon 
 in the twelfth book of the Institutes. 
 
 He says further, "If Julius Caesar had only found 
 leisure for the forum he would be the one we should select 
 as the rival of Cicero. He has such force, point, and 
 vehemence of style, that it is clear he spoke with the 
 same mind that he warred. Yet all is covered with a 
 wondrous elegance of expression, of which he was pe- 
 culiarly studious. There was much talent in Caecilius, 
 and I have found those who prefer Calvus to any orator, 
 but Cicero's style is weighty, noble, guarded, and often 
 vehement. Servius Sulpicius has earned considerable 
 fame, and Cassius Severus affords many points for imita- 
 tion, and of my own contemporaries Domitius Afer and 
 Julius Africanus are by far the greatest, the former in art 
 and general style, the latter in earnestness and the sort- 
 ing of words. Trachalus is often sublime, but better to 
 hear than to read. Vibius Crispus was neat, elegant, and 
 pleasing, and Julius Secundus, if he had lived longer, 
 
142 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 would have had a first-class renown for his open, gentle, 
 and specious style, his perfect selection of words, his 
 vigorous application of analogies extemporaneously sug- 
 gested. My successors in rhetorical criticism will have a 
 rich field for praising those who are now living; for 
 there are now great talents at the bar, worthy rivals of 
 the ancients." 
 
 Thus did Quintilian run on in his criticism of the 
 orators of his time. He was always genial and gener- 
 ous and discriminating. Even of Seneca, whom he had 
 been charged with condemning, he says that he " only 
 desired to prevent his being placed above better men, 
 for his style was corrupt, and pleased through its pleasant 
 faults. If he had not broken the weight of his subject 
 by his short, cut-up sentences, and had used his own tal- 
 ent, modified and corrected by another's judgment, he 
 would be approved by the consent of the learned, rather 
 than by the enthusiasm of boys. Yet there is much that 
 is good in him, much to admire ; only it requires pick- 
 ing out, a thing he himself ought to have done. One 
 who could always achieve his object ought to have 
 striven after the best things." 
 
 This may be taken as a fair example of his generous 
 criticism and as a striking contrast to much that is cur- 
 rent in our own time. How much polemic and contro- 
 versial doctrinaires have had to do with keeping up a 
 pagan spirit, worse by far than that of Cicero or Quin- 
 tilian, is a question that need not now be discussed. 
 
 One or two points in the work of this writer are worth 
 retaining before he is dismissed. He was a ripe writer 
 before he challenged the judgment of the world. His 
 
Cicero's successors, and quintilian. 143 
 
 time had been so fully occupied with lecturing as to 
 allow no time for publishing anything until the closing 
 years of his career. His knowledge of the subject, there- 
 fore, has that fulness which comes from long acquaint- 
 ance with it and love of it. He knew by practical 
 experience that of which he wrote, as well as by famil- 
 iarity with what others had written. Even then he was 
 modest enough to express a strong unwillingness to 
 write, fearing to come forward as an author so late. in 
 life, or judging the ground occupied already. But his 
 treatise is the best proof that his fears were groundless. 
 No sooner was it produced than it assumed at once the 
 high position that has been accorded to it ever since. 
 His treatment of the subject of oratory is thorough, ex- 
 haustive, attractive. 
 
 Beginning with such details as the learning of the 
 alphabet, and writing and reading and pronunciation, and 
 committing to memory, he passes on to the advantages 
 of public schools, touching upon grammar and words, 
 the necessity of correctness in speaking and writing and 
 pronouncing, upon solecisms and foreign words, author- 
 ity and custom as regulators of speech, upon historical 
 reading, and reading in general. Then follow studies 
 preliminary to rhetoric, the utility of music to the orator, 
 and of geometry and astronomy. The value of the 
 actor's instruction is estimated in matters of look and 
 gesture and pronunciation, and also the necessity of ex- 
 ercise with reference to bodily presence, and the laws of 
 gesture and a manly presence learned in the camp or 
 palaestra rather than upon the boards of a theatre. So 
 much for the beginning of the orator's training in boy- 
 
144 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 hood. In the second book he emphasizes the importance 
 of the best teachers at the start, "because they can teach 
 Httle things best." Under the head of elementary exer- 
 cises he mentions the narrative or simple statement of 
 facts, asserting that exuberance is better than poverty of 
 imagination; that the pupils should have but little assist- 
 ance; and that they should declaim passages from emi- 
 nent writers rather than their own compositions. 
 
 Passing on then to rhetoric and oratory, which he de- 
 fines as the art of speaking well, he discourses of nature 
 and art, and gives the opinions of the ancients about 
 rhetoric; also of the sorts of oratory, laudatory, judicial, 
 and deliberative; of proofs and evidence and argumenta- 
 tion; of arrangement, exordium, and peroration; of style 
 and ornament; of figures of thought and speech; of 
 speaking with propriety; of memory and delivery; and 
 finally of the moral qualities of an orator. 
 
 This outline has been given to show how com- 
 plete were the views taken by this master of the art, 
 and how large a place it occupied in the teaching of 
 youth at the beginning of our era. In its comprehen- 
 sive scope were included all the arts and sciences in one 
 way or another, and even much that we now call diver- 
 sion or play. It was the education and training of the 
 whole man for the highest exercise of his mind and 
 body; and this, if gauged by the fatigue which such 
 activity brings, may still be regarded as the most vio- 
 lent exercise; or, if estimated by the effect upon men 
 and the community and society, it is still the highest 
 labor that the highest order of men can perform. To do 
 this, and to do it well, involved a particularity of treat- 
 
CICERO S SUCCESSORS, AND QUINTILIAN. 1 45 
 
 ment which was exhibited at its fullest twice in the 
 ancient world; first by the Greek Aristotle, and sec- 
 ond by the Latin Quintilian, each in his own way and 
 according to the spirit of his time, but by both together 
 with such fulness and exactness that little has been 
 added since. The modern need is of treatises adapted 
 to the changed conditions of modern life, its haste and 
 impatience and practicality, without loss of the vital 
 principles which underlie the minute and comprehen- 
 sive work of the ancients. 
 
 The relation, then, which Quintilian bore to the ora- 
 tors was that of a judicious weigher of their worth; and 
 to his own time he was a corrector of the false taste 
 which had arisen after the death of Cicero, who had him- 
 self done so much to create a true one. Sound judg- 
 ment and fairness, generally, were Quintilian's chief 
 qualifications. Although he had a word of appreciation 
 for diligent mediocrity his purpose was always to direct 
 attention to the best efforts. Knowing what eloquence 
 is he assisted the student to attain it by rules and max- 
 ims founded upon the experience of the best. And the 
 judgment of posterity has coincided with his as to the 
 value of different oratorical performances, as well as in 
 the matter of an orator's training. The difficulty in 
 these hurried days, when other callings conflict, is to 
 make it the thorough business of a man's life, which the 
 circumstances and conditions of antiquity allowed and 
 public sentiment demanded. 
 
XI. 
 
 PATRISTIC ORATORY— GREEK. 
 
 IN THE second century of our era there was a revi- 
 val of Greek literature in the Roman Empire. 
 Dio Chrysostom, Lucian, Arrian, and Marcus Aurelius 
 brought to life again something of Attic wit, thought, 
 and eloquence. The Greeks, in fact, had never quite 
 discontinued the teaching and practice of the oratorical 
 art. When it did not flourish at home they carried it 
 into other provinces, and under the worst emperors they 
 found something to do in keeping up its form, regard- 
 less of its power. 
 
 Side by side with these artificialities there was, here 
 and there, a genuine attempt to proclaim simple truths 
 of morality and natural religion under the guise of a less 
 exclusive philosophy than had hitherto prevailed. As it 
 spread, however, it began to be shallow and to teach 
 trifles with rhetorical ardor. Meantime the world, in 
 darkness, clamored for light and guidance. Importa- 
 tions of wisdom from every land, resulting in a theoso- 
 phy in which "one supreme being could be envisaged 
 by the soul for a moment like a flash of lightning," did 
 not satisfy better than the indiscriminate worship that 
 the emperor had brought together. The time had come 
 for a new philosophy, a better religion, and, as a conse- 
 quence, a new literature and a new proclamation of truth 
 
 146 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY GREEK. 1 47 
 
 and law. This meant a new oratory to enlighten and 
 elevate every order and every class. 
 
 First a new faith came, and while the Teacher of it 
 was growing up in Galilee, Horace and Ovid and Livy 
 died, and also their royal patron, the great Augustus. It 
 was the death of Roman creative literature. While 
 Quintilian, the rhetorician, was gathering up its remains 
 at Rome an apostle of the new religion was explaining 
 it to those who were curious to hear what a parolled 
 prisoner from a tributary province could say of its doc- 
 trines. He met in Athens about this time a mobile crowd, 
 full of the traditions of an eloquent past and of pres- 
 ent Epicureanism, who were as eager to hear what "this 
 babbler" would say as their ancestors had been to listen 
 to the Leontine Gorgias, five centuries earlier. The 
 speaker's name was Paulus, from that Tarsus in Cilicia 
 where Cicero had been governor less than a hundred 
 years before, a place, according to Strabo, more illus- 
 trious than Athens or Alexandria in all that relates to 
 philosophy and general education, a Greek city where 
 that language was used and its literature studiously cul- 
 tivated, and its authors publicly read and taught by Hel- 
 lenic teachers in the schools. It is fitting, therefore, to 
 take this converted Hebrew and Roman citizen of Greek 
 culture from the neighborhood where eastern, western, 
 and southern civilizations meet, and let him hand on the 
 religion of the East and the culture of the South to the 
 all-conquering West. He shall be the orator of the 
 transition from the Orient to the Occident; from 
 Judaism to Christianity ; from Greek eloquence, dying 
 at provincial Athens for want of liberty and truth, and 
 
148 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 from its imitation at Rome, smothered by despotism, to 
 the freer speech and the higher inspiration and the pro- 
 founder philosophy which were coming with the spread 
 of a new revelation by an invigorated oratory. But two 
 and three-quarter centuries must elapse before all this 
 shall be. Not until freedom of speech shall come with 
 Constantine will eloquence return. 
 
 When the shadow of terror and of death which hung 
 over the persecuting ages finally passed away, the lips 
 that were unsealed gave a new character to public speech. 
 There is a wild irregularity about it, born of sudden 
 release from long and bitter bondage to heathen rule. 
 It cannot get its tongue immediately, and when it does, 
 gratitude to the imperial deliverer and to divine provi- 
 dence are strangely mingled. In the mind of antiquity, 
 it must be remembered, the distance was short between 
 the dignity and majesty of the emperor of the Roman 
 world and that of the Ruler of the universe. Therefore 
 it is not surprising that titles bordering upon idolatry 
 should be used by a thankful people for the restoration 
 of liberty to. utter the thoughts of their hearts. 
 
 To speak definitely of the eloquence of the Greek 
 fathers it must be judged by its best representatives, 
 those strong spirits around whom mediocrity gathered 
 and crystalized. One such leading mind appears just at 
 the time when the Church begins to bask in the smiles 
 of royal favor, a dangerous season of prosperity, far 
 more perilous than the distressing period which kept the 
 faithful constant and true to a single belief and a single 
 purpose. No longer obnoxious to martyrdom they were 
 inclined to division and contention. 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY — GREEK. 1 49 
 
 The storm-centre of a great strife was at Nicaea in a. d. 
 325. The assemblage which the emperor summoned 
 together represented the wisdom and power of Christen- 
 dom. Even heathen philosophers were attracted to the 
 place by the prospect of conference and debate. That, 
 however, which bears'most directly on the present sub- 
 ject is the circumstance that, of all the assembled digni- 
 taries, the chief speaker was a young man from Alex- 
 andria named Athanasius, a name which has had an 
 undying celebrity for the highest eloquence on the 
 loftiest themes. His most characteristic feature is sin- 
 gleness of purpose. One great truth has seized upon the 
 speaker and has become all this world and the next to 
 him. By it the life and death of men and nations is de- 
 termined. Those who adhere to it are his friends and 
 brethren, those who deny it are enemies and outcasts. 
 In his exordiums there is no uncertainity about the posi- 
 tion the speaker is going to take. Cicero against Cati- 
 line is no clearer, more definite, or dead in earnest. Nor 
 has the great Roman a keener sense of impending 
 danger than this defender of the faith. 
 
 That which characterizes the writings of Athanasius, 
 after the oneness of his theme, is the almost infinite 
 variety of its presentation. Nor is this the diversity of a 
 judicious treatment of related or coordinate topics, ad- 
 mitting of discursive survey of adjacent territory. He 
 never goes so far from his subject as that would involve. 
 It resembles rather the ceaseless variety of combination 
 in the kaleidoscope, which allows nothing foreign to come 
 within the field of vision, but has more changes than all 
 outside. To the modern reader this close adherence to 
 
150 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 the subject is apt to become as tiresome as the continu- 
 ous looking at the parti-colored figures; but the wonder 
 is greater when we remember that it is a human intellect 
 which i§ presenting a new and near view of one and the 
 same theme with every sentence of transition. 
 
 To read his orations, page after page, makes one 
 sure that there is nothing more to be said without repe^ 
 tition; but that is to mistake the productive and versa- 
 tile power of the writer. The very nature of this char- 
 acteristic, running through hundreds of pages, forbids 
 illustration by examples cited. Nor could it interest the 
 modern hearer as it did the ancient. Indeed sometimes 
 we cannot see the ground for the testimony that has 
 come down to us as to the wonderful effect these ora- 
 tions produced upon contemporaries. As in the case of 
 other productions about which have hung traditions of 
 remarkable effectiveness it must be remembered that 
 there was a subtle, elusive element that went along with 
 them, the personality and high character of the speaker, 
 and possibly that which is commonly called magnetism, 
 in the lack of a better word. We do not find it between 
 the pages and the lines, all of it. It lives only by sugges- 
 tion and memory and tradition; but once it was the 
 nearest thing to life itself, the very speech of the soul. 
 No typographic art can embalm it; no power of the im- 
 agination reproduce it with fidelity and fulness. But 
 once it was among men so full and so strong that it left 
 its wave-marks upon the age, which in turn hardened 
 and petrified into historic record. Aside, therefore, 
 from the internal evidence of a great intellect contained 
 in his works contemporaneous testimony enters into the 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY GREEK. I5I 
 
 estimate of any personage removed from us by the span 
 of centuries. It is the only fair method of judging a 
 representative man of any age to ask what the men of 
 his time thought of him. His literary methods may not 
 be agreeable to us, as ours would not have been to him, but 
 if the hearers who listened to his words were entranced 
 and the readers who perused them afterward were de- 
 lighted, the criticism of the far future can afford to 
 concur. 
 
 Nor is much assistance to a just estimate of such an 
 orator to be derived from fragmentary and scattered 
 quotations from his discourse, however carefully chosen. 
 It will readily be admitted that a few paragraphs from 
 volumes cannot adequately represent the unity and the 
 harmony and the completeness of Athanasius' state- 
 ment of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. As well 
 might one pick out a bit of polished stone here and 
 of colored glass there from the matchless mosaic of 
 Guercino and say, " Behold the majestic Prophet of the 
 Wilderness! " It is only when one goes over, step by step, 
 the interlacings of word and thought, of argument and 
 illustration, mastering the details so well that he can 
 afford to observe the larger relations and grouping of 
 coordinate and contrasting values, that both the unity 
 and comprehensiveness of this great defence can be esti- 
 mated; a defence to which the author consecrated every 
 faculty of his being. Add to this the measures of inter- 
 vening time and the difference of language, race, civili- 
 zation, and phases of religion, and it becomes still more 
 difficult to understand how great this man was whom his 
 contemporaries called "Athanasius the Great." 
 
152 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 His townsmen tried to express their sense of his 
 services by placing him upon the archiepiscopal throne 
 of Alexandria, within five months after his return from 
 the council. He might as well have been made Bishop 
 of Babel. 
 
 For into that metropolis of Egypt^ and market-place 
 of the nations came men from the East and the West, with 
 their fabrics and their wares, with their wisdom and their 
 folly. The home mysteries of the Nile struck hands with 
 what remained of Plato's tenets among the witty and 
 lively Greeks. Gnosticism was making its pretensions to 
 greater knowledge since Judaism had lived in the Chaldee 
 provinces; disciples of Buddha and Brahma and Zoroaster 
 brought their creeds and their philosophies to this seat of 
 learning. Here the Old Testament Scriptures had been 
 made known to the heathen by the Septuagint version; 
 and here Christianity early took root and grew luxuri- 
 antly, but with many a rank weed of heresy transplanted 
 from pagan soils. And then came divisions and sects and 
 schisms innumerable. For fifty-six years in his cathedral 
 at Alexandria, or in a hermit's cave in Thebais, or in 
 some distant city of the West, Athanasius' pen and voice 
 were always employed. Clear, forcible, persuasive, with 
 an eloquence natural, manly, and direct, subtle and acute 
 as any Greek in argument, but above all mere conten- 
 tiousness about words, he represents the best that sur- 
 vived the decay of oratory in its ancient forms, renewed 
 and reinvigorated by the spirit and power of the new 
 faith. He is the accurate master of the divine science 
 at a time and in a place when it needed sharp discrim- 
 ination and wide separation from counterfeits. His logic 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY GREEK. I 53 
 
 and rhetoric were the buttress of many who could not of 
 themselves give the reason of their faith; his defence of 
 the truth was like an ancient temple, vast in extent and 
 perfect in proportion, from whose wealth of material 
 later builders have quarried their lesser structures in 
 all succeeding centuries. 
 
 As Athanasius was the exponent of doctrine, so John 
 of Antioch, surnamed Chrysostom by the generation 
 which lived two hundred years later, was the preacher of 
 righteousness and censor of iniquity. The descendant 
 of a noble family, educated according to the custom of 
 the time in rhetoric and philosophy, having a natural 
 inclination toward oratory, he passed four years in seclu- 
 sion, meditation, and in the composition of his treatises, 
 and five years more in study at Antioch, to fit himself for 
 a work from which hastily prepared preachers would 
 shrink in these impatient days. Three times a week, and 
 sometimes seven days successively, he set forth the mean- 
 ing of the sacred text, now a paragraph and then a 
 whole book, as the manner was at that time. Not to 
 empty pews nor to regular church-goers alone, for Jews 
 and pagans and the motley throng as well as the learned 
 and the cultivated came streaming from every street to 
 hear the latest message he had to deliver. Of profound 
 erudition, large and grand in apprehension, keen in per- 
 ception of what to say and when to say it, and, what is 
 harder, when to keep silence, he was at the flood-tide of 
 success and popularity at the very start. A prevailing 
 characteristic of his speech is a pointed directness, com- 
 bined with a dignified familiarity that went straight to 
 the understanding and conscience of his hearers. He 
 
154 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 spoke as if his pulpit were in every pew and not at tho 
 conventional distance from all the pews. With an ardenr- 
 temperament, an irascible manner, a forcible expression, 
 and a genuine hatred of shams he lacked somewhat the 
 geniality, the tact, and the suave manner which wouM 
 have helped the less agreeable virtues. His acidity was 
 undiluted. 
 
 Accordingly when he fulminated against immorality 
 in a city which was oriental, and moderately Christian, 
 his maledictions seemed intolerable. He attacked ava- 
 rice and luxury until it was complained that he was stir- 
 ring up the poor against the rich. He execrated the the- 
 atre and the circus, the cheap consolations for thraldom 
 to a despot, and the multitude execrated him in turn. 
 He descended to trifles, sometimes, and seemed to con- 
 found little things with great. The ear-rings, the gold 
 bits for horses, the rich carpets, the marble and ivory 
 walls, the silver couches, the gold utensils, in all these 
 luxuries he saw nothing but their price for distribution 
 to the poor. He advised the dandies of the city to wear 
 their magnificent boots on their heads. He rebuked the 
 ladies for their silk robes and gold embroideries, and 
 drew vivid pictures of the prevailing gluttony and friv- 
 olity. At the same time he gave vent to unsparing in- 
 vective on the lax attendance at church, which led to 
 improvement, indeed, but enthusiasm evaporated in ap- 
 plause of his preaching or crocodile tears of repentance. 
 
 Still Chrysostom was not so wholly absorbed by the 
 work of reformation among his people that he could not 
 have an eye to the larger affairs of the Christian world. 
 He obtained fresh decrees from the emperor for the sup- 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY GREEK. I 55 
 
 pression of paganism, and sent forth missionaries into 
 various lands, above all among the Goths, in whom his 
 prophetic vision saw the future conquerors of the Ro- 
 man empire. He was equally free from the ambition for 
 worldly dominance ; otherwise he might have been the 
 most powerful person in the capital and have controlled 
 the destinies of the Eastern Empire through his strength 
 of character, weakened though it was in its influence by 
 the austerity of his demeanor and the violence of his 
 speech, qualities which had accompanied him from the 
 desert cave to corrupt cities. For though men revered 
 the monastic life they shrunk from much share in its 
 strictness; and when reformation went on too fast in 
 high ecclesiastical places, and the empress herself be- 
 came alienated from her former favorite, the ultimate 
 fate of the uncompromising apostle of righteousness 
 was sealed. It was then a series of banishments from 
 one remote place of exile to another, Nicsea first, then 
 the black valley of Cucusus; and when his friends found 
 him there he was hurried on between two soldiers 
 toward the shores of the inhospitable Euxine, until he 
 fell by the way and was buried in a martyr's grave. 
 
 There were others belonging to this group who 
 deserve mention: Basil of Csesarea, Gregory of Nazian- 
 zum, Diodorus of Tarsus, and Gregory of Nyssa. First 
 in order is Basil of Csesarea. A defender of the ad- 
 vantages of pagan learning, a scholar of elegant attain- 
 ments he became an orator prominent among the ora- 
 tors of his time, and a philosopher among philosophers. 
 His education was Greek, Latin being then regarded as 
 barbarian. Homer, Hesiod, and the tragedians were not 
 
156 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 withheld from the young theologian, nor Herodotus, 
 Thucydides, and Demosthenes. His oration on the study 
 of classical literature is full of interest, as showing how 
 possible it is to draw from the pages of the classics 
 lessons of virtue and practical religion. He, too, was in 
 no haste to become a preacher, giving thirty years of 
 study in preparation for a work which lasted twenty 
 years. 
 
 The eloquence of Basil is conceded to be in many 
 respects worthy of comparison with that of the best 
 Greek orators. He had their earnestness and sincerity, 
 with the new inspiration. It is the oriental fire of Isaiah, 
 chastened with Greek culture. He has the power of 
 impressing a central thought upon the hearer, compel- 
 ling him to dwell upon it without monotony by contem- 
 plating it from different points, in shifting light and 
 shade. His personal and practical teachings might have 
 an interest at the present day, showing as they do that all 
 ages resemble one another in the things of every-day life. 
 For instance in those days certain would-be scientists 
 declared that they were descended from the shell-fish of 
 a remote geologic age. Basil's reply is that very likely 
 this is true, judging from the products of their brains and 
 the results of progressive evolution, as it is now termed. 
 Again he hits off the usurer with no money to lend until 
 a high rate of interest is mentioned; is sharp on the corn 
 speculators, who hold back the grain and keep up the 
 price until there is a famine. He animadverts upon 
 houses with troops of servants, and shining with mar- 
 bles, mosaics, and gold. Nor does he spare the multi- 
 tude and their half-pagan doings, their heathenish talk, 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY GREEK. I 57 
 
 their relip;ion mixed with astrology and belief in charms 
 and the black art. The feminine part of his congre- 
 gation gave him much annoyance, as was the case with 
 Chrysostom. On one occasion he says, " Light-headed 
 women shook oft the yoke of decency, shook out their 
 hair, trailed their tunics with tripping feet, and with 
 glancing eyes and peals of laughter danced like Baccha- 
 nals, and inviting the attention of the young men ar- 
 ranged their dances in the very church. How can I 
 keep silence about such things? I deal sharply with 
 my best friends, if they act contrary to what is right, 
 and do not win followers by introducing the manners 
 of the bar and the theatre into the sanctuary." It is not 
 difficult to see that Basil's preaching was not calculated 
 to win popularity. 
 
 Of Gregory Nazianzen as much might be said as of 
 the others, but the best testimony to the character and 
 value of his oratory is his own estimate of it when he de- 
 clares, " I have retained nothing for myself except 
 eloquence, nor do I regret any of the labor and risks I 
 ran on sea and land in search of it. I would desire this 
 gift in perfection for myself and all my friends. After 
 the duties of religion and hopes of things invisible it is 
 the possession I have most cherished and to which I 
 cling the most. I retain no art save that of language; it 
 is my choice, and I would not willingly forsake it; for I 
 take more delight in it than if I added thereto all that 
 forms the delight of most men. Eloquence shall be the 
 companion of my life, my faithful counselor and deposi- 
 tory of all my confidence, my helper in battle and my 
 guide on my heavenward path. Since I have despised 
 
158 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 all earthly pleasures my heart has the more turned 
 toward eloquence, for it leads insensibly to God, and 
 teaches us to know Him more dearly and preserves and 
 strengthens that knowledge in us." 
 
 Of all this time it is just to say that it was full of un- 
 rest. The storm of persecution which had raged for 
 three and a quarter centuries was over, indeed, but the 
 tumult had not subsided, the troubled sea still cast up 
 mire and dirt. The heathen had ceased to rage with fire 
 and sword, but the people still gathered together in fac- 
 tions and imagined vain things and quarreled over trifles. 
 Therefore the disciples of the new faith, no longer 
 required to bear witness by martyrdom, were compelled 
 to defend it by appeal to the reason and conscience of 
 men. Especially were they called upon to distinguish it 
 from other gospels that were being diligently taught, 
 and to discriminate between its code of morals and those 
 of the various philosophies and religions which prevailed 
 in that century of disintegration. 
 
 To be a formative and reconstructive power in such 
 a time required elements of mind and soul stronger than 
 in any preceding crisis in history. The issues at stake 
 were greater than those involved in any panhellenic 
 union against oriental despotism which had inspired 
 Athenian orators, or those bound up with the republican- 
 ism which was defended and supported by Roman elo- 
 quence, or blended with the ruin of a declining empire. 
 A greater foe than Philip was invading a larger king- 
 dom than Greece, and the freedom that was to be estab- 
 lished was for an empire greater than Csesar's. There- 
 fore the cause to be maintained was more sacred, and 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY GREEK. 159 
 
 the demand for able advocates more imperative. Mea- 
 sured by the standards of high art the orators of the 
 fourth century after Christ may not conform to the 
 standards of the Attic age, more than a Christian church 
 conforms to the pagan temple in ideal architecture ; but 
 we all are ready to admit that the motive and purpose 
 and value of the cathedral outweigh those of the heathen 
 temple a hundredfold, as expressions of the religious 
 sentiment of the human family. So also is it with the 
 oratory of the Greek fathers as compared with that of 
 the Greek statesmen in earlier ages. The ruling ideas 
 are what give inspiration to each. Great and noble as 
 is the love of a native land, and laudable as may be 
 the ambition for a city's preeminence, and deeply as 
 these things may stir the heart of man, there are pro- 
 founder depths in his soul, and higher ambitions for the 
 life that is endless. These interests and ambitions, being 
 so much more real and great and strong, may so possess 
 the whole man that the expression of them shall be some- 
 what untamed and irregular, wild and uncouth at times, 
 it may be ; but they will, like all voices of nature, speak 
 to the natural man with a directness and a force which 
 he cannot resist. 
 
 It was in this way that Athanasius spoke at Nicsea, and 
 Basil at Csesarea, and Gregory at the Second General 
 Council, and Chrysostom at Antioch and Constantino- 
 ple. And we compare their eloquence with that of Peri- 
 cles and Isseus, Isocrates and Demosthenes, as we com- 
 pare the Asian splendor of the church of Holy Wisdom, 
 in the Christian city of Constantine, with the severe 
 perfection of the Parthenon in that Greek city where it 
 
l60 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 was harder to find a man than a god. Some there are 
 who will prefer one of these styles to the other, and 
 many will desire a due mingling of both, but none will 
 deny that the inspiring motive of the later eloquence is 
 above that of the elder, and that it elevated the oratory 
 of the Greek fathers above that of their predecessors in 
 all that belongs to the highest interests of mankind. Still 
 one cannot help imagining what a legacy the old Athe- 
 nian orators might have left to Christendom if the higher 
 truth had come to them in the days of their glory ; if to 
 perfection of form had been added the inspiration of a 
 larger revelation. Nor should it be forgotten how much 
 they indirectly contributed, by their achievements in the 
 narrow domain of Hellas, to the extension of the greater 
 kingdom that was to come four centuries later. 
 
XII. 
 
 PATRISTIC ORATORY— LATIN. 
 
 FOR the first three centuries the Christian religion 
 was mainly Greek in its outward form. Its gos- 
 pels had been recorded in Greek, and its truths pro- 
 claimed in the same tongue. The cities where its 
 churches were built were Greek cities, in which the results 
 of the great Alexander's conquests were more apparent 
 than effects of a later Roman domination, while Greek 
 philosophy, tinged with orientalism, prevailed in all the 
 intellectual centres of the Empire. By their political or 
 commercial prominence certain cities like Alexandria, 
 Antioch, Ephesus, and Constantinople gathered in 
 strong minds and controlling spirits and placed them in 
 positions of influence and authority. But when pagan- 
 ism became extinct Greek Christianity appears to have 
 accomplished its mission. Greek language and thought 
 had done the work which needed to be done in proclaim- 
 ing the new message to the nations, and in differentiating 
 it from the former religions and philosophies that were 
 trying to prolong their effete existence by affiliation with 
 its immortal life. And having done its work so well that 
 it needed not to be done again Greek Christianity 
 handed over its trophies to the Latin church, which in 
 turn was to accomplish results that the West was better 
 fitted to secure than the East. 
 
 Tertullian, of Carthage, was the first western orator 
 i6i 
 
1 62 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 and writer who commanded public attention. From the 
 first Latin had been the language of African theology, 
 and of the five or six greatest names among the earlier 
 western fathers three, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine, 
 were from the North African coast. Out of a region 
 famous for its constancy to the truth it is natural to look 
 for such a man as Tertullian, a prophet lifting up his 
 voice in the silence which prevailed in the dreadful 
 reigns of Commodus and Septimius Severus. The son 
 of a Roman centurion, educated liberally in Greek lan- 
 guage and literature, familiar with its poetry and 
 mythology, and having some acquaintance with its phil- 
 osophy, he became an aggressive Christian as he had 
 been a violent pagan. Somewhat gloomy and not wholly 
 free from superstition about demons, dreams, and visions 
 he plunges into controversy with the training of a lawyer 
 and the inherited zeal of a soldier. The whole world 
 appears to him like a battlefield between the Christian 
 host and demons. John Bunyan had not more vivid 
 revelations in Bedford jail, nor Martin Luther in his 
 study, nor Dunstan more lurid visions at his forge. 
 
 A turbulent spirit in a violent age he exults in 
 strife. Pagans and Christians alike are treated with 
 audacious and unsparing severity when there is occasion. 
 Magistrates and the public are addressed in terms which 
 belong to a man who must have believed that he held a 
 charmed life. He taunts the heathen with gross injus- 
 tice and flings back their counter-charges upon themselves 
 and their gods, telling them that Tartarus itself is peopled 
 with wretches who most resemble their own deities. He 
 denounces their idol worships as senseless; he pours 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY LATIN. 1 63 
 
 forth his maledictions upon their bloodthirsty games 
 and then, after declaring the innocence of their victims, 
 he exclaims, " Now, O wretched Gentiles, I will grapple 
 with you about your gods!" He does not do this by 
 halves. Elijah's mockeries of Baal are flatteries beside 
 Tertullian's scoffing jeers. Why the descendants of the 
 old worshippers of the Sidonian god did not rebuild the 
 image-furnace and toss him into its fiery arms can be ex- 
 plained only upon the belief that the same providence 
 that kept the three children saved this bold spirit to be 
 the scourge of paganism. To some who had blamed a 
 soldier for refusing a laurel crown from heathen hands 
 Tertullian says, " The only gospel precept they care to 
 remember in persecution is to pack up their baggage 
 and flee from one city to another." In the longest and 
 most elaborate of his writings he attacks Marcion, first 
 by characterizing the country where he was born as a sun- 
 less, misty, wintry region of savages; and then adds, 
 " But nothing there is so gloomy as this man, more grim 
 than a Scythian, more ruthless than a Massagete, darker 
 than a cloud, chillier than winter, more brittle than ice, 
 more treacherous than the river, more intolerable than 
 the wild beasts." This would not now be accepted as a 
 model of controversial style, and even then it deserved 
 some of the criticism it received; but if a good hater 
 ever deserved approbation it was Tertullian. 
 
 There was plenty to stir a strong, fearless man. Un- 
 mixed paganism and a mixed and African Christianity 
 together furnished social and intellectual obliquities 
 enough to craze a vehement soul upon which truth 
 and righteousness had taken fast hold. When Scapula, 
 
164 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 going beyond Trajan's decree of death by the sword, 
 ordered Christians to be burnt, Tertullian says, "We 
 do not fear or dread you in the least. We shudder at 
 your future destiny. We worship one God; you worship 
 demons. Numerous as we are, almost the larger half 
 of the citizens, we obey all lawful authority, and sacri- 
 fice for the emperor, but with prayers and not blood- 
 offering in which demons revel. We grieve at the 
 calamities you will bring upon yourselves. Scant har- 
 vests, cataclysms of rain, fiery visions over the walls of 
 Carthage, are meant to warn you. Think of the misfor- 
 tunes which have fallen on you personally since you con- 
 demned Mavilus of Adramentum to the wild beasts! I 
 warn you not to fight against God.'' It is the last of the 
 recorded language of the great Latin soldier of the 
 cross. Narrow, intense, unorthodox in his later years, by 
 reason of his extreme views, he was nevertheless strong 
 in righteousness in an age of mingled good and evil. 
 He was eloquent with the power of undaunted sincerity, 
 rough in speech, but unmistakable in his meaning. He 
 was not all bitterness, however, as his panegyric on the 
 family and his beautiful tribute to Divine Goodness 
 abundantly show. All in all he was the most powerful 
 speaker and writer who had appeared since the impetu- 
 ous St. Peter. The creator of a Latin Christian litera- 
 ture he is rich in thought and learning, though careless 
 of form. Too fervid in his nature to be restrained by 
 rules he suffers from mistakes which rules would have 
 prevented. But in spite of this marring and wasting his 
 fierce and turbulent eloquence has left its volcanic 
 monument on the north African shore. 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY LATIN. 165 
 
 By the middle of the fourth century all the broad 
 West and the far-off islands have begun to hear of the 
 coming of a new empire, no longer in the lowliness and 
 distress of its beginnings, but with something of power 
 and majesty. Kings and nobles are in its train, peace 
 and war are at its bidding. And now that it is safe 
 and honorable to be its citizens there will be need of 
 wisdom to guide and speech to control the populations 
 in a tumultuous time when the northern tribes are 
 coming to feast in the South. Who, then, is to be the 
 foremost man to defend the faith in the age when each 
 human interest must fight for its place or go down in 
 the general struggle? 
 
 Ambrose of Milan was the son of a governor of 
 Gaul. As a youth he had every advantage that wealth 
 and station could offer. He was educated for the highest 
 civil offices, to which he was easily in the line of promo- 
 tion. After gaining great reputation as a rhetorician 
 and distinguishing himself in the profession of the law 
 he was elected President of Upper Italy, and at length 
 Bishop of Milan. The motive of his oratory can be 
 traced to his zeal in refuting the great error in the West 
 which Athanasius was combating in the East. In this 
 contest he was approved not only by the half of his 
 fellow citizens, but also by the Empress Justina herself. 
 We might expect, therefore, that his words would be 
 chosen with such care and constructive significance as 
 his legal and rhetorical training would lead him to adopt, 
 having an eye to imperial favor as well as to the truth, 
 as he held it. By no means. He spoke as a king on 
 his own cathedral throne to the emperor and empress. 
 
1 66 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 whom he regarded as in the church but not over it; 
 spoke with boldness, dignity, and consistency. He did 
 not meddle in imperial affairs, nor did he permit royalty 
 to interfere with his own. His preaching was almost con- 
 tinuous, every Sunday, and sometimes for days together 
 in the great Basilica. His voice was feeble, but the 
 nobleness of his thoughts, the perspicuity of his ideas, 
 the variety of his learning, and the elegance of his lan- 
 guage drew crowds of attentive and admiring hearers. 
 From the far East and from remote Africa came back 
 the echo of his reputation, while at home the complaint 
 sprang up that his eloquence was winning the members 
 of noble families, especially the daughters, to the seclu- 
 sion of the cloister. He used to reply to such censures 
 by asking if they could mention a single instance of a 
 young man looking for a wife who had the least diflS- 
 culty in finding one. One of the greatest of his ora- 
 torical triumphs was his reply to the noblest and most 
 eloquent advocate of a decaying heathenism, the prefect 
 Symmachus, when he appeared before the emperor to 
 plead for the restoration of the Altar of Victory in the 
 senate house. It was the last conflict in words between 
 a dying but venerable " pagan creed outworn" and the 
 growing faith. The refutation of his adversary's argu- 
 ments was easy, and a return to idolatry was prevented. 
 In an encounter with the empress the populace rose 
 on all sides in his favor. For days there was a riotous 
 disturbance, quelled at last only by the discourse of Am- 
 brose upon " Patience," which the soldiers who had been 
 sent to surround the church were so eager to hear that 
 they joined themselves to the people and listened atten- 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY — LATIN. 167 
 
 lively. His oratory, however, could be tender as well as 
 severe. His eulogy upon the youthful Valentinian, 
 who had been assassinated on the banks of the Rhone, 
 and for Gratian, is like the lament of David for Saul 
 and Jonathan. " Oh, my Gratian, my Valentinian, beauti- 
 ful and most dear, how brief your term of life, how near 
 together your sepulchres! Inseparable in life, not sepa- 
 rated in death! Woe is me, what pledges have I lost! 
 How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war 
 perished! " With such words he opened the funeral 
 oration for emperors who regarded him as their sole, 
 effective guardian. With similar words he pronounced 
 the eulogy over the great and good Theodosius, of which 
 it has been justly said that if it was less magnificent 
 than that of Massillon over Louis Fourteenth it was at 
 least more sincere and far better deserved. 
 
 It need not be affirmed that Ambrose was the greatest 
 of Latin orators. The secret of his eloquence cannot all 
 be found in the words that have been recorded. Con- 
 temporary testimony is afforded in the saying of a gen- 
 eral whose march he stopped by persuasive speech, 
 "Ambrose came into my camp, spoke words, and I gave 
 up my hostile purpose; I know not why." The second 
 time he would not see him for fear of a power which he 
 could neither resist nor explain. The outward sign of 
 it was the straightforwardness and sincerity of his speech; 
 the inward power is too subtle for analysis. Ambrose 
 writes like a man of large knowledge of human nature, 
 as became a jurist and a magistrate, and as one who was 
 familiar with the Greek classics and with such science as 
 was then known, though always modest in the domain 
 
1 68 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 of theology, because he had come to its study so late. 
 But in the sphere of morab and of practical, direct in- 
 struction he is unsurpassed. His sermons, abounding in 
 allusions to the trials and vicissitudes of that uncertain 
 time, told with thrilling effect upon the congregations 
 of Milan. In the dark misery of the time, with its deep 
 chasm between boundless wealth and poverty most 
 abject, its grinding burdens of an insolent army and 
 luxurious court, with no redress to be hoped for from an 
 isolated emperor, with cities growing in size and distress, 
 and a countryside at the mercy of famine-breeding 
 speculators, the voice of Ambrose was raised against the 
 oppressive greed of the wealthy on one side, and on the 
 other against the lying imposture of mendicants. He 
 denounced the vices of drunkenness and reveling, re- 
 buked the perfumed youths, the women with their silver 
 couches and jeweled cups, and the men who cared more 
 for their horses and hounds than their fellow Christians. 
 Half-pagan superstitions had veiled themselves under a 
 thin disguise of Christianity, and these he did not fail to 
 inveigh against. 
 
 Considered in its widening influence the greatest 
 triumph of his oratory was the conversion of Augustine, 
 who had come to Milan as a professor of rhetoric At the 
 earliest opportunity he went to hear the great preacher, 
 not for the truth he taught, but because he was eloquent 
 and attractive. Almost unconsciously the matter of the 
 discourse began to interest the critical listener, and from 
 that moment onward the story is that of a man asking 
 for light. It belongs to another great orator, and may 
 serve as the introduction to the character of his eloquence. 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY — LATIN. l6g 
 
 AuRELius AuGUSTiNus, the gfreatest of the Latin 
 fathers, was bom a, d. 296, in an obscure town in Africa, 
 and grew up under the influence of a heathen father, 
 whose chief ambition for his son was that he should 
 become a rhetorician and lawyer. Oratory became his 
 chief study, as it was of most young men in the ancient 
 world, with such other studies as would most contribute 
 to success in public speech. Of the advantages offered 
 at Carthage he made sufficient use to gain the applause 
 of his teachers and rose to a high position in the school 
 of oratory. He was early established as a teacher of 
 rhetoric in the city and was soon making his own way in 
 the world. His chief desire was to have good pupils "to 
 whom without wiliness he might teach wiles ; not that 
 they might injure the innocent, but sometimes defend 
 the guilty." His desire was gratified in the main at 
 Carthage; but there was a gang of turbulent youths called 
 the " Upsetters," who, protected by a bad custom, were 
 allowed to burst into the classes of any professor whom 
 they chose to disturb and break up the lecture. Quit- 
 ting the city in disgust he went to Rome, where such 
 incursions were forbidden by law ; but then the cheating 
 of professors out of their fees was not forbidden. Accord- 
 ingly when a body of students had learned as much as 
 they desired of one professor, they passed into another 
 lecture room and left term-bills unpaid. This is what 
 Augustine got for teaching what he called in later years 
 " a most wretched and most furious loquacity." 
 
 One more deliverance came in his election to a profes- 
 sorship at Milan, where his success opened to him a new 
 career, and where a fixed salary placed him beyond the 
 
I/O THE HISTORY OF ORATORT. 
 
 nnceitainrles of academic finance. It vonld be of in- 
 terest to speak of his papUs, afterward men of eminence, 
 and of his methods of instmction. Suffice it to say 
 that in Angnstine's time it was largely a matter of decla- 
 mation from tLe old oratois, and of the pupil's own 
 compositioiLs on light themes, together with oral discus- 
 sions which were taken down by a shorthand reporter 
 in a remoiseless way for future examination. There 
 were lively disputes then, as now, over waai should be 
 allowed to stand uncorrected ; and some of these boyish 
 faults have been preserved in the amber of tLe teacher's 
 writings to this day. A Greek in acuteness, a Roman in 
 wisdom, and eloquent as a preacher he was clear, noble, 
 and devout in the writings which he composed through 
 a period of fifty-four yeais. They abound in passages 
 of fervid emotion and undying beauty, irnrren from the 
 fulness of his mind and heart. Ereiywhere, ho»"eTer, 
 the met^hysical and speculative bent is seen, although 
 he makes faith to go before discovery, as great discov- 
 erers have aliraTs done in ereir department of knowl- 
 edge. It is as true of Augustine's Summum Bomim and 
 his EncMridian as of a western continait azid of the 
 planet Xeptime. How i^r Augtsrine's eloqt:ence con- 
 tributed to his undying influence is not easv to sav. If 
 men were first attracted by his spoken discourse, the 
 written treatise has also been helped by the same quali- 
 ties of style which are found in the oratory of this great 
 Latin father. Author of mediaeval scholasticism and 
 mysticism tbrongh a dialectic mind and a devout spirit 
 he is also io svmpatitT with what is now called protest- 
 antism, and was a forerunner of the Reformation. A 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY L.\T1N. I7I 
 
 man of his own time he also is a prophet of a transition 
 age, standing between the old civilization, passing awav 
 before a barbaric invasion, and a new order which was to 
 succeed tlie pagan. 
 
 The closing period of patristic oratory is best repre- 
 sented by Leo the Great, the man who combined the 
 practical imperialism of old Rome with the faith so long 
 apologetic, but at last triumphant. ]Moreover in the 
 general disintegration of a rotten society and in the 
 alarm excited by the approach of northern barbarians 
 Leo had stood between the devoted citv and the \\Tath 
 of Attila. Encamped where the Mincius flows into Lake 
 Benacus, his cavalry trampling the ground which once 
 was the farms of Catullus and Virgil, the Goth awaited a 
 solemn and suppliant embassy, sent by the emperor, sen- 
 ate, and people of Rome to deprecate his vengeance 
 against the Eternal City. At the head of the ambassa- 
 dors was Leo. the Bishop, in the robes of his office, 
 majestic in mien, persuasive and urgent in his eloquence. 
 The barbarian monarch was moved to veneration for the 
 spiritual father of the Christians, and listened with re- 
 spectful and favorable attention, consenting to evacuate 
 Italy on conditions which his speedy death made it un- 
 necessary to fulfil. But Leo was credited with saving 
 Rome from the most terrible of barbarian conquerors by 
 his urgent and commanding eloquence. Again, ye.irs 
 afterwtird. when the Vandals were clamoring at the very 
 g.ites of Rome, Lso once more mitigated the fierceness 
 of the invader by the same eloquence, full of authority 
 and intrepidity. His name stands forth in that time as 
 the only great one in Christendom, in state or church. 
 
1/2 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 A Roman by birth and sentiment he was the embodi- 
 ment of the ambition, the unyielding perseverance, the 
 dignity, the self-confidence, the belief in title to domin- 
 ion, the respect for law and custom, which belonged to 
 the noblest of the ancient race. Surveying a world 
 chaotic in the breaking up of old beliefs and full of the 
 errors which were cast up like scum in the conflict of 
 superstitions brought from every quarter of the earth he 
 sees with the eye of a prophet an ultimate reorganiza- 
 tion, and seizes with the grasp of a leader the opportu- 
 nity to reconstruct and to reanimate. 
 
 The pulpit is where he will stand to move the world in 
 the direction he has marked out He knows that the ros- 
 trum is still the guiding power which the people obey, 
 when the genuine orator appears and when they are free 
 to follow his counsels. He enters the pulpit, therefore, 
 as a man with a mission to his own age and people, with 
 the high confidence of a commanding mind. Sure of his 
 own strength he feels able to cope with the popular un- 
 certainty and unrest. His sermons, accordingly, are not 
 Greek in subtlety of discrimination, in profundity of 
 erudition, in picturequeness of imagery. They are brief, 
 direct, and plain. They are also as effective as the 
 Roman short-sword in the hand of a Roman. There 
 was no foil-play of the fencer. Through complexities of 
 controversy intricate as chain-armor, through defences 
 of error cunning as scales triply plated the word of Leo 
 pierced, dividing asunder the soul and body of opposing 
 faction ; condemning the vices of the people, dictating 
 the decalogue anew, and announcing with authority a 
 neglected gospeL Nor was he less plain in his practical 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY LATIN. 1 73 
 
 preaching, especially in his reprehension of the pagan 
 craze for the amphitheatre. " I am ashamed to speak, 
 but I ought not to keep silence. Demons are of more 
 account to you than apostles, and insane exhibitions get 
 a better attendance than the martyr commemorations.'' 
 To emperors, also, he is equally plain in speech, and 
 while showing the traditional respect for royalty, such 
 as an Englishman has at this day, he addresses earthly 
 sovereigns as an equal, or, more often, as their master, in 
 the consciousness that to assume the noblest responsi- 
 bility of preserving Rome and Christendom itself from 
 threatened barbarism he was supporting the majesty of 
 religion. Such assumption could not have been sus- 
 tained by simple assertion. If he had stood up in the 
 Basilica and said, "I am Leo, successor of Peter, and 
 am going to establish the spiritual and temporal domin- 
 ion of Rome," it is probable that, as at Athens four 
 hundred years before, some would have mocked, and 
 others would have said, " We will hear thee again of this 
 matter." The measure of his oratorical power must, 
 therefore, be found in the accomplishment of his de- 
 signs. He did not, indeed, avert the final catastrophe, 
 when the wealth and pride of the Imperial City were 
 transported to Carthage in ships of Genseric; but on 
 the ruins of paganism he founded a spiritual and eccle- 
 siastical empire, which became the refuge of Europe 
 until the times of regeneration came after a thousand 
 years. He could not have done this except by an elo- 
 quence which stirred and led a people from whom the 
 traditions of ancient oratory had by no means departed. 
 Or if they had been lost, the illustrations of a fresh and 
 
174 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 powerful eloquence were not beyond their hearing in the 
 pulpits of Milan and Treves and Rome itself. The pul- 
 pit alone was the guide and leader of opinion and the 
 instructor of the people. It had the entire field to itself, 
 with no competitors. 
 
 Furthermore oratory was the chief study of the an- 
 cients; their schools were schools of rhetoric, their 
 teachers rhetoricians. It is not strange, then, that in the 
 early Christian centuries ithe apt pupils of these schools 
 should find their way into the pulpit, some of them hav- 
 ing been teachers of the rhetorical science and art, like 
 Ambrose and Augustine and Basil. 
 
 Among the Latin fathers Leo was the practical 
 preacher rather than the cultivated orator, like Chrysos- 
 tom, or the refined theologian, like Athanasius. He re- 
 sembled more nearly the rugged Antiphon of the early 
 Greek period, or, still more, the elder Cato, lawyer, 
 soldier, and orator of republican Rome. His style is 
 earnest, forcible, and full of thought; and if sometimes 
 heavy, turgid, and obscure it is because it is loaded with 
 the multitude of things he has to say, which to him are 
 apparently of more consequence than the manner in 
 which they are said. Once more it must be believed 
 that the tremendous personality of the man lay back of ' 
 his speech, giving to his words a piercing power like 
 arrows from a bow which Ulysses alone could bend. It 
 is the shadowy image only of the great Leo that we dis- 
 cern behind the printed page, after fourteen hundred 
 years. 
 
 It was a hundred and thirty years before another such 
 appeared. If two renaissance-centuries after Chaucer 
 
PATRISTIC ORATORY LATIN. 1/5 
 
 were needed in order to produce a Shakespeare, it is not 
 strange that, in declining ages, four generations should 
 pass away before a Gregory should come to the chair 
 of Leo, and like him, obtain from contemporaries and 
 from posterity the agnomen of "the Great." Still his 
 greatness was not, like Leo's, in the gift of speech. Each 
 of the rude tribes of Europe had now a dialect of its 
 own, and oratory must be a thing of local power and 
 provincial character. Bernard will be great at Clairvaux, 
 Peter the Hermit at Liege, Philip of Neri at Rome, and 
 Savonarola at Florence. One and all will turn back for 
 their model and oratorical inspiration to Ambrose and 
 Augustine, to Hilary and Leo, as these in turn must have 
 received their impetus in no small degree from the 
 Greek fathers before them, Athanasius and Basil, the 
 two Gregories and Chrysostom, and these again from the 
 old Athenian orators. 
 
 Taken all together this period was one of oratorical 
 power to which there has been but one parallel — in that 
 fourth century, B. c, when Antiphon, Gorgias, and 
 Lysias, Isaeus, Isocrates and Demosthenes made Attica 
 a synonym for eloquence. But there was a difference 
 between the two periods in their respective motive and 
 purpose which is symbolized by the legend of the 
 Cypriote king who carved for himself a statue of marvel- 
 ous perfection, but valuable, chiefly, as a wondrous inter- 
 pretation of the laws of form. It was when he prayed 
 that the ivory might become animate that there came 
 into the matchless harmony of proportion movement 
 and understanding and trust and faith and love and de- 
 votion. So into the chaste eloquence of the Hellenic 
 
176 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 age was breathed the spirit of a new and higher life, in 
 an age of sacred oratory, moving men to a loftier under- 
 standing, a profounder faith, a sincerer trust, a nobler 
 devotion, and a surer hope of immortality. 
 
XIII. 
 MEDIEVAL PREACHERS. 
 
 THE age of patristic eloquence ends with the death 
 of Leo the Great, a. d. 461. The fourscore years 
 between him and Gregory, a. d. 540, are noted for 
 writers rather than for orators. Vincent of Lerins, Pros- 
 per of Aquitaine, Bofithius, and Cassiodorus compose 
 treatises on the Scriptures, canon law, philosophy, and 
 traditions of the saints. A century later Isidore becomes 
 a chronicler, and Ildefonse writes of illustrious men in 
 the West, while John of Damascus concentrates the 
 expiring energies of Greek theology in the East, about 
 A. D. 700. Monasticism absorbs the great body of ecclesi- 
 astics, and the ritual of the service receives more atten- 
 tion than preaching. What there is of this becomes 
 theatrical and finally falls into neglect, and therefore 
 into disrepute. 
 
 The Middle Ages begin at the middle of the eighth 
 century with the rise and growth of a new Roman em- 
 pire in the West, Franco-German, in alliance with the 
 papacy, which now exalts its claims to universal obedi- 
 ence and enters into contests with princes. The great 
 men of the time for a hundred years are compilers and 
 chroniclers, jotting down [records of councils, papal 
 appointments, and wars. Under Charlemagne schools 
 begin to be established teaching the famous Trivium and 
 
 177 
 
178 THE HISTORT OF ORATORY. 
 
 Quadrnium — grammar, diaiedics, rhetoric; music, arith- 
 metic, geometij, and zsaonowj, a. t>. 750. Kabanns, 
 poet-laureate, mites a commentaiy; Ratramn, Gmeern- 
 tng Predestmation; also Hincmar and John Scori=: while 
 Alfred the Great translates the Psalms and Gregory's 
 Pastoral into Saxon, a. i>. : : 3. 
 
 When oratory is s^itif t: for in these ages of oppression 
 and superstition it will foe found in the pulpit if at alL 
 Early in the seventh centary the Toice of one Panlinus 
 was heard in the wilderness above the mambling contro- 
 veraes aboat image worship and scholastic snbtl^es. 
 The ctroniclers of the time declare that there were few 
 snch preachers as this archbishop of York, who coold 
 convert a whole township by a single sermon. Tall of 
 stature, of reverend and majestic mien, with the look of 
 a scholar, he was chosen to expound the doctrines of 
 Christianity before the king and tie chief of the Droid 
 priests. He did this so effectively that the Druid called 
 for a spear and a hors^ and charged at the door of a 
 temple where his idols were, and commanded his follow- 
 ers to finish the work of destruction which he had b^nn. 
 This brief duonide, coming oat of the darkness of 
 Northombrian paganism before the year 65c, shows that 
 the power of the spoken Word was srlU prevaiUng here 
 and ther& 
 
 A clearer record comes to as in the literary remains 
 of the Veserable Bede, monk of Wearmouth and Jar- 
 row on the Tyne, a. d. 672. He is the historian of 
 England down to the eighth century, a man of varied 
 attainments, pursuing a life of studv in the monasteries, 
 which were the coU^es of that time. Such a man would 
 
MEDIAEVAL PREACHERS. 1 79 
 
 not, of course, be a Chrysostom or an Ambrose, dealing 
 with sinners in corrupt cities. His was rather the ora- 
 tory which corresponds to that of an Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge university -preacher, dealing with theological 
 themes for the defence and confirmation of the faith. 
 Forty-seven of his sermons are on the course of the 
 ecclesiastical year, setting forth objective truths in the 
 order of the calendar, in a scholarly and practical way. 
 Twenty-two belong to the Lenten season, and forty- 
 eight were delivered on days commemorating the saintly 
 characters who have been eminent enough to be canon- 
 ized in the good opinion of succeeding ages. Twenty 
 more of a different character are manifestly intended for 
 country congregations. It was in the darkest period of 
 letters that this man became the embodiment of what 
 learning survived the decay of Roman literature. And 
 if as an orator he cannot be ranked with the great 
 preachers of the fourth century, he certainly kept alive 
 the spark of eloquence until better conditions for it 
 appeared. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that in the general dearth of 
 mental activity in the East, Britain, in the remotest 
 West, should become the home of learning, such as it was. 
 Grammar, philosophy, and theology were cultivated in 
 England, and particularly in Ireland, when much of the 
 continent of Europe was in the shadow of an intellectual 
 eclipse. The great religious houses did an inestimable 
 service to learning in the multiplication of manuscripts, 
 not only of the Scriptures but also of the classic authors 
 of antiquity. And this at a time when the destruction 
 of that great treasure-house of antiquity, the Alexandrian 
 
l80 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 library, had made scarce and costly the works of the 
 ancients. So great, indeed, had become the literary 
 activity of the British Isles that a Saxon school was 
 founded at Rome, and learning and religion were carried 
 together to the provinces of the Rhine. Moreover 
 Theodore of Tarsus came to Canterbury out of that 
 Athens of Asia Minor where St. Paul grew up, bringing 
 an inheritance of Greek culture which he diffused in 
 England. Of it the Venerable Bede is the chief repre- 
 sentative. 
 
 That eloquence was possible in this time of general 
 ignorance and that this Greek importation, together 
 with the treasures of Latin literature held in the reli- 
 gious houses of Northumbria, did something for oratory 
 in a rude age may be seen from the following extract 
 from Bede's sermon on the glories of the celestial coun- 
 try: "Wherefore there is no night there, no darkness, 
 no gathering clouds, no asperity of cold or heat. . . . 
 But above all things is the association with angels and 
 archangels, thrones and dominations, principalities and 
 powers, and to behold the squadrons of the saints 
 adorned with stars, the patriarchs glittering with faith, 
 the prophets rejoicing in hope, the apostles who, in the 
 twelve tribes of Israel, shall judge the world. But of 
 the King, who is in the midst, no words are able to 
 speak. That beauty, that virtue, that glory, that mag- 
 nificence, that majesty surpasses every expression and 
 every sense of the human mind. For it is greater than 
 the glory of all the saints to attain to that ineffable sight 
 and to be made radiant with the splendor of His coun- 
 tenance. . . . Is it not, then, well worth while to 
 
MEDIAEVAL PREACHERS. l8l 
 
 endure earthly sorrows, that we may be partakers of such 
 good and such glory?" 
 
 The man who could write such sentences as these 
 must have communed with what is best among the 
 ancients. 
 
 Frequent journeys were made to Rome, and from its 
 treasures works of literature and art were brought con- 
 tinually. Along with relics of a saint or a volume of 
 Basil, Jerome, or Augustine, would come a copy of Aris- 
 totle, Plato, Homer, or Virgil, to be read slowly and 
 carefully and reflectively by the Saxon scholars at Hex- 
 ham and Jarrow and Lindisfarne. And thus the wisdom 
 of the ancients was treasured and transmitted until the 
 universities took the place of the monasteries, the doctor 
 of letters succeeded to the diligent recluse of the cloister, 
 and the college professor to the scholastic monk. Famil- 
 iarity with the classics is seen also in Bede's poetic com- 
 positions, where traces of acquaintance with Lucretius, 
 Virgil, Horace, Sedulius, and the early hymnists appear. 
 
 His oratory, as has already been remarked, is of the 
 quiet order, adapted to the tastes of the simple-hearted 
 scholars and recluses who kept to the security of the 
 houses of religion and learning, in stormy times when 
 nothing else was respected by lawless barons. There is 
 little show of deep thought in his discourse and no 
 attempt at originality; but the address is direct and the 
 language plain, varied by a persuasiveness which some- 
 times comes very near the most effective eloquence. 
 That Bede was a recognized master of this kind of com- 
 position may be inferred from the fact that among his 
 voluminous works there is a treatise on tropes and fig- 
 
1 82 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 ures, in which he brings to the notice of his readers 
 many forms of figurative language utterly overlooked 
 in modern systems of rhetoric, naming them and mark- 
 ing them by their distinctive characters and definitions. 
 In general he must be regarded as the scholar who 
 in an age of silence added to his literary pursuits the 
 frequent exercise of address on the homely duties, ex- 
 pounding the Scriptures to those who were associated 
 with him, but limited in his influence by choice and the 
 necessity of his monastic life. It was an age of wars 
 and desolations, and it is remarkable that there was any 
 learning or study or speech. They were not desired in 
 kings' courts ; they were possible only in the sanctuaries 
 to which religion and letters had fled for refuge. 
 
 Another Briton of this age was the famous Winfrid 
 or Boniface, a. d. 683, who earned the appellation 
 of the "Apostle of Germany." The examples of his 
 oratory which have come down to us are chiefly valu- 
 able as showing how so great a missionary preached to a 
 rude people. Besides, it is more than probable that they 
 are inadequate reports of what he actually said. In any 
 case they are plain and practical homilies on the first 
 principles of religion. If they had been more than this 
 they would have been of less value to the hearers he had 
 to address. Here is a passage which may stand for many : 
 " Observe the Sunday and hasten to church. There 
 pray, and diligently guard against idle stories and much 
 talking, and do not gossip uselessly. Give alms accord- 
 ing to your power. Be hospitable one to another, be- 
 cause the Lord will say in the judgment, ' I was a stranger 
 and ye took me in.' Whence also some have received 
 
MEDIEVAL PREACHERS. 1 83 
 
 angels unawares. Take in strangers, and remember that 
 ye yourselves are strangers in this world. Give tithes to 
 the church, because the Lord commands to render unto 
 Csesar the. things that are Caesar's, taxes and tribute, 
 and unto God the things that are God's, tithes, first- 
 fruits, and all your vows. Love justice. Consent not to 
 the persuasions of the devil. Humble and lowly, we have 
 enumerated these things to you that no one may excuse 
 himself, saying, ' I cannot distinguish between right and 
 wrong; I know not what to leave alone and what to do!' 
 Therefore, now, depart from evil and do good, which, if 
 ye shall do, the Lord will increase you in understanding 
 and virtue and give you the eternal and heavenly 
 kingdom." 
 
 There is no pulpit eloquence here, as it came to be 
 reckoned in later times ; but it may be questioned 
 whether if, in its plainness, directness, simplicity, and 
 familiarity with the Scriptures, an occasional sermon by 
 Boniface or Bede might not come with refreshing power, 
 even in our own intellectual times, to heads weary with 
 six days' thinking and planning and hearts distracted 
 with anxieties and cares, with ambitious schemes and 
 vain hopes. On the other hand it may be asked what 
 effect would have been produced upon the half-civilized 
 tribes of Germany if a modern sermon had been preached 
 to them, with its high ratiocination and higher theology. 
 But to every age belongs its own speech, and the most 
 praise to that which best meets the demands of its own 
 time. 
 
 Boniface stands upon the dividing line between the 
 great patristic orators and those minor ones who should 
 
1 84 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 succeed them for the next seven and a half centuries. 
 For the most part they are plain speakers, on simple 
 subjects, to ignorant and superstitious people. A pas- 
 sage from a ninth-century sermon of Rabanus, in the 
 days of Louis the Debonnaire and Alfred the Great, will 
 illustrate the capacity of the hearers and the style of 
 oratory that met their needs : 
 
 "You must know, beloved brethren, that our holy 
 fathers ordained and commanded all Christians to rest 
 and abstain from worldly labors on the festivals of the 
 saints, but more especially on Sunday, so as to more 
 easily be able to understand the word of God. It ap- 
 pears also in Holy Scripture that the day is holy ; it was 
 the first day of all; in it were formed the elements of 
 the world ; in it were angels created ; in it also Christ 
 rose from the dead ; in it the Holy Ghost came down 
 upon the Apostles; in it manna was first given from 
 heaven in the desert. From such proofs as these Sunday 
 comes before us as an illustrious day ; and the holy doc- 
 tors of the church ordained us to transfer all the glory 
 of the Jewish Sabbath to it. Let us observe, therefore, 
 brethren, the Sunday and see that our rest be not in 
 vain ; but from the evening of Saturday to the evening 
 of Sunday have nothing to do with any country work, 
 or any other business, and give yourself up to God's 
 worship only. Let every one, therefore, who can, come 
 to vespers and to nocturns, and there pray in the con- 
 gregation of the church, confessing his sins. And he 
 who cannot, let him pray in his own house. And on the 
 day itself let no man occupy himself in hunting, nor 
 
MEDIEVAL PREACHERS. I 85 
 
 engage in the devil's work, nor roam about the fields 
 and woods, shouting and laughing." 
 
 Then he hints very plainly at worse doings inside or 
 outside the church, law business, dice, games, and even 
 fighting. - Then turning his attention within the walls 
 he adds, 
 
 "Do not give your attention to vain talk; for there are 
 many, principally women, who so chatter in church, who 
 so keep on talking, that they neither hear the lessons 
 themselves nor allow others to hear them." 
 
 Then follows a cut at the men who want the minister 
 to shorten the service so that they may go hunting the 
 earlier. Of course this is not eloquence as we reckon it; 
 that would have been out of place and useless with that 
 kind of people. 
 
 Here is a sermon which shows that, in some things at 
 least, the world has moved forward since Ethelwulf of 
 England brought a crown of gold to Pope Benedict III, 
 in 853. It bears the title, "Against those who raise an 
 outcry during an eclipse of the moon," and begins, " It is 
 a great joy to me to see you frequent the churches, seek 
 baptism, and study the worship of the true God; but it 
 grieves me exceedingly that I see many of you implicated 
 in certain follies, mixing among the truths of religion 
 certain false things which in no wise should be done." 
 Then he describes the shouting, blowing of horns, cast- 
 ing of javelins and arrows against the moon, much after 
 the fashion of our own aborigines. This was in Germany. 
 
 "What madness is this, brethren! What insanity! . 
 . . How can ye bring help to the heaven and stars 
 who are not able to protect yourselves on the earth? I 
 
1 86 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 praise you not, since, being deceived by the devil, ye are 
 devoted in no small degree to pagan errors. And 
 whence is this except from the pagans, whose companj" 
 ye love and whose customs ye imitate? I have ofteir 
 forbidden you to consort with them, or to takfe part in 
 their abominable feasts; but avarice hinders you from 
 obeying me. Ye love money and are not afraid of hell. 
 . . . ' For this cause many are weak and sickly among 
 you and many sleep.' " 
 
 The plainness of this discourse is a revelation of the 
 state of mingled religion and superstition which pre- 
 vailed in the half-barbarian empire of the Franks in the 
 ninth century. Rabanus' sermons have one quality 
 which would commend them to this hurried and impa- 
 tient age — they are short. But a contemporary. Otto, of 
 Verceil, surpasses him in this respect. His sermons oc- 
 cupy ten or twelve minutes in delivery, but not satisfied 
 with such brevity he sometimes appends a shorter form 
 and adds, " the last sermon abbreviated, lest the common 
 people should be disgusted." 
 
 Another prevailing feature of the preaching of that 
 age is illustrated by Peter Damiani, Cardinal of Ostia. It 
 is the stringing together of texts of Scripture with scarcely 
 a connecting word, and yet making a connected dis- 
 course. In one page of a sermon on the Epiphany can 
 be counted twenty-seven different quotations, with only 
 four connecting clauses, all other words of conjunction 
 being particles. This might be called easy composition 
 if it did not imply such a familiarity with every part of 
 the Bible as could be obtained only through constant 
 study. It was a time of few theological works and fewer 
 
MEDIEVAL PREACHERS. 1 87 
 
 Still of any other kind, and the Bible was the basis of all 
 religious discourse and the principal possession of the 
 clergy. 
 
 Another characteristic which had come down from 
 remote times was the scriptural symbolism, which these 
 mystical preachers drew out in a marvelous manner. 
 Thus Damiani finds in the two cherubim above the 
 mercy-seat a type of the two Testaments, the old and the 
 new, and in the cross the concord of the two; and in 
 the same paragraph he finds twenty-five other things of 
 which it is the type, of which the key to open paradise 
 may stand as an example. His apostrophe to it borders 
 upon that worship of the sign for the thing signified, 
 which was growing up at this time, and came near to 
 idolatry in after centuries. 
 
 The oratorical style of Damiani in his perorations 
 rises above that of his predecessors, as was possible in 
 the passionate appeal to even an uncultivated audience. 
 Some of his discourses on the Evangelists are marked by 
 force and energy, combined with gentleness and sweet- 
 ness, equaled by no mediaeval preacher until we come 
 to Bernard. 
 
 The Saculum Obscurum has settled down upon the 
 nations, the Dark Age of crime and ignorance gathers 
 like a cloud around the thousandth year. The schools 
 of Charlemagne have died out; there are no writers 
 worth mentioning. Doctrine is received by rote and 
 tradition, and the clergy know little but the routine of 
 the church service. 
 
 It is only a lone watch-fire burning here and there in 
 this universal night, like Rabanus and Damiani, that 
 
1 88 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 prevents the extinction of hope. The fact that such a 
 discourse as the one on the Glory of the Heavenly Jeru- 
 salem, by Damiani, could be composed in that age must 
 be attributed to the special divine illumination, or to 
 disgust with the kingdom of heaven on earth as it then 
 appeared. It is too long to quote, short as the homily 
 is; but it has the strain and the spirit of the old Latin 
 hymns, Jerusalem the Golden, the Vexilla Regis, and the 
 Hymn of Adam of St. Victor. 
 
XIV. 
 PREACHERS OF THE CRUSADES. 
 
 THE general expectation of the end of the world 
 after a thousand years, and seemingly at hand 
 by reason of the general corruption of the times, had 
 not been met. The day of doom had not fallen on a 
 disordered world, with its stagnation in learning and in 
 life. As the eleventh century begins there are signs of 
 revival. In Greek and Mohammedan cities learning is 
 cultivated by such men as Avicenna and Avicebron, by 
 Gerbert at Rheims and Lanfranc at Canterbury, while 
 theology takes on a new form in scholasticism, reducing 
 traditional dogmas to scientific unity by the aid of re- 
 vived dialectics, combining Aristotelian metaphysics and 
 logic with the traditions of the church and decrees of 
 councils. 
 
 Its realism is not that of the New Testament, how- 
 ever, and its nominalism is transient. Before the end of 
 this century the great battle will have begun between the 
 papacy of Hildebrand and the spirit of feudalism and 
 the rights of church and state in England, France, Ger- 
 many, and Italy. England will not yield to the pope, 
 France will remain independent, Germany will be hum- 
 bled but will triumph over the pope, who in turn will 
 never ask an imperial sanction to his election again. It 
 is time to be looking for some intellectual activity in 
 
 189 
 
1 90 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 these stirring years. But the human mind had sunk so 
 far that it was equal only to a brief revival of Greek liter- 
 ature under the Comneni in the East, and to Latin trans- 
 lations of Euclid with mystery plays and the songs of 
 romancers and troubadours in the West. History be- 
 comes a monkish chronicle. The hope of the century is 
 in the rise of the university, with its colleges of theology, 
 philosophy, and law. Meantime crusades engage the 
 rank and file of humanity, and an orator steps forth 
 suited to the fanaticism of the times. 
 
 Peter of Amiens, in Picardy, a. d. 1050, had already 
 served under the counts of Boulogne when he betook 
 himself to the austerities of a hermitage. Emaciated in 
 body and inflamed in fancy, he soon came to have 
 dreams and visions of wonderful reality and vividness. 
 From a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to visit the Holy Sepul- 
 chre he returned to rouse the martial nations of Europe 
 for the rescue of the holy place from infidel possession. 
 It seemed, no doubt, a wild boast for a small man of 
 contemptible appearance to make, but the pope ap- 
 plauded his design and gave him letters of authority. 
 William of Tyre, chronicler, has a note about him, which 
 runs thus: " He is little and contemptible in person, 
 but of lively wit, and has a clear-seeing eye and pleas- 
 ing, and a free-flowing speech is not wanting to him." 
 This is a moderate commendation of a great natural 
 orator, whose literary outfit was as meagre as his ward- 
 robe was scanty. However he compensated for his 
 ignorance and lack of rhetorical methods by passionate 
 appeals and loud ejaculations, calling upon Christ and 
 Mary and the saints and angels in paradise, with whom 
 
PREACHERS OF THE CRUSADES. IQI 
 
 he professed to have conversed. He had seen visions, 
 he said, and a letter had fallen from heaven addressed 
 to him. The Lord had appeared to him in person, 
 charging him to rouse the western nations for the deliv- 
 erance of the Holy Land from Moslem domination. 
 Accordingly he set forth, preaching to high and low, in 
 churches and on highways, until words and breath failed 
 him. Then he took to weeping and groaning, beating 
 his breast and pointing to the great crucifix which he 
 always carried. The multitude listened with rapture. 
 They showered gifts upon him which he flung to the poor. 
 His greatest difficulty began to be, not to persuade the 
 throng to enlist in a crusade, but to keep them from start- 
 ing at once for Palestine. As it was, the impatient multi- 
 tude urged him to set out and lead them on five months 
 before the appointed day. In consequence he had to 
 cross the Rhine at Cologne at the head of the motley 
 host bound for the East by way of Constantinople. 
 Five hundred thousand perished in the first wave of 
 fanatic zeal that rolled toward Jerusalem. The story of 
 those that followed is too familiar to be recounted. It is 
 the record of a religious war, of Christianity against 
 Islam, the movement of Europe against Asia. 
 
 The man who set Europe in motion, ignorant and 
 fanatic though he was, had the satisfaction of beholding 
 results of which the most consummate orator of Greece 
 would not have dared to dream. He had pushed the west- 
 ern nations to the East. The most of them went to their 
 destruction, to be sure, but Jerusalem was delivered out of 
 the hands of the infidel, and the Holy Sepulchre reclaimed. 
 It was the grand achievement of the eleventh century; and 
 
192 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 Peter the Hermit, after proving his sincerity, as Demos- 
 thenes did, by fighting for the cause he had proclaimed, 
 retired from the conquest of Jerusalem to the seclusion 
 of a monastery of his own founding near Liege, where he 
 remained until his death fifteen years later. The secret 
 of his power lay somewhat in the temper of his age, no 
 doubt, as is the case with every great orator; but it was 
 more largely due to the fact that an idea which was in 
 the very air of the time had taken complete possession of 
 a man of the time, who believed himself sent on a mission 
 to his generation. His oratory, rude and uncouth, was 
 like the age; but it had in it the ring of all genuine elo- 
 quence, sincerity, and directness, and, moreover, what that 
 century permitted, a wild abandon to the impulsive 
 utterance of conviction, without art and without restraint. 
 It cannot be weighed by our present standards. Its only 
 criterion is its measure of success, the final test of all 
 true eloquence in whatever age it occurs. 
 
 There were other orators in this dark century less 
 eloquent than Peter of Picardy, but more learned than 
 he. Anselm was such a one, the acutest thinker and 
 the profoundest theologian of an age which ran to meta- 
 physical subtleties. A piquant and interesting preacher, 
 according to the standard established in great monastic 
 houses, he would be called in these days an expositor, 
 giving running comments on biblical books and chap- 
 ters and verses. Scriptural quotations he intersperses 
 with his discourse with a marvelous facility, showing 
 that his familiarity with the text was beyond that of 
 many modern preachers. 
 
 Abelard, Ivo of Chartres, and Bruno of Aste were 
 
PREACHERS OF THE CRUSADES. I93 
 
 representatives of their age and their order, the last of 
 whom has a curious piece of mystical interpretation in a 
 sermon on Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree. "This 
 tree," he says, " is faith to which many come, who, 
 climbing into it, though of little stature themselves, 
 having made small progress in knowledge, have thereby 
 been able to behold the Lord." This generation of 
 preachers was apt to see fanciful significances in every- 
 thing, a habit which Bruno himself criticizes when he 
 remarks that there are those "who, understanding too 
 subtilely things which are plain, render them difficult." 
 
 Other orators who made their mark in their time, 
 like Hildebert of Tours and Guarric of Igniac, .^El- 
 dred and Adam Scotus, had each some excellence of 
 his own ; one for strength of thought, another for sym- 
 pathetic power, another for earnestness, another still for 
 an occasional burst of genuine eloquence. 
 
 The Hermit of Amiens excepted none came so near 
 to stirring all Europe as Bernard of Clairvaux, a 
 would-be recluse in the Valley of Wormwood, the haunt 
 of robbers. This retiring man was constantly sum- 
 moned by the great powers of the earth to reconcile 
 disputes and arbitrate between popes and princes. No 
 man of the age had such influence, and no man his kind 
 of eloquence. Henry of Sens and Stephen of Paris 
 were supported by the commanding voice of Bernard in 
 their appeal to the pope from the king. Its tones were 
 heard in the stormy debates about the Knights Templars. 
 In the great contest between Innocent II. and Peter of 
 Leon for the popedom, in which the sovereigns of Eu- 
 rope were involved, Bernard espoused the cause of the 
 
194 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 former and won the kings of England and France and 
 the emperor of Germany by his persuasive oratory. 
 
 Had he lived five hundred years later he might have 
 been just as eloquent in the cause which Luther espoused 
 in Germany and Cranmer in England. There must have 
 been something behind his eloquence more and greater 
 than the gaunt and bowed figure which was more conspic- 
 uous than pope or prince in the famous procession 
 through Liege. His renown had preceded him as the 
 man who bent kings and nobles to his purpose. But 
 that purpose was always good for the times in which he 
 lived. It was his joy to reconcile hereditary foes. Cities 
 were not too great for his efforts. Genoa and Pisa, 
 whose jealousy of each other was obstinate and deep- 
 rooted, were made friends by his preaching. Turbulent 
 Milan was charmed into submission by his eloquence 
 and claimed him as their bishop ; but he preferred to 
 dictate the faith from a convent rather than the cathe- 
 * dral chair. 
 
 Twice more he was called out, once to meet a rebel 
 baron, whom he literally floored with an argument 
 which would be less effectual in these indifferent days, by 
 lifting the consecrated wafer and saying, " You have 
 despised and mocked me ; now comes to you the Son of 
 Mary; now stands here thy judge, the judge of all the 
 earth." The haughty count fell like a dead man at the 
 feet of the prophet ; at least so says Peter of Cluny. 
 
 His next triumph was a victory over King Roger of 
 Sicily, who had taken Rome and the Holy See. The 
 unity of the church and the right of majorities were the 
 arguments that, in the mouth of Bernard, sent him home. 
 
PREACHERS OF THE CRUSADES. I95 
 
 Another man might not have made them convincing, as 
 we have seen in our times. Then came the conflict with 
 Abelard and the Council of Sens, from whose sentence 
 of heresy Abelard appealed to the pope and died on the 
 way to Rome. 
 
 Bernard lived on for still greater achievements. He 
 lived to see himself of more consequence than the pope, 
 and in this way: the Christian kingdom in Palestine, 
 which had been established by the first crusade, was rent 
 by intestine feuds and menaced by the gathering forces 
 of the Saracens returning to claim their lost territory. A 
 call for aid was sent to the West from the East. Ber- 
 nard took up the mission of Peter the Hermit. Through 
 France and Germany he hastened, stirring up the high 
 and low, calling saints and sinners to join in a holy war. 
 He made the rich pour out their treasures; to the poor 
 he promised spoils, to the profligate he offered pardon. 
 The power of his eloquence had been equaled but once 
 before. His success was immediate and marvelous. ' 
 Time and again his robe was torn in pieces to make 
 crosses for volunteers. Cities and castles were deserted. 
 Like Peter he had to check the torrent of enthusiasm 
 which his preaching had roused. Two great expeditions 
 set out in the same year, 1147. The usual confusion 
 and disaster attended them, but no less on this account 
 was Bernard's oratory the inspiring power. He had 
 deprecated the evils and protested against the blunders 
 of the campaign; but when the ill-starred expedition was 
 over he was cursed for its fatal result. In vain after- 
 ward did leaders try to engage him in the preaching of 
 another crusade. Instead he turned his efforts to a 
 
196 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 warfare with heresy in Languedoc, like a second Ath- 
 anasius. Soon after his public life was finished, and his 
 days were ended in comparative retirement at Clairvaux. 
 The public voice demanded his immediate canonization, 
 and few men have better deserved this mediaeval token 
 of distinction for goodness and greatness. The gran- 
 deur of his eloquence is of chief interest here among his 
 manifold attainments and virtues. His marvelous 
 powers of oratory won all who heard him. Wives kept 
 their husbands away from the spell of his eloquence, and 
 mothers the sons whom they did not wish to be swept 
 into the crusading host by his irresistible persuasion. 
 Kings, councillors, and the pope himself were alike sub- 
 ject to its universal sway. It was not the wild harangue 
 of a fanatic, accompanied by dramatic contortions and 
 convulsions, but the earnest, clear, sincere expression of 
 profound conviction. The impressiveness of his dis- 
 course, the magnetism of his presence, the winning tones 
 of his voice, the power of his personal character are all 
 matters of tradition, but history gives the best testimony 
 to his eloquence in its records of the results he accom- 
 plished. 
 
 Of other lights in an age of comparative darkness 
 there are but few who are worth mentioning. No doubt 
 that many of them had a local and temporary fame, but 
 for only two or three can be claimed a lasting renown. 
 Anthony of Padua was an effective and popular 
 preacher at the beginning of the thirteenth century, but 
 his circuit was limited to the north and centre of Italy. 
 Churches were thronged from daybreak whenever he was 
 going to preach. Often he had to come out and address 
 
PREACHERS OF THE CRUSADES. 1 97 
 
 multitudes that could not find room within. Shops were 
 closed and places of business deserted. Thirty thou- 
 sand was an ordinary attendance. Nor were the effects 
 of his preaching less remarkable. Enemies were recon- 
 ciled, lives reformed, treasure poured out. It cannot be 
 seen why, from the meagre transcript of his discourses 
 that has been preserved. Ultra-mystical, crammed with 
 Scripture quotations, quaint and distorted in illustration, 
 the hearer, to understand them, must have been almost 
 equal to the preacher in his invention. It is probable 
 that his wondrous facility of homely comparison enter- 
 tained simple-minded hearers, and not them only; for if 
 this faculty is the highest, according to Bacon and Sir 
 William Hamilton, there were men of strong minds who 
 would appreciate this power of his to make mysteries 
 clear by the things that are seen. He makes most 
 singular comparisons, however, drawing out the likeness 
 between virtues and a ship's rigging, between saints and 
 eagles, hypocrites and hyenas, penitents and elephants, 
 apostles and ichneumons, merciful men and cranes, sin- 
 ners and hedgehogs. " Note," he says, " that the hedge- 
 hog is full of prickles, and if anyone tries to take it, it 
 rolls itself up and becomes a ball in the hands of the 
 holder. So a sinner, if you try to convince him of sin, 
 he immediately rolls himself up and hides by excusing 
 his fault." It is not by such discourse alone that he 
 could gain eminence. It is by something more than 
 sensationalism in any age that preeminence is attained. 
 It is rather the same secret over again, of a living, in- 
 tense personality. He threw himself into his discourse. 
 Bonaventura, his contemporary, did the same, and 
 
1 98 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 Albertus Magnus and Thomas k Kempis ; and in a more 
 eminent degree the later preachers, one of whom is full 
 of illustrative anecdote, with a fondness for mystical in- 
 terpretation which was a fashion of his age. Once he 
 was preaching in a most scandalously demoralized city 
 on the seashore, and being disgusted with the inhabitants 
 he preached a sermon to the fishes in the water close by, 
 from the text, "Ye are the salt of the earth." He be- 
 gins by saying that they have at least two good qualities, 
 they can hear and cannot speak ; also they were created 
 first of all living creatures, and cannot be tamed or 
 domesticated, and none of them trust man but all avoid 
 him. They fared best in the flood, and though they eat 
 one another it is no worse than the men of this city. 
 The bully-fish he upbraids, and the flying-fish he de- 
 spises for setting up to be a bird. " He that can swim 
 and desires to fly, the time will come when he can nei- 
 ther fly nor swim. 
 
 " With this last remark, I bid you farewell, my breth- 
 ren and fishes. As you are not capable of grace or 
 glory, so your sermon ends neither with grace nor with 
 glory." 
 
 The same may be said, in general, of the oratory of 
 this period. 
 
XV. 
 ECCENTRIC ELOQUENCE. 
 
 BY THE close of the fourteenth century oratory 
 had become sadly debased, though a few great 
 preachers still kept up the traditions of brighter a^es. 
 Among these Savonarola at Florence, Philip of Narni 
 at Rome, and Louis of Granada in Spain, shone as bea- 
 con lights. But for the most part there was affectation 
 and vanity, not to say profanity and buffoonery. All 
 natural eloquence was stifled and distorted. Free action 
 was cramped by artificialities. Sermons had marginal 
 directions such as, " cough here, sit down, stand up, mop 
 your face here, now shriek like a devil." An aged doc- 
 tor of divinity tells a young preacher to " bang the pul- 
 pit, roll his eyes toward the crucifix, and say nothing to 
 the purpose," if he will be a great preacher. In all this 
 century sermons are hammered out in this way ; sixty- 
 eight sermons on the one text " Come up into the 
 mount." Having given out his text the preacher pro- 
 nounced a long exordium, containing, perhaps, an alle- 
 gory or an anecdote from the classics, or a supposed fact 
 from the science of the day. Then he would return to 
 the text and begin to discuss a question in theology, and 
 one in civil law remotely connected. Division and sub- 
 division would each be illustrated by a classic saying or 
 
 199 
 
20O THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 a pointless story, sometimes doubtful in tone. A pea- 
 sant who had heard the praises of Apollo from the pul- 
 pit bequeathed his old cart-horse to M. Polio, of whom 
 such fine things had been said by the curd. A bishop 
 preaching on Christmas day compares the Holy Child 
 to Bellerophon, who, " mounted on the Pegasus of his 
 humanity, has overcome the world. He is our Horatius, 
 overcoming the three Curatii of ambition, greed, and 
 vice ; he is our Hercules who has beaten down the triple- 
 throated Cerberus." Sometimes they dropped into bur- 
 lesque in order to attract the attention that their thought 
 or style could not command. Preaching friars, " hedge 
 priests" they were called, were the sensational preachers 
 of the time, with methods not unknown in our day. 
 Speaking in the popular dialect, with a display of 
 their smattering of knowledge, they ran through the 
 titles of such books as they had read or heard of, to 
 the admiration of the assembled rustics — the sibylline 
 books, the Iliad, .^Eneid, and such other classics as could 
 be recalled. 
 
 Their logic was of the same order. Michael Menot 
 reasons thus concerning the ways of the evil one: "i. The 
 dance is a circular way ; 2. the way of the devil is circu- 
 lar; 3. therefore the dance is the devil's way." He illus- 
 trates his views as to the value of magistrates by the 
 fable of the cat, the mice, and the cheese. His descrip- 
 tion of the prodigal son, wasting his goods, is a mixture 
 of bad Latin and worse French ; but it is graphic, to say 
 the least ; too graphic to edify a modern congregation. 
 Pueri qui semper dormierunt in atrio vel gremio matris 
 suae nunquam sciverunt aliquid, et nunquam erunt in 
 
ECCENTRIC ELOQUENCE. 201 
 
 nisi asini et insulsi, et ne seront jamais que nices et bejaunes. 
 Brefquinefrequentepays nihil videt. 
 
 It is doubtful if this clerical jester ever preached this 
 sermon; and again, all preachers of this age were not 
 jesters. On the contrary they were, many of them, 
 grave and dignified. Their sermons were simple in con- 
 struction, and full of wisdom and fervor. 
 
 Gabriel Biel was such an orator. A scholastic 
 divine, a careful reader of patristic lore, and a professor 
 in the University of Tubingen he was a man of gravity 
 and learning, preaching sermons that were popular by 
 reason of their simplicity and intrinsic excellence. He 
 did not try to amuse his hearers, as was the custom of 
 his contemporaries, nor to puzzle them with scholastic 
 quibbles, but gave them good, practical advice in plain, 
 homely words. " His simple earnestness is his charm; 
 but his simplicity is that of a well-read and thoughtful 
 man, full of wisdom expressed in a straightforward 
 manner and applied in short and nervous sentences ; 
 many thoughts in a few words." 
 
 John Raulin represents another type, too frequently 
 met with in the fifteenth century, playing and trifling 
 with the highest themes, making them a series of Sunday 
 puzzles, enlivened by stories more pointed than classic. 
 To parents whose children are perfection in their eyes 
 he tells the story of a toad who wished to send a message 
 to his son in church by a hare that was going that way. 
 "How shall I know him?" asked the hare. "Nothing 
 more easy; there's not so good looking a fellow in the 
 crowd." "Oh, I know him— the swan." "Swan! that 
 fellow with splay feet and a crooked neck!" " The bird 
 
202 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 of paradise then." "You insult me by thinking that 
 cracked-voiced thing my son. Look, you," and he 
 puffed himself up, " he is remarkably handsome — ahem, 
 the very image of me; has goggle eyes, a blotched back, 
 and a great white neck." The fable would not fail to 
 reach many fond parents, but it would not do in a 
 modern pulpit. 
 
 In an Easter sermon he asks why the news of the 
 resurrection was announced to women ? and replies 
 that they have such tongues that they would spread the 
 news quickest. He enlarges on this topic and explains 
 the mystery of their loquacity in this manner, " Man 
 was made of clay, woman of bone. Now if you move a 
 sack of clay it makes no noise, but only touch a bag of 
 bones, and rattle, rattle, rattle is what you hear." 
 
 All fifteenth century discourse had not descended to 
 this level, but that such effusions were common and pop- 
 ular shows what sort of cultivation and taste prevailed 
 among the masses. The supply is generally according 
 to the demand in oratory as in other things, and some of 
 these pulpit wags had carefully measured the capacities 
 and requirements of their congregations, and gave them 
 what they most appreciated. In nothing, perhaps, is the 
 advance of civilization shown more than in the style of 
 pulpit oratory now, as compared with that of the fif- 
 teenth century preachers. 
 
 Even the dignified, earnest, and learned, like Matthias 
 Faber, are not over-nice about their anecdotes and sim- 
 iles. This divine, whose sermons contain much thought, 
 does not scruple to illustrate backsliding by the habits 
 of frogs who crawl out of the swamp a little way, but at 
 
ECCENTRIC ELOQUENCE. 203 
 
 the least alarm, he says, "flop into their slough again." 
 Servants' obedience to their masters he compares and 
 commends by the obedience of a man to the barber who 
 is shaving him, turning his head this way and that, put- 
 ting his chin up or down at the slightest sign. He 
 illustrates the value of vigilance by the story of a farmer 
 who was presented with a sealed box which he was to 
 take daily to his kitchen, his garden, his storehouse, his 
 cellar, his stable, and his field. He found provisions 
 wasting in the kitchen, vats leaking in the cellar, laborers 
 idling in the field, and opening the casket at the end of 
 the year he found nothing but a slip of paper on which 
 was written, " If you wish to make every day full of 
 success, fulfil your own task every day." It was telling, 
 of course, in a New Year's sermon. 
 
 But it must not be concluded that there was no sober 
 and useful preaching in those degenerate days. Instead 
 there was equal plainness of speech when it came to a 
 matter of rebuke, instruction, or exhortation. A pro- 
 found depth also of knowledge and understanding, and 
 a sincere emotion in the presence of the greater facts of 
 human life were equally present in the greater orators, 
 like Philip von Hartung and Joseph de Barzia. The 
 first of these had his mind stored with material ; so full 
 indeed that the elaboration of it is sometimes neglected, 
 and the rough ore is thrown at the hearer rather than 
 the minted coin; but there is vigor and beauty and con- 
 siderable originality. The remarkable realism of the 
 topics he treats of shows how fearless was his handling 
 of the plainest truths of the Bible. In one Advent he 
 preaches to a rural congregation on the appearance of 
 
204 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 the sign of the Son of Man, on the trumpet call waking 
 the dead, on the questioning of the risen ones, and on 
 the fina,l doom of the good and bad; all most striking 
 sermons. 
 
 Those of De Barzia are like those of the modern mis- 
 sion preachers, and of the better class of revivalists. 
 Interesting, pointed, full of illustration and appropriate 
 anecdote, they are eminently qualified to arrest atten- 
 tion and arouse the conscience. His strong point was 
 in never allowing the attention of his audience to flag. 
 To this end he did not wear out his subject, but left 
 some things to be suggested; and before he had ex- 
 hausted one topic he started another, thus keeping the 
 minds of his hearers alert and refreshed by change. 
 The divine judgments were the themes which he 
 developed with the greatest power, as the divine love 
 was the burden of his contemporary, Marchant, the 
 great preacher in the Low Countries at the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century. He is the opposite of John 
 Raulin; never trifling with sacred matters, full of rever- 
 ence for the Scriptures, and with little care for pagan 
 learning, which was beginning to be revived by the men 
 of his day. It is in this century that the character of the 
 sermon is changed from the expository form it had 
 maintained throughout the patristic and mediaeval cen- 
 turies. 
 
 John Osorius is an innovator, developing a single 
 topic instead of running on from verse to verse by way 
 of exposition. He seldom relates anecdotes, and omits 
 those stories which his predecessors delighted to intro- 
 duce. Instead he uses the brief simile, sometimes too 
 
ECCENTRIC ELOQUENCE. 205 
 
 frequently ; fifteen in one sermon being abundant, to 
 say the least. But their fitness and beauty compensate 
 for their frequency. Here is one that is curious-. He 
 says that as he lies in bed he hears the stroke, stroke, of 
 his heart; and it sounds to him as though within two 
 wood-cutters were engaged day and night in hewing down 
 a tree. " Nor am I wrong in thinking so," he continues, 
 "for Flux and Reflux are engaged every hour in laying 
 their axes to the root of the tree of life." In another 
 sermon he speaks of men fretting over the loss of worldly 
 goods and neglecting their eternal inheritance as re- 
 sembling " a little boy who has built a mud castle, and 
 cries when a passer-by overthrows it with his foot, 
 though he cares nothing that a lawsuit is going on at the 
 time by which a large inheritance is being wrested from 
 him." 
 
 To show in what repute a great preacher was held 
 the case of Maxmilian Deza may be cited. A man of 
 apostolic zeal he was nevertheless fond of exhibiting his 
 classic learning ; but that it was acceptable to the age 
 may be inferred from the fact that he was in request in 
 many cities, at Turin, Milan, Genoa, Venice, and Rome. 
 His sermons, sometimes two hours in delivery, had to be 
 enlivened by devices not known to our Puritan fore- 
 fathers, who used to preach quite as long. Accordingly 
 he works one point up to a climax that must have made 
 his hearers hold their breath, and then drops the topic 
 and gives them time to relax their attention till he deems 
 it fit to produce another effect, thus avoiding anything 
 like monotony. But he is careful to avoid dulness in 
 these lighter portions which insensibly, but really, lead 
 
206 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 up to the next topic of his discourse. For example in 
 the midst of a sermon on " dust to dust " he suddenly 
 points to the hour glass and exclaims, " Look ! this 
 hour is stealing away in grains of dust, warning you to 
 remember what you, too, ere long will become." Work- 
 ing this out with great solemnity he suddenly breaks off 
 with a description of glass and its manufacture. He 
 says it is made of sand and ashes, fused by heat and 
 formed by breath blown into it. " Is not that like man, 
 made of dust, kindled by the breath of life ? " Then 
 he goes on to show in six particulars how man is more 
 perishable than brittle glass, and having amused and 
 rested his hearers he begins another earnest appeal to 
 them, and explains that the immortal in man cannot 
 perish, however fragile his mortality may be. Then he 
 rests his hearers again by playing with a description of 
 dust agitated by the wind — the driving dust-cloud, spin- 
 ning above the tree-tops, falling again, obscuring the 
 landscape, blinding eyes and parching throats, returning 
 to itself again, dust to dust. " Is not this a picture of 
 man," he asks, " carried up and hurried about by the 
 winds of his light fancies and ambitions, and then 
 dropped a helpless atom into his native soil ? " And 
 so through the whole sermon, a point of interest 
 and then a climax of eloquence, which is worthy of the 
 best days of pulpit oratory in any age. Quoting Solo- 
 mon's words, that the life of man is as a "ship that pass- 
 eth over the waves," he adds, " and leaves no trace; no 
 trace but the foam-bubbles, to be brushed away by the 
 next wave, and this sweeping resistlessly to the rock on 
 which it will be shivered with a roar; a roar like the life 
 
ECCENTRIC ELOQUENCE. 207 
 
 of man, loud and fierce for a moment, and then carried 
 off on the wind ; the wind, like the life of man, sinking 
 into a lull and lost." For vehemence and word-pictur- 
 ing, combined with rhythm and cadence of sentence and 
 paragraph, his equal would be hard to find in all the 
 round of oratory. 
 
 In the main there has been great improvement by 
 reason of increased learning and light. The Reforma- 
 tion is drawing on, and although the preachers here 
 mentioned were not Protestants, in the modern sense, 
 they did nevertheless protest most vehemently against 
 the grosser errors of the time which they helped to re- 
 form. Permeated with scriptural knowledge and spirit 
 and knowing the nature of the human heart and the 
 experiences of human life these single-hearted men 
 spoke the truth with directness and fulness and sin- 
 cerity. They sometimes mixed celestial things with ter- 
 restrial in a unique, if not grotesque, manner ; but their 
 purpose was single and clear. The man who should do 
 as some of them did would now be called a jester and 
 mountebank. The man who should set forth the great 
 facts of life and death as others of them did would be 
 called a revivalist, a ranter, perhaps a fanatic; but he 
 would also have, sooner or later, a following that would 
 overwhelm him. Now and then an evangelist appears 
 who can draw crowds as they did ; but how to secure 
 lasting results and to organize and direct the crusade 
 that has been eloquently preached belongs to but one 
 or two in a century. For models of sincerity and reality 
 in morals and doctrine the present age can learn much 
 from the best of these preachers. 
 
XVI. 
 SAVONAROLA. 
 
 BEFORE leaving the fifteenth century and the 
 preachers who represent all the oratory that is 
 worth mentioning it will be proper to notice one who 
 surpassed them all. For this reason Savonarola is con- 
 sidered apart from his contemporaries. Born in 1452 at 
 Ferrara, the son of a court physician, his youth was 
 passed amidst the dazzling splendor of a careless and 
 corrupt age. Traditions of paganism were revived, and 
 the inhabitants of Italy were absorbed in wanton and 
 thoughtless enjoyment. In the midst of all this feasting 
 and dancing and occasional bloodshed this young man 
 lived a sad and lonely life. He knew that far below the 
 music and the revelry in the palace immured victims were 
 groaning and clanking their chains. He could find no 
 refuge from a dissolute age but in a religious house, and 
 accordingly he became a monk, to find the peace within 
 cloister walls which he could not find in a turbulent 
 world. Even there his reflections on the state of the 
 church roused him to fury at its debasement. Rulers 
 were elected by purchased votes; treasures got by grasp- 
 ing avarice melted away; cities were bought for favorites, 
 and nepotism made archbishops of knaves. Cardinals 
 rivaled dukes in lavish expenditures. Men mourned 
 long-lost liberty, but more the loss of administrative 
 
 208 
 
SAVONAROLA. 2O9 
 
 vigor in the tyrants that ruled over them. Ambition 
 had given place to cunning, and valor to treason. Lux- 
 ury had rotted society, and then out of corruption 
 sprung conspiracy and rebellion against feeble tyranny. 
 Desperate men hatched plots against despots; priests 
 carried assassins' daggers, backed by archbishops and 
 popes. 
 
 It was amid such surroundings that the mind of 
 Savon^arola took shape. By his superiors he was ad- 
 vanced from instructor to preacher. He gave up his 
 intention of keeping silence, and yielded to the demand 
 from within and without to become a prophet to an evil 
 generation. 
 
 His first preaching resembled the quiet instruction 
 of his lectures in the monastery, based upon the Aristo- 
 telian principles of discourse which still held authority. 
 He soon drew away from these to evangelistic methods, 
 inspired by biblical study. He was sent to Ferrara, his 
 native town. Its inhabitants cared as little for his 
 preaching as townsmen proverbially do for a prophet in 
 his own country. Alarms of war caused him to be trans- 
 ferred to Florence. Here he found a city under the rule 
 of supreme indifferentism to everything sacred while 
 given up to festivities, dances, and tournaments. Culture 
 of classical learning was kept up in a way, and literature 
 was cultivated in the form of learned essays and imita- 
 tions of Virgil, Cicero, Homer, and Pindar. The old 
 pagan philosophies were welcomed and revived, and 
 fortunes were spent in collecting manuscripts and art 
 treasures from Greece. It was an age of scepticism and 
 flippancy, precursor of the revival of learning in which a 
 
210 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 later Italy was to lead the world and become the civilizer 
 and teacher of Europe; now it was mere scholasticism. 
 With this Savonarola had little sympathy, though he 
 had given years to the study of philosophy. He was 
 still farther apart from the Florentines in an irreconcila- 
 ble diversity of temperament. They affected refinement 
 of style and expression, in imitation of the ancient classics 
 of similar character. He was rough in speech and man- 
 ner, harsh in accent, homely in diction; but what he 
 spoke came from the generous and sincere impulse of 
 an honest heart. Sincerity and honesty, however, were 
 counted as indifferent virtues in the reign of Lorenzo 
 the Magnificent. Furthermore Savonarola was unspar- 
 ing in his denunciation of the vices of the time, and of 
 the scanty faith of clergy and laity alike. He had 
 little commendation for poets and philosophers, con- 
 demned the craze for ancient authors, and quoted only 
 from the Bible. This book the Florentines did not read 
 for fear of corrupting their style, having discovered that 
 its Latin was not classically correct. 
 
 Beginning to preach to a coldly critical public which 
 delighted only in pagan quotations and elegant turns of 
 speech he soon succeeded in emptying his church. 
 Checked and disheartened at this cold reception he began 
 to ask himself how he could move such hearers toward 
 faith and virtue, and furthermore how could he get any 
 hearers to move. The orator who best represented the 
 taste of that age was one Mariano, whose preaching is 
 thus described by a contemporary: "And now, behold, he 
 begins to speak! I am all ears to the musical voice, the 
 chosen words, the grand sentences. Then I note the 
 
SAVONAROLA. 2 1 1 
 
 clauses, recognize the periods, and am swayed by their 
 harmonious cadence.'' It was such a speaker, then 
 famous, but now obscure, who overshadowed Savonarola. 
 Even his faithful friends said to him, " Father, one can- 
 not deny that your doctrine is true, but your manner of 
 delivering it lacks grace, especially when you are com- 
 pared with Mariano." To which he replied, "These 
 verbal elegancies and ornaments will have to give way 
 to sound doctrine, simply preached." But that was still 
 in the future. Meantime the city ran after polished 
 niceties from the Platonic Academy of Ficino, while 
 the irritated prophet questioned himself and nursed his 
 faith in the future. He recalled the prophets of Israel 
 and their fightings against a nation's ingratitude, and his 
 wrath grew hot and resolution grew strong to attack the 
 scandals of the age. He waited in fasting and contem- 
 plation for a revelation from on high. He began to see 
 visions and to hear voices urging him to persist and not 
 be cast down by the indifference of the people. Then 
 came a turn in the tide of public sentiment. Pope 
 Sixtus had been no better than his age, but his successor 
 was such a man as made his contemporaries look back 
 with longing for the days of Sixtus. All hope and 
 faith in the future were lost, and a corrupt people were 
 revolted by the conduct of a court more corrupt. This 
 year, 1484, Savonarola was Lenten preacher in a town 
 among the Sienese hills, where he could raise his voice 
 freely and utter words that had long been burning in 
 his soul. "The Church will be scourged; it will be 
 regenerated; all will quickly come to pass," was the 
 burden of his prophecy. 
 
212 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 He discovered that similar presentiments were lurk- 
 ing in the hearts of his hearers, and that his own thoughts 
 had found an echo in theirs. At last he was beginning to 
 find his place. In Brescia his words were fervent and 
 his tone commanding as he reproved the people and de- 
 nounced all Italy. His voice seemed to them to come 
 from another world as he predicted the calamities which 
 should befall the city. Then he went to Genoa, to be 
 recalled to Florence by the prince, who did not know 
 that he had sent for the destroyer of the power of the 
 Medici. The people soon demanded to hear him preach. 
 After a time he consented, and on a Sunday in August, 
 1489, the church of St. Mark was thronged with people 
 to hear the preacher who had become so famous in 
 upper Italy. Expounding the Apocalypse of St. John 
 he raised his audience to the highest pitch of enthusi- 
 asm as he pronounced the three predictions already 
 mentioned. But such prophecies of judgment and im- 
 mediate purification were not so pleasing as his intellect- 
 ual prowess and wonderful eloquence; some were there- 
 fore quick to say that there was more elocution than 
 logic and truth in his oratory. Still the people flocked 
 to hear him, until St. Mark's could no longer contain the 
 multitude. His imagery enchanted them; his predic- 
 tions of coming calamity were the voicings of their own 
 fears; but his condemnation of the scepticism and in- 
 difference of the literary class was the beginning of 
 disaffection. He told them that there was no office in 
 the church that was not bought and sold; that the city 
 was a den of thieves and murderers. In spite of this 
 he is invited to preach at the palace on Easter-day. He 
 
SAVONAROLA. 2 1 3 
 
 says he does not feel at home as in his own pulpit; 
 nevertheless he preaches a fearless sermon to the prince 
 and his court. It increases his popularity with the 
 people, and he is elected prior of St. Mark's. In this 
 position of increased Independence he is visited and 
 courted and beneficed by the prince, who in return gets 
 only exhortations to repent and rebuffs for his patron- 
 age. The former chief preacher of the city is then en- 
 listed against him, but overdoes the matter and mis- 
 erably fails, vowing vengeance in consequence. 
 
 Up to this time there are only rough notes of his ser- 
 mons; their character is known chiefly by the effect they 
 produced. The earliest of them do not exhibit the 
 highest order of his eloquence. A heterogeneous mass 
 of raw material is gathered around a text; but now and 
 then he touches on a point of vital interest, and all at once 
 the great and powerful orator appears. His mind throws 
 off original thoughts, his imagination pictures vivid scenes, 
 voice and gesture emphasize living truths. Ignorant of 
 the rules and principles of oratory it was only when a 
 subject took full possession of him that his natural gifts 
 supplied the place of art, and that he could attain to real 
 eloquence. It is when we view the performance of born 
 orators that we most prize the value of oratorical science; 
 for few men and few ages are possessed of overpowering 
 motives for irresistible eloquence, such as Savonarola, 
 Bernard, and Peter the Hermit had. Even they would 
 have been able to produce a more uniform excellence in 
 their efforts if they had understood a few more of the 
 laws of thought and its expression. 
 
 The simple eloquence of the fourteenth century had 
 
214 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 passed away. The contemporaries of Savonarola were 
 fanciful rhetoricians or scholastic disputers, darkening 
 the truth with subtleties, if they did not indulge in fan- 
 tastic buffoonery worthy of the comic stage. This new 
 preacher's success was based on his sincerity and ardor, 
 directed by a large sympathy with the people, which 
 they in turn reciprocated. He used language which 
 they could understand, and addressed them in familiar 
 tones. Although it was easier for him to write in Latin 
 he was careful to speak to the people in their own 
 tongue, rather than in the language of the learned class 
 throughout all Europe at that time. His topics also 
 came home to their hearts. Since the Christian fathers 
 and doctors passed away, only at rare intervals had such 
 a voice been heard, or such an uncompromising message. 
 He was restoring pulpit eloquence to its old post of 
 honor with renewed life, and was making for himself the 
 place of the first orator of his times, in the year that 
 Columbus discovered a western continent. 
 
 This year of 1492 was an evil one for Italy. Lo- 
 renzo the Magnificent died, refusing to grant liberty to 
 Florence. His son did not raise the hopes of a despair- 
 ing city when he came to the succession. Infamies 
 reached their climax in the house of Borgia, and Italy 
 was filled with dismay. Savonarola saw the visions of a 
 drawn sword above the city, and of the black cross span- 
 ning a stormy sky, and the golden cross to which all 
 nations flocked. He preached of morals, of the state, of 
 the church, inveighing against princes and clergy, liken- 
 ing himself to the hail which pelts every one who is in 
 
SAVONAROLA. 21 5 
 
 the open air. He discoursed of a second flood in a 
 series of sermons. And when the day came when he 
 should take for his text, "I will bring a flood of waters 
 upon the whole earth," the vast church was filled with a 
 crowd that had been waiting since the early morning. 
 The next greatest preacher of the time said that a cold 
 shiver ran through him and his hair stood on end as this 
 voice resounded through the church like a peal of thun- 
 der, and Savonarola declared that he himself was no less 
 agitated than his hearers. 
 
 His prophecies were being fulfilled with literalness. 
 A prince and a pope had died, and now armies were 
 pouring over the Alps to the conquest of Italy. The 
 terrified inhabitants saw the vision of the drawn sword of 
 the wrath of God. But the Friar of St. Mark's had de- 
 clared all these things before. Therefore all Italy rang 
 with his name, and all eyes were turned toward him. 
 The full effect of his preaching cannot be apprehended. 
 Men and women of every age and condition, workmen, 
 poets and philosophers, made the church reecho with 
 their lamentations. A reporter writes, "At this point 
 I was overcome and could not go on." But the imper- 
 fect report furnishes no basis for the estimate of such 
 eloquence, nor justifies the effect that it produced upon 
 the Florentine public. It is the old story of personality 
 over again, with its power that vanishes. The chief 
 point of all his utterances is a belief that a great re- 
 generation was near at hand through conflict and chas- 
 tisement. Yet in the absence of complete records there 
 is abundant testimony as to the effect of his words, and 
 
2l6 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 this is perhaps the truest test of their fitness to the people 
 whom he addressed. In no other way can a just esti- 
 mate of their real power be made. 
 
 He had changed the whole aspect of the city from 
 gay to grave, from evil ways to sober behaviour. Women 
 threw aside their finery, riotous young men became re- 
 ligious, usurers restored ill-gotten gains. All men were 
 amazed at this almost miraculous change. It was the 
 day of Savonarola's triumph, and he might have died 
 content. With a greater victory won than that of the 
 Hermit or of Bernard, because harder to accomplish, he 
 might have rested from his labors. But an evil fate 
 awaited him in prolonged persecutions by the papacy 
 and the civil authorities under the pope's direction. 
 Mock trials, torture, and martyrdom end his days at the 
 age of forty-five. 
 
 For eight years he had preached almost uninter- 
 ruptedly in Florence for the moral and material benefit 
 of those who at last condemned him to a temporary, and 
 then to a perpetual, silence. The time came when they 
 saw his prophecies fulfilled and his wisdom justified. 
 Then they worshiped his garments, cherished his relics, 
 wrote and rewrote his biography, composed services in 
 his honor, and invoked his aid as a prophet and martyr. 
 
 It was his mission " to dare to believe amid general 
 doubt, and to uphold against the scandal and scepticism 
 of the time the derided rights of Christianity, of liberty, 
 and reason." It was his to proclaim to his contempora- 
 ries that without virtue, self-sacrifice, and moral gran- 
 deur both mankind and society must fall to ruin. It is 
 the manner of this proclamation that places him in the 
 
SAVONAROLA. 2 1 "J 
 
 upper rank of the world's great orators, among the 
 exalted few who have known how to stir the hearts and 
 direct the wills of their fellowmen. It has not always 
 been in precisely the same way, as the Greeks and the 
 Italians, two thousand years apart, were not similar peo- 
 ple. On the other hand the same principles of our 
 common nature were wrought upon, the same hopes, 
 fears, ambitions; but in a different degree and with 
 larger scope and higher aim as new centuries revealed 
 new and wider fields of truth and achievement. 
 
XVII. 
 ORATORY OF THE REFORMATION. 
 
 WHILE Savonarola was preaching repentance and 
 the doom of the Medici at Florence, mediaeva] 
 philosophy and religion and oratory were drawing to a 
 close. The Reformation was about to usher in the be- 
 ginning of modern history with the year 1500. Around 
 that year is grouped a company of names which were 
 to be identified with a revolution in ecclesiasticism that 
 should make a new order of the ages and give a new 
 inspiration to human thought and activity. The ancient 
 church had been under the patronage of the state for 
 four centuries; the mediaeval church had subjected the 
 state to itself ; the moder/n church was to keep pace with 
 the nations in their civil and social development, and to 
 follow the course of maritime discovery with its enlighten- 
 ing and elevating influence. The men who initiate this 
 movement on the continent are Luther, Zwingli, Melanc- 
 thon, Calvin; all born between 1483 and 1509. 
 
 Contemporary with these continental reformers is a 
 group in England of equal zeal and greater wisdom and 
 greater eloquence, who will be noticed later. 
 
 Preeminent in this company of continental leaders is 
 Martin Luther, who, as early as his sixteenth year, 
 manifested, according to Melancthon, a "keen power 
 of intellect, and was, above all, gifted for eloquence." 
 
 218 
 
ORATORY OF THE REFORMATION. 2ig 
 
 The habit of monasticism was still upon the times, and 
 the place of such a man would naturally be in the reli- 
 gious house where his eloquence would be confined to 
 the limited circle of the brethren, or at most in the Uni- 
 versity of Wittenburg where he lectured on philosophy. 
 It was while there that he became an assistant to the 
 city preacher, and preached with great vigor and earnest- 
 ness. Especially when Tetzel began the sale of indul- 
 gences not far from the city did Luther warn the people 
 against their purchase, in words that had no uncertain 
 significance. 
 
 In all the controversy that followed he speaks as a 
 man with irrepressible convictions, freely and fearlessly. 
 He is fertile in words and full of illustration, with a won- 
 derful freshness and vigor of expression, coupled with a 
 dauntless boldness and a rude vehemence that was in- 
 vincible. His language is pungent, simple, and clear, 
 equally free from exuberance of fancy and dialectic sub- 
 tlety. He did much in the way of learned treatises in 
 the Latin tongue to forward the Reformation in the liter- 
 ary world; but it was his public preaching that carried it 
 beyond university walls to the popular assembly and 
 among men of all trades and professions, who knew little 
 or nothing of the language employed by scholars. He 
 preached several times in a day and his eloquence called 
 out crowds to hear him. It was a rare sight in those 
 times, when all interest in spiritual things had centered 
 in ceremonial. There was no Basil or Gregory, no 
 Augustine or Bernard. The great Florentine prophet 
 was beyond the mountains. Geiler of Kaisersberg had 
 gathered great concourses of people along the Rhine by 
 
220 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 his rude and captivating eloquence, but he cannot be 
 reckoned among the memorable orators. To Luther 
 alone must be accorded the tribute of an oratory which 
 produced abiding results, and the praise of being not 
 only the most celebrated reformer, but actually the great- 
 est pulpit orator of his time. In an age of sacerdotalism 
 and ritual he revived the primitive spirit of Christianity, 
 which demanded that all ceremonial should be subordi- 
 nated to the preaching of the Word. He was a man 
 fitted to illustrate by his own eloquence the claims of the 
 pulpit, which had been neglected for an altar which 
 itself had not been too well served. His stalwart form, 
 piercing eye, penetrating voice, and natural manner, full 
 of freedom and force, were all favorable to eloquence. 
 
 His mental furnishings were equally favorable. His 
 intellect was powerful and acute ; shedding a flood of light 
 upon a subject or penetrating through the subtleties 
 which scholastic refinements had woven around a truth 
 it brought to view the central and essential meaning. 
 Strong in logical faculty and disciplined by study he 
 was stronger still with the common people in his plain 
 and practical sense, which brought him into sympathy 
 with all men of sound mind in every rank and order. 
 This learning and logic and common sense were illu- 
 mined by a poetic temperament which made his oratory 
 glow with the light which comes from whatever is beauti- 
 ful and significant in nature and art. More than all he 
 was earnest and sincere in his speech, valuing it as a means 
 to an end, and not as an art to be exemplified, or even 
 elevated, for its own sake. He had the higher purpose 
 of changing the drift of his age from formalism to real- 
 
ORATORY OF THE REFORMATION. 221 
 
 ity, from glosses on the truth to the truth itself, from a 
 dead ceremonial and a perverted doctrine to that of 
 personal responsibility and a living faith. It was this 
 oratory, characterized by self-possession, vivacity, wit, and 
 rare knowledge of human nature, and an unequaled 
 command of the people's language, that made him to 
 be universally acknowledged as the prince of orators in 
 his age. 
 
 He had a singular opinion of his own performances. 
 " My style," he said, " rude and unskilful, vomits forth 
 a deluge, a chaos of words, boisterous and impetuous as 
 a wrestler contending with a thousand successive mon- 
 sters. I feel, however, that in these times there is need 
 of the hard against the hard, of the rough against the 
 rough. To clear the air the thunder-storm is still re- 
 quired. I would rather sin in disseminating truth with 
 hard words than shamefully retain it captive. If great 
 lords are hurt by them they can go about their own 
 business without thinking of mine, or my doctrines." 
 
 Thus did Martin Luther wrestle with papal despotism 
 and the evil one alternately, and sometimes the two an- 
 tagonists merged themselves into one and the same 
 without much distinction in his eyes. But by his un- 
 compromising speech he won spiritual liberty for him- 
 self and his people in spite of papal anathemas and 
 imperial legions. He represented the early enthusiasm 
 of the German Reformation, and the ardor of its begin- 
 ning. 
 
 A calmer period was to follow, requiring steadiness and 
 patience and a more intellectual and sustained effort. 
 The pen was to preserve what the tongue had uttered, 
 
222 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 and give system and order and permanance to the out- 
 pourings of liberty and truth. Therefore we do not find 
 another such orator, but scholars and theologians instead. 
 Erasmus the erudite, Melancthon the gentle, Zwingli 
 the intrepid were great and useful each in his own way, 
 but it was not Luther's way in all that relates to elo- 
 quence. 
 
 BuCER, perhaps, came nearest to it by his direct and 
 moving appeals to his countrymen. As preacher for 
 twenty-five years in the Church of St. Aurelian and as 
 lecturer on theology in the University of Cambridge in 
 England he earned for himself the epithet of " the elo- 
 quent." Invited to this professorship by Cranmer, the 
 counterpart of Luther in England, Bucer brought into 
 the labors of the Anglican reformers elements which 
 were not exactly in accord with their spirit; but this is 
 aside from the present purpose of tracing a slender 
 thread of oratory which ran through these controversial 
 years without making much show in the midst of a great 
 amount of written material, which has survived the 
 ephemeral but effective utterances of the pulpit. 
 
 John Calvin, even, cannot be enrolled among the ora- 
 tors of the Reformation, for the less conspicuous Farel 
 and Viret surpassed him in the pulpits of Geneva. His 
 controversies were waged with the pen, backed by the 
 faggot in one instance. Both methods were then in 
 vogue. His intellect was greater than his heart; and a man 
 of no sympathies can never move and seldom convince 
 the multitude. 
 
 The names of Martin Luther and his continental asso- 
 ciates are so commonly connected with the Reformation 
 
ORATORY OF THE REFORMATION. 223 
 
 in Germany that it is too often forgotten that a corre- 
 sponding worli was going on in England, under the 
 direction of such worthies as Latimer and Cranmer and 
 Ridley; the main difference in results being that on the 
 continent the work was destructive of the mediaeval sys- 
 tem, root and branch, while in England whatever was 
 good in the living tree was saved, the dead wood being 
 cut away remorselessly. Some doubtful branches, also, 
 were allowed to remain, to live or die, as the temper of 
 future times should determine. Three centuries have 
 sufficed to cleanse and revivify the whole organic struc- 
 ture, without destroying its integrity and continuity from 
 the days of Athanasius and Chrysostom and Ambrose 
 and Augustine. 
 
 Among the preachers of the English Reformation 
 Hugh Latimer must be counted preeminent. If not 
 the most effective speaker of his age he was certainly 
 the most pungent and indefatigable. He was also a 
 departure from the conventional preacher of his time, 
 an original thinker, expressing his thoughts in an origi- 
 nal manner. A man well stocked with the learning of 
 the day he made very little show of it, preaching as if a 
 sermon had never been preached before, without much 
 order or plan in what he said, discursive commentaries 
 on the condition of the church or nation, the news of 
 the day, the state of the public mind, the abounding 
 temptations ; in short, free talks on all sorts of subjects 
 that could be forced into the region of Christian truths 
 or motives. At one moment he is stern and vehement 
 in rebuke, towering in his indignation like a Hebrew 
 prophet, again drawing upon an inexhaustible fund of 
 
224 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 wit and drollery, passing from the gravest themes to the 
 gayest with the remark, " And here, by the way, I will 
 tell you a merry toy," but from it deriving some illustra- 
 tion that helps him get a firmer grasp upon the mixed 
 multitude before him. He was not particular where he 
 preached; cathedral, village church, or open street 
 served his turn equally well. His most powerful ser- 
 mons were delivered in a public garden of the palace 
 "where," he says, "there was constant walking up and 
 down and such a buzzing and buzzing in the preacher's 
 ear that it maketh him often forget his matter." But he 
 remembered enough to impress his hearers with truths 
 they did not easily forget. He spared none of them, 
 not even King Henry the Eighth. It is a wonder that 
 the great beheader did not send Latimer to the block. 
 Instead he gave him the bishopric of Worcester. Later 
 the king's countenance toward the bold preacher changed 
 and he was sent to the Tower. 
 
 His doom was averted by the death of the king. 
 Edward set him at liberty and made him his preacher. 
 Twice each Sunday during this reign Latimer delivered 
 eloquent and forceful sermons in the chapel royal. They 
 are full of information on the condition of society, the 
 state of opinion, and the prevalent degree of culture. On 
 most topics they display keen insight and profound 
 practical wisdom. With a loving heart, a merry wit, and a 
 subtile spirit, dauntless and incorruptible, he is always pub- 
 lishing the truth which has been released from a long 
 bondage of corruption. Here is a sample of a discourse 
 which he delivered at Paul's Cross, London, January i8, 
 1549. It is on the Parable of the Sower. " Honora- 
 
ORATORY OF THE KEFOKMATION. 225 
 
 ble audience," he says, " ye may not be offended when I 
 compare the preacher to a ploughman. It hath been 
 said of me, ' O Latimer, I will never believe him while 
 I live, nor never trust him.' . . But it was as I said, 
 according to that which Peter saw and said, there should 
 come fellows by whom the way of truth should be ill 
 spoken of. . . . Ye must not be offended when I 
 liken a prelate to a ploughman." He then proceeds to 
 draw out the similitude at length. But by and by he 
 says, " Ever since prelates were made lords and nobles 
 the plough standeth ; there is no work done, and the peo- 
 ple starve. They are so troubled with lordly living, they 
 be so placed in palaces, couched in courts, rustling in 
 their rents, dancing in their dominions, pampering of 
 their paunches like a monk that maketh his jubilee, 
 moiling in their gay manors and mansions, and loitering 
 in their lordships, that they cannot attend to ploughing 
 and sowing the seed. Some are in the king's matters, 
 some are ambassadors, some at court, some in parlia- 
 ment, some presidents, and some comptrollers of the 
 mint; and money is worse than it used to be since they 
 have been ministers. In this behalf I must speak to 
 England. Hear, my country, England, that Paul was no 
 sitting bishop, but a walking and preaching bishop. 
 Wo worth thee, O devil, wo worth thee, that thou hast 
 prevailed so far and so long that thou hast made Eng- 
 land to worship false gods. Yea, holy water yet at this 
 day remaineth in England to drive away devils, and for 
 a remedy against spirits, and I would this were the 
 worst; but good hope there is that here in England we 
 shall have all things well, for the king's majesty is so 
 
226 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 brought up in knowledge, virtue, and godliness." These 
 ave sentences taken at intervals from the discourse to 
 show its tone and spirit. The language is free and 
 familiar and unsparing; the speaker is holding a colloquy 
 with the people standing around the pulpit, as the cus- 
 tom then was. It is an outdoor address, and has all the 
 freedom of the every-day talk of the time, and all the 
 unsparing truthfulness of a man who knew that he might 
 hang for his words, but who did not stop for that. 
 
 All this free speech was ended when Mary came to 
 the throne, and Latimer, at the age of eighty, was kept 
 in the Tower for sixteen months before he was sent to 
 the stake. His words there partake of the nature of 
 his prophecy. "Be of good courage. Master Ridley, 
 and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, 
 by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be 
 put out." This is the best remembered and oftenest 
 quoted of all his sayings, and of all that was said in that 
 reign of blood and fire. 
 
 In Scotland the leader of the Reformation was John 
 Knox, a headlong sort of a man of vehement energy, 
 who was tossed about from "one kingdom to another 
 people," but who could keep silence nowhere. Politics 
 and religion were alike the theme of his oratory; and 
 when his tongue was tied he could write such tracts as 
 that entitled, " The First Blast of the Trumpet Against 
 the Monstrous Regiment (rule) of Women ; " Mary of 
 Guise being Regent of Scotland and Mary Tudor queen 
 of England. His preaching in the Cathedral of St. 
 Andrew's united magistrates and citizens in a crusade 
 against monasteries and churches, while his bold and 
 
ORATORY OF THE REFORMATION. 227 
 
 bitter discussions in the presence of Mar}-, Queen of 
 Scots, drove her to tears. For three days he disputes 
 with Abbot Kenedy, and though stricken with partial 
 paralysis he utters such tirades from the pulpits of Edin- 
 burgh that he is compelled to flee the city. His last 
 speech was more worthily employed in denunciation of 
 the atrocities of the St. Bartholomew massacre. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 THREE FRENCH ORATORS IN THE REIGN OF 
 LOUIS XIV. 
 
 AFTER the Reformation there was no immediate re- 
 . vival of eloquence in England. It does not share 
 the triumphs of dramatic literature, of science, and the 
 arts in Elizabeth's reign. The next outburst of it occurs 
 in France, where certain conditions favorable to oratory 
 existed. First a long and almost uninterrupted line of 
 literature had been accumulating since the eleventh cen- 
 tury. Troubadours had sung their lyric songs, the 
 trouvferes had celebrated heroic deeds of kings and 
 knights and nobles. Romances of Alexander and Ar- 
 thur and Charlemagne were succeeded by the beginnings 
 of history in the chronicles of Villehardouin, 1207, 
 culminating in Froissart in the fourteenth century. 
 The biographies of Comines, the writings of Rabelais 
 and Montaigne led up to the philosophic theology of 
 John Calvin's Institutes. At last, after five centuries, 
 French prose had grown strong enough to become the 
 medium of eloquence. Malherbe, the corrector of 
 poetry and "tyrant of words and syllables," with the 
 French Academy establishing rules for the language, 
 made it capable of expressing the high philosophical 
 thought of Descartes ; while in the vehement eloquence 
 
 228 
 
THREE FRENCH ORATORS. 12g 
 
 of Pascal's Provincial Letters a standard of French 
 prose was established for that century. All this growth 
 found its fruitage in the splendid literary period which 
 is styled the Age of Louis XIV., 1638-1715, in which 
 a gn>up of illustrious minds applied themselves to the 
 elaboration of every branch of literature. It was in 
 this age and under these favoring conditions that pulpit 
 oratory was made conspicuous once more by such men as 
 Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon. 
 
 Of these Bossukt was first in the order of time and 
 of excellence. Bom in 1627 he was educated after the 
 manner of his age in a Jesuit college, where he spent ten 
 years in diligent study of the prescribed curriculimi of the 
 order. At sixteen his eloquence attracted the notice of 
 literary people, p>aving the way for preferment to ecclesias- 
 tical offices. He became the most admired and popular 
 preacher in Paris. Churches were filled to overflowing 
 when he was expected to preach, and illustrious persons 
 were eager to become his auditors. 
 
 His success was the talk of society and led to his in- 
 troduction to the great world of Paris and the brilliant 
 assemblies of the court. An account of his precocity 
 has been preserved in the storj- of a patron who boasted 
 that if the j-outhful improviser were given a subject and a 
 few moments &>r recollection, he could pronounce .i cred- 
 itable discourse upon any topic selected. Accordingly 
 the boy was sent for near midnight to preach before a 
 numerous throng of literary fashionables. Taking his 
 theme aside for a few moments he re-appeared much 
 sooner than was expected and took the critical circle by 
 storm. Summoned by a bishop to repeat the expert- 
 
230 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 ment in a graver assembly he received, instead o£ ful- 
 some flattery, kindly advice and a warning against the 
 danger of premature success. However there were ad- 
 mirers enough to keep before him his vocation as an 
 orator, if he had not himself been mindful of it Con- 
 sequently he used every effort to cultivate his powers, 
 even attending the theatre when Comeille was king of 
 the drama, to catch what hints he might from the actors. 
 
 His more sober studies were in St. Chrysostom, whom 
 he regarded as the greatest preacher of antiquity, in 
 Origen and Augustine. In this study of sacred themes 
 no toil was too great. He had indeed drawn largely 
 from classic sources. Homer, Tacitus, and Thucydides 
 furnished strength and vigor to his style, and the proph- 
 ets of the Old Testament inspired him with sublimity 
 and pathos. Such wide range of study gave him com- 
 prehensive views on every subject. 
 
 His career as a pulpit orator is divided into three 
 periods ; the first showing progress toward his highest 
 attainment, the second that of his meridian splendor, 
 the third that of his decline. In manner and matter 
 the first is distinguished by the length at which the sub- 
 ject is treated; the second by rapidity, strength, and 
 pathos ; the third by order, finish, and symmetry, with 
 somewhat of diminished energy and force. In all there 
 was a vast fund of biblical and patristic lore, upon which 
 he drew for impassioned speech of the most brilliant 
 and learned character. Careless in his style in early 
 years he came at length to correct, alter, abbreviate, and 
 condense, often entirely changing his original sentences, 
 and except under the pressure of a most imperious 
 
THREE FRENCH ORATORS. 23 1 
 
 necessity he would never preach without a sketch of his 
 main points and the prominent lessons he wished to teach. 
 Living in the palmiest days of monarchy it should 
 be said to his credit that he never truckled to royalty. 
 In the words which he addressed to Anne of Austria, 
 " It is too cruel a flattery to tell the great that they are 
 faultless. Their very eminence makes no fault of theirs 
 trifling." To the humble, on the other hand, he did not 
 lower himself, but tried the rather to raise them to a 
 higher plane by the clearness and simplicity of his 
 thoughts and expressions, thundering against deadly 
 sins, or again speaking words of the sweetest mysticism 
 to an assembly of the faithful. He strove to strip his 
 oratory of whatever should please rather than edify. Of 
 him P6re de Neuville says, "He is the unique master 
 of the sublime and the energetic and the pathetic. Born 
 an orator there is as much folly in attempting to imitate 
 him as of madness in hoping to do so." Yet there were 
 imitators. Admitted to the highest literary society that 
 France or the world could boast his entrance was signal- 
 ized by the statement that he had won the applause of 
 France by his far-famed preaching and the eclat with 
 which he had filled the pulpit. Such was his introduc- 
 tion to the Academy. " Eloquence in him," it was said, 
 " is not the result of study ; everything is natural and 
 superior to art. Those noble forms, those grand lights, 
 those bold, living expressions which nothing can resist." 
 Vigorous, manly eloquence is joined to full, solid learn- 
 ing ; and to sweet helpfulness of the meek and lowly is 
 united stern and uncompromising denunciation of vice in 
 a wa)rward king and a corrupt court. 
 
232 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 Lamartine best discriminates as to the character of his 
 eloquence. He speaks of the "strong vein of sound 
 sense, consistency, and tempered discipline which ran 
 through all his eloquence, as timbers underlie the mag- 
 nificence and ornament of the building thej' support 
 His style rises to an equality with the majesty of the 
 themes — simple as the oracle which disdains to please, 
 unpremeditated as the word uttered in the rapidity of 
 thought, slow as meditation, rapid as the inspiration 
 which fears to escape from itself, collected and reflective 
 as the temple, sometimes as unpolished as the people, 
 always guided by nature to the idea it wishes to express, 
 poetic and yet logical, losing sight of the audience and 
 the chain of reasoning to give vent to emotion and 
 direct address, which suggests the inspired eloquence of 
 the ancient prophetsL" 
 
 Unfortunately we are obliged to depend more upon 
 the testimony of contemporaries than upon the sermons 
 of Bossuet for an estimate of his oratory. Notes and 
 rough sketches are the only inheritance left us. But 
 from these can be gained some idea of the impression 
 which the entire discourse must have made upon his 
 auditors. His elocution was not inferior to his composi- 
 tion. A deep-toned voice, controlled by the soul of the 
 speaker more than by rules of art, a lofty stature and 
 imposing presence elevated the man above the profes- 
 sional preacher, whose torrents of eloquence overwhelmed 
 the audience and left them not so much in admiration 
 as in agitation. 
 
 His best productions were the celebrated funeral dis- 
 courses which he pronounced over the great dignitaries 
 
THREE FRENCH ORATORS. 233 
 
 of his time, such as Cond6, Henrietta, the widowed queen 
 of England, and Anne of Austria. Some remarkable 
 discourses were also pronounced when certain followers 
 of Louis XIV. renounced the gayeties of his court and 
 took upon themselves the vows of religious seclusion, in 
 those days the next thing to a living entombment. It 
 was such eloquence which secured to him ecclesiastical 
 promotion. 
 
 When he abandoned the pulpit for the episcopal 
 chair another orator took possession whose name will 
 always be associated with Bossuet's. This orator was 
 BouRDALOUE. Comparisons were often made between 
 these two rivals in eloquence. The number of each one's 
 admirers was not far from equal. Indeed Bourdaloue's 
 argumentative discourse was better understood by the 
 average auditory than Bossuet's impassioned eloquence; 
 for logic, going on foot, can be more easily followed 
 than the poetic flight of genius. Still there is much 
 to be said in commendation of Bourdaloue's peculiar 
 method. Voltaire said that Bourdaloue was the first who 
 made men hear from the pulpit reasonings that were 
 always eloquent; and a writer calling himself Alexander 
 Vinet observes that it would have been better to say, 
 " Eloquence always reasonable." Bossuet, always elo- 
 quent, was not always reasonable, while Bourdaloue, if 
 not always eloquent, never trangresses the severe ex- 
 actions of good sense and sound reasoning. His lan- 
 guage is just what the subject requires, no more and no 
 less. It is sententious without the appearance of trying 
 to be terse, concise without being cramped for room. 
 Sparing of images and figures he fills his discourse with 
 
234 THE HISTORY OP ORATORY. 
 
 thoughts, using an enormous number. It might be ex- 
 pected that he would exhaust his store before he reaches 
 the second quarter of his sermon; but the old law of the 
 free-giver is true here, and of the fountain which yields 
 the more plentifully as it is drawn upon. His economy 
 is not that of ideas, fearing that he will run out and be 
 impoverished ; it is rather of words and imagery. 
 
 He says of himself to his hearers, " You have been 
 touched with sympathy a hundred times; now I wish to 
 instruct you. Your hearts have been moved with fruit- 
 less compassion or transient remorse; my design is to 
 convince your reason as a foundation for all the feelings 
 of piety which this mystery must inspire." It has been 
 remarked that Bourdaloue was popular from the abun- 
 dance of that which generally is most destructive of 
 popularity, the logical element in discourse; but the 
 more he reasoned the more he was admired. He made his 
 hearers use their own reasoning faculties, and they were 
 flattered and pleased. He did not go much beyond 
 this ratiocination to touch the fancy and the heart. He 
 addressed the understanding and was satisfied. Such a 
 speaker would find hearers in a time when there was 
 danger of being surfeited with the graces of an imagina- 
 tive style. There are reactions in a poetic age which 
 call men away from its usual forms to sturdier expression, 
 and in the reign of Louis XIV. the logic of Bourdaloue 
 was a grateful contrast to the imagery of Bossuet 
 
 A glimpse of the preaching of the time is afforded in 
 an account of Bourdaloue's sermon before the king, as 
 depicted by the author of Bourdaloue and Louis XIV. 
 The preacher had in mind, as everybody present had. 
 
THREE FRENCH ORATORS. 235 
 
 the separation of the king from one of his favorites. 
 The place was the chapel royal at Versailles; the time 
 the commemoration of the Crucifixion. " Never," says 
 the writer, "was an assembly more devout in appearance, 
 or less so in reality. The sermon had commenced. 
 Who had said that it would not be an ordinary one and 
 that the king would go as he came?" It should be re- 
 marked here that the preacher had prepared two perora- 
 tions, one flattering the king and another denouncing 
 his evil course. "As the sermon went on he was con- 
 stantly tempted to use the one with smooth words of 
 adulation, and as he drew near the moment when he 
 would be forced to decide, the more terrified he became 
 as to which side to take. Twenty times he was on the 
 point of losing the thread of his discourse. He felt this, 
 and gave the more vehemence to his utterance. He 
 draws near the close, and does not yet know what he 
 shall do. Another page and hesitation will no longer 
 be possible. One phrase only is left; he dashes on and 
 lets go the first words that come into his mouth. All is 
 lost! It is the wrong — the flattering conclusion. It is 
 as if the devil had whispered in his ear. Suddenly he 
 stops, and sees in a remote corner his mentor, the man 
 who had charged him to strike and spare not. Humil- 
 iated he bows his head and clasps his hands. But he 
 recalls himself. Now it is your turn, Louis the Great! 
 'Ah, my brethren, what was I about to say? Is it afthis 
 hour that I can have the courage to praise? Does it not 
 cry out that all men are sinners? And shall I dare to 
 make one exception? No, sire, no! I will not set even 
 you apart. Woe to the king who shall imagine that 
 
236 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 there axe two roads to heaven, one for himsdf and one for 
 his people.' And then he went on to mention the illu- 
 sions under which a king labors as to the extent of his 
 crimes. Happily the king cast down his eyes, which 
 somewhat relieved the agonies of those present. If he 
 had but frowned they would have wished the earth to 
 swallow them. He did not move, except to bend down 
 his head. Bourdaloue saw nothing, heard nothing. There 
 was no longer the slightest trace of indecision or terror. 
 He dashed headlong into passages which he had most 
 dreaded beforehand, pronounced with vigorous assur- 
 ance those words which he had trembled at in reading. 
 Twenty minutes after the service was over, in an ante- 
 room the king said to a courtier, ' Is Father Bourdaloue 
 there?' ' Yes, sire.' ' Bring him to me.' ' Well, my 
 father, you ought to be satisfied. The person you have 
 in mind is at Clagny!' 'Yes, sire, but God would be 
 better satisfied if Clagny were seventy miles from Ver- 
 sailles.' 'What! you distrust me still? But I thank 
 you for your sermon. It was j-our duty, you have ful- 
 filled it. You must give me the peroration. I wish to 
 read it again.' " 
 
 This sketch pictures as well as anything can the diffi- 
 culties and dangers that beset a little company of great 
 preachers who, because they were eminent, were in de- 
 mand at the court of the royal rake Louis XIV., where 
 the best of everything was demanded. Nobles and 
 princes could display their loyalty by the most servile 
 adulation, but the preachers of righteousness had much 
 to render the course difficult between fidelity to the 
 king and the King of kings. To their praise, be it 
 
THREE FRENCH ORATORS. 237 
 
 said, that the pomp and glory of the visible did not blind 
 their eyes to the things unseen. The ephemeral nature 
 of worldly grandeur appears to have been forced upon 
 them by frequent instances of mortality, and into the 
 midst of all the splendor of regal life death was con- 
 tinually intruding. At such times the great pulpit ora- 
 tors of that magnificent age asserted the preeminence of 
 the eternal over the temporal, of the infinite over the 
 finite. 
 
 This was especially true of Massillon, the third great 
 orator of this illustrious group. He succeeded to Bour- 
 daloue, as Bourdaloue had succeeded to Bossuet. As the 
 career of each had ended another took his place. But 
 each differed from the other in many respects. They 
 are alike only in the power each one possessed, in his 
 own way, to sway the multitude by his eloquence. The 
 individuality of Massillon consisted in the introduction 
 of pathos into discourse, and a slight softening of the 
 divine message without detracting from its truth and 
 authority. 
 
 "Does it not seem to you," said those who had heard 
 him, some years afterward, " does it not seem to you that 
 you see him still in the pulpit, with that artless look, that 
 modest bearing, those eyes meekly dropped, that careless 
 gesture, that affectionate tone, that appearance of a man 
 deeply moved, illuminating the minds of his hearers 
 and stirring their hearts with the tenderest emotions ? " 
 He did not thunder in the pulpit, nor frighten his 
 hearers by the violence of his outbursts and the explo- 
 sion of his voice, but by sweet persuasion he poured 
 into them the sentiments which melt the heart. There 
 
238 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 were no far-fetched flowers of speech, there were few 
 gestures even, only a rare raising of the eye ; but when 
 he did it was the finest of gestures, for it was an eloquent 
 eye. 
 
 He was particularly happy in his exordiums, securing 
 an attention which he was able to keep to the end. 
 Simple in arrangement of his plan he excelled in the 
 development and amplification of it, justifying the 
 maxim of Cicero, that the "height and perfection of 
 eloquence is to amplify a subject by adorning and deco- 
 rating it ;" or as Quintilian puts it, " A certain assem- 
 bling of thoughts and expressions which conspire to 
 produce the same impression." Thoughts and phrases 
 spring out of each other in natural sequence in his dis- 
 course, moving along like a harmonious group to the 
 melody of rhythmical expression. Graceful and easy in 
 diction his long and flowing periods carry with them 
 the weight and volume of the rolling billow. Elegant 
 in simplicity, rich in culture, sober in ornament, with a 
 certain repose in movement, he appealed to those who 
 have the instinct for harmonious and well-regulated 
 speech, and are removed in their taste from feverish thirst 
 for the sensational, and from idle, listless acceptance of 
 mere commonplaces. Such is the summary of impres- 
 sions which contemporary testimony leaves. Add to this 
 the tradition of a voice possessing all the tones which a 
 soul needs to express its manifold emotions, accompa- 
 nied by temperate action, and a combination is produced 
 of which a great actor said, " There is an orator ! we are 
 but comedians." A better praise was given by the king 
 himself, who said to Massillon one day on going out 
 
THREE FRENCH ORATORS. 239 
 
 after one of his sermons, "My father, I have heard 
 several great orators, and I have been very much pleased 
 with them ; as for you, every time that I have heard you 
 I have been very much displeased with myself." 
 
 It is one of the distinctions of Massillon that it fell 
 to him to pronounce the funeral oration at the obse- 
 quies of the king, in whose life-time this remarkable 
 display of sacred eloquence occurred. The exordium of 
 the oration will be longest remembered. Silently run- 
 ning his eye over the magnificent funeral trappings of 
 the king, whom men had called Louis Le Grand, he said, 
 " My brethren, God alone is great." 
 
 One of the passages, in which he observes the old 
 maxim, " to speak no evil of the dead," is as follows : 
 "From that fund of wisdom proceeded the majesty 
 displayed in his whole person ; in his most private life 
 he never forgot the gravity of royal dignity ; never did 
 a king sustain better than he the majestic character of 
 sovereignty. .... Meanwhile, as you know, that 
 majesty had no fierceness, but a charming address, when 
 it was willing to be approached ; an art of timing its 
 favors, which touched men more than the favors them- 
 selves ; politeness of speech which knew always how to 
 say that which men most loved to hear." 
 
 As this brief and inadequate extract may indicate, 
 Massillon was preeminently the orator of emotion. Bos- 
 suet had spoken as one inspired and v/ith authority; 
 Bourdaloue had poured out the treasures of a mind full 
 of thought; and to these Massillon succeeded with a 
 heart full of sympathy for his fellowmen. In this devel- 
 opment of eloquence may be discerned a progress similar 
 
240 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 to that which marks the growth of literature from the 
 poetic to the intellectual, and finally to the emotional. 
 Imagination is succeeded by the understanding and the 
 understanding by the emotions. Massillon addresses the 
 heart in the plain language which best describes what 
 passes in the heart and life of man, awakening joyful and 
 painful sentiments by turns, but always with propriety 
 and moderation. Like Demosthenes, with whom There- 
 min compares him, he takes a few simple thoughts as the 
 ground-work of his discourse and uses them in a great 
 variety of ways to accomplish his purpose. Like Chrys- 
 ostom he presses upon the wavering hearer with immedi- 
 ate address arguments drawn from a profound knowledge 
 of the human heart and of human life. As Bossuet had 
 spoken from the bishop's throne and Bourdaloue as 
 from scholastic surroundings, so Massillon spoke to men 
 and women of the world in the cultivated language of 
 society upon themes which most vitally concerned them. 
 Who is greatest in this kingdom of eloquence in a 
 kingly age it is not possible to pronounce with authority 
 beyond personal preference. As one admires brilliance, 
 profundity, or sensibility, will be his verdict. Each ora- 
 tor has had his following in his own day and since. 
 Covering the last half of the seventeenth century, an age 
 rich in highly gifted men and marking a splendid epoch 
 in literature, an age not lacking in piety but burdened 
 with worldliness and a corrupt court, this coterie of 
 orators may be regarded as the fruit of their time, 
 ripened by the sunshine above and the decay beneath 
 them. After them literature declined, and with it elo- 
 quence and morality and liberty, until human rights 
 
THREE FRENCH ORATORS. 24 1 
 
 were reasserted in the most inhuman fashion of the 
 French Revolution, toward the end of the succeeding 
 century. Another sort of oratory then sprung up which 
 was as wild and erratic as the movement which it accom- 
 panied. 
 
XIX. 
 
 ORATORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 
 NAPOLEON. 
 
 IN ESTIMATING the eloquence of the French Revo- 
 lution it should be remembered that the best oratory 
 cannot be reduced to the measure of any arbitrary stand- 
 ard. As there was one criterion of excellence for Athens 
 and another for Ephesus and another still for Rome, 
 and each in a different age and under a different civil- 
 ization, so it must not be thought abnormal if a singular 
 irregularity in public speech occurred under the condi- 
 tions which prevailed in France near the close of the last 
 century. It must be borne in mind that the easy-going 
 times when the cultured few basked in the smiles of 
 royal patronage were over. Tyranny was reaping as it had 
 sown. A down-trodden people were springing up with 
 tremendous energy. Surprised at their unexpected suc- 
 cess they were wild with the first flush of triumph, yet so 
 uncertain of ultimate victory and so undetermined 
 among themselves as to a permanent course to pursue, 
 that there was abundant need of counsel and leadership. 
 This was met at first by the orators of the nation. 
 
 The task before them at first was to destroy any 
 lingering reverence for kingly authority. No half-meas- 
 ures appeared to be consistent with the emancipation of 
 France. Heroic and even violent treatment was the 
 
 242 
 
ORATORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 243 
 
 only remedy for evils that had been increasing for cen- 
 turies. It must be the power of the people, utter and 
 complete in its rule, or royalty would lift up its head to 
 their destruction. In such a case and with such a people 
 nothing but the most radical counsels would be listened 
 to, and the man who should go farthest would be likely 
 to have the greatest following. At the outset this man 
 
 was MiRABEAU. 
 
 A glance at his portrait shows what might be ex- 
 pected of him. It is the personification of impudent 
 defiance. Born into the world with a pair of grinders, 
 tongue-tied, and one foot twisted, it is said he grew up 
 " as ugly as the nephew of Satan," " a monster, physically 
 and intellectually," as his father averred. But his father 
 was another monster in his treatment of him, and it is a 
 wonder that the boy did not turn out a reprobate. As 
 it was, after a most eventful youth, and an early man- 
 hood passed in the army, in prison, and in Bohemian 
 wanderings he came to Paris in 1785, where he found 
 himself a penniless writer of political pamphlets, one 
 of which was ordered to be burned by the common exe- 
 cutioner. Elected to the assembly of deputies by the 
 third estate for the city of Aix he became the mouth- 
 piece of the revolution. It should be remarked, how- 
 ever, that he represents the transition period, and was 
 not at first hostile to royalty. He would secure liberty 
 to the people while sparing the throne. Regarding 
 mobs and riots with disfavor he was ready to restore the 
 king's legitimate authority as the only means of saving 
 France, as he thought. 
 
 This was the period of his immense activity. To his 
 
244 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 absorbing duties as deputy were added those of a 
 journalist of the convention. To meet the exigencies of 
 his manifold duties he resorted to assistance which is 
 novel in the work of the orator, though not so in that of 
 the journalist. He called around him coadjutors such 
 as Dumont, Duroveray, Reibaz, and others who might 
 claim a large share in the composition of some of his 
 best speeches. They furnished what he regarded sim- 
 ply as materials into which his genius infused new life, 
 as Shakespeare did into the old plays which he recast 
 and revivified ; so that it has been said that between a 
 speech written for him by Dumont and Duroveray and 
 as delivered by himself there was as much differ- 
 ence as between the dead and the living, vested as it was 
 with the life and splendor which came from himself 
 alone. It was the reverse of the speech-writing of the 
 ancients, which lost by the unprofessional citizen's de- 
 livery. He would receive notes as he ascended the 
 tribune and weave them without apparent reflection into 
 the texture of his discourse. He would give the plan of 
 a speech, and after it had been written out by another, 
 retouch it with his practiced judgment and strengthen it 
 with his vigorous thought. Most of his discourses, 
 however, were premeditated. The famous speeches on 
 the Constitution, Royal Veto, and National Education 
 were written out with great care and elaboration. 
 Strong, energetic, natural, and without ornament, he is 
 eloquent in the simplicity of his diction. Clear in the 
 statement of facts, positive in the statement of questions, 
 ample and sonorous in phraseology, he unrolls the fabric 
 of his discourse with measured solemnity. Seeking not 
 
ORATORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 245 
 
 SO much the harmony of words as the connection of 
 thoughts he secures a sequence of effects which is irre- 
 sistible in cumulative power. His order of advance is 
 impenetrable, his method of attack irresistible, and 
 escape from his conclusions impossible. Here is an exam- 
 ple of his manner in the speech on National Bank- 
 ruptcy, equivalent to enumeration: 
 
 " Two centuries of depredation and robbery have 
 excavated the abyss wherein the kingdom is on the 
 verge of being engulfed. This frightful gulf it is 
 indispensable to fill up. Well, here is a list of prop- 
 erty-holders. Choose from among the richest so as to 
 sacrifice the smallest number of citizens. But choose, 
 for is it not expedient that a small number perish to 
 save the mass of the people ? Restore order to our 
 finances, peace and prosperity to our kingdom. Do you 
 imagine that because you refuse to pay you cease to owe? 
 Vote then this subsidy, and may it prove suflBcient. 
 Vote it because the class most interested is you your- 
 selves. Vote it because the public exigencies allow of 
 no evasion and no delay. Beware of asking time; misfor- 
 tune never grants it. To-day bankruptcy, hideous bank- 
 ruptcy is before you. It threatens to consume you, 
 your country, your property, your honor. And do you 
 deliberate ? " 
 
 Admirable as Mirabeau was in his premeditated dis- 
 course, his extemporaneous utterance was full of vehe- 
 mence and fire. He roared, he stamped, he shook his 
 shock of hair, and trod the tribune with the imperial air 
 of a king. His habitual grave and solemn tones were 
 gone, and in their place rang out accents of thunder 
 
246 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 and heart-rending pathos, and all without losing his 
 self-control. But these improvised efforts were short 
 and wisely ended when the blow was struck. He was 
 not- subject to the common infirmity of extempo- 
 raneous speakers, not knowing when to stop and how. 
 
 Nothing of Mirabeau can better show the greatness 
 of the man and the orator than his independent attitude 
 toward both the populace and royalty alike. To those 
 who contended that the Assembly ought not to have the 
 initiative in the impeachment of the King's ministers 
 he replied, " You forget that the people to whom you 
 oppose the limitation of the three powers is the source 
 of all the powers, and that it alone can delegate them. 
 You forget that it is to the sovereign you would deny 
 the control of his own administrators." And to ambas- 
 sadors going to the king to request a dismission of the 
 troops he said, "Say to the king — say to him that 
 hordes of foreigners by whom we are invested have re- 
 ceived the visits of the princes and their presents. Say 
 to him that the whole night these foreign satellites, 
 gorged with gold and wine, have been predicting the 
 enslavement of France and invoking the destruction of 
 the National Assembly. Say to him that in his very 
 palace the courtiers have led their dances to the sound 
 of this barbarous music, and that such was the prelude 
 to St. Bartholomew." 
 
 No brief extract can give an idea of the impetuous 
 onset of Mirabeau's eloquence. It must be read by the 
 page to measure its power, and even then it must ,have 
 been heard to feel its tremendous force. 
 
 To understand the progress of eloquence in the 
 
ORATORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 24/ 
 
 French Revolution the great struggle between the 
 Girondists and Jacobins should be recalled. The first 
 of these factions embraced in their number some of the 
 finest orators France ever produced. Idealists, with a 
 fond looking backward toward the glories of Greek 
 and Roman republics, they dreamed of reviving ancient 
 liberty in their own time and nation. Meanwhile the 
 Jacobins were declaiming of aristocracy and privileged 
 orders in Paris and arousing the hatred of the populace 
 against them. The time itself was inspiring. The fall 
 of a throne, the sudden rise of a republic in its place, 
 the removal of restraints that had fettered thought 
 stirred men's minds to intense activity. All the great 
 interests of life were merged in the conflict, and life 
 itself was the price that the principal actors had to pay 
 for their part in the overthrow of the ancient order. 
 
 Add to this the collision between the two parties who 
 were trying to guide the storm, each in its own way, and 
 a new inspiration is contributed. On the one side a 
 band of noble and eloquent men; on the other dark, in- 
 triguing, desperate characters. The collision between 
 these two groups produced examples of oratory unlike 
 those of any previous or subsequent time; not the 
 highest, or the most deserving of imitation, but unique 
 and unsurpassed in the direction of impassioned speech. 
 A paragraph from Vergniaud indicates the spirit that 
 was riding upon the whirlwind. It was on the occasion 
 of the failure of the first conspiracy of the Jacobins 
 against the Girondists, of which party the speaker him- 
 self was a member. " We march from crimes to amnes- 
 ties, and from amnesties to crimes. The great body of 
 
248 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 citizens are so blinded by their frequent occurrence that 
 they confound these seditious disturbances with the 
 grand national movement in favor of freedom ; regard 
 the violence of brigands as the efforts of energetic minds, 
 and consider robbery itself as indispensable to public 
 safety. 'You are free,' say they, ' but unless you think 
 like us we will denounce you to the people, we will 
 abandon you to their fury unless you join us in perse- 
 cuting those whose probity or talents we dread.' Citi- 
 zens, there is too much room to fear that the Revolution, 
 like Saturn, will devour all its progeny, and finally leave 
 only despotism with all the calamities it produces." His 
 prophecy proved true, and he was among the first to be 
 devoured by the guillotine; perhaps because he had been 
 the chief orator in the Reign of Terror. 
 
 Others there were who, in a less turbulent age and 
 with fewer contemporaries in eloquence, would have 
 made themselves illustrious examples of persuasive or 
 coercive speech; men like Roland and Lanjuinais, Louvet 
 and Barbaroux, Desmoulins and Varennes, Marat and 
 Robespierre. In this tempestuous time Danton may 
 stand for the whirlwind as Mirabeau had stood for the 
 gathering storm. 
 
 As the clouds began to pass over and the Revolu- 
 tion to retrograde there was but little display of elo- 
 quence. When Bonaparte came into power he preferred 
 to do most of the speaking himself. At last censor- 
 ship over tongue and press was established, and oratory 
 became the echo of his sentiments concerning the glory 
 of France. Wild dreams of republicanism had their 
 fulfilment in boundless enthusiasm for a military leader 
 
ORATORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 249 
 
 who knew how to appeal to men in many ways, not the 
 least effective of which was by means of the greatest 
 military oratory the world has known. The great cap- 
 tains of a remote antiquity addressed their soldiers, so 
 far as we know, mostly in the language of Herodotus and 
 Thucydides, Livy and Tacitus, or in the terms which 
 these historians think they ought to have employed. 
 Napoleon spoke in the words of his own choosing. 
 Csesar most resembled him on the battlefield, encourage- 
 ing his troops with inspiring words; and there is the pos- 
 sibility that the elegant and accomplished Csesar rewrote 
 his military harangues in the seclusion of his tent or of 
 his house at Rome. But Bonaparte is near enough to 
 our own times to be judged correctly in respect to his 
 eloquence, for the record of it has been preserved with 
 remarkable fidelity. 
 
 The main feature of it is its adaptation to the needs 
 of the hour. Knowing men as few leaders of men 
 ever have known their followers his words to them are 
 such as they needed to hear. The same unfailing per- 
 ception which told him what to do in every emergency 
 directed him in what was best to say. Coupled with this 
 rare intuition went an authority in speech, surpassed 
 only by his commanding presence. One remarks of 
 him that he spea.ks " as if he stood on a mountain, and 
 was himself a hundred cubits high." To be sure, the 
 highly wrought language he uses would be overdrawn at 
 the present day, but in his own the general imagination 
 was at the highest pitch of excitement, for the ground- 
 swell of the Revolution had not wholly subsided. Be- 
 sides he was addressing an army, and not an accom- 
 
250 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 plished audience. Plain words spoken to the heart 
 rather than the head, appealing to the emotions rathe?; 
 than the reason, was the only form of harangue that he 
 chiefly employed. 
 
 " Friends," said he to the army of Italy, at the outseC 
 of his career, "Friends, I promise you that glorious 
 conquest; but be liberators of peoples, be not their 
 scourges." His addresses are strong in their commenda- 
 tion of what his soldiers have achieved. It might be 
 called flattery if it were not truth. " Soldiers, in fifteen 
 days you have gained six victories, taken twenty-one 
 stands of colors, fifty pieces of cannon, and made fifteen 
 hundred prisoners. You are the equals of the conquer- 
 ors of Holland and of the Rhine. Destitute of every- 
 thing you have supplied yourselves with everything. 
 You have won battles without cannon, crossed rivers 
 without bridges, made forced marches without shoes, 
 bivouacked without spirituous liquor, and often without 
 bread. Thanks to you, soldiers. Your country has a 
 right to expect great things of you. You still have bat- 
 tles to fight, cities to take, rivers to pass. Is there one 
 among you whose courage flags ? No, there is not one 
 among the victors of Montenotte, of Millesineo, of Diego, 
 and of Mondovi." After this he marched from triumph 
 to triumph. 
 
 Entering Milan he encouraged them in this way : 
 " Soldiers, you have rushed like a torrent from the Ap- 
 pennines. Milan is yours. You have crossed the bul- 
 warks of Italy. Your friends rejoice at your triumphs. 
 Let us on. We have yet forced marches to perform, 
 enemies to subdue, laurels to gather, wrongs to avenge. 
 
ORATORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 2$ I 
 
 To reinstate the Capitol, to awake the Roman people 
 from the lethargy of ages of enslavement — this is what 
 remains for us to accomplish." 
 
 French soldiers had not been accustomed to such lan- 
 guage. They were infatuated with their leader, and they 
 would have followed him to the ends of the earth, whither, 
 in his inmost soul, he intended to go. Accordingly when 
 starting for Egypt he says, "Frenchmen," (they were 
 well at sea before he disclosed his plans), " Frenchmen, 
 you have great destinies to fulfil, battles to fight, fatigues 
 to surmount. Europe has her eyes upon you. The 
 first city you are to enter was founded by Alexander the 
 Great." At the pyramids he tells them that forty cen- 
 turies are looking down upon them. 
 
 Sometimes he takes another course and, as on the 
 morning of Austerlitz, throws himself in their keeping, 
 saying, " I will keep away from the firing, if with your 
 wonted bravery you carry disorder and confusion into 
 the enemy's ranks. But if the victory should be for a 
 moment doubtful you will see me rush to fall in the front 
 of the conflict." 
 
 And after the battle he thus addresses them : " Sol- 
 diers, I am pleased with you ; you have decorated your 
 eagles with immortal glory. When the French people 
 placed upon my head the imperial crown I relied upon 
 you to maintain it ever in that eminence of glory which 
 alone could give it value in my eyes. I will soon lead 
 you back to France where you will be the object of my 
 tenderest solicitude." Sometimes his ardor gives wings 
 to his words, as in the expedition to Naples : " Soldiers, 
 march; hurl into the waves the impotent battalions of 
 
252 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 those tyrants of the seas. Let me hear quickly that the 
 sanctity of treaties is avenged, and that the manes of my 
 brave soldiers are appeased." 
 
 And then in his farewell are found the same identifica- 
 tion of himself with his troops as in the days of his glory : 
 " Soldiers, I bid you farewell. For the twenty years we 
 have been together your conduct has left me nothing 
 to desire. I have always found you on the road to glory. 
 All the powers of Europe have combined against me. 
 France herself has desired other destinies. Be faithful 
 to your new king, and desert not our beloved country. 
 Do not lament my lot. I shall be happy when I know 
 that you are. Adieu, my children; the best wishes of 
 my heart shall be always with you." 
 
 There will always be differences of opinion concern- 
 ing the motives which underlay Napoleon's activities. 
 He will be regarded as the great military genius, or the 
 great pretender of history; but as an orator his words 
 and his personal magnetism were sufficiently powerful to 
 draw all France after him into whatever quarter of the 
 earth his ambition might lead him. As it is only the 
 man as a speaker and persuader that is now contemplated 
 he must be accorded the first place among military 
 orators. His words are simple, his sentences are short, 
 but they went directly to the hearts of plain men and 
 brought devotion back to him who uttered them. 
 
XX. 
 
 ORATORS OF THE RESTORATION. 
 
 AS HAS been remarked Napoleon chose to be the 
 sole orator of his time. Nor was it until the 
 Bellerophon was bearing him away toward St. Helena 
 that unrestrained liberty of speech was restored. 
 
 De Serre was the first orator of the Restoration in 
 point of time, an orator who crushed a civil war, saved 
 the monarchy, and defended liberty. His oratorical 
 career was brief but full of success. Energetic, forcible, 
 versatile, he was equally strong in the consideration of 
 the subject, in the deduction of proofs, and in refutation 
 of his opponents. Clear in the division of his subject, 
 firm in his treatment, and sustained in his reasoning, he 
 shows the strength of his discourse on every page. He 
 was a man to strike out epigrammatic sentences that have 
 become famous. But his triumphs were soon ended by 
 the misfortune that befalls a man who occupies a moderate 
 position where factions rage. Considered too liberal by 
 the royalists and too royalist by the liberals he was sent 
 into the exile of an embassy to meditate upon his past 
 achievements. His masterly description of the freedom 
 of the press in England and the United States shows him 
 at his best, and more like an orator in either of these 
 countries than in his own. 
 
 To him succeeded General Foy, mounting the trib- 
 253 
 
254 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 une with the characteristic sentence, " France has still 
 an echo for the words honor and country; " a sentiment 
 which caused tears to flow from the eyes of all the old 
 warriors of the empire. It seemed to them like the war- 
 cry of Napoleon. The speeches of this man were marked 
 by three cardinal excellencies, good sense, rare intelli- 
 gence, and the knowledge of contemporary needs. They 
 addressed the people in the language of the day and of 
 the hour. The speaker was at one with his time. Be- 
 sides he had the advantage of being a military orator, a 
 character which always commends itself to Frenchmen. 
 The fact that he was in unison with his time gives, how- 
 ever, an unfavorable complexion to his oratory as com- 
 pared with the great efforts of the greatest orators. The 
 age itself was narrow, and his oratory was no broader 
 than the observed constitutionalism which he supported. 
 Judged from the present view-point his splendor was 
 somewhat glittering and sensational. He would sud- 
 denly leave his seat, scale the tribune as if he were taking 
 a rampart, launch forth words of command, and dazzle 
 the multitude. Frenchmen admired all this display and 
 applauded accordingly. 
 
 A contemporary writer says, " It has been observed 
 that a man over forty years of age does not learn extem- 
 porization any more than swimming, horsemanship, or 
 music. To supply this defect in his education it is in- 
 teresting to observe the methods of this orator of mili- 
 tary training. He was accustomed to formulate and 
 distribute in his memory the whole plan and proportion 
 of his speech, disposing his exordiums, classing his facts, 
 and sketching his perorations. Then he ascended the 
 
ORATORS OF THE RESTORATION. 255 
 
 tribune and gave himself up to the current of his 
 thought. He knows what he is going to say, but not 
 how he is going to say it. He has the end and purpose 
 of his speaking in view, but not the road by which he is 
 to reach it. It is a mixed process of writer and imper- 
 sonator, drawing material from the premeditated and the 
 unforeseen alike, from nature and from art. Memory and 
 invention, originality and taste, the ease of the gentle- 
 man and the erudition of the scholar, all combined to 
 make the second orator of the Restoration." 
 
 The third was Benjamin Constant. Without the 
 power of De Serre or the brilliancy of Foy he was more 
 intellectual and prolific than either. With something 
 between a lisp and a stammer in his speech he would 
 rest his hands on the front of the tribune and roll forth a 
 flood of words. The graces which nature had denied 
 him he supplied by force of intellect and labor. For 
 fifteen years he wrote and spoke, and spoke and wrote by 
 turns. Whom he could not reach by tongue he touched 
 in print, and had thousands of readers where he had 
 hundreds of listeners. It was the age of transfer of 
 power from the rostrum to the press, or, more exactly, of 
 division of attention. Most exactly, it was the perpetu- 
 ation and wide distribution of oratory through the pam- 
 phlet and newspaper. 
 
 It is the orator, however, that concerns the present 
 subject rather than the editor. Such an orator was he 
 that Frenchmen to-day read his longest speeches without 
 fatigue. Animation, imagery, illustration, art in reason- 
 ing, variety in topic characterize his eloquence. It was 
 sometimes too highly finished for the multitude, and 
 
256 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 better understood in reading than by the hearing. As one 
 of his critics says, " Orators are like those statues placed 
 in elevated niches which must be chiseled somewhat 
 roughly to produce an efiect from a distance. Fine 
 antitheses and knotted reasonings fatigue the attention. 
 Repetitions even are preferable to fine drawn distinctions 
 and elaborate arguments." 
 
 His command of language, his wit, his presence of 
 mind, his ready adaptation to the fickle tempers of his 
 audience made him always master of the situation. His 
 brilliant denunciation of the lottery system is an example 
 of his orator}', which is not out of time if it be out of place 
 in these days. " If there existed, gentlemen, in your 
 public squares or in some obscure den a species of 
 game which brought infallible ruin upon the players; if 
 the director of this illicit and deceitful concern were to 
 avow that he played with an absolute certainty of win- 
 ning; that to insure the success of his dishonest specula- 
 tion he lays his snare for the class most easily deceived 
 and corrupted; that he surrounds the poor with allure- 
 ments and drives the innocent to most culpable deeds; 
 that his lies and impostures are hawked in open day in 
 every street in the city; what would be your sentiments?" 
 
 The eloquence of Constant was not, however, of the 
 overwhelming sort which sweeps all before it. It was 
 rather of the entangling, delusive kind, more adroit 
 than vehement, more persuasive than convincing, more 
 artful than strong. He never forgot that he was an 
 editor, and his speeches show niceties of style that belong 
 to the press rather than to the platform. 
 
 RoYER CoLLARD was the first of parliamentary writers 
 
ORATORS OF THE RESTORATION. 257 
 
 in this period, and no mean orator. Elaborate in the 
 artifices of language, erudite and magnificent in speech, 
 he reminded his hearers of Mirabeau. Single truths in 
 his hands expanded into multitudinous forms, like a tree 
 beautiful in form and vigorous with shoots. He speaks 
 as follows of the two parties of the day: "There is a 
 faction born of the Revolution, of its bad doctrines and 
 bad actions, whose aim is usurpation. There is a fac- 
 tion born of privilege, which detests equality and seeks 
 to destroy it at any cost. I know not what these factions 
 do, but I know what they mean and I understand what 
 they say. I recognize the one by its hatred of all legiti- 
 mate authority, political, moral, religious; the other by 
 its instinctive contempt for all rights, public and private, 
 by the arrogant cupidity which leads it to covet all the 
 advantages of public office and of social consideration. 
 These factions, reduced to their proper force, are weak 
 in numbersj they are odious to the nation, and will 
 never strike deep root in the soil; but they are also 
 ardent, and while we are divided they march toward 
 their object. If they should come into collision once 
 more, I declare to the victorious faction that I shall detest 
 its victory; I ask from this day to be inscribed on its list 
 of proscriptions." 
 
 His discourse abounds with beautiful sentiments, 
 somewhat French in their expression, as they must be, 
 but still beautiful. For example, " Representative gov- 
 ernment is justice organized, reason animated, morality 
 armed; but like the laborer they live by the sweat of their 
 brow." " Constitutions are not tents erected for sleep." 
 " There are all sorts of republics — the aristocratic repub- 
 
258 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 lie, that of England; the bourgeois republic of France; 
 the democratic republic of the United States." "Human 
 societies are born, live, and die upon the earth; but they 
 do not contain the entire man. There remains to him 
 the noblest part of himself, those lofty faculties by 
 which he soars to a future life and the invisible world. 
 These are the true grandeur of man, the consolation of 
 misfortune, and the inviolable refuge against the tyrannies 
 of this world." 
 
 Manuel represents a new phase, unlike the vehement 
 style which had prevailed in the stormy Revolution, or 
 even among the more restrained and guarded conditions 
 of the empire. A man of lofty reason, master of him- 
 self, he was one in whom the people believed and in 
 whom they could confide in the disordered times that 
 followed the abdication of Napoleon. He had the pa- 
 tience to disentangle difficulties rather than to cut them. 
 He explored and explained and unfolded in easy and 
 intelligible language, to the delight of the common 
 understanding. Coming to the Chamber of Representa- 
 tives with a colossal reputation he was one of the few 
 whom the trumpetings of fame did not injure by raising 
 too high the general expectation. He did not disappoint 
 it. Without large views, profundity, or fine style his 
 speeches exhibit remarkable subtlety of dialectics and 
 abundance of amplification. In his improvisations he 
 was prolix, diffuse, and sometimes inclined to repetition, 
 as all extemporaneous speakers are apt to be; but he had 
 a singular faculty of rapid appropriation and fresh repro- 
 duction of ideas. He was the forerunner of what may 
 be called the blocking opposition, a man to twist and 
 
ORATORS OF THE RESTORATION. 259 
 
 turn, delay and extend a question by pretended investi- 
 gation and amendment and sub-amendment. He would 
 have been of incalculable value in our own Congress to 
 the party that wishes to temporize until the hour of ad- 
 journment arrives. 
 
 The two French maladies of imagination and en- 
 thusiasm did not mislead or confuse him. He did not 
 lose his head when the other side shrugged its shoul- 
 ders, turned its back, murmured, groaned, and finally 
 flung taunts, sarcasms, and epithets at him. Impassive 
 and serene, he waited till silence was restored by the 
 power of his unruffled patience and admirable temper, 
 and then proceeded like a skilful general, now advanc- 
 ing and now retiring, defending every position until his 
 victory was assured and complete. Some of his sayings 
 show what a judicious spirit he had and how he fathomed 
 the real character of the French people. Having repub- 
 lican sentiments rather than republican opinions he 
 preferred Napoleon II. to a republic, saying, " The re- 
 publicans are men not ripened by experience;" and 
 again that the republic might have charms for men of 
 elevated soul, but that it was unsuited to a great people 
 in the actual state of our society; and lastly " The throne 
 is the guarantee of liberty." 
 
 The name that comes next links the past with the 
 present. It is as if after a long journey we suddenly 
 should catch a glimpse of a familiar spire, and find our- 
 selves nearing home. Lafayette was not of the class 
 of orators which belongs to the Revolution, full of light- 
 ning and thunder. He was rather the serious talker, 
 whose ideal speech is that of elevated conversation with- 
 
260 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 out figures or imagery, but commending itself to the 
 hearer by its moderation and sobriety. It was an address 
 to the understanding and the common sense of his audi- 
 tors. Once, however, when he denounced the dastardly 
 abandonment of the Greeks and Poles, his indignation 
 knew no bounds, and his language, ordinarily cheerful, 
 was charged with the fire of righteous wrath. Generally 
 he conforms to the description which one of his biog- 
 raphers gives of him, "A mixture of French grace, 
 American indifference, and Roman placidity." The 
 friend of Washington every one knew that he must be a 
 republican. He defended republican principles with a 
 speech full of the feeling which comes from conviction, 
 replete with systematic reasoning, expressed by proper 
 words in fitting places. His American experience gave 
 a reality to his words which the speculations of French- 
 men concerning liberty, equality, and fraternity could 
 never give. 
 
 Other orators of various types belong to this uneasy 
 age. Odillon Barot was imposing and staid rather 
 than brilliant and impetuous, like most of his country- 
 men. Philosophic and reflective also, he viewed things 
 in their general aspect rather than in their practical 
 bearings, a theorizer and dogmatizer, and yet an honest 
 man with a political reputation untarnished and high. 
 He was an orator to calm a turbulent opposition rather 
 than to fire his own party with enthusiasm. 
 
 Near to him is Dupin, the versatile advocate, lively, 
 sarcastic, and rough, blunt and impetuous and desultory. 
 An attorney general of the gravest court of France he 
 kept it in laughter over his anecdotes and witticisms. Yet 
 
ORATORS OF THE RESTORATION. 26 1 
 
 his sense is strong, his judgment sure, and his argu- 
 ments models of perspicuity, precision, and logic. With 
 the eloquence of strong common sense he combined a 
 fiery delivery which electrified an assembly. Solid, 
 cogent, concise, and luminous, he is to be reckoned 
 among the most rational of dialecticians and vehement 
 of orators. 
 
 Lamartine is another name to bring us upon familiar 
 ground, Lamartine the poet, orator, and historian of the 
 Girondists. As an orator he carries into his efforts the 
 imagination of the poet, with a distinct and vivid per- 
 ception of each subject, illumined by a gorgeous color- 
 ing and adorned with abundance of imagery. One 
 who prefers logic to imagination and the language of 
 business to poetry would choose a more vigorous dis- 
 course rather than so much melody and color; but these 
 again are natural to the poet-orator and in no wise the 
 ornamental affectations of a prosy man turned poetical 
 for the occasion. One of his French admirers says, " I 
 like his balanced and rhythmical phraseology, though it 
 be more fit to deliver the oracles of Apollo than to ex- 
 press the passions of the forum. I like it because it 
 rolls along like a river, with sweet and plaintive lament- 
 ings like the scattered limbs of Orpheus. I like it be- 
 cause if it is not the prose of oratory, it is at least the 
 prose of poetry." 
 
 Still another familiar name is Guizot, whose books 
 have been our instructors. When he quit the elaborate 
 artificiality of his pen and mounted the tribune, it is 
 said that his thoughts flowed freely and clearly, colored 
 without being surcharged with ornament, grounded upon 
 
262 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 facts and examples, and adapted to the ordmary onder- 
 standing. The reason for this modification of style that 
 has been given may apply with tmth to all men in their 
 writing and in their speaking. In writing the writer is 
 alone, or attended by the imaginary andienoe with whom 
 he is only remotely in contact; bnt when he comes to 
 speak his audience is before him, and he must be governed 
 more or less by their living presence. This will also 
 accovmt for the observed difference between a written 
 and a truly extemporaneous speech. Two excellencies 
 Guizot had worthy of imitation, lucidity of thought and 
 a corresponding clearness of expression which goes 
 directly to the point, saying only what is needful, and 
 saying it welL Accordingly he is one of the few ex- 
 temporaneous speakers whose reported discourses read 
 welL Still, men did not call him eloquent. He was 
 too cautions and guarded in manner, without that ani- 
 mated, imaginative, and emotional style which occasion- 
 ally carries one out of himself and takes his auditory 
 with him. 
 
 The highest eloquence he ever reached is said to be 
 his famous words about the Constitutionalists of 1789: 
 '•■ I cannot doubt that, in their unknown abode, these 
 noble spirits who have labored so much and so honestly 
 for the weal of humanity must glow with a profound 
 delight in beholding us steer dear to-day of those shoals 
 upon which so many of their own benignant and beaati- 
 ful hopes have been wrecked." With this may be com- 
 pared Demosthenes' recall of the warriors who fell at 
 Marathon, Cicero's arraignment of Verres, Bossuet's de- 
 scription of the terrible night that brought the tidings of 
 
ORATORS OF THE RESTORATION. 263 
 
 Henrietta's death, Mirabeau's apostrophe of the bayo- 
 nets and the Tarpeian rock, the triple "audacity" of 
 Mirabeau, Vergniaud's "Saturn-like republic, devouring 
 its own children," and O'Connell's re-echoing voice of 
 liberty. 
 
 Thiers, best known as historian, was an orator of an- 
 other kind; vivid, brilliant, airy, voluble, lively, a Prench- 
 man of the French. A flood of words, dexterously 
 handled, full of sudden turns and surprises, and laby- 
 rinthine crossings and recrossings, illumined by in- 
 genious reasonings, amazed and half-confounded his 
 auditors. He was seldom unprepared upon any subject, 
 prompt in defence, in attack, in reply and retort. Dis- 
 orderly in arrangement, precipitate in manner, he twists 
 facts and figures to meet his purposes. A natural free- 
 and-easy discourser he conversed rather than declaimed. 
 He amused his audience while he convinced, interested 
 while he moved them. He was enough of an actor to 
 please his countrymen, and could play his part to perfec- 
 tion in the parliamentary drama of his day. Around 
 the questions of his time he turns, gets up and down, 
 hides, reappears with the agility and cunning of a mon- 
 key, and attitudinizes with the vanity and versatility of a 
 tropical bird. With an afternoon's preparation it is said 
 he could make a three-hour speech upon any subject 
 under the sun — architecture, law, poetry, military affairs, 
 chemistry, astronomy, commerce, journalism. As is the 
 case with great talkers, he might have omitted with ad- 
 vantage some things he said. An uninterrupted and 
 continuous flow of wisdom is too much to expect from 
 such volubility. Still he was a man of wonderful mind, 
 
264 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 fertile in expedients, clear, keen, and versatile, and nat- 
 ural in an artificial age and nation. 
 
 There were other orators of the Restoration, but these 
 are chief. From a constitutional monarchy France had 
 passed into a free republic, thence into a wild anarchy of 
 revolution, thence into a glorious empire, and now was 
 falling back to the Bourbon. Every phase was repre- 
 sented in the parliament of the people, royalists, red 
 republicans, and soldiers of Napoleon. Such discordant 
 elements brought to the surface corresponding styles of 
 opinion and of oratory, as diverse as if they belonged to 
 different ages of the world. No one phrase can char- 
 acterize it unless it be said that it was French, and 
 therefore varied, versatile, vivacious, and uncertain ; full 
 of wild theories and wilder impulses; restless, unsatisfied; 
 having lofty visions of human rights and liberty, but 
 evermore lacking the restraint and the wisdom and the 
 steadfastness to make its high hopes a fortunate reality. 
 
XXI. 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY— CHATHAM. 
 
 IN accounting for the remarkable exhibition of elo- 
 quence which occurred in England during the last 
 half of the eighteenth century it is hardly sufficient to 
 call attention to an observed appearance of men of 
 genius in groups, inspiring one another and attracting 
 within their orbit such affinities as may be in the field of 
 their influence. The reign of Elizabeth had seen such a 
 constellation circling around a great dramatist, and 
 other reigns, at home and abroad, had been signalized 
 by other literary groups of varied distinction. The same 
 is true of every period of eloquence that has been re- 
 viewed, in which a coterie of orators have discoursed 
 upon related themes, inspired by kindred interests. 
 Causes, however, which were more than fortuitous have 
 preceded such occasional developments. In this in- 
 stance the intellectual revival which had followed the 
 fall of the Stuarts undoubtedly contributed something to 
 the ability of the common people to appreciate the best 
 oratory, more than to the education of the orators them- 
 selves. Few will add to these influences the inspiration 
 of royal example and court patronage in the reigns of 
 the Georges of Hanover. Nevertheless there were causes 
 for so conspicuous results. 
 
 The third George ascended the throne of England 
 265 
 
266 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 with greater advantages than had belonged to the acces- 
 sion of any British sovereign previously. He was the 
 first of his house to be bom in England, and the preju- 
 dice against his fomily ceased. Party ^irit had become 
 almost extinct. Members of the administration, led by 
 the surpassing ability of the elder Pitt, were in harmony 
 with one another. Wonderful success had crowned Brit- 
 ish arms, and it seemed in the power of the king to extend 
 his conquests still further, or to give peace to the world 
 on his own terms. In the East and West new lands were 
 coming under the dominion of Great Britain. It was 
 the era of England's colonial extension and of her su- 
 premacy among the nations. Her traditional enemy 
 across the channel had been worsted in India and 
 America. In the latter the strife for possession of a new 
 continent gave it to England and opened a new world 
 to British enterprise. There seemed to be no limit to a 
 dominion which was extending its boundaries eastward 
 and westward. 
 
 Such ages of military success and vast acquisition de- 
 mand corresponding statesmanship to guide counsels, to 
 restrain ambitions, and to check foUies. The time of 
 prosperity to nations, as to persons, is fraught with more 
 dangers than the day of adversity. Giddiness may get 
 into a nation's head. Pride, arrogance, and self-suffi- 
 ciency are as fatal to a kingdom as to any of its subjects. 
 Therefore at such a time there is great need of wisdom 
 near the throne and at the head of national affairs. 
 Fortunately for England there was enough of this indis- 
 pensable qualit)- to carry the nation through imminent 
 dangers, but not without mortification and loss. Of 
 
PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY CHATHAM. 26/ 
 
 this, however, it is not within the province of this sub- 
 ject to speak, except as this and kindred matters affected 
 the character of the oratory which now began to appear. 
 
 As might be expected there is a largeness and maj- 
 esty about it which belongs to the peers of a realm 
 which had, as our own great statesman declared, " dot- 
 ted over the surface of the whole globe with her pos- 
 sessions and military posts; whose morning drum-beat, 
 following the sun and keeping company with the hours, 
 circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain 
 of the martial airs of England." 
 
 In the reign of George the Third this was truer than 
 when this beautiful reflection struck the imagination of 
 Webster standing on the ramparts of Quebec. The belt 
 of England's domination did not then reach the Pacific 
 by way of Canada alone, as now. The broad zone of her 
 possessions, running from the seaboard into an unex- 
 plored wilderness, typified the sense which Englishmen 
 had of their right of way in the world. If another na- 
 tion, like the French, attempted a barricade, colonists 
 joined with Britons in sweeping it away, thus contribu- 
 ting to the glory and the eloquence of the home govern- 
 ment; and later, Americans themselves furnished topics 
 for parliament to discuss. To be sure, British eloquence 
 was not occupied with American affairs exclusively, but 
 it was in the days of England's colonial power, and the 
 height of it and the transitions of it, that her orators 
 made the age more famous than it otherwise would have 
 been. 
 
 There were orators in England before the House of 
 Hanover came to the throne. In the reign of Charles I. 
 
268 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 the great commoner, Sir John Eliot, advocating the sec- 
 ond charter of English liberty, the Petition of Right, in 
 1628, is a prophecy of what eloquence is to be. In 1641 
 the Earl of Strafford made his memorable defence before 
 the House of Lords against the impeachment for high 
 treason. In 1706 Lord Belhaven, in a burst of patriotic 
 feeling, poured out his protest against the disastrous 
 union of England and Scotland. Twenty-five years later 
 Sir Robert Walpole exemplified the practical discussion 
 of the time, with its keen encounter of wit and its doubt- 
 ful presentation of facts, in the free and colloquial man- 
 ner which is still in vogue with the businesslike legisla- 
 tors of Great Britain. Chesterfield, associated most often 
 with graceful letter-writing, was counted by Walpole as 
 the chief speaker of his time; but his power lay in keen- 
 ness of wit and sharpness of tongue, although he had 
 considerable force of intellect and great play of fancy. 
 
 Near the middle of the last century the first of the 
 oratorical giants appears, taking his seat in Parliament 
 at the age of twenty-six. This was William Pitt, first 
 Earl of Chatham. He had devoted himself to rhetorical 
 studies at Trinity College, Oxford, chiefly in the perusal 
 and repeated translation of Demosthenes, varied by read- 
 ing the voluminous writings of Dr. Barrow, and Bailey's 
 dictionary, which he conned word by word. Continental 
 travel enriched his mind with what Stanhope called a 
 " vast amount of premature knowledge." He had uses for 
 it all before his career was over. Macaulay describes him 
 as he first appeared in parliament: " His figure was 
 strikingly graceful and commanding, his features high 
 and noble, his eyes full of fire. His voice, even when it 
 
PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY CHATHAM. 269 
 
 sunk into a whisper, was heard to the remotest benches; 
 when he strained it to its full extent the sound rose like 
 the swell of an organ in a great cathedral, shook the 
 house with its peal, and was heard through lobbies and 
 down staircases. He cultivated all these natural gifts 
 with the greatest care. His action was equal to Gar- 
 rick's, the actor. His play of countenance was wonder- 
 ful; he frequently disconcerted a hostile orator by a 
 single glance of indignation or scorn. Every tone was 
 at his command." 
 
 It is not necessary to trace at length his political life. 
 A leader of the opposition, hated by Walpole and the 
 king he filled the few early offices he held with an in- 
 tegrity that refused the customary perquisites upon which 
 other incumbents had grown rich. The people tri- 
 umphed over royal disfavor and made him prime min- 
 ister. Disaster to British arms immediately changed to 
 victory and conquest in the East and West. In India 
 and America the old enemy, France, was repeatedly 
 worsted. " The king was conciliated, the commons ac- 
 knowledged his leadership, the people adored, and all 
 Europe admired him." He was the first citizen of the 
 first nation in the world, raised to this primacy by his 
 abilities. "The great commoner could look down on 
 coronets and garters." Then he was created a noble 
 earl; but the gout, which had tormented him from child- 
 hood, put an end to his public career. At intervals he 
 appeared in the House of Lords to speak on questions 
 of great importance; the last time on the second of 
 April, 1778, when he opposed a motion for the acknowl- 
 edging of American independence. At the end of his 
 
270 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 speech he fell, and was borne home to die in a few 
 weeks. 
 
 Of Lord Chatham as an orator it has been said that 
 the general consent of critics places him among the most 
 powerful, some say the chief, of modern orators. Others 
 may have excelled him in some particular, but no one 
 has combined so well the various elements that make for 
 oratorical primacy. Nature had fitted him for this high 
 eminence. To natural powers he added careful cultiva- 
 tion of action, in the oratorical sense of the word, and 
 compass of tones with vehemence and grace of gesture. 
 Back of these advantages of nature and education lay the 
 sublime personal character of the man, that ethical ele- 
 ment which every hearer recognizes whenever it is con- 
 trasted with mere wordiness and fluency. His broad 
 views, generous and comprehensive policy, his sense of 
 national honor as superior to temporary expedients ally 
 him to the great Demosthenes in his devotion to what 
 was honorable. An intense spirit of liberty pervaded 
 every act and every speech, and found its response from 
 all liberty-loving people. To the end of his days he 
 stood forth as the defender of popular rights. Not for 
 popular votes or favor, but because freedom was the 
 animating principle of his life, with a spirit of uncompro- 
 mising truth and integrity that was higher than his elo- 
 quence, exalted as that was. Franklin, with his usual 
 discriminating judgment, said, "I have sometimes seen 
 eloquence without wisdom, and often wisdom without 
 eloquence; but in him I have seen them united in the 
 highest possible degree." 
 
 Every resource of the orator was at his command, 
 
PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY — CHATHAM. 2^1 
 
 conciliation and winning persuasiveness when he chose 
 to ingratiate himself by plausible speech; force, severity, 
 ridicule, contempt, and irony when he chose to over- | 
 whelm an antagonist. Wide in the range of his thought, '\ 
 comprehensive, acute, and vigorous in his grasp of situa- / 
 tions he went straight to conclusions with intuitive de- / 
 cision where most men labored along with slow logical / 
 steps. Simple, direct, and plain in his treatment of great ] 
 themes he made them luminous in the glow of an in- 
 tense emotion and unclouded with secondary and sub- 
 ordinate considerations. Proof went with the manner of 
 his statement and illustration with the light of a clear 
 understanding. The genuine feeling that accompanied 
 his intellectual efforts gave the force of conviction to all 
 that he uttered, while a vigorous imagination lent the 
 crowning charm to his eloquence. If examined word by \ 
 word and sentence by sentence his speeches are full of 
 instruction. The style is natural, easy, and varied, with " 
 short clauses expressing vivid ideas — the style of a man 
 pressing right onward to the end he has in view, diverted 
 by no by-play and checked by no inferior purpose. He 
 had faults belonging to a self-confident and somewhat 
 arrogant disposition, but they were faults of taste and 
 not of motive. Counterbalancing and overwhelming 
 all these minor defects was an impetuous earnestness, 
 based upon deep conviction, which could not be ex- 
 pressed without the stamp of absolute sincerity. It was 
 this quality that could not be hid by the wealth of poetic 
 utterance nor obscured by the emotion which sometimes 
 accompanied it. With versatile temper he would pass 
 from grave themes to gay, from severity to pathetic ap- 
 
272 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 peal. His thorough belief in himself gave others a 
 similar confidence in his capacity to do what was best for 
 them and the nation. His speech was powerful, not 
 because of its beauty, or even its strength, but because it 
 was in harmony with principles of truth and righteousness 
 which he knew, and made others feel, are eternal, and 
 therefore to be followed. Yet there was no lack of 
 beauty, nor strength, nor range of expression, nor in- 
 tense emotion, nor winning persuasiveness, nor, above 
 all, of an authority in his words and manner which could 
 command the wills of freemen. 
 
 The most celebrated of his speeches are those relat- 
 ing to the policy of the British government toward the 
 colonies in America, and of these his greatest effort was 
 that of November 18, 1777, on the motion for an address 
 to the Throne suggesting the arming of hostile Indian 
 tribes to cooperate with British troops in the war upon 
 the colonies. As one editor of his speeches remarks, 
 "It would be difficult to find in the whole range of par- 
 liamentary history a more splendid blaze of genius, at 
 once rapid, vigorous, and sublime." Furthermore, it is a 
 speech which probably was revised by himself, an unu- 
 sual circumstance even in that day of imperfect report- 
 ing. A few extracts may indicate the general tone of 
 the speech, but nothing more : " I arise, my Lords, to 
 declare my sentiments on this most solemn and serious 
 subject. . . . It is a perilous and tremendous moment. 
 . . . It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness 
 of flattery cannot now save us in this rugged and awful 
 crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the Throne in the 
 language of truth. We must dispel the illusion and 
 
PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY CHATHAM. 2/3 
 
 darkness which envelop it, and display in its full danger 
 and true colors the ruin that is brought to our doors. . 
 . . Who is the minister, where is the minister that 
 has dared to suggest to the Throne the unconstitutional 
 language this day delivered from it? . . . . The 
 Crown from itself and by itself declares an unalterable 
 determination to pursue measures ; and what measures, 
 my Lords ? The measures that have produced the im- 
 minent perils that threaten us; the measures that have 
 brought ruin to our doors. . . But yesterday Eng- 
 land might have stood against the world ; now none so 
 poor to do her reverence. 
 
 " France, my Lords, has insulted you. Can there be a 
 
 more mortifying insult ? Can even our ministers sustain 
 
 a more humiliating disgrace? Do they dare resent it? 
 
 . . . Such is the degradation to which they have 
 
 reduced the glories of England ! 
 
 "The people whom they affect to call contemptible 
 rebels, but whose growing power has at last gained the 
 name of enemies ; the people with whom they have en- 
 gaged this country in war, and against whom they now 
 command our implicit support in every measure of hos- 
 tility — this people are now supplied with every military 
 store, their interests consulted, their ambassadors enter- 
 tained by your inveterate enemy, and our ministers dare 
 not interpose with dignity or effect. Is this the honor 
 of a great kingdom ? Is this the indignant power of 
 England who but yesterday gave the law to the house of 
 Bourbon ? My Lords, the dignity of nations demands 
 decisive conduct in a situation like this ; calls upon 
 us to remonstrate in the strongest language to rescue the 
 
274 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 ear of majesty from the delusions which surround it. 
 You cannot conquer America. In these campaigns we 
 have done nothing and suffered much. . . You may 
 swell every expense, pile and accumulate every assist- 
 ance you can buy or borrow; your efforts are forever 
 vain and impotent. If I were an American as I am an 
 Englishman, while a foreign troop was in my country I 
 would never lay down my arms, never — never — never. 
 
 "But, my Lords, who is the man that has dared to 
 authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and 
 scalping-knife of the savage, and to wage the horrors of 
 his barbarous warfare against our brethren ? My Lords, 
 these enormities cry aloud for redress. It is a violation 
 of the Constitution and against law. Let me ask our 
 ministers what other allies they have acquired. Have 
 they entered into an alliance with the king of the gyp- 
 sies? Nothing is too low or too ludicrous to be con- 
 sistent with their counsels.'' 
 
 In such strains the speech runs on, full of dignity, of 
 strong reasoning, of cogent instances in proof of his 
 propositions regarding the liberties of America and the 
 rights of Englishmen in the colonies. When he came 
 to animadvert on the proposition of Lord Suffolk to 
 employ Indians in the war his invective is terrific. 
 "Such horrible notions shock every precept of religion, 
 divine or natural, and every generous feeling of human- 
 ity, every sentiment of honor ; they shock me as a lover 
 of honorable war and a detester of murderous barbarity. 
 Spain armed herself with bloodhounds to extirpate the 
 wretched natives of America, and we improve on the in- 
 human example even of Spanish cruelty ; we turn loose 
 
PARLIAMENTARY ORATORY — -CHATHAM. 2/5 
 
 these savage hell-hounds against our countrymen and 
 brethren in America, of the same language, laws, liber- 
 ties, and religion, endeared to us by every tie that should 
 sanctify humanity." 
 
 The best comment on the stupid and stubborn fool- 
 hardiness of King George and his cabinet is the circum- 
 stance that this stirring speech had no practical effect, 
 and the motion it supported was lost by a vote of ninety- 
 seven to twenty-four. Judicial blindness had fallen upon 
 the heavy and obstinate Hanoverian, to make him lose 
 the sooner colonies which a word of wisdom might have 
 kept faithful to the mother-country. In spite of warn- 
 ings such as were never thundered in royal ears except 
 by the prophets of Judah the stubborn George and his 
 headstrong council would not yield an inch. Therefore, 
 according to the prophecy of the greatest men of the 
 time, they were soon obliged to give up the better half 
 of a continent. 
 
 Lord Chatham voiced the sentiments of the rest when 
 he said with something of hyperbole, " Events of a 
 most alarming tendency, little expected or foreseen, will 
 shortly happen, when a cloud that may crush this nation 
 and bury it in destruction forever is ready to burst and 
 overwhelm us in ruin." So far as possession of the best 
 part of a western continent is concerned this prophecy 
 came to pass. The lower half of North America belongs 
 to the descendants and successors of the colonists, who 
 are already coquetting with the northern half to remove 
 the feud between the two sections, while Englishmen of 
 to-day are saying, "What a pity it is that a trifling 
 disagreement should have separated us." 
 
276 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 With a greater Britain stretching from the Atlantic to 
 the Pacific it is not strange that the islanders across the 
 water should regard the obstinacy- of George the Third, 
 or, as they like to say, a threepenny tax on tea, as a poor 
 reason for losing a western empire. But that little tax 
 involved the right to impose every arbitrary burden; and 
 as they were careful to insist on that right against the 
 counsel of their greatest statesmen and orators they lost 
 a vast domain. 
 
XXII. 
 MANSFIELD— BURKE. 
 
 ONE of the most interesting inquiries in the realm of 
 literature might be pursued with reference to the 
 early age at which men of great attainments began to 
 show signs of their mature ability. There are several in 
 the field of oratory in different centuries. William Mur- 
 ray, afterward Lord Mansfield, is preeminent in this re- 
 spect. Reading the classics freely at the age of fourteen, 
 having Latin poets by heart, writing their language cor- 
 rectly, and speaking it with ease he gave promise of a 
 great command of his mother-tongue in after years. This 
 was secured by constant translation and retranslation of 
 Greek and Roman orators, which also gave him a prac- 
 tical knowledge of the principles of eloquence, a study 
 which he began to pursue with all diligence upon his 
 entry into the university. This he continued after be- 
 ginning his law studies, especially in the practice of 
 extemporaneous speech, for which he prepared himself 
 with such fulness and accuracy that his notes were useful 
 to him in after-life, both at the bar and on the bench. A 
 contemporary speaks of his historical knowledge also 
 as appalling to the ordinary reader on account of its 
 familiarity with the subject. Being appointed solici- 
 tor general he came into contact with Pitt in a long 
 series of conflicts. In these his eminence as a debater 
 
 277 
 
2/8 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 was shown in the defence of his own measures and in the 
 use of logical weapons. His was preeminently a legal in- 
 tellect, clear and accurate, sound in judgment, strong in 
 reason, and of extraordinary powers of application. He 
 came to the bench not as one who has reached the goal 
 of a lawyer's ambition but as one who is just starting in 
 the race. The manner in which he discharged the du- 
 ties of his high office may be estimated by the fact that 
 out of the thousands of cases which he decided in the 
 court of the King's Bench there were only two in which 
 his associated judges did not agree with him. 
 
 The tribute of our own Chief Justice Story to his 
 judicial character may be cited both as a valuable testi- 
 mony and as an example of the panegyric paragraph 
 worth repeating here: " England and America and the 
 civilized world lie under the deepest obligations to him. 
 Wherever commerce shall extend its social influences; 
 wherever contracts shall be expounded upon the eternal 
 principles of right and wrong; wherever moral delicacy 
 and judicial refinement shall be infused into the munici- 
 pal code to persuade men to be honest and to keep 
 them so; wherever the intercourse of mankind shall aim 
 at something more elevated than that groveling spirit of 
 barter, in which meanness and avarice and fraud strive 
 for mastery over ignorance, credulity, and folly, the name 
 of Lord Mansfield will be held in reverence by the good 
 and the wise, by the honest merchant, the enlightened 
 lawyer, the just statesman, and the conscientious judge. 
 His judgments should not be referred to on the spur of 
 particular occasions, but should be studied as models of 
 judicial reasoning and eloquence." As in duty bound. 
 
MANSFIELD BURKE. 279 
 
 he was the king's lawyer and a defender of royal prerog- 
 ative; Therefore he was opposed to Chatham and Burke 
 and Fox as advocates of the people's rights in America. 
 Defending the Stamp Act and the right of Parliament to 
 tax the colonists on the ground that they were virtually 
 represented in the House of Commons Lord Campbell, 
 whig as he was, asserts that the logic of Mansfield's 
 speech is unanswerable. His oratory, however, is judi- 
 cial rather than partisan. He seeks to lead the minds 
 of his hearers to the conclusions he has formed, aiding 
 and directing inquiries rather than appealing to the emo- 
 tions and wills of men, in order that they shall seem to 
 form their own conclusions. Like our own President 
 Lincoln his happy statement of a case was better than 
 most men's argument. Seizing upon the strong points 
 of the subject he kept them steadily before the mind and 
 led his hearers step by step toward his own conclusions, 
 in a style of speaking which resembled dignified con- 
 versation. As an example of this and to give the other 
 side of the controversy about the right of taxing the 
 American colonies a passage may be cited from Lord 
 Mansfield's speech delivered in the House of Lords, 
 February 3, 1766, when the motion was made to repeal 
 the Stamp Act. To propitiate the king, who was op- 
 posed to this, a rider was attached declaring that Parlia- 
 ment had the right and power to make laws of full force 
 to bind the colonies. This doctrine of the sovereignty 
 of Parliament Lord Mansfield goes on to defend against 
 the attacks of Chatham and Camden as follows: 
 
 " My Lords, I shall speak to the question strictly as 
 a matter of right, for it is a proposition in its nature so 
 
280 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 perfectly distinct from the expediency of the tax that it 
 must necessarily be taken separate if there is any logic 
 in the world. I shall also speak to the distinctions which 
 have been taken, without any real difference as to the 
 nature of the tax, and I shall point out lastly the neces- 
 sity there will be of exerting the superior force of the 
 government if opposed by the subordinate part of it." 
 
 It will be observed here what a clear statement he 
 makes of the case he intends to argue, rejecting and 
 waiving what he regards as irrelevant matter, the ques- 
 tion of expediency. Furthermore it is interesting in 
 these days when so much is written and said upon the 
 problems of taxation to see how the subject was re- 
 garded a hundred and thirty years ago when this great 
 jurist said, " I shall endeavor to clear away from the 
 question all that mass of dissertation and learning which 
 has been fetched from speculative men who have writ- 
 ten upon the subject of government, or from ancient 
 records, as being little to the purpose. The constitu- 
 tion of this country has been always in a moving state, 
 either gaining or losing something, and with respect to 
 the modes of taxation, when we get beyond the reign of 
 Edward the First or of King John we are all in doubt and 
 obscurity. Writs were issued, some of them according 
 to law, some not according to law." [Among the latter 
 were calls for taxation.] Then after citing certain in- 
 stances of apparent freedom from parliamentary taxation 
 and showing that this liberty was only apparent and not 
 real, he continues: 
 
 "The reasoning about the colonies of Great Britain, 
 drawn from the colonies of antiquity, is a mere useless 
 
MANSFIELD BURKE. 28 1 
 
 display of learning, for the colonies of the Tyrians in 
 Africa and of the Greeks in Asia were totally different 
 from our system. No nation before ourselves formed 
 any regular system of colonization but the Romans, and 
 theirs was a military one. Our colonies emigrated under 
 the sanction of the Crown and Parliament, and were 
 modeled into their present form by charters, grants, and 
 statutes, but they were never separated from their mother- 
 country, or so emancipated as to become so in their own 
 right. There are several sorts of colonies in America; 
 the charter-colonies, the proprietary governments, and 
 the king's colonies." Then he shows that the charter- 
 colonies, like Virginia, had been considered as belong- 
 ing to the Crown, and that even the Commonwealth Par- 
 liament was very jealous of the colonies separating them- 
 selves from itself, and passed a law establishing the 
 authority of England over them. Then follows the 
 statement that the colonies have always submitted to 
 English law, thus acknowledging their dependence. 
 After this comes a discussion of the question upon which 
 the whole matter of taxation turned, namely, representa- 
 tion in Parliament. He treats this vital point in these 
 words: 
 
 " There can be no doubt, my Lords, but that the in- 
 habitants of the colonies are as much represented in Par- 
 liament as the greatest part of the people of England 
 are represented, among nine millions of whom there are 
 eight which have no vote in electing members to Par- 
 liament. Every objection, therefore, to the dependency 
 of the colonies which arises to it on the ground of rep- 
 resentation goes to the whole present constitution of 
 
282 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 Great Britain. To what purpose then are arguments 
 drawn from a distinction in which there is no real differ- 
 ence, between a virtual and an actual representation? 
 A member of Parliament represents not only the inhab- 
 itants of one place, but of others, the city of London 
 and all the colonies and dominions of Great Britain and 
 their interests." 
 
 It is in this speech that mention is first made by 
 name of an American orator, the celebrated James Otis, 
 with whose supposed speech we are familiar, beginning, 
 " England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile 
 with bulrushes as fetter the steps of freedom." Lord 
 Mansfield said with characteristic fairness, " I differ from 
 the noble lord who spoke of Otis and his book with 
 contempt . . . who everywhere allows the suprem- 
 acy of the Crown over the colonies. No man on such a 
 subject is contemptible. Otis is a man of consequence 
 among the people there. It was said the man is mad. 
 What then? One madman often makes many. Mas- 
 aniello was mad. Yet for all that he overturned the 
 government of Naples. Madness is catching in all pop- 
 ular assemblies and upon all popular matters ... I 
 am far from bearing any ill-will to the Americans. 
 They are a very good people and I have long known 
 them ... I dare say their heat will soon be over 
 when they come to feel the consequences of their oppo- 
 sition. Anarchy always cures itself, but the ferment will 
 continue so much the longer while hot-headed men 
 there find that there are persons of weight and character 
 here to justify them." 
 
 The whole speech is interesting as showing the di- 
 
MANSFIELD BURKE. 283 
 
 vided sentiment in England in regard to the colonies. 
 In the slow but constant intercommunication between 
 them and the mother-country there were many things to 
 continue that community of interest which belonged to 
 the people of one race and family. Interests had not 
 yet become separated, and the later estrangement was 
 not yet so great as to make it common to speak of 
 Americans as a cross between Canadians and wild Indians, 
 and of their manners and speech and literature as some- 
 thing barbaric in rudeness and crudeness. Lord Mans- 
 field meant no condescension when he said that Ameri- 
 cans were a very good people, with whom he had begun 
 his professional life, having managed their plantation 
 causes in the tribunals of England, and in this way had 
 become a good deal acquainted with them and their 
 affairs. Therefore he was inclined to regard the dis- 
 turbance as the work of a small, bad faction, which good 
 men would soon rebuke and put down. 
 
 Among those persons of weight and character of 
 whom Lord Mansfield speaks as justifying the Ameri- 
 cans none was more conspicuous than Edmund Burke. 
 Nor, on the whole, had they a more able advocate. His 
 studies had qualified him to speak with authority on the 
 American question. As early as 1757 he prepared an 
 extensive work on the history of the British colonies, at- 
 tributing their character to the spirit of their ancestors, 
 full of enterprise, perseverance, and indomitable love of 
 liberty. The boundless resources of the country and its 
 irrepressible strength were obvious to his keen and pro- 
 phetic observation. Accordingly when ten or twelve 
 years after the publication of this book colonial troubles 
 
284 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 began, there was but one other man in England who 
 had the tithe of his knowledge about the resources and 
 determination of the colonists. That man was Lord 
 Chatham, his senior by twenty-two years, and thirty 
 years his predecessor in Parliament. It was eminently 
 fitting, therefore, when Burke made his first speech, of 
 great compass and power, on the Stamp Act that Chatham 
 should set the approving seal of the first orator in Eng- 
 land to this effort of his successor by saying that he 
 himself had intended to enter into the debate, but had 
 been anticipated with such ingenuity and eloquence that 
 there was but little left for him to say. He congratu- 
 lated Burke on his success, and his friends on the value 
 of the acquisition they had made. Burke's reputation 
 was established at once, affording him ample compensa- 
 tion for all his labors. 
 
 What those labors of preparation had been it may be 
 worth our while to inquire. His rudimentary education 
 was largely biblical, under the kindly instruction of a 
 Quaker schoolmaster with whom he read the Scriptures 
 of the Old and New Testaments, morning, noon, and 
 night. The strong English, the imagery, the grandeur 
 of diction, especially in the prophecies, had a lasting in- 
 fluence upon his style, as the positive precepts had upon 
 his character. To the Bible in after-life he was accus- 
 tomed to resort for allusions and illustrations, which dis- 
 tinguished him as an orator of almost oriental magnifi- 
 cence of imagination and expression. 
 
 In Trinity College, Dublin, a contemporary says he 
 was a man of superior but unpretending talents, more 
 anxious to acquire knowledge than to display it. The 
 
MANSFIELD BURKE. 285 
 
 poets and orators of antiquity were his favorite study, 
 together with the essays of Bacon and the plays of 
 Shakespeare. Milton, however, was his chief admiration, 
 on account of his boundless learning, richness of lan- 
 guage, and scriptural grandeur of expression. In his 
 methods of study and composition he anticipates the 
 philosophical doctrines of Macaulay in reading history 
 not as a record of battles and sieges, but to connect 
 events by the causes that produced them. Intended by 
 his lawyer-father for the bar he soon wearied of the 
 technicalities of the law and turned to letters and phil- 
 osophy. Diligent to the last degree he acquired that 
 most useful of all powers, the ability to think at all 
 times and in all places, and not merely when he could 
 withdraw himself to the retirement of his study. Sys- 
 tematic, consecutive thought was combined with well- 
 digested reading, and followed by daily discussions with 
 others of whatever subject was of chief interest, giving 
 to all his views a many-sidedness and practicality which 
 otherwise might have given place to theories and dreams 
 in a mind as full of exuberant fancy as his. His early 
 works on the Vindication of Natural Society and on 
 the Sublime and Beautiful are illustrations of his philo- 
 sophical spirit rather than of its maturer form, but the 
 language and style place those works high in the ranks 
 of English literature. They gave the writer a celebrity 
 and an acquaintance with distinguished contemporaries 
 which was of the greatest advantage to him. In such 
 congenial atmosphere his conversational powers found a 
 field of distinction indicated by Dr. Johnson when he 
 said, "Burke is the only man whose common conver- 
 
286 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 sation corresponds with the general fame he has in the 
 world. His talk is perpetual, not from desire of dis- 
 tinction, but because his mind is full. No man could 
 meet him under a gateway to avoid a shower without 
 being convinced that he is the first man in England." 
 
 It was with such furnishings that he entered upon a 
 political career in 1765 which was to cover three periods, 
 that of America, India, and France respectively. The 
 first, covering sixteen years, 1 766-1782, was that in 
 which his best oratorical work was done. At the start he 
 encountered some obstacles by reason of his lack of rank 
 and wealth and from the fact that he was a native of 
 that island which to this day is a thorn in the side of 
 England; but his talents and eloquence won universal 
 admiration, and his devotion to the people's rights 
 gained their hearty support. In America he was well ac- 
 credited as the agent of the colony of New York for nearly 
 four years, from 1771 to the breaking out of the war. 
 It was in this capacity that he acquired his intimate 
 knowledge of colonial affairs. The congratulations of 
 Pitt on his first speech on American Taxation have al- 
 ready been mentioned. It was Lord John Townsend 
 who exclaimed on the same occasion, " Heavens, what a 
 man this is! Where could he acquire such transcendent 
 powers!" Of his speech on the employment of Indians 
 in the war Colonel Barre said that if it could be written 
 out he would nail it on every church door in the king- 
 dom, and Sir George Saville declared that he who did not 
 hear that speech failed to witness the greatest triumph 
 of eloquence within his memory, and Governor John- 
 ston remarked that it was fortunate for Lords North and 
 
MANSFIELD BURKE. 287 
 
 Germaine that spectators had been excluded during the 
 debate, for the excited people would have torn the noble 
 lords in pieces on their way home. 
 
 Burke's independence was shown after his election to 
 represent Bristol, then the second commercial city of the 
 kingdom. The question of direction by his constituents 
 coming up he plainly told them that his own judgment 
 was not to be sacrificed to any set of men, and that he 
 should vote according to his own opinion of what would 
 best subserve their interests. The great issue which con- 
 fronted that Parliament was the proposed conciliation of 
 differences with America, a scheme calculated to weaken 
 the resistance of the colonies by division of Interests, 
 which Burke endeavored to convert into an effective 
 plan of real conciliation by having the colonies levy 
 their own taxes independent of the Crown, on the princi- 
 ple that where there is taxation there should be repre- 
 sentation. Upon this the great speech on Conciliation 
 with America was delivered March 22, 1775. He spoke 
 as if standing upon American soil. His topics were the 
 importance of the colonial population, agriculture, com- 
 merce, and fisheries; the causes of the fierce spirit of 
 liberty, the impossibility of repressing it by force, and 
 the consequent necessity of some concession on the part 
 of England. He showed that the people of the colonies 
 ought to be admitted into an interest in representation. 
 The tone of the speech is temperate and conciliatory 
 toward the ministry and designed to lead the govern- 
 ment through Lord North's scheme into a final adjust- 
 ment of difficulties on the true principles of English 
 liberty. The most finished of his speeches it is read for 
 
288 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 its richness of style and the permanent character of the 
 political wisdom contained in it. 
 
 Of the three speeches, two on America and one to the 
 electors of Bristol, it may be said that they compose a 
 body of instruction in the study of public affairs which 
 is unsurpassed. In vigorous grasp of particulars, in 
 illustration drawn from human experience, in strong 
 sympathy for justice and liberty they have never been 
 excelled. Their author takes his place among the great 
 makers of our literature in these high examples of de- 
 liberative eloquence, which are destined to outlast a mul- 
 titude of efforts that have had a brief notoriety; while 
 for the understanding of causes that produced our Revo- 
 lution nothing has been written to illustrate the sub- 
 ject so fully and clearly. It has been truly said of his 
 speeches that they might be the daily bread of modern 
 statesmen and orators; and no doubt he has had an un- 
 paralleled influence upon the great forensic writers of 
 this century, and has given a lasting stimulus to English 
 prose literature. The secret of this may lie in his repre- 
 hension of any attempt to separate the English that is 
 written from that which is spoken, so that his speeches 
 have the appearance of an appeal from man to man. To 
 a wide compass of thought, prodigality of illustration, 
 a copiousness and fertility of allusion is joined a power 
 of diversifying matter, placing it in new lights, and of 
 expressing it with sublimity and an ease which give no 
 sense of labor or display. Having the power of approx- 
 imating to truth by a rapid and exact glance he also 
 bestows upon each part of his subject its due degree of 
 force and proper shade of color, one of the chief arts of 
 
MANSFIELD BURKE. 289 
 
 speech. Accordingly he is a model to all who wish to 
 say anything forcibly, naturally, and freely. Fresh, \ 
 natural, and energetic in his diction he brings out the \ 
 hidden power of common words and phrases without \ 
 going far for strange, unusual, or outlandish words. ' 
 Sonorous in his longer periods he can intersperse short, 
 pointed, and vigorous sentences containing a wealth of 
 philosophy; and by repetition without reiteration, but 
 full of interpretation, he expands, contracts, condenses, 
 and impresses his meaning too indelibly to be forgotten. 
 In all his oratory there is something which escapes the 
 last analysis of criticism, as life escapes the anatomist's 
 search. 
 
 In the larger sphere of thought as distinguished from 
 expression there were so many phases of invention as to 
 warrant the assertion that he had great originality, if not 
 actual genius. His intellectual independence, combined 
 with the subtlety of a mind philosophical in its methods, 
 dealing with large generalization and profound reason- [ 
 ings made him an orator to be read with interest rather 
 than always to be listened to with attention; but for this \\ 
 reason his eloquence has lived long after the issues which 1 
 called it forth were settled; and although he has had his 
 critics who have censured this and that ' outgrowth of his 
 luxuriant nature, still the majority of judges place him 
 before any other orator of modern times as a parlia- 
 mentary speaker. 
 
 ^i.' ■W.^i^pf^'-i-'- 
 
XXIII. 
 
 SHERIDAN— FOX. 
 
 TO ONE who is disposed to look for the causes of 
 singular concurrences an interesting problem is 
 presented in the succession of orators who were born in 
 Ireland. It would be too far-fetched to look for orator- 
 ical origins in that remote period of learning when Brian 
 Boru founded schools and churches in the eleventh cen- 
 tury, or in the remoter fourth when, after the introduc- 
 tion of Christianity, learning flourished to such a degree 
 that the "Isle of the Saints," as it was called, illumined 
 the rest of Britain. We may look for a more direct cause 
 of eloquence, perhaps, in the temperament of the better 
 class of the people, more Gallic than British, Celtic than 
 Saxon, impulsive, hearty, and generous, with a volubility 
 characteristic of southern races. But whatever may be 
 the causes contributing to fluent and effective speech it 
 is worthy of note that Ireland furnished a group of ora- 
 tors by no means of the second rate in this remarkable 
 epoch of British eloquence. Of the chief of them, Ed- 
 mund Burke, something has already been said. 
 
 Not greatly inferior to him were others who would 
 have appeared still more illustrious if they had not been 
 apparently dimmed by his effulgence. Richard Brins- 
 LEY Sheridan was nearest this great luminary, and yet 
 not totally eclipsed by him. 
 
 290 
 
SHERIDAN FOX. 29 1 
 
 To note the course of his literary career would be to 
 give something more than the life of an orator. Those 
 who remember that he was the author of The Rivals, 
 The School for Scandal, The Critic, and The Duenna 
 will find it hard to adjust the great playwright to the 
 famous oration on the Begums of India. Byron said of 
 him, "Whatever he has chosen to do has been the best 
 of its kind. He has written the best comedy, the best 
 drama, the best farce, and delivered the very best ora- 
 tion ever heard in this country." The dramatic talents 
 which he displayed, and by which he won a fortune, are 
 not, however, within the province of this subject. It is 
 his eloquence alone that is to be considered. 
 
 Gibbon had his word of praise for this, and Burke 
 with characteristic generosity declared that the speech 
 on the Begum charge was the most astonishing effort of 
 eloquence, argument, and wit combined of which there 
 was any record or tradition ; and Pitt said that his 
 speech " surpassed all the eloquence of - ancient and 
 modern times, and possessed everything that genius or 
 art could furnish to agitate the human mind." Fox tes- 
 tified that all he had ever heard, all he had ever "read, 
 when compared with it, dwindled into nothing and van- 
 ished like vapor before the sun." 
 
 After such encomiums it is safe to say that there was 
 something more than a dramatist about Sheridan and 
 something more than dramatic art about his oratory. 
 The praise of the group that has been named warrants 
 this assertion. It may be worth while to note by what 
 steps he passed from the stage to the rostrum. 
 
 From early life he had cherished a lively interest in 
 
292 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 politics, and having gratified his dramatic ambitions he 
 turned toward distinction in oratory with zealous toil. 
 Associating himself with Fox and influential whig friends 
 he became a member of Parliament for Stafford at the 
 same time with William Pitt, at an expense of ;£2,ooo. 
 He came without the distinction due to birth, or the 
 patronage of a powerful patron, things of great import- 
 ance in the House of Commons. Instead he brought 
 what was of greater harm than good, a ready-made repu- 
 tation in letters, subjecting him to severer criticism in 
 consequence. 
 
 The list of men who have been famous in literature 
 or at the bar and failures in Parliament is a long one. 
 Addison, Steele, Erskine, Flood, O'Connell, Jeffrey, Mack- 
 intosh, Macaulay, Bulwer, and Mill gained little by their 
 elevation to the deliberative assembly. Grattan, Disraeli, 
 and Sheridan are exceptions to the general fate of those 
 who brought reputations into the national legislature. 
 At first it looked as if Sheridan was to follow the general 
 fortune of eminent literary men. Aiming too high he 
 failed to enlist the sympathies of his hearers, and did 
 not meet the expectations of his friends. Woodfall, the 
 reporter of the House, frankly told him that it was not 
 his line, that he had better have stuck to the drama, after 
 his remarkable achievements in it. 
 
 But his reply was prophetic, " It is in me and it 
 shall come out of me j" and, as to Disraeli at a later day, 
 the time came when he obtained a patient hearing. After 
 this unpropitious beginning he devoted himself with 
 diligence to the cultivation of his real oratorical ability. 
 He had it in him as he had said — great inventive power, 
 
SHERIDAN FOX. 293 
 
 ready wit, perfect self-possession, a keen sense of the 
 value of words and of their most skilful array. As a 
 consequence he became one of the most celebrated par- 
 liamentary orators of his time. Good sense, shrewdness 
 in detecting the weak points of an adversary, and great 
 powers of raillery in exposing them made him an oppo- 
 nent to be feared, even by his great antagonist, William 
 Pitt. How much more distinguished he might have 
 been if he had taken the pains to inform himself thor- 
 oughly on all the points of his subject cannot be esti- 
 mated. In the midst of his habitual indolence and con- 
 vivialities he managed to pick up knowledge enough of 
 leading topics to make an excellent showing when the 
 time came for his speech. He would say to his friends, 
 " You know I am an ignoramus ; here I am, instruct 
 me and I will do my best." And, like Mirabeau gath- 
 ering up the material his friends had collected for him 
 as he ascended the tribune, Sheridan would take the in- 
 formation furnished by his companions, make himself 
 master of it, and pour out the substance of it in a form 
 so fresh and new that it was more his own than other 
 men's. 
 
 The great speech of his life was that on the charge 
 against Warren Hastings. Of the first speech, advoca- 
 ting the impeachment, there is so little record that the 
 tradition of it is all that remains. " The whole assem- 
 bly at the conclusion broke forth into expressions of 
 tumultuous applause," and Pitt asserted that "perhaps 
 an abler speech was never delivered." A motion to 
 adjourn was made that the House might recover their 
 calmness and collect their reason after the excitement 
 
294 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 they had undergone. Twenty years laier critics recalled 
 it as a speech for which they had undiminished admira- 
 tion. Fox declared that it was the " greatest that had 
 been delivered within the memory of man." 
 
 A better report is extant of the second speech made 
 the following year, when the actual impeachment was 
 undertaken. It was an occasion calculated to arouse all 
 his ambition as an orator. Curiosity to hear him was so 
 great that Westminster Hall was crowded, and fifty 
 guineas were in some instances paid for a single seat, 
 yet he amply satisfied expectations and fully gratified 
 curiosity. This one effort would have immortalized him, 
 but when it was added to his already splendid achieve- 
 ments he came to be regarded as preeminent among his 
 contemporaries. In this oration common sense and 
 close reasoning predominate. Rhetorical passages are 
 interspersed with dry facts to render the whole attractive 
 as well as conclusive. In its structure it is a comment 
 upon evidence, the evidence against Hastings of atroci- 
 ties committed against the native princes of India in 
 order to compel them to contribute treasures in his 
 pressing want of money, and thus enable him to con- 
 tinue in office by relieving the East India Company 
 from its financial difficulties. The story of his oppres- 
 sions and extortions is a long one, but this is the gist of 
 it. The public conscience was aroused, at least those 
 men who formed the public conscience, of whom there 
 are always a few in every nation and age. Burke was 
 their leader and to Sheridan he assigned that part of the 
 prosecution which related to this particular outrage. 
 
 An estimate of the speech can be justly formed only 
 
SaERlDAU — FOX. igi, 
 
 by reading the whole of it. Even then it may be ques- 
 tioned if the testimony of contemporaries is not of more 
 value than our opinion of the best of speeches in cold 
 type. Of a poem or a romance this cannot be said, but 
 in an oration so much depends upon the living presence 
 before an audience in sympathy, or even in antagonism, 
 with the speaker that a large factor has been canceled 
 by time and distance and change. As in many other 
 notable examples it is not possible to find the attraction 
 that kept a vast audience spell-bound for three success- 
 ive days in the great hall of Westminster. The voice, 
 the face, the action of the great dramatic orator are 
 gone. A contemporary says, " He had an exquisite 
 voice, a fascinating eye, perfect self-possession, imper- 
 turbable good humor, happy audacity in speaking bold 
 and unwelcome truths, tempered by the breeding and 
 knowledge of the man of the world. His strongest 
 point was his wit, which always enlivened even a wholly 
 businesslike speech and added a charm to his loftiest 
 eloquence. It was by no means introduced on all occa- 
 sions nor to the disgust of his auditors, but when it did 
 strike it was always opportune and effective." He cannot 
 be called a classic orator. His oriental exuberance of im- 
 agination is Asiatic rather than Greek. With a Celtic in- 
 tellect that was always in extremes, joined to a native 
 sense of humor he could not be reckoned with the grand 
 orators of the Demosthenean type. Impetuous and heed- 
 less he plunged into the very errors he was quick to de- 
 tect and expose. But for conjuring up a storm of elo- 
 quence that should bear his hearers away from their 
 sober sense, stirring their emotions and moving their 
 
296 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 will his magnetic and impulsive oratory was surpassed 
 by none and equaled by few. A brief extract is given 
 to indicate the manner of Sheridan in the use of 
 language. His actual manner cannot be represented, 
 for he was both actor and orator. The following is 
 the final paragraph of the speech that has been men- 
 tioned, and it is by no means the most forcible: 
 
 " My Lords, do you, the judges of this land and the 
 expounders of its rightful laws, do you approve of this 
 mockery and call that the character of justice which 
 takes the form of right to execute wrong? No, my 
 Lords, justice is not this halt and miserable object; it is 
 not the ineffective bauble of an Indian pagoda; it is not 
 the portentous phantom of despair; it is not like any 
 fabled monster, formed in the eclipse of reason and 
 found in some unhallowed grove of superstitious dark- 
 ness and political dismay. No, my Lords. In the happy 
 reverse of all this I turn from the disgusting caricature 
 to the real image. Justice I have now before me, august 
 and pure, the abstract ideal of all that would be per- 
 fect in the spirits and aspirings of men — where the mind 
 rises; where the heart expands; where the countenance 
 is ever placid and benign; where her favorite attitude is 
 to stoop to the unfortunate, to hear their cry, and to help 
 them; to rescue and relieve, to succor and save; majestic 
 from its mercy, venerable from its utility, uplifted with- 
 out pride, firm without obduracy, beneficent in each 
 preference, lovely though in her frown. 
 
 "On that justice I rely; deliberate and sure; ab- 
 stracted from all party purpose and political speculation ; 
 not on words but on facts. You, my Lords, who hear 
 
SHERIDAN — FOX. 2g7 
 
 me, I conjure by these rights which it is your best privi- 
 lege to preserve; by that fame which it your best pleas- 
 ure to inherit; by all those feelings which refer to the 
 first term in the series of existence, the original compact 
 of our nature, our controlling rank in the creation. 
 This is 'the call to administer truth and equity, as they 
 would satisfy the laws and satisfy themselves . . the 
 self-approving consciousness of virtue, when the con- 
 demnation we look for will be one of the most ample 
 mercies accomplished for mankind since the creation of 
 the world." 
 
 The orator, without whose name even a brief enumer- 
 ation of British orators would be incomplete, was 
 Charles James Fox. If the origin of Burke and 
 Sheridan, Chatham and Mansfield illustrates the truth 
 that great talents belong to no single order of nobility, 
 the birth and training of Fox must add corroborative 
 evidence from another direction. Reared in luxury 
 every pains was taken by his father to make him a worth- 
 less scapegrace. Given a loose rein and plenty of 
 money, taught to gamble, and laughed at by his father 
 for his scruples about profligacy, the parent who wished 
 him to become a leader in fashionable dissipation and 
 also an orator and statesman could not complain when 
 the son succeeded so well in the first part of hiji educa- 
 tion that he contracted a half a million dollars of debts 
 in two years' stay upon the continent. To wean him 
 from such extravagances his father had him sent to Par- 
 liament almost two years before he was eligible by law, 
 and in 1769 he delivered his first speech, early in his 
 twenty-first year. Walpole speaks of his eminent abili- 
 
29^ THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 ties and his insolence. It is unnecessary to recount at 
 length the training which enabled him to distinguish 
 himself at such an early age in the councils of the nation. 
 But it must be said that his was not an untutored pre- 
 cocity. Thoroughly grounded in the ancient languages 
 before he was sixteen he read classic authors as he read 
 English. Throughout life he kept up his familiarity 
 with them, and they in turn contributed much to his 
 Greek simplicity of taste, the terseness of his style, and 
 the closeness and point of his reasoning. At Eton and 
 Oxford he maintained the highest rank as a scholar by 
 study so severe that his preceptor urged him to remit 
 his efforts, an unusual thing for him to advise. To read- 
 ing the classics and history he added poetry, oratory, 
 and elegant literature. But all his pursuits were to his 
 liking, and anything that was not was never allowed to 
 trouble him. It was an early example of elective study, 
 greatly to his disadvantage, as he afterward acknowledged 
 when he lamented his neglect of mathematics as injuri- 
 ous to his mental training, and of political economy and 
 jurisprudence at a time when Adam Smith was giving a 
 science to the world which would have been of the great- 
 est value to the future statesman. Worse than one-sided 
 study was the reckless gambling which stood in the way 
 of his preferment and removed him from a good position 
 on the Treasury bench which he already occupied. This, 
 with the loss of his fortune, aroused his pride and a 
 determination to abandon the gaming table. 
 
 A change in the policy of Lord North made Amer- 
 ica at this time the great object of political interest. 
 Fox's nature was one to respond to any complaint from 
 
SHERIDAN FOX. 299 
 
 the oppressed. " Alive to every kind of wrong he had 
 an Indignant abhorrence of every species of cruelty and 
 injustice." Accordingly he began to denounce the vio- 
 lent and oppressive acts of North's administration, and 
 was the first man in the House who denied the right of 
 Parliament to tax the colonies without their consent. 
 Contrary to his early training he now began to identify 
 himself more and more with the sense of popular rights, 
 " to widen the basis of freedom, to infuse and circulate 
 the spirit of liberty." This was the inspiration of his 
 eloquence. This he believed would strengthen and ren- 
 ovate the English government because, as he said, " It 
 incorporates every man with the state and arouses every- 
 thing that belongs to the soul as well as to the body of 
 man, making him feel that he is fighting for himself, his 
 own cause and safety, his own dignity and interest, on 
 his own soil." 
 
 Oratorically Fox's ambition was to become a power- 
 ful debater, "one who," as has been described, "goes 
 out in all weathers," instead of carrying with him to the 
 House a set speech drawn up beforehand. For this was 
 needed a ready knowledge of general principles and 
 command of every faculty, joined with quickness and 
 force of intellect, sharpened by constant practice. Ar- 
 gument was more with him than language or imagery ; 
 his sole thought how to overcome an antagonist and 
 make out his own case. In this course he persevered 
 until he became the acknowledged leader of the whig 
 party in the House of Commons, no small help to which 
 eminence was his genial and lovable disposition. 
 
 It is greatly to his praise as an orator that he has been 
 
300 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 said to be the most completely English of all the orators 
 in the language, plain and practical in his understand- 
 ing, definite in his aims, strong and honest in his com- 
 mon sense. Dealing with facts in a positive way he was 
 the practical representative of a practical people. Under- 
 neath all was a great heart full of tenderness and sympa- 
 thy, expressing its emotions with sincerity and artless- 
 ness. This was one of the secrets of his power with his 
 hearers. He was an honest, straightforward, emotional 
 man, speaking to a nation whose character partakes 
 largely of these qualities. He answered well to his own 
 definition of the character of an orator, " One who can 
 give immediate, instantaneous utterance to his thoughts." 
 He mastered the subject and accumulated facts. How 
 he should use these depended upon the mood of the 
 assembly he rose to address. Such a method was much 
 more likely to fall into a colloquial style than that of a 
 stately rhetoric, which, it must be admitted, was largely 
 prevalent in that day. 
 
 In his determination to convince his hearers he some- 
 times used language that was strong, to say the least. 
 The king's reign he called " the most infamous that ever 
 disgraced a nation;'' the American war was "accursed, 
 diabolical, and cruel;" the king, " that infernal spirit 
 who really ruled, and had nearly ruined the country;" 
 the ministers holding their office " not at the option of 
 the sovereign but of the reptiles who burrow under the 
 Throne;" and if the Commons took a particular course 
 they would be " the most despicable set of drivelers that 
 ever insulted society under the appellation of law- 
 makers." He acknowledged that his language was 
 
SHERIDAN FOX. 3OI 
 
 sometimes vehement and intemperate, "but I speak as I 
 feel and no man can feel more strongly than I do the 
 present situation of this country," was his apology. 
 Practical as he was, he was not without that imagination 
 which illumines a subject by the discovery of likenesses 
 between things well known and things hard to under- 
 stand. His illustrations were largely taken from litera- 
 ture, biography, and anecdote. In the use of the last he 
 was particularly happy, and the effect of some of his 
 little stories must have outweighed many ponderous 
 arguments of an opponent. When he spoke of Pitt as 
 " in the gorgeous attire of a barbarous Prince of Morocco 
 who always put on his gayest garments as a prelude 
 to the slaughter of many of his subjects," it must have 
 taken somewhat from the effectiveness of that orator's 
 speech. The panic caused by the principles of the French 
 was said to have caused Russia and Prussia to seize Po- 
 land. This reminded Fox of a pickpocket who said that 
 in a crowd he had been struck with a panic and grasped 
 the first thing that came in his way, which happened to 
 be a gentleman's watch. Such felicitous use of incident 
 was peculiarly valuable to a debater, and as such he out- 
 ranked all other speakers of his day. He had not every 
 oratorical excellence and was given to faults of repe- 
 tition of argument and tautology of diction, and he did 
 not always select the best words and appropriate terms. 
 His method was often careless, but all these things seemed 
 to make his hearers believe that he was above artifice, 
 and that he spoke from conviction, with clearness and 
 force if not always with elegance. His strong point was 
 to state the position of an adversary better than the op- 
 
302 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 ponent himself had done, and then seize it and tear it all 
 in pieces. Sometimes his arguments were personal in 
 their nature and were brought to bear upon his adver- 
 sary with telling severity. 
 
 The most finished of his speeches is that on the 
 Westminister Scrutiny, and the ablest, according to con- 
 temporary testimony, is that on The Rejection of Bona- 
 parte's Overtures. It is in the close of this last speech 
 that the famous peroration occurs, full of mingled argu- 
 ment, irony, and invective, giving a faint idea of Fox in 
 his most efiEective mood: 
 
 "When, then, sir, is this war to stop? . . . One 
 campaign is successful to you, another to them; and in 
 this way, animated by the vindictive passions of revenge, 
 hatred, and rancor, you may go on forever. And all this 
 without an intelligible motive, because you may gain a 
 better peace a year or two hence. We must keep Bona- 
 parte at war as a state of probation. Is war a state of 
 probation? Is peace a rash system? Is it dangerous 
 for nations to live in amity with each other? 'But we 
 must pause.' What! must the best blood of Great Brit- 
 ain be spilled and her treasure wasted that you may 
 make an experiment? Put yourselves in the field of 
 battle and learn to judge of the horrors you excite. In 
 former wars a man might have some feeling or interest 
 that would balance in his mind the impressions a sense 
 of carnage would inflict. But if a man were present 
 now at a field of slaughter and were to inquire for what 
 they were fighting, 'Fighting!' would be the answer, 
 'they are not fighting, they are pausing!' Why is 
 that man writhing with agony? What means this im- 
 
SHERIDAN FOX. 3O3 
 
 placable fury? You are wrong, sir; that man is not 
 expiring in agony, this man is not dead, he is only 
 pausing. There is no cause of quarrel, but their coun- 
 try thinks there should be a pause — a political pause — 
 to see whether Bonaparte will not behave himself bet- 
 ter .. . And this is the way, sir, that you show 
 yourselves the advocates of order. You take up a sys- 
 tem calculated to uncivilize the world, to destroy order, 
 to trample on religion, to stifle in the heart the affec- 
 tions of social nature, and in the prosecution of this 
 system you spread terror and devastation all around 
 you." 
 
 It should be said that Fox's diatribe had a powerful 
 effect on the House, and, though his opponents out- 
 voted him, in about a year and a half he saw his prin- 
 ciples triumph in the treaty of Amiens. 
 
XXIV. 
 COLONIAL ORATORS. 
 
 AMERICAN oratory of the colonial period may prop- 
 eriy be regarded as a part of the movement and 
 development which was taking place in the Parliament 
 of Great Britain in the last half of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. So closely connected were the colonies with the 
 mother-country in business interests and education, in 
 its larger sense, that the influence of leaders of thought 
 in England was as great here as at home. If the 
 progress of colonial sentiment toward emancipation 
 from British domination be carefully traced, it will be 
 found that there was a great reluctance until the very 
 beginning of the war to separate from the home gov- 
 ernment. Samuel Adams, the most radical partisan and 
 patriot, confessed as late as 1 768 that " there is an Eng- 
 lish affection in the colonists toward the mother-coun- 
 try which will forever keep them connected with her 
 unless it shall be erased by repeated unkind usage on 
 her part." Severed from English ancestral homes by 
 weeks of voyage there was nevertheless on the part of 
 the colonists a constant sense of the home feeling and 
 a continual reference in their thoughts and their speech 
 to England as their home country. The language, the 
 traditions, the religion of the colonists were those of the 
 
 304 
 
COLONIAL ORATORS. 305 
 
 land whence they were continually coming and bringing 
 fresh news and fresh recollections with every ship-load. 
 
 A more exclusive possession was the literature of Eng- 
 land, seeing that the colonists had little of their own ; 
 for up to the time of Benjamin Franklin's first publica- 
 tions there was nothing better than crude descriptions 
 and doubtful chronicles and positive theological and 
 polemic writings to make up a voluminous but uncritical 
 literature this side the Atlantic. But on the other side 
 eminent authors were writing books which the American 
 colonists received in every returning trading vessel, and 
 read with all the avidity of Englishmen at home, and 
 perhaps with more care than they by reason of their 
 remoteness from the source of supply. 
 
 In no kind of literature, however, would they be 
 more deeply interested than in that form of it which was 
 being created in the houses of Parliament, especially in 
 those years when colonial affairs occupied so much na- 
 tional attention and legislation. Speeches came slowly 
 across the ocean, but slowness and speed are relative 
 terms, and ocean mails were not much behind colo- 
 nial time. There was also abundant leisure to read, 
 study, and ponder the utterances of Chatham, Burke, and 
 Fox, until their phrases and periods should give the 
 pitch and the measure to colonial thought and speech. 
 These pamphlet orations as they came to cities and towns 
 and families were not tossed into the waste-basket like 
 the printed matter which is now mailed by the hundred 
 weight from Washington to a fickle constituency. In- 
 stead they were carefully perused, circulated, and pre- 
 served for re-reading, future reference, and use. 
 
306 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 Such oratory, moreover, could not fail to have its 
 formative influence upon political leaders here, giving 
 direction to their thoughts and shape to their expression. 
 Now and then colonial youths were sent abroad to receive 
 a university education, and it is not improbable that they 
 were brought within the circle of influence whose centre 
 was the national halls of legislation. All these circnm- 
 stances together had their weight in forming a literature 
 of oratory in the new empire of the west. It was this 
 form of literature which first compelled attention in the 
 old world. Our theologians and historians and biogra- 
 phers and poets had nothing of interest to say to their 
 betters across the water. But when our political writers 
 and speakers began to deal with questions which vitally 
 affected the revenues of England and threatened to cLr- 
 cumscribe her possessions in an almost limitless territory, 
 then the rulers at home had to lend a listening ear. 
 Moreover there was something worth listening to at 
 times, when reports of unusual utterances came across 
 the Atlantic The material might have been what most 
 concerned the Briton to hear, but the manner and style 
 in which it was clothed were not without the charm of 
 novelty and picturesqneness. They were the outcome 
 of a stimulating atmosphere and of new political and 
 social conditions. There was a freedom and indepen- 
 dence of speech which wiseacres took for independence 
 of spirit. 
 
 The first colonial orator in point of time was Saicuel 
 Adams, but the record of his speeches is not abundant 
 The central figure of the Boston town-meeting he 
 fought toryism and federalism with equal vigor; but 
 
COLONIAL ORATORS. 307 
 
 reporters did not frequent town-meetings, or think the 
 utterances of even a leader worth preserving. For their 
 literary merit the speeches of Adams would not have 
 been recorded. They were the straightforward, ener- 
 getic sentiments of an earnest man who had no time to 
 choose his words. Back of these, however, was the tre- 
 mendous force of a strong personal character, fired with 
 enthusiasm for freedom. His pen served him as often 
 as his voice, and in the people's newspaper in Boston 
 and in the Providence Gazette he published predictions 
 and opinions which both New England and Old might 
 read, causing him to be excluded from the general offer 
 of pardon to the patriots made by the Throne the year 
 before the Revolution broke out His name belongs as 
 much to political literature as to oratory, by reason of 
 such contributions to the public press. 
 
 Indeed oratory was not his strongest point. John 
 Adams said of him that "in his ordinary speeches he 
 exhibited nothing extraordinary ; but upon great occa- 
 sions, when his deeper feelings were excited, he threw 
 himself into an upright dignity of figure and gesture 
 and gave a harmony to his voice which made a strong 
 impression on spectators and auditors." 
 
 Jefferson describes him as " logical and clear, abun- 
 dant in good sense, and always master of his subject." 
 As a specimen of his speaking may be cited his address 
 to Governor Hutchinson after the Boston massacre, on 
 the removal of the troops from the town : " It is well 
 known," he said, " that acting as governor of the Prov- 
 ince you are by its charter commander-in-chief of the 
 military forces within it ; and as such the troops now 
 
308 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 in the capital are subject to your orders. If you, or 
 Colonel Dalrymple under you, have the power to remove 
 one regiment you have the power to remove both ; and 
 nothing short of their total removal will satisfy the peo- 
 ple or preserve the peace of the Province. A multitude 
 highly incensed now wait the result of this application. 
 The voice of ten thousand freemen demands that both 
 regiments be removed. Their voice must be respected, 
 their demand obeyed. Fail not then at your peril to 
 comply with this requisition. On you alone rests the 
 responsibility of this decision, and if the just expecta- 
 tions of the people are disappointed you must be an- 
 swerable to God and your country for the fatal conse- 
 quences that must ensue. The committee have dis- 
 charged their duty and it is for you to discharge yours. 
 They wait your final determination." 
 
 Such words exhibit the temper of the man, deter- 
 mined, inflexible, and daring. There is much that passes 
 for oratory that is less eloquent than this address, almost 
 Demosthenean in its forceful brevity. 
 
 The following sentence from a letter to the Provi- 
 dence Gazette, March 18, 1769, is interesting as the first 
 published intimation of the possible separation of the 
 colonies from Great Britain : 
 
 " When I consider the corruption of Great Britain, 
 their load of debt, their intestine divisions, tumults, and 
 riots, their scarcity of provisions, and the contempt in 
 which they are held by the nations about them ; and 
 when I consider on the other hand the state of the 
 American Colonies with regard to the various climates, 
 soils, produce, rapid population, joined to the virtue of 
 
COLONIAL ORATORS. 3O9 
 
 the inhabitants, I cannot but think that the conduct of 
 Old England toward us may be permitted by divine 
 wisdom and ordained by the unsearchable providence of 
 the Almighty for hastening a period dreadful to Great 
 Britain." 
 
 In point of time the name of Samuel Adams heads 
 the roll of American orators and statesmen, and in im- 
 mediately effecting the purpose they had in mind none 
 have surpassed him. His was a practical oratory which 
 carried its point at the time and with contemporaries, 
 even though it has not been perpetuated as a model to 
 succeeding generations. It ended in action, and the 
 action which it secured was the establishment of a new 
 and free nation on the western continent. Measured by 
 what it accomplished it must be admitted to be among 
 the greatest achievements of human speech, and in its 
 final result it is as yet unmeasured. 
 
 Next to him in time and place and excelling Adams 
 in oratorical reputation was James Otis, in his day re- 
 garded as the chief orator of the Revolution in Massa- 
 chusetts. He was a type of the rotund and courtly per- 
 sonages who, decked with lace, arrayed in broadcloth, 
 and crowned with enormous wigs, look out from the 
 canvas of colonial painters. With strong voice and 
 piercing eye he was likened by the older Adams to " a 
 flame of fire." "With a promptitude of classical allu- 
 sions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of events and 
 dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance 
 into futurity, and a torrent of impetuous eloquence he 
 hurried everything away before him. " Every man of a 
 crowded audience went away ready to take arms. Then 
 
3IO THE HISTORY OF ORATORY, 
 
 and there was the first scene of the first act of opposi- 
 tion to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain." The rq>- 
 ntation of his oratory is mostly a tradition, but that is of 
 wild enthosiasm whenever he appeared. Without the 
 discretion of Adams he was hailed with applanse by a 
 populace itself often indiscreet and inconsistent 
 
 His five-hour speedi against taxation without repre- 
 sentation, delivered in the council chamber of the old 
 town hall in Boston, was a masterly performance, mak- 
 ing him famous as the bold and brilliant advocate of 
 colonial rights. No summary or abstract of this speech 
 can do justice to the whole, which can be estimated only 
 by reading in its integrity. Even then how much is lost, 
 as in the case of so many other great oratory in the lack 
 of their presence and of the occasion wfaidi inspired 
 them, and which they in turn made memorable. TrsTfad 
 of an extract from his speeches a condensed letter of his 
 on the subject of large preparation previous to special 
 study may be more useful in these days of specialism : 
 
 " I shall always lament that I did not take a year or 
 two further for more general inquiries in the arts and 
 sciences before I sat down to the laborious study of the 
 law. Early and premature rushing into practice has 
 blasted the hopes of many students of the profession. 
 Those who avail themselves' of the rif>eness of their 
 judgment make swifter progress than they who hasten to 
 their life work unprepared." 
 
 Among the colonial orators of New England must be 
 reckoned Fisher Ames, a native of Massachusetts, and 
 graduate of Harvard at the age of sixteen. Assiduous 
 in his study of the Latin and English classics he came 
 
COLOXIAL ORATORS. 3II 
 
 to the practice of forensic oratory with mnch the same 
 preparation that fitted the parliamentary orators of Great 
 Britain for their wonderfol achievements. His political 
 essavs first made his g^eat abilities generally known, con- 
 taining as they did lessons of practical wisdom conveyed 
 in an energetic and animated style. These brought him 
 into intimate relations with the federal school and 
 helped him to a seat in the convention which ratified 
 the constitution of 1 788, where he made himself con- 
 spicnoos by his zeal and eloquence. 
 
 A member of Congress during both of Washington's 
 administrations he then made a fine reputation for readi- 
 ness in debate and for the splendor of his speeches. At 
 the close of one of these a member of the opposition 
 moved an adjournment of the House, on the ground that 
 it was not in a mood calm enough to dwell on the ques- 
 tion under the excitement of his oratory. Massachusetts 
 showed its appreciation of his eloquence by appointing 
 him to deliver the eulogy on the death of Washington, 
 and Harvard College, in recognition of his varied attain- 
 ments, chose him as its president an office which his 
 declining health prevented him from accepting. He will 
 always hold a place in the history of oratorical literature 
 by reason of the general excellence of his style, although 
 it is marked a little too strongly at times with an exu- 
 berance of imagination. At the same time it should be 
 said that the printed speech conveys but a small portion 
 of that power which belonged to the living speaker, the 
 tradition of whose influence on the hearts and minds of 
 men far outweighs the evidence of it which remains after 
 a century of silence. He belonged to a great age and 
 
312 THS HfiTORV Of ORATARV. 
 
 WM pretaiinent in a time when the conitructtofl of a new 
 order of goi^ernment wm going on, when men hiul little 
 in the experience of the patt to guide their eonmelf, and 
 ulien the pre«ent wm ftill of diKerenee* and ftpprehen- 
 «ionf and the future adminiftrfltion of ajfain an untried 
 experiment. How well iS^ey builded and with what wi** 
 doffl a hundred and twenty year* of American hiftorjr 
 ha« fhown. 
 
 It \» time to turn from the progreM of revolutionary 
 »entiment« in Kew England to the development of the 
 »ame feeling in the South, ai revealed by the oratory 
 of the period there. The flr»t name to command atten* 
 tion i* that of Patuick Henrv, an orator by nature, 
 dealing with an uncritical people, and leaving traditiom 
 of an eloquence of marvelout power. Certainly no part 
 of hi» fame if due to the meagre opportunitiei of educa' 
 tion which were tttotAed him, or to hi« Improvement of 
 them, scanty a« they were. A few monthf of »ud» *A- 
 vantagef a» mete oSered in a colonial f^ool of the 
 poorest «ort, a smattering of the claanici, and lew math' 
 ematics constituted the sum of his youthful fnstru^ion. 
 But this was less attractive to him than the i^MMts of 
 stream and woodland. In a business enterprise he was 
 no more successful. The country store was rather a 
 place for anecdote and discussion than for profitable 
 trade, and penury soon stared him In the face. As a 
 wild venture he Mtered upon the profession of the law 
 after rix weeks' pr^aration md without a very remarfca' 
 ble profid«icf in its first prfndples, as may be inferred 
 from the promise be was obliged to girt his examines 
 that he would apply himself to further study. However 
 
CXJI.OSI.U. ORATORS. 3I3 
 
 he TJndicated his right to a. place at the colonial bar br 
 his famous aignment in the notable Parsons' case^ for 
 which he had been retained as a mere form in a cause that 
 had been as good as abandoned. After an awkward 
 b^ioning which made his friends hang their heads for 
 shame he snddenlj rallied, his confusion pased a^ray. a 
 mTStoious and almost sapematoial change came over 
 him. Spectators said afterward that the hitherto un- 
 known young advocate made their blood nm cold with 
 his terrible invective, and the Jurr, retiring for only a 
 moment, brought in a verdict in favor of his clients. A 
 motion for a new trial was overmled, and "the man of 
 the people " was caught up and borne out of the court- 
 house on the shonldeis of a delighted multitude. 
 
 There was no lack of business or gain after this first 
 effort. He had found his place and he made the most 
 of it. Industry and energy characterized his labor. In 
 the d^ails of his work he suffered from defective study, 
 •• but in jury trials where his wonderful powers of ora- 
 tory could be brought to bear upon the motives and 
 emotions of men he far exceeded 2.I! his contemporaries. 
 Over juries he exercised 2. magnetic foscination which 
 took th^ reason captive and decided the result without 
 reference to the merits of the case." 
 
 At the period now under contemplation an orator of 
 the first rank at the bar would not long keep out of the 
 deliberative assembly. Acxordinglj Henry is found in 
 the Virginia House of Burgesses in the spring of 1765. 
 when England was attempting to force the Stamp Act 
 upon the colonies. The character of the assembly was 
 determined by the two- fold sentiment of loyalty to the 
 
314 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 mother-country on the one hand and of colonial free 
 dorn on the other. The great majority were wealthy 
 planters who were attached to JCngland by a thousand 
 ties of kindred blood, ancestral pride, and social alliana; 
 They repelled the thought of separation and put off the 
 evil day. To cut loose from Orcat J5ritain seemed like 
 casting away their heritage of civil liberty and the estab- 
 lished order of church and state. Awx>rdingly they went 
 on devising compromises and protesting and petitioning 
 the Crown to respect their rights. 
 
 It was this conservative and loyal body which Patrick 
 Henry threw into commotion by introducing resolutions 
 which were deemed treasonable and incendiary. Written 
 hastily on the fly-leaf of an old law-book they startled 
 the staid burgesses with their unwonted tone. It was 
 not that of renewed protest or petition. It was the 
 declaration rather that the representatives of the people 
 had "the exclusive right and power to lay taxes and im- 
 posts upon the inhabitants of the colony," and that 
 "therefore the Stamp Act and all acts affecting the rights 
 of the American colonies were unconstitutional and void." 
 Such resolutions produced their legitimate effe<;t. Stung 
 into sudden and bitter hostility the House directed their 
 invectives against the youthful member of the democracy. 
 Patriotic aristocrats heard the resolutions with rising as- 
 tonishment and treated them with a storm of opposition. 
 Threats were uttered against their author and abuse 
 heaped upon him. The debate that ensued was called 
 "most bloody" by Jeff ervjn. It was in the rjiidst of it 
 that Henry uttered the famous sentenw, " Cassar had his 
 Brutus, Cliarles the First his Cromwell, and George the 
 
COLONIAL ORATORS. 315 
 
 Third — " "Treason! Treason!" on every side — "George 
 the Third may profit b)' their example. If this be trea- 
 son make the most of it" In spite of all opposition the 
 resolutions were carried, through the brilliant advocacy 
 of a young man of twenty-nine years, who had at the 
 same time won the reputation in the South of being 
 "the greatest orator and political thinker" in a land 
 filled with celebrated public s|)eakers and statesmen. 
 "His voice had aroused the storm, his genius had com- 
 prehended the exigencies of the crisis, and the sceptre, 
 departing from the hands of opulent planters, was 
 wielded by the lawyer of a country court." Thencefor- 
 ward he occupied a position with the peers of the new 
 realm that was to be. 
 
 Indeed he was bv general consent the first statesman 
 and orator of Virginia and the pride of her people. 
 George Mason wrote concerning him, •■ He is by far 
 the most powerful speaker I ever heard. . . But his 
 eloquence is the smallest part of his merit. He is in my 
 opinion the first man upon this continent, as well in 
 abilities as in public virtues." He had a leading part in 
 all the counsels of the time, he was sent to every session 
 of the House of Burgesses, he was at the front in all 
 conventions, and all these incidents in this portion of 
 his life culminated in his minion as one of the deputies 
 from Virginia to the first Continental Congress. 
 
 After a short military career as commander of the 
 Virginia troops, in which for some reason he did not 
 gain distinction, he was elected the first governor of his 
 native commonwealth. This office he held upon reelec- 
 tion for the first three years of American independence. 
 
3l6 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 "After his descent from the governor'* chair he was 
 elected by the general assembly as a delegate in Congr<;ih, 
 an honor which his impaired health obliged him to de- 
 cline. Remaining in comparative retirement for five 
 years he resumed the office of governor in 1784, after 
 service in which he was once more and finally elected a 
 deputy to the constitutional convention of 1 787, in Phila- 
 delphia," 
 
 With this convention it is well known that he had 
 little sympathy. The constitution there framed was 
 fraught with perils to the liberty so hardly won by the 
 War of Independence. He feared it as tending to cen- 
 tralization and monarchy. A president-corn rnander- 
 in-chjef of the army looked like the possibility of des- 
 potism. Therefore in the Virginia assembly he opposed 
 its adoption with might and main. All bis eloquence 
 was brought to bear against the concession of state 
 rig?jt£ to a consolidated government, and was exercised 
 in favor of amending the Articles of Confederation, for 
 twenty-three days he bore the brunt of the battle, speak- 
 ing every day but five, and once making five speeches on 
 a single day, and at another time eight, one speech alone 
 occupying seven hours. The height of eloquence wa« 
 reached just before the vote was taken, amid a scene of 
 dramatic interest. Gatheriiig up all bis energies for a 
 final appeal in a cause which he foresaw was likely to be 
 lost he cIcMsed with these words : "I sec the awful dan- 
 gers inherent [in this constitution]. I see them. I feel 
 them. I see beings of a higher order anxious concerning 
 our decision. When I see Ixrvond the horizon that 
 bounds human eyes, and look at the final consmnmMion 
 
COLONIAL ORATORS. 317 
 
 of all human things, and see those intelligent beings 
 which inhabit the ethereal mansions reviewing the polit- 
 ical decisions and revolntions which in the progress of 
 time will happen in America and the consequent happi- 
 ness or misery of mankind, I am led to believe that 
 much of the account on one side or the other will de- 
 pend on what we now decide. All nations are inter- 
 ested in the determination. We have it in our power to 
 secure the happiness of one-half of the human race. Its 
 adoption may involve the misery of the other hemi- 
 sphere." Here a violent storm arose which put the House 
 in disorder and stopped the speaker. The scene was 
 described again and again by witnesses as appalling. 
 One says that " the orator, as if wielding an enchanter's 
 wand, suddenly enlarged the arena of debate and the 
 number of his auditors ; for, peering beyond the veil 
 which shuts in mortal sight and pointing to those celes- 
 tial beings who were hovering over the scene, he ad- 
 dressed to them an invocation that made every nerve 
 shudder with supernatural horror; when, lo ! a storm at 
 that instant rose which shook the whole building, and 
 the spirits whom he had evoked seemed to have come at 
 his bidding. Availing himself of the incident, with a 
 master's art he seemed to mix in the fight of his ethereal 
 auxiliaries, and rising on the wings of the tempest to 
 seize upon the artillery of heaven and direct its fiercest 
 thunders against the heads of his adversaries. The scene 
 became insupportable and the House rose without the 
 formality of adjournment, the members rushing from 
 their seats with precipitation and confusion." 
 
 The next day the vote was taken and resulted in 
 
3l8 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 favor of adoption by a meagre majority of ten. It was 
 then that Patrick Henry showed the true nobility of his 
 nature in complying with words already spoken, " If I 
 shall be in the minority, I shall have those painful sen- 
 sations which arise from a conviction of having been 
 overpowered in a good cause. Yet I will be a peaceable 
 citizen. My head, my hand, my heart shall be at 
 liberty to retrieve the loss of liberty and remove the 
 defects of the system in a constitutional way. I will 
 wait with hopes that the spirit which predominated in 
 the Revolution is not yet gone, and in expectation of see- 
 ing that government changed so as to be compatible 
 with the safety, liberty, and happiness of the people." 
 Of his course at this time our greatest historian says, 
 " Henry showed his genial nature free from all malig- 
 nity. He was like a billow of the ocean on the first 
 bright day after the storm, dashing itself against the 
 rocky cliff, and then, sparkling with light, retreating 
 to its home." 
 
 His retreat was not to idleness. With fortune im- 
 paired by neglect of business in the service of his coun- 
 try he declined another election to the governorship, 
 and set himself to making provision for his declining 
 years and for his children. " In eight years he was able 
 to retire in comfort and wealth from the labors of his 
 profession." In this period his great oratorical abilities 
 shone with undimmed lustre. In the famous cause of 
 the British debt his learning, argument, and eloquence 
 placed him easily at the head of his legal associates. 
 With a preparation worthy of Demosthenes over one of 
 bis orations be came forth a perfect master of every 
 
COLONIAL ORATORS. 319 
 
 principle of law, national and municipal, which related 
 in the remotest way to the subject of investigation. For 
 three days he was engaged in the delivery before a room 
 crowded to the window seats and overflowing to the por- 
 ticos. 
 
 Besides such celebrated law cases his practice led 
 him into actions tried before juries, that have also be- 
 come famous in the history of the bar. Without de- 
 tailing them individually the methods of the great law- 
 yer and orator may be given in the words of his legal 
 biographer, Wirt, who says that " he adapted himself 
 without effort to the character of the cause; seized with 
 the quickness of intuition its defensible point and never 
 permitted the jury to lose sight of it. Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds has said of Titian that by a few strokes of 
 his pencil he knew how to mark the image and charac- 
 ter of whatever object he attempted, and produced by 
 this means a truer representation than any of his pre- 
 decessors who finished every hair. In like manner 
 Henry by a few master-strokes upon the evidence could, 
 in general, stamp upon the cause whatever image or 
 character he pleased and convert it into tragedy or com- 
 edy at his will, and with a power which no effort of 
 his adversary could counteract. Men might resolve to 
 decide a cause against him, but some feint in an unex- 
 pected direction threw them off their guard; some happy 
 phrase, some image from nature's mint struck them with 
 surprise and melted them into conciliation, and victory 
 was inevitable." Another critic says, "The power of 
 his eloquence is due first to the greatness of his emo- 
 tion, accompanied with a versatility which, enabled him 
 
320 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 at once to assume any feeling which was suited to his 
 ends." With matchless perfection of voice, intonation, 
 pause, gesture, attitude, and indescribable play of coun- 
 tenance he united a taste that never permitted him to 
 use an expression that was not instantly recognized as 
 nature itself. But more than all was the intense earnest- 
 ness of feeling which lay back of every word, the tre- 
 mendous power of sincerity which made ordinary ex- 
 pressions weighty with a new meaning. His were no 
 ordinary expressions on extraordinary occasions, as we 
 know from such reports of his speeches as have come 
 down to us through the imperfect stenography of the 
 time. Neither do these latter days understand how 
 great an orator sprung up in the revolutionary period of 
 our history. As in the case of illustrious orators before 
 him the record of what he said is not equal to the testi- 
 mony of the manner of its saying and the ethical power 
 of a mighty man. He lived, to be sure, in stirring 
 times, and was both their product and exponent. He 
 was one of a group of wise thinkers and orators of no 
 mean attainments, viewed apart from each other; but he 
 was easily the foremost, gifted from above with transcen- 
 dental powers and with a character that gave weight to 
 expression that in itself was most effective. Just, upright, 
 and godly, humane, genial, and beneficent, willing to 
 serve yet not coveting office, strong in his views of right 
 and in his sense of duty unswerving, he stands as the 
 everlasting memorial of righteousness in a time when 
 men were driven hither and thither by conflicting inter- 
 ests and emotions. It was around such a man that men 
 loved to rally, or against him to contend with all their 
 
COLONIAL ORATORS. 32 I 
 
 might. But he lived to see his principles largely pre- 
 vail and their success assured in the new nation whose 
 character he did so much to shape. 
 
 There were other men who were with justice and 
 propriety considered orators in the stormy period of the 
 Revolution. For instance in the great debate upon the 
 Stamp Act Richard Henry Lee of Virginia supported 
 the resolutions of Patrick Henry with such ability and 
 eloquence that the people knew not which most to ad- 
 mire, the overwhelming might of Henry or the resistless 
 persuasion of Lee. Other famous speakers in the 
 South were William Henry Drayton, John Rutledge, 
 Edmund Randolph, the successor of Patrick Henry as 
 governor of Virginia, a lawyer whom clients beset on his 
 way from office to court with their papers in one hand 
 and their guineas in the other, and crowded his office on 
 his return. As a natural consequence he came to be first 
 Washington's attorney-general and afterward secretary 
 of state. Then there were speakers of no mean attain- 
 ments, whose statesmanship so surpassed their oratory 
 that the real excellence of this is forgotten in the greater 
 splendor of their legislative, administrative, and even 
 military renown. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John 
 Adams, James Madison, Josiah Quincy, Robert Livings- 
 ton, Charles Pinckney, Gouverneur Morris, Harrison 
 Gray Otis, De Witt Clinton, and others in the grand 
 peerage of the colonial, revolutionary, and reconstruc- 
 tion periods were all men of strong intellects, able to 
 maintain their views before the world with pen and 
 voice, and with sword if need required. It was a 
 group created by the stirring times, which in turn they 
 
322 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 themselves inspired and guided to a fortunate termina- 
 tion. Viewed together it was an assemblage of wisdom 
 and courage and eloquence such as had not appeared 
 since the days of the Greek and Roman republics, and 
 in many respects surpassing them, as indeed they ought 
 to have surpassed them with the advantage of eighteen 
 Christian centuries of history intervening. They had 
 the inheritance of the ages and they profited by it. 
 
XXV. 
 CONGRESSIONAL ORATORY. 
 
 THE above title may be applied to the efforts of a 
 body of men who found a field of the noblest activ- 
 ity in the legislative halls of the nation, as distinguished 
 from what may be called the provincial oratory of colo- 
 nial days. Out of the diversity of political opinions a 
 union and a constitution had been established; but old 
 faiths still remained, and old prejudices survived which 
 now and then would come to the surface to be main- 
 tained or attacked by turns. Preeminently the doctrine 
 of states-rights would periodically appear, like an un- 
 easy ghost, to disquiet its opponents and stir the blood 
 of its Southern defenders. It was this dogma that 
 made famous the successor of Patrick Henry and the 
 predecessor of Calhoun, the man who may be regarded 
 as the link between two generations of orators, John 
 Randolph, of Roanoake. A proud Virginian, full of 
 ambition and eccentricity, sometimes a slave to intem- 
 perance and always erratic in mind, bitter, self-con- 
 scious, and wretched, he nevertheless was a man whose 
 reputation for eloquence will not readily perish. Of an 
 ancient and wealthy family, having in his veins the In- 
 dian blood of Pocahontas he was a singular product of 
 aristocratic and aboriginal life. All his days he was, as 
 
 323 
 
324 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 Hildreth says, " in opposition to the exercise of author- 
 ity by anybody but himself." 
 
 His entrance into Congress in the year 1800 may be 
 taken as a convenient dividing line between the earlier 
 and later oratory of the country, coincident as it is with 
 the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning 
 of the nineteenth. His career in Congress is marked by 
 violent and acrimonious utterances. In his first debate 
 he spoke of the officers of the army as a "handful of 
 ragamuffins," and followed the speech by a violent letter 
 demanding their punishment for resenting his insulting 
 words, but was in the end censured himself. He quar- 
 reled with one administration after another, was alter- 
 nately retired and reelected. Still, during his lifetime 
 his speeches were more generally read than those of any 
 other member of Congress. Full of invective and sar- 
 casm, delivered in a voice shrill and piping but under 
 perfect command and musical in its lower tones, they re- 
 called at times the peculiar eloquence of the earlier 
 period. " His unquestioned courage, the cutting force 
 of his sarcastic words, the malediction of his out- 
 stretched finger made Congress listen when he spoke 
 and crowded the Virginia hustings wherever he ap- 
 peared." His defence of slavery, to which he was 
 opposed on principle as Patrick Henry had been be- 
 fore him, was rather the outcome of states-rights doc- 
 trine than something to be desired and perpetuated 
 for the good of the South. This defence was also 
 more after the fire-breathing-dragon order than solid or 
 logical. Narrow and mistaken as were many of his 
 utterances he foresaw with singular acumen the nullifi- 
 
CONGRESSIONAL ORATORY. 325 
 
 cation of 1832 and even the civil war of 1861-5. 
 Forty years before the emancipation proclamation he 
 said, "There is one other power which may be exer- 
 cised . . to which I ask the attention of every gen- 
 tleman, who, like myself, has the misfortune to be born a 
 slave-holder. If Congress possesses the power to do 
 what is proposed by this bill they may not only enact a 
 sedition law but they may emancipate every slave in the 
 United States . . Let the gentlemen look forward 
 to the time when such a question shall arise, and trem- 
 ble with me at the thought that that question is to be 
 decided by a majority of the votes of this House, of 
 whom not one possesses the slightest tie of common in- 
 terest or of common feeling with us." The rapid 
 growth of the North, the ultimate destiny of the South, 
 the abolition of slavery as a war measure, forced by a 
 Northern majority in Congress, are here outlined, and 
 doubtless seen in more than dim outline by this sombre 
 prophet of an inevitable future, as they were afterward 
 foreseen in nearer perspective by Daniel Webster. What 
 Randolph dreaded as a " coalition of knavery and fanat- 
 icism " took the form finally as a union of all freedom- 
 loving men in legislative halls and on fields of battle 
 for universal liberty in a nation calling itself free from 
 despotism of every sort. 
 
 The orator who is next in succession to John Ran- 
 dolph is Henry Clay. To write this name is to call up 
 a long and eventful career, covering nearly half a cen- 
 tury of American political history, in which he was more 
 continuously prominent than any contemporary states- 
 man. As a consequence great diversity of testimony 
 
326 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 as to his political aims and character may be expected 
 from his enemies and his friends; some calling him a 
 pretender and selfish intriguer, others placing him among 
 the wisest and best of mankind. As usual the truth 
 probably lies somewhere between these extremes, and 
 from the point which is to be taken in viewing him as 
 an orator the vituperation of opponents and the praise 
 of friends need not greatly affect the judgment. 
 
 Of his early life it is necessary to observe only that 
 he was the son of a Baptist clergyman who was noted 
 for a fine voice and delivery. The lad inherited such a 
 fortune as might be expected, namely, the opportunity 
 to get his living by his own efforts and to obtain such 
 an education as a log-cabin school might afford him in 
 what used to be known as the "three R's, " the trivium 
 of country education in Virginia in the early years of 
 this century. Then came a year in a Richmond grocery, 
 from which he was advanced to a place in the office of 
 the clerk of the chancery court. There he attracted the 
 attention of the chancellor, who made him his amanu- 
 ensis in recording decisions for the space of four years. 
 By this patron's interest he was guided in his reading 
 into historical and legal literature. 
 
 The law naturally became his profession and in a 
 year more he was granted a license to practice. Rich- 
 mond had become the capital of the state, and the soci- 
 ety which the young lawyer was thrown into was of the 
 best in the land. From the young men he met he 
 formed a debating club, some of whose members became 
 distinguished in subsequent times. In 1797, at the age 
 of twenty-one, he struck out into the wilds of Kentucky 
 
CONGRESSIONAL ORATORV. 327 
 
 " to grow up with the country." It was with melan- 
 choly regret that he reviewed his " imperfect education, 
 improved by his own irregular efforts without the bene- 
 fit of systematic instruction." 
 
 He opened an office in Lexington after studying his 
 profession for less than a year and was soon engaged in 
 a lucrative practice, due largely no doubt to a winning 
 address and a frank, cordial manner which disarmed 
 enmity and made him hosts of friends. He himself, 
 however, attributes his success in life to the habit of 
 daily reading and speaking the contents of some histor- 
 ical or scientific book. These off-hand efforts were 
 sometimes made in a cornfield, at others in a forest, with 
 horses and oxen for auditors. " It is to this early prac- 
 tice of the art of all arts that I am indebted for the 
 primary and leading impulses that stimulated my prog- 
 ress and have shaped and molded my entire destiny," he 
 used to say. The amusing tradition of his addressing 
 the members of a debating club as " gentlemen of the 
 jury" may be taken as an augury of his future career. 
 
 The road from law to politics in his case was shorter 
 than usual. In five years from his arrival in Kentucky 
 he was elected one of the representatives of Fayette 
 county and was repeatedly re-chosen. It was just before 
 his election that, at a popular gathering in reprehension 
 of the alien-sedition laws, Mr. George Nichols, who first 
 addressed the meeting, was applauded with deafening 
 shouts and acclamations ; but when young Clay followed 
 in an address far more thrilling and effective the popu- 
 lar feeling became too deep for utterance, and he con- 
 tinued and closed amid profound and unbroken silence. 
 
328 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 The year 1806 finds him in the United States Senate to 
 serve out a fragment of a term, where he identified him- 
 self with the policy of internal improvements. Returned 
 to the state legislature he signalized the occurrence by 
 defeating a bill to which four-fifths of the House were 
 understood to have been pledged before he made his 
 speech against it. 
 
 In 1809 he again appears in the United States Senate, 
 and in 181 1 as a member of the House of Representa- 
 tives where he was chosen speaker by a large majority, 
 a distinction without parallel since the meeting of the 
 first Congress and one which was his throughout a long 
 career in the House of Representatives. 
 
 It was his leadership that hastened the war of 1812. 
 He himself says, " I gave a vote for the declaration of 
 war. I exerted all the influence and talent I could com- 
 mand to make the war. We had been insulted and out- 
 raged and spoliated upon by almost all Europe. We 
 had become the scorn of foreign powers and the deri- 
 sion of our own citizens. . . What is our situation 
 now ? Respectability and character abroad, security and 
 confidence at home." All this, however, be did not 
 foresee when as a commissioner of peace at Ghent he 
 signed what he regarded as a bad treaty, advantageous 
 to Great Britain. On his return home he declined the 
 offered mission to Russia and the war secretaryship, to 
 be once more elected speaker of the House, an office 
 which he continued to hold for fourteen years. Then 
 followed the secretaryship of state for four years, a 
 poor compensation for his disappointment in the presi- 
 dential campaign of 1828, which was succeeded by an- 
 
CONGRESSIONAL ORATORY. 329 
 
 Other defeat in 1832 and again in 1844. Twelve years 
 in the Senate were ended by his voluntary retirement in 
 1842 for seven years of private life. In 1849 h^ ^^ 
 again elected to the Senate, where he took an active part 
 in the compromise measm^es of 1850, the last impor- 
 tant public business in which he was involved. He died 
 on the 29th of June, 1852, in the seventy-fifth year of 
 his age. 
 
 Brief as this outline of his public career is it may 
 suflBce to indicate the main directions which his oratory 
 of necessity took. It could not be other than political 
 in its purpose and sometimes partisan in its character. 
 But through it all ran certain qualities which have their 
 value irrespective of the course which the current of his 
 eloquence followed. 
 
 Chief among these is the element of sincerity which 
 must be fundamental in all oratory that is genuinely 
 effectual. His honest convictions underlay his best 
 eloquence. To express these was always the purpose of 
 his speaking. Grand as was his utterance the thought 
 behind it was broader and deeper than his expression 
 of it, and his sincerity added weight to both. Bold and 
 frank in his nature he had no inclination to palter in a 
 double sense, and no wavering in his opinions and pur- 
 poses. He could not be eloquent off the line of his 
 strong convictions. On that line he was ardent, fear- 
 less, and full of hope, with the rare power of inspiring 
 others with his own sentiments and his own expectations. 
 And those who could not be swayed from their personal 
 beliefs and interests paid tribute to the honesty and sin- 
 ceritj- of his straightforward words. 
 
330 THg HISTORY OP ORATORY. 
 
 With this truthfulness of heart went as a natural se- 
 quence clearness in statement and lucidity in explana- 
 tion, vastly more efiEective with a mixed audience than 
 logical subtleties or rhetorical embellishments. He ad- 
 dressed the understanding and common sense of the 
 people, seeing things from the average man's point of 
 view, taking bis first position by that man's side and then 
 leading him up step by step into his own higher and 
 wider prospect. From his lack of school and college 
 discipline his methods were not always what the experi- 
 ence of centuries would have sanctioned, nor all his 
 speeches models to be followed in every respect ; but 
 there were the natural aptitude and inborn gifts which 
 have made the great orator in every century, a some- 
 thing which education may improve seven-fold, but the 
 lack of which no training can entirely supply. In his 
 day he was called a Western man, and his speech smacked 
 of the freedom and unconstraint of the new settle- 
 ments of the border ; but it was always dignified, like 
 the manners of the time. Even in its loftiest flights it 
 kept within the range of consistency, and was not of the 
 kind often associated with our national bird of freedom. 
 
 To his sincerity and lucidity must be added an 
 earnestness which carried conviction with itself. His 
 hearers did not always follow the intricacies of his logic, 
 nor even its plainer syllogisms, but his clear words, de- 
 livered with tremendous energy, left no doubt as to the 
 general purpose of the speaker. His printed speeches 
 preserve much of the force with which they were uttered, 
 but the traditions of his eloquence are such that we 
 know that its power belonged largely to the living man. 
 
CONGRESSIONAL ORATORY. 33 I 
 
 his majestic presence, his wonderful voice, his sweeping 
 gestures, his bursts of enthusiasm or of wrath, thrilling, 
 inspiring, overawing, terrifying, or winning by sweet 
 persuasiveness. Accounts of contemporaries picture 
 assemblies listening breathless and then breaking out in 
 wild enthusiasm of delight, weeping and laughing in 
 the uncontrollable storm of their emotions, overwhelm- 
 ing him with demonstrations of pride and affection. 
 The testimony of the opposition is just as strong in its 
 frequent reluctance to follow him in reply until the furor 
 he had created should have time to subside. Contem- 
 poraries unite in throwing around him a kind of twi- 
 light atmosphere, in which he becomes a giant in the 
 eyes of enraptured multitudes. 
 
 No critical analysis of his oratory in our time can 
 lower the value of such testimony to his place in the 
 ranks of the great orators of all time. He was an elo- 
 quent man in an age of eloquence and a statesman in an 
 age of statesmanship. If he had not been more than 
 a mere orator he would not have been an eminent one 
 in such an age. If he had not had that ethos which the 
 ancients counted so highly, a devotion to that which is 
 right and honorable; in a word if he had not been a 
 greater man he could not in the judgment of his own 
 time have been so great an orator. He had his ambi- 
 tions, even compassing the chief magistracy of the na- 
 tion, but when he said, " I had rather be right than be 
 president," he surpassed his own ambition and revealed 
 the true majesty of his character. The calumnies and 
 vituperations of that stormy time are buried with the 
 issues which are no longer living, but the genius which 
 
332 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 dealt with them lives in history independent of the 
 themes of its high discourse. 
 
 A name associated with Clay's is that of John C. 
 Calhoun. Born five years later he died two years 
 earlier than his great contemporary. Of Scotch-Irish 
 presbyterian ancestry the Calhoun family had drifted 
 from Pennsylvania along the Alleghany ranges into 
 South Carolina. With scant means to obtain an educa- 
 tion, but diligently using his limited opportunities the 
 brightest member of this family was fitted to enter the 
 junior class in Yale College, graduating in 1804 with 
 the highest distinction. After a discussion with him on 
 the origin of political power President Dwight re- 
 marked, "That young man has talent enough to be 
 president of the United States." While in the law 
 school at Litchfield he cultivated extemporary speaking 
 with great success. Almost immediately upon his re- 
 turn home he was sent to the state legislature, and the 
 ninth year from his graduation found him in Congress. 
 In the measures before that body and the nation for 
 forty years he was a prominent participator. The war 
 policy of 181 2, the national bank, the secretaryship of 
 war, questions of tariff and nullification, and finally of 
 slavery occupied in succession the energies of the great 
 leader of the South. This is not the place to review the 
 fierce struggles of those forty years. They were the 
 decades when the United States, having declared them- 
 selves free from foreign dominion and become one in 
 their main purpose, were attempting to adjust these 
 separate interests and differences of race and place. It 
 was a long and bitter struggle between individualism 
 
CONGRESSIONAL ORATORY. 333 
 
 and unity, between rights retained and rights sur- 
 rendered for the commonweal. Evermore there was the 
 fear of a return to the monarchical or oligarchical forms 
 of government from which emancipation had been won. 
 On the other side it was seen that union could not be 
 maintained if every state insisted upon privileges which 
 made agaiast the general welfare. It was this moil 
 and turmoil of divergent views that tried the souls of 
 patriots as much as the war of independence had tried 
 those of their predecessors, but it bred a school of 
 statesmen and orators whose equal has occurred but 
 twice in the history of eloquence. 
 
 Although Calhoun was an orator who cannot be over- 
 looked in any account of American oratory his mind 
 was of the order that belongs preeminently to statecraft. 
 He made great speeches, but they were great in the 
 closeness of their reasoning and the plainness of their 
 propositions, coupled at times with an impassioned de- 
 livery, oftener with a severity and dignity of manner 
 which men respected, but over which they did not go 
 wild with enthusiasm nor drift far from their well-formed 
 judgments. Accepting his premises it was difficult to 
 escape from the conclusions of his rigid logic. What- 
 ever the sense of the speaker's profound sincerity and 
 earnestness could accomplish was secured by the unfal- 
 tering devotion to his convictions and his unwavering 
 persistence in imparting them to those who could not 
 help listening with respect, though they might be far 
 from accepting the legitimate results of his processes. 
 Sometimes, however, he would generalize boldly, or even 
 recklessly, and his exaggerations would run into absurd- 
 
334 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 ity, as may be the case with any orator overmastered by 
 his purpose. Perhaps it was at such times that he came 
 nearest to eloquence, as men usually count the term. 
 But oftenest it was the qualities of massiveness and 
 solidity, breadth and clearness of perception expressed 
 without ambiguity and without reserve. A natural logi- 
 cian, acute in analysis he could expose the weak points 
 of an adversary as well as make his own position strong. 
 With a philosopher's sense of causes and effects he was 
 quick to see the value of combinations which might 
 bring about desired results. 
 
 In the manner and methods of his speech he was 
 plain and direct. Arranging his thoughts in his mind 
 rather than upon paper he had his resources at ready 
 command. A few simple, abstract propositions fur- 
 nished the basis of clear explanation and illustration. 
 Calm and impressive in sober discussion, sometimes 
 bending forward as if in diffidence when beginning to 
 speak he lifted himself up as the subject began to move 
 him, and with a voice loud and shrill and eyes like fiery 
 coals poured forth a stream of words, full of weight 
 and power. His greatest efforts are those in which he 
 was matched with his two illustrious compeers. In 
 these he did not by any means always come off second. 
 The distinction has been drawn between him and Web- 
 ster, that while the eloquence of the one is inherent in 
 his argument the eloquence of the other is extraneous 
 to it. The eloquence of Calhoun was almost entirely 
 in the intense and fiery energy of his logic, dense and 
 firm in its construction, severe in its proportions, and 
 chaste in its expression. All this the reader of his 
 
CONGRESSIONAL ORATORY. 335 
 
 speeches would be surprised at finding in a leader of 
 Southern men; but heredity is stronger than association, 
 and the logical severity of a Celtic ancestry had not 
 been long enough in its new and milder climate to 
 lose much of its ancient and uncompromising vigor. It 
 is in the other compeer, Henry Clay, that we find the 
 luxuriance of expression, the ardent and fearless tem- 
 perament, the magnetic and sympathetic power of com- 
 munication, which is the outgrowth of a genial environ- 
 ment. But Calhoun was the man to set forth and main- 
 tain a doctrine that needed the relentlessness of demon- 
 stration more than the adornment of imagery or the 
 ardor of devotion. 
 
XXVI. 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, 
 
 THE tide of American oratory which had been rising 
 for more than half a century reached its full flood in 
 the eloquence of Daniel Webster. Whatever contro- 
 versies may be waged over his legal, political, or ethical 
 standing, his preeminence as an orator will be denied by 
 no one but the most daring critic, one who is ready to 
 match his private opinion against the judgment of con- 
 temporary hearers and of later readers. 
 
 An estimate of Webster's eloquence is attended with 
 difficulties at the start. Its surpassing excellence has 
 given it a familiarity that in most things breeds con- 
 tempt. It is murdered daily in a thousand school- 
 rooms. Its best passages are cited and perverted as the 
 Scriptures are by persons of poor taste. On the other 
 hand there is a reverence begot by tradition and 
 strengthened by history which destructive criticism has 
 not yet banished, and the "godlike Daniel" continu- 
 ally comes to judgment on his critics. What would he 
 have done with their microscopes and lancets and forceps 
 in the days of his flesh and the years of his power ? 
 Consigned them and their manipulators to the limbus 
 fatuorum and paradise of fools — the receptacle of all 
 vanity and nonsense. Even yet his ghost is not suffi- 
 
 336 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 337 
 
 ciently laid to permit much troubling, and few will 
 undertake to offend 
 
 ..." that fair and warlike form 
 
 In which the majesty of buried Denmark 
 
 Did sometime march;" 
 
 for the memory of it has not yet perished from the earth. 
 
 To trace the causes which made his name synonymous 
 with eloquence supreme has been the privilege of one 
 biographer after another, each better than his predeces- 
 sor as the art of investigation has been developed. In 
 one sense the story is a simple one of a farmer's son 
 struggling with poverty, of heroic sacrifice in the family 
 to give him the meagre best that the remote district 
 afforded, of self-help in securing an education, of rec- 
 ognition by elders, of brightening prospects in wider 
 fields, of success in his profession, then competence 
 and eminence, and finally honors at the capital and 
 throughout the land. 
 
 It is not a story of industry alone, for others have 
 been as diligent as he was. Neither is it the record of 
 genius alone, for there have been as great geniuses in 
 their way. But the inborn gift which is bestowed through 
 a man upon his age and the working habit of a sturdy 
 generation together produced the perfect flower and 
 fruit of deliberative oratory after a century of growth. 
 Fortunately the scope of this sketch admits of nothing 
 more than a presentation of the chief characteristics of 
 his eloquence. As it was adapted to different purposes 
 and occasions it will best be considered with reference 
 to them. A chronological order will not make an un- 
 natural sequence. 
 
338 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 To those who beliere in the old sajing that the boy is 
 the father of the man in things intellectnal a line or two 
 from the biography of Wdjstet's boyhood will confirm 
 them in thai opinion. A mastery of the greatest num- 
 ber of verses from the English Bible, in a prize contest 
 at the district school, may be taken as a prophecy- of 
 his mental power and of the kind of words in whicji 
 that power shoold find expression in fntnre years ; wMIe 
 the purchase of a handkerchief on which was printed 
 the newly adopted Constitution of the United Stares 
 may stand for a sign of the direction in which his intel- 
 lect was to move with largeness and freedom. His en- 
 tire life was the de¥dopment of these three things wliidi 
 appeared in his boyish days, mental power, familiarity 
 with the best English words, and acquaintance with the 
 principles embodied in our constitutional union. And 
 yet he loved the sport of stream and woodland enongh 
 to keep him from becoming a book-worm. Even the 
 paradoxical prophecy of failure on the first appearance 
 to "speak in public on the stagey" which has befallen 
 many orators in their boyhood, came to him when he 
 attempted to recite the verses at Exeter Academy which 
 he had read so well to Boscawen teamsters. 
 
 He found his tongue again at Dartmouth, where his 
 native gift of speech, enriched by careful study and 
 meditation, gained him good repute and gave promise 
 of a brilliant future. His acquisitions in college were 
 chiefly in ancient and modem literature and his most 
 noted performances were in the line of oratory, but every 
 one saw that there was more in him than the general 
 reader or the public speaker. His first speech outade 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 339 
 
 of college walls before the citizens of the college town 
 was in the direction of his future achievements, and con- 
 sidering his youth and the temptations of the Fourth of 
 July to a college orator it was not unworthy the future 
 statesman. Whatever its absolute worth it was consid- 
 ered by the town fathers good enough to print. 
 
 It has been truly remarked of his style in this ora- 
 tion that it was florid, inflated, and heavy, after the 
 manner of the eighteenth century. But it must be said 
 also that the year was 1800 and the orator but eighteen. 
 The seventeenth century English of the Bible had not 
 been much improved by his reading of Addison, Pope, 
 Watts, and Don Quixote, together with such other classics 
 as the student could find in a college library in the clos- 
 ing years of the last century. If he had not shown the 
 good sense to improve upon some of his models in the 
 direction of simplicity and straightforwardness his ora- 
 torical "coming out" would have been less like his later 
 masterpieces than it was. 
 
 The usual period of enforced silence which follows 
 upon the graduation of even the most promising 
 students was broken only by another Fourth of July 
 oration. Loyalty to the principles of the Constitution 
 is the burden of his discourse at Fryeburg, Maine, as it 
 had been at Hanover, New Hampshire. 
 
 These were years of gathering material rather than 
 of much speaking. Law and literature were his studies ; 
 his associates the ablest advocates, jurists, and states- 
 men in New England. It was four years before the 
 courts had need of his services in a way to give him dis- 
 tinction. Men had seen in him the indications of a 
 
340 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 promising future and they prophesied that Ebenezet 
 Webster's boy would be greater than the paternal judge 
 of the local court. 
 
 But the oratory of the Boscawen days smacked 
 somewhat of academic artificiality and floridity. The 
 style was a little strained and stilted, perhaps because 
 his growing thoughts could not readily adapt themselves 
 to simple words, but associated more naturally with large 
 expressions. The thoughts, however, were great and the 
 views profound which the young lawyer had to express, 
 and they were fast drifting toward wider and higher 
 fields of national politics. Another Fourth of July 
 address marks his advance in style even more than in 
 thought. It was now 1812 and at Portsmouth. The 
 companionship of Jeremiah Mason and of Christopher 
 Gore, in whose office he had glimpses of Theophilus 
 Parsons, Samuel Dexter, and Harrison Gray Otis, had 
 been to him what the graduate course is to the latter-day 
 student, and more. William Plumer, governor and sen- 
 ator, was almost his first antagonist at the bar in Ports- 
 mouth. From him the youthful advocate received a 
 wholesome snubbing which lowered a conceit that was 
 growing with his sense of power. At the same time he 
 was gaining skill and strength by contests with these 
 giants in our heroic age of jurisprudence at the begin- 
 ning of this century. From them he learned that a 
 valuable fact needs little else than perspicuous statement 
 and that too much adornment is no ornament to a truth. 
 The Greek temple and the Greek statue do not need 
 Asian pigments to set off their perfections. The affected 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 341 
 
 falseness of expression which comes from striving after 
 an unnatural ideal is found no longer. Contact with 
 reality in things and men has banished indistinct theo- ^ 
 ries in thinking and generalities in speaking. His words 
 no longer vaguely embody an unformed, immature con- 
 ception nor include a dozen more for which he has no 
 immediate need. There is not, indeed, such a diversified 
 vocabulary as has been possessed by writers of greater 
 linguistic attainments and of wider literary pretension, 
 who have studied expression for its own sake. On the 
 other hand no master of English has surpassed him in 
 making the ordinary words of our mother-tongue do 
 manifold service by their emphatic placing and skilful 
 combination. Like the man himself his language is plain ^^ 
 but full of power. There is no waste, no display. Terse 
 and clear his lucid statements are obscured by no need- 
 less refinements and qualifications and weakened by no 
 amplifications unnecessary to their plain meaning. His 
 statement of his case was often its best defence, making 
 further discussion seem almost superfluous. His lan- 
 guage was plain and clear enough for the ordinary jury- 
 man to understand. One did not need to be translating 
 technical terms into homespun English, thus becoming 
 diverted from the course of the great advocate's argu- 
 ment. Herbert Spencer's theory of sparing the listener's 
 available mental force by as little demand for attention 
 as possible was exemplified by Webster's practice. He 
 talked to his twelve men as a man with his neighbor, as 
 one juryman with another about this particular case now 
 'n their mutual keeping, trying to place fact with fact. 
 
342 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY, 
 
 circumstance with circumstance, sign with sign, to see if 
 they would all point to some conclusion or square with 
 some hypothesis. 
 4^ In this monologue in conversational tone there was 
 the appearance of natural growth and sequence from 
 point to point, each step so taken by the leader of their 
 thoughts that there seemed to be no other or better way 
 than to follow in his tracks. It is not certain that a New 
 Hampshire jury of farmers would have resented the 
 imputation of following him as their sheep followed the 
 bell-wether of the flock. Not to follow him was to as- 
 sume a wisdom greater than Daniel's. It was often to 
 deny what was as good as the testimony of their own 
 eyes and ears. So it seemed to them when he talked to 
 them. For every occurrence he pointed out the cause. 
 For every cause he showed the only legitimate effect. 
 
 This sympathetic address and reasonable dealing is 
 illustrated in all its bearings by the defence of the Ken- 
 iston brothers, reluctantly undertaken in a time of great 
 fatigue " because the neighbors thought he would not 
 allow two humble but innocent men to suffer from the 
 wiles of a scoundrel." This defence is worth reading as 
 a reflection of the advocate's attitude toward his fellow 
 citizens in that state which he remembered with fojidness 
 and gratitude, though at this time he had moved on into 
 the larger arena of a metropolis. It also illustrates his 
 method of dealing with legal transactions in all his pro- 
 fessional career. 
 
 A more striking instance of his skill in criminal 
 causes is afforded by the celebrated Joseph White mur- 
 der case. The deprecatory opening of the argument to 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 343 
 
 remove a prejudice which had been raised against the 
 prosecution and its methods of procedure ; the vivid 
 portrayal of the midnight assassin and his bloody deed, 
 as if seen by the speaker himself ; followed by his lucid 
 statement of the essential points to be established — 
 " Was there a conspiracy ? Was the accused a party to 
 it? Was he one of its executors? What motive impelled 
 him to become an accomplice?" The answer, and the 
 exhibition of folly in weaving about himself a network 
 of entanglements from which his efforts to escape only 
 involved the accused more surely and fastened upon 
 him the inevitable conclusion that the aiding and abet- 
 ting this dastardly crime made him as guilty as its prin- 
 cipal, — all this marshaling of facts, interpretation of cir- 
 cumstantial evidence, casting aside of irrelevant matter, 
 linking together of remote coincidences, bringing truth 
 out of mystery, indicated a legal acumen second to none 
 in the history of criminal jurisprudence. 
 
 In the superior courts of different states and in the 
 supreme court of the United States the same principles 
 were exemplified when he came to engage in their larger 
 fields. He had a comprehensive grasp of the whole case 
 in hand, saw what was irrelevant in the, mass of material 
 that gathers about any disputed question, and had a 
 marvelous insight to discern at once the decisive points 
 of fact and law. Then he would exhibit with the greatest 
 clearness the proofs and reasonings from facts. And to 
 all he added the force of an emotional appeal as from 
 one who regarded right and wrong not as abstractions 
 but as elements in human life which made for the welfare 
 or the woe of his fellow-men. 
 
344 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 An occasion when these powers were notably exhib- 
 ited was in the celebrated Dartmouth College case. 
 Without recounting its complicated history and tracing 
 its course from the local courts to the supreme court at 
 Washington it may Ix, said that the claim to be de- 
 fended was " that the college was an institution founded 
 by private persons for particular uses ; that the charter 
 was given to perpetuate such uses ; that misconduct of 
 trustees was a question for courts ; and that the legisla- 
 ture by its interference transcended its powers." 
 
 In arguing the case Webster pretended merely to put 
 together the arguments furnished by his colleagues ; but 
 he had that quality of a commanding intellect which in 
 combining the results of other men's labors stamped the 
 final product with its own mint-mark. His was an origi- 
 nality which many will aver is the only originality pos- 
 sible in these latter ages of human thought and experi- 
 ence, namely, that of rearranging and recombining old 
 material. It was not a case in which the great advocate 
 felt that he could rely entirely upon the strength of a 
 purely legal argument. There was another side which 
 had its supporters even on the bench before him. Ac- 
 cordingly he attempted to carry the fortress by storm 
 and to appeal to the court as men subject to human feel- 
 ings and human prejudice ; as men who had fond mem- 
 ories of some alma mater of their own and who would 
 therefore respect and defend the cause of sound learning. 
 It was with this in view that, casting aside his legal logic, 
 he said in closing, 
 
 " This, sir, is my case. It is the case not merely of 
 that humble institution, it is the case of every college in 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 345 
 
 our land. . . . You may destroy this little institu- 
 tion. . . . but if you do you must extinguish one 
 after another all those greater lights of science which for 
 more than a century have thrown their radiance over our 
 land. It is, sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet 
 there are those who love it." The scene in the court- 
 room at this point has been graphically described. 
 
 Judge Story used to say, " For the first hour we lis- , 
 tened to him with perfect astonishment, for the second 
 hour with perfect delight, and for the third hour with 
 perfect conviction." Stoical judges were moved to tears 
 and the audience was spellbound by his affecting perora- 
 tion, in which the hard and sharp forensic argument had 
 passed into loving reminiscence. It may or may not be 
 regarded as legitimate dealing with the points at issue, 
 but it was the beginning of gaining a case that appeared 
 to be hopeless at first. Two judges only out of seven 
 favored Webster's side, notwithstanding his eloquence, 
 but this partial support was the basis of a successful cam- 
 paign conducted through another year and resulting in 
 a decision in favor of the college. 
 
 Other arguments followed this, in which his legal 
 eloquence is maintained by his sure grasp of the vital 
 point of a question, and his recognition of every cardinal 
 principle and estimate of every fact and circumstance at 
 its intrinsic worth, and by a reasoning which was cogent, 
 leading to conclusions that were irresistible. Added to 
 these main features were his skill in concentrating his 
 strength upon the weak points of his opponent's posi- 
 tion and his carefulness not to be betrayed into untena- 
 ble ground himself. He knew what not to undertake, ^ 
 
346 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 and combined the sagacity of a prudent general with 
 the valor of a wise one confident of his resources and 
 knowing his occasion. Altogether he will be reckoned 
 as one of the three or four greatest advocates that the 
 world has known. 
 
 It has been said thai the exclusive practice of the law 
 is not considered the best preparation for public life. 
 There are minds, however, which cannot take narrow 
 views and are destined to find wide fields for their legit- 
 imate and natural action. This was true of Daniel Web- 
 ster. The Portsmouth oration led him into a political 
 convention and the writing of the Hockiiigham McmoriaL 
 This is turn placed him in Congress at the age of thirty- 
 one, among a company of stalwarts. He kept tolerably 
 quiet for the first session, but in the second he made a 
 speech against the bill to encourage enlistments, which 
 was worthy of his ne^ dignity. The academic dress of 
 1 his thoughts is dropped. Short and direct his sentences 
 fall like hammer-strokes. "Give up your futile projects 
 of invasion. Extinguish the fires that blaze on your 
 inland frontier. Establish perfect safety and defence 
 there bv adequate force. . . . Unclench the iron grasp 
 of your embargo. ... If you are seriously contending 
 for maritime rights, go to the theatre where sdone those 
 rights can be defended. Then the united wishes and 
 exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our 
 party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the 
 water's edge." 
 
 A tone worthy of his new sphere is discernible. It is 
 at this period that his success in the larger domain of 
 statesmanship begins to be recognized by those who hith- 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 347 
 
 erto had known him as a lawyer only. In the Massa- 
 chusetts constitutional convention his advocacy of con- 
 servative action was conducted with great ability and 
 skill, calling out many prophecies of his future career, 
 among them one by Judge Story concerning the possi- 
 ble presidency. Accordingly when he was returned to 
 Congress from Massachusetts after a retirement of six 
 years for professional reasons, he is fairly in the field of 
 deliberative oratory. It is here that the greatness of his . 
 intellect appears and also of his labors and triumphs. 
 He was preeminently a statesman, with a large grasp of 
 principles to which he committed himself with all the 
 devotion of a great intellect and soul. He had the wis- 
 dom to view things in their true relations, uncolored by '^ 
 imagination or sympathies. 
 
 Of broad and comprehensive views he did not attempt 
 the ideal or the impossible, but only what was attainable 
 in any given situation. He embraced the whole nation 
 in his outlook and cultivated a national rather than a 
 sectional spirit. Being in the political minority he could 
 for this reason be free to exercise generous views and a 
 high national spirit. Such breadth and comprehensive- 
 ness were the best foundation for a lofty and majestic 
 eloquence, which was displayed from time to time during 
 the forty years of his public service. 
 
 The best comment on this oratory is suggested by the 
 careful reading of it, as has been remarked of the works 
 of our greatest dramatist. What, however, is true of one 
 example of it is true in a measure of all, making allow- 
 ances for differences of occasion and interest. The 
 speech in reply to Hayne will be considered as the best 
 
348 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 exposition of the cardinal principles around which clus- 
 tered and crystalized the system of political wisdom that 
 distinguished him. Its nucleus is the integrity of the 
 Constitution and the preservation of the Union. Around 
 this idea, as around a fixed and double pole-star, all other 
 political theories revolved. 
 
 The reply to Hayne was itself a twofold production 
 on two different days in answer to two speeches from 
 the South Carolina general, but the first reply is so over- 
 shadowed by the magnificence of the second that its 
 existence is almost forgotten. The occasion of the 
 speech was the introduction of a resolution of inquiry as 
 to the sales and surveys of western lands. Senator 
 Foote, of Connecticut, must have been surprised to see 
 how great a fire his little match had kindled, and the 
 uninformed reader would be puzzled to know what there 
 was in that resolution to provoke the greatest parliamen- 
 tary contest of modern times. But it is not the spark 
 that explodes. The air was full of irreconcilable ele- 
 ments and the " irrepressible conflict " was beginning. 
 The powers of that Constitution, which seemed to be 
 little more than articles of confederacy in 1789, had still 
 a double meaning to the nation. There was a south 
 side on which " State Sovereignty " appeared to be 
 written, and a north side inscribed with " Sovereignty of 
 the Union " ; not always clear, however, to all northern 
 people. But in this great debate Webster made it clear 
 to the understandings of all men that the nation is 
 greater than any state and all the states. A generation 
 later the logic of events established the solidity of his 
 position. Passing over the first reply, which would be a 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 349 
 
 remarkable effort from any other man of that time, the 
 second may be taken as an exhibition of Webster's char- 
 acteristics as a parliamentary debater. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that in Hayne's first 
 speech it had been groundlessly charged upon New 
 England that she had shown hostility to the West. 
 This charge was repelled with such vigor as to provoke 
 another bitter attack upon New England, Massachusetts, 
 and her senator, accompanied by a declaration of nulli- 
 fication doctrines and the sovereignty of South Carolina, 
 with threatened resistance to the Union and the laws of 
 Congress. On January 26, 1830, the great reply to 
 Hayne was delivered. Intimations of the approaching 
 encounter had gone abroad, and men were gathering 
 from every quarter, with sunny and hopeful faces from the 
 South, while apprehensive and dejected countenances 
 marked the anxiety of New Englanders. On the event- 
 ful morning the Senate chamber was crowded with nota- 
 bles from every state and dignitaries from abroad. It 
 was an assemblage worthy of the discussion of the cardi- 
 nal principles of our nationality by the greatest of our 
 constitutional lawyers and the chief orator of the land. 
 Amid breathless silence he began the famous exordium : 
 "Mr. President: — When the mariner has been tossed 
 for many days in thick weather and on an unknown sea, 
 he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, 
 the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and 
 ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his 
 true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and before 
 we float farther on the waves of this debate refer to the 
 point from which we departed, that we may at least be 
 
350 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the read- 
 ing of the resolution before the Senate." 
 
 His quiet manner and tones had relieved the tension 
 of strained suspense, and the House took breath during 
 the monotonous reading of the resolution and then ad- 
 justed itself for four hours of listening to what, all in all, 
 is by general agreement the greatest speech of modern 
 times. To follow its outline will reveal in a convenient, 
 if not in a logical, order the great orator's method of 
 treatment of men who opposed him and of principles to 
 which he was opposed, or, again, of principles which he 
 espoused. In his opening sentences he obeyed the first 
 principles of address in starting from the level of ordi- 
 nary thought and feeling, or, in this instance, of bringing 
 his hearers back to their normal condition before leading 
 them up to the heights he proposed to ascend. His next 
 rhetorical and argumentative necessity was to deal with 
 the personalities with which his opponent had seen fit 
 to assail him. He treats these with a dignity, enlivened 
 by a pleasant humor, that belongs to assured power and 
 conscious rectitude. He disclaims resentment or the 
 slightest feeling of unkindness for the adversary who 
 had been betrayed into a personal attack. He simply 
 informs him that his arrows failed to reach their mark, 
 that, in fact, they had not disturbed his sleep ; but he 
 does protest against the intended disparagement and 
 the lofty assumption of superiority, and he recalls his 
 opponent to a sense that this is a Senate of men pos- 
 sessing honor, character, and independence. It has 
 been said that Webster was not a witty man ; he was 
 something better and greater. His dignified irony gave 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 3SI 
 
 him an advantage over his persecutor that could not 
 have been won by the crossing of rapiers. While, how- 
 ever, he good-naturedly parries the thrusts of his adver- 
 sary he informs him that there are blows to give as well 
 as to take, and commends him to a prudent husbandry of 
 his resources. The weight of those blows appear later. 
 In the following paragraph is displayed Webster's 
 command of allusion, as great apparently in the English 
 classics as in the English Bible. Hayne had lugged in 
 Banquo's murder and ghost to illustrate the " murdered 
 coalition" with infelicity of application. Webster's dis- 
 cernment of its inapplicability is even surpassed by his 
 correct statement of the dramatic incident and the readi- 
 ness with which he turns the true situation upon his op- 
 ponent, quoting line after line of Macbeth. His famili- 
 arity with Latin authors is also evinced by his skilful in- 
 troduction of phrases, according to a custom which was 
 more prevalent in his day than in ours. The Bible also 
 is a source of allusion in which he is much more at home 
 than most modern speakers. Touching upon the slavery 
 question early, as underlying all this controversy, he 
 passes with dignified humor over his alleged attack on 
 South Carolina and to his famous eulogium of the Revo- 
 lutionary heroes of that state and their comradeship with 
 Massachusetts men. It is in the encomium on both sec- 
 tions that he exhibits the comprehensive patriotism for 
 which he is justly renowned and also that eloquence 
 which came from a heart big with emotion when the dar- 
 ing heroism of the Revolutionary sires rose up before 
 him. That which stirred the fountains of feeling in the 
 Dartmouth College case and in the Bunker Hill oration 
 
352 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 was thrilling the heart-strings of Massachusetts and 
 South Carolina men alike when he said, " Shoulder to 
 shoulder they went through the Revolution ; hand in 
 hand they stood round the administration of Washing- 
 ton." And with these words was coupled a personal 
 sympathy with such devotion to a common country that 
 it lifted him above the spirit of sectional jealousy and 
 recrimination which had forced him into a declaration 
 and a defence of his all-including patriotism. 
 
 It was a fit prelude, however, to what was to follow, 
 best stated in his own words : " There yet remains to be 
 performed, Mr. President, by far the most grave and 
 important duty which I feel to be devolved on me by 
 this occasion. It is to state and to defend what I con- 
 ceive to be the true principles of the Constitution under 
 which we are here assembled." 
 
 He had come to what was also the great business of 
 his life and to a task which no one before or since 
 could so well accomplish as he. With a modesty as 
 becoming as his authority was great he proceeds to state 
 his sentiments " without challenging for them any par- 
 ticular regard, with studied plainness, and as much pre- 
 cision as possible." First he states his opponent's 
 position ; states it so fajily and clearly that it might 
 seem as if he were going over to that side and about to 
 surrender his own. It was his usual practice. He could 
 afiord to be generous with his adversary. He ascer- 
 tained the full strength of his own position by going 
 into the length and depth of the enemy's intrenchments. 
 He never was surprised by difiBculties which he had not 
 faced in advance of the battle. It had always been his 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 353 
 
 habit to reckon beforehand with the foe, and here he 
 knew the strength of the stronghold he was about to 
 carry. 
 
 Having exemplified his habitual candor and clearness 
 in stating the claims of the opposing side he next gives 
 us an illustration of another oratorical phase in his mas- 
 terly argumentation concerning "The origin of this gov- 
 ernment and the source of its power." Is it of the state 
 or of the people? He employs the most convincing of 
 methods. He assumes two hypotheses, only one of which 
 can be true ; he reduces to the absurd ; he distinguishes 
 between a pleasant theory and an unwelcome fact ; shows 
 the difference between an impatient, regretful wish and 
 a retained right, between making and breaking a con- 
 tractj and states the origin of all power in words that 
 have been perpetuated in Lincoln's paraphrase, "It is, 
 sir, the people's constitution, the people's government, 
 made for the people, made by the people, and answerable 
 to the people." Other forms of deliberative reasoning 
 succeed to these, by example from history at home and 
 abroad, by testing syllogisms in their major or minor 
 premises and in conclusions unwarrantably drawn. It 
 is safe to say that there are few forms of applied logic 
 that may not be found in this speech. Yet it may be said 
 of him as he himself said of Samuel Dexter, but with a 
 profounder meaning, that " aloof from technicality and 
 unfettered by artificial rule a question of constitutional 
 law gave opportunity for that deep and clear analysis, 
 that mighty grasp of principle, which so much distin- 
 guished his higher efforts. His very statement was 
 argument, his inference seemed demonstration. The 
 
354 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 earnestness of his own conviction wrought conviction in 
 others. One was convinced, and believed and assented, 
 
 V because it was gratifying, delightful, to think and feel 
 and believe in unison with an intellect of such evident 
 superiority.'' This was all the truer of the author of this 
 tribute because he was the greater man. The directness 
 of his purpose, the irresistible sweep of his argument, his 
 perspicuity and energy, his dignity and simplicity, his 
 unimpassioned statements and his forceful appeal, his 
 vigor of reasoning and felicity of diction, his luxu- 
 
 "+ riant but chastened imagery, his masterly power of con- 
 densation, and under all and over all the unvarying fit- 
 ness to the subject and the occasion — the very essence of 
 oratory, an adaptation to persons, times, places, and the 
 theme under consideration— all these, and added to these 
 the ethical element which pervaded all like an atmos- 
 phere of purity and truth, made him a living example of 
 Cato the Elder's definition of the orator, Orator est vir 
 bonus dicendi peritus. 
 
 The difificulty in writing of such a man is to omit 
 much that is closely related to his speech. Personality, 
 
 . character, presence, and the element that has lain back 
 of every great orator and refused to be transmitted with 
 his words, the subtle magnetism of a great man over all 
 persons within the sight of his eye and the sound of his 
 voice, all this must be hurried over. So, also, must the 
 history of a life full of action and thought and devising 
 and purpose, now crowned with success and rewarded 
 with approval, again saddened with failure and dark- 
 ened by disappointment and ingratitude and desertion. 
 Many words of explanation, which become possible and 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 355 
 
 obligatory as time clears the air of the dust and smoke 
 of battle, must be left unsaid by reason of the limits set 
 by the point of view when oratory alone is to be con- 
 sidered. Even this must be contemplated in a fragment- 
 ary manner and from afar. But enough can be discerned 
 in the outlines of the heroic forms which are projected 
 on the shadowy past, like the majestic spectres of the 
 Brocken, to distinguish them from the multitudes among 
 which they mingled in their daily life. Generally they 
 have been in most respects exalted characters. This 
 one was such a character with one great purpose and one 
 great ambition. The ambition was doomed to failure; 
 the purpose succeeded, but in the way that Webster 
 feared and not in the way that he hoped. Yet the 
 thoughts that he wrought out into clear, forcible, fitting, 
 and effective speech place him in the foremost rank of 
 eloquent men and crown him as the chief of American 
 orators. If impartial judgment could be secured, as it 
 may be in the far future, it is possible that, estimated by 
 absolute standards, he will be considered, all in all, to be 
 the perfected fruit of twenty-four centuries of oratorical 
 culture. 
 
XXVII. 
 OCCASIONAL ORATORY. 
 
 THE impulse that was communicated to American 
 oratory by the great triumvirate whose delibera- 
 tive eloquence has been described did not cease its 
 movement on the death of the latest survivor. The 
 direction which it took, however, was one in which Web- 
 ster was particularly distinguished. Mention of it has 
 been omitted in order to incorporate this phase of his 
 public speech with its proper topic of occasional or 
 demonstrative oratory. 
 
 This has been defined as the kind of speaking in 
 which "no defined end is directly proposed, but rather a 
 general impulsion toward noble, patriotic, and honorable 
 sentiments and toward a large and worthy life." Taking 
 an anniversary, a great historical event or character, a 
 celebration, or occasion of any sort as a starting point, it 
 permits either a close adherence to the original subject 
 or the widest latitude of treatment. "The field is a 
 broad and inviting one, promising easy success. But 
 the facility of saying something is counterbalanced by 
 the difficulty of saying anything worth hearing." Many 
 an oration which had great fitness to the occasion when 
 delivered has been so occasional in its character that it 
 could have no permanent value. Webster, however, 
 
 356 
 
OCCASIONAL ORATORY. 357 
 
 was accustomed to link the immediate lesson of the hour 
 with truths so large and enduring that his utterances 
 acquired an abiding worth and interest. In his Plymouth 
 oration, after touching upon the event to be commem- 
 orated and the men who made it historic, he discourses 
 at large upon liberty, education, humanity, and the Con- 
 stitution. A succession of great themes was treated in a 
 grand and inspiring manner, suggesting the majestic 
 march of a classic procession around the frieze of an 
 Ionic temple. His delivery reminded his hearers of the 
 music of a full-toned organ. Readers of the printed 
 speech found it a literary production of the first grade ; 
 some at this day regarding the Plymouth oration as the 
 finest of all his efforts in this field. Five years more, 
 however, added enough to his experience and power to 
 enable him to produce a finer finish if not a profounder 
 thought in the Bunker Hill oration. 
 
 The directness of his plain, strong words; the mass- 
 iveness of his short, clear sentences ; the due proportion 
 of simplicity, force, and beauty ; the wonderful adapta- 
 tion to the occasion, the subject, and to his own person- 
 ality make it altogether the masterpiece of commemora- 
 tive eloquence. Familiar as household words to our 
 educated youth it has done much to inspire them with 
 reverence for ancestral devotion and to inculcate the 
 first principles of citizenship consecrated to freedom and 
 an undivided nationality. How much these examples 
 of patriotic eloquence have done to perpetuate noble 
 speech in later orators it is impossible to say. There are 
 a few of them who, like nine out of the Attic Ten, would 
 have been seemingly greater if there had not been a 
 
358 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 greatest But they are too illustrious to be passed over 
 on this account 
 
 The one who comes nearest to Webster in time 
 if not in ability is Edward Everett. Only twelve 
 years his junior he was Webster's life-long friend and 
 political ally. Much of their political careers was in the 
 same field, with similar sympathies and purposes. But 
 Everett, like his compeer, had a distinctive character 
 of his own, personal, literarj-, and oratoricaL As the 
 one was preeminently a lawyer so the other was first 
 of all a scholar. Entering Harvard College at the age of 
 thirteen and graduating with the highest honors at 
 seventeen he rivaled the best of parliamentary orators of 
 Great Britain in his precocious attainments. Like them 
 he was an accomplished reader of the ancient classics, and 
 the tradition of his abiliri,- as a writer lingered long after 
 his graduation. The next year he delivered a poem 
 before the Phi Beta Kappa Society on American poets, 
 and within two years was winning great admiration in the 
 pulpit of the Brattle street church in Boston by the elo- 
 quence and power of his discourses. Very soon he was 
 called to the chair of Greek literature in Hanard, and to 
 further qualify himself he spent three years abroad in 
 travel and study. Lectures upon Greek literature and 
 ancient art, delivered in Cambridge and Boston, were 
 the immediate fruit of this experience. Added to such 
 labors was the editing of the ycrth American Review, 
 which he imbued with a thoroughly national tone, 
 defending the country with great spirit against the 
 shallow and flippant attacks of several foreign travelers 
 of a class not yet extinct. 
 
Occasional oratory. 359 
 
 He was thirty years of age when he made his first 
 essay in that department of demonstrative oratory in 
 which he afterward became distinguished. It was before 
 the same society that listened to his poem twelve years 
 previously. An immense audience had been drawn 
 together by his growing fame to hear him speak upon 
 Circumstances Favorable to the Progress of Literature in 
 America. Twenty-five years later one of the audience 
 wrote: "The sympathies of his audience went with 
 him in a rushing stream as he painted in glowing 
 hues the political, social, and literary future of our coun- 
 try. They drank with thirsty ears his rapid generaliza- 
 tions and his sparkling rhetoric. As with skilful and fly- 
 ing hand the orator ran over the chords of national 
 pride and patriotic feeling every bosom throbbed in 
 unison, and when the fervid declamation of the conclud- 
 ing paragraph was terminated by the simple pathos of 
 the address to Lafayette, who was present at the orator's 
 side, his hearers were left in a state of emotion far too ^ 
 deep for tumultuous applause." 
 
 The scholar and the speaker was now laimched on an 
 oratorical career which was to be followed more exclu- 
 sively by him than by any predecessor. Others had 
 made it the by-play of legal, theological, or political life, 
 with, most often, the ephemeral reward that goes with 
 diversion. Everett, on the contrary, may be said to 
 have made occasional oratory the business of his life 
 and all other speaking a departure from his chosen voca- 
 tion. Elected to Congress in this very year he became a 
 frequent but not obtrusive debater, and was distinguished 
 for the ability and tact of his diplomatic papers in his 
 
360 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 high official stations, as notably at the court of St. 
 James; but it is as the orator of some great occasion or 
 the commemorator of an anniversary or the eulogist of 
 an illustrious patriot that he will be best remembered. 
 Perhaps he more than any other man is responsible for 
 the large number of orations and speeches which have 
 been delivered here and there in the country founded 
 upon the Declaration of Independence and the national 
 Constitution. Although their literary life has been short 
 they have served to keep alive the spirit of loyalty to the 
 Union and of devotion to the ideals which were set up 
 by Revolutionary patriots. Everett himself delighted 
 in nothing so much as to inspire a deep veneration for 
 our hero-statesmen, to draw from our past lessons for 
 our future, to awaken a thoughtful, intelligent enthusi- 
 asm for constitutional liberty, to champion American 
 worth, and to encourage home-born virtues. In this 
 labor of his best days he performed a service of educa- 
 tion among a people who have been said to "present the 
 anomaly of being political in their tastes and habits 
 without having a political education." This cannot be 
 averred with so much truth now, when every college has 
 its course in political science. Yet before these days no 
 people could be without instruction in the profoundest 
 political wisdom, among whom the speeches of Webster 
 and Everett were as familiar as the reading books of the 
 common school could make them. Boys knew them by 
 heart, as they did the catechism, long before they under- 
 stood their meaning. But the time came when whole 
 J" regiments of those boys knew their import well enough 
 
OCCASIONAL ORATORY. 36 1 
 
 to fight and to die for tlie principles they once learned 
 by rote. 
 
 Nor is it any qualification to the oratory of Everett , 
 that it is the work of a rhetorician. He lived in a 
 time when our American youth needed the inspiration 
 of a master in English style. It was the age between 
 the formative and the reformative epochs in our national 
 life. In literary activities we were still under the domin- 
 ion of the mother-country and had but few creditable 
 authorities to which appeal could be made at home. In 
 this period of comparative quiet and of commercial 
 occupations the opportunity for the education of the 
 American people in polite letters had come. It was par- 
 ticularly fortunate, therefore, that a man of the best cul- 
 ture and of the most refined taste could from time to 
 time as occasion after occasion arose stand before the 
 best audiences in the nation and give object lessons in 
 literature and English composition and oratory as well 
 as in the principles of liberty under the laws. It was 
 the fortune of many distinguished men in the last gen- 
 eration to receive an impulse early in life from the classic 
 purity and grace of such English as Everett knew how 
 to construct out of the wealth of his resources. To 
 the most varied culture he added an immense and diver- . 
 sified learning, a retentive memory, so much valued by 
 the Hellenic orators, great facility and felicity of ex- 
 pression, a ready wit, a conciliating humor, a dexterity 
 in turning tjie sharp corners of discussion, and always a 
 sense of fitness which is both the essence and the safe- 
 guard of good style. Beyond all the excellencies of 
 
362 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 its form he had also the power of oratory ; imagination 
 enough for illustrating and emphasizing his thoughts, 
 the.,-fc4B<ilin ^ seBsibi lities without which eloquence, 
 though perfect as an 'Apollo Belvidere, becomes as life- 
 less as a statue, and a ready perception of the progress 
 that his discourse was making in the minds of listeners. 
 Of what is called magnetism, so often the one thing 
 lacking in otherwise effective speakers, he had an abun- 
 dance. It came out in an emoJiQaaL voice, of large 
 compass and full of melody, sometimes grave and even 
 melancholy, but able to rise from moving pathos to 
 thrilling and triumphant tones. And everywhere and 
 always there was the unfailing harmony between the 
 speaker, his subject, and the occasion, which leaves no 
 vulnerable place for criticism and keeps the orator at 
 his best advantage and on his highest ground. Har- 
 mony is the characteristic which pervades all his work. 
 The symmetry and fitness and finish are in general so 
 complete that they leave strong, individual traits to be 
 discovered rather than to reveal themselves. Sometimes 
 a homely phrase or an ill-balanced sentence might be 
 pardoned for the relief of its variety, but such phrases 
 and sentences would be as impossible in Everett's pages 
 as gravel stones in Pentelic marble. His composition 
 is a work of art, to be sure, but it is high art It 
 would be a great natural orator indeed who should pro- 
 duce out of his native abilities equal effects. If the best 
 work of nature results in fitting correspondencies, this 
 art of his comes very near the finest achievements of 
 nature. His words seem the only words that can exactly 
 match his thoughts, and no syllable can be spared from 
 
OCCASIONAL ORATORY. 363 
 
 the rhythm of his best passages. Yet he was not a mere 
 rhetorician. His good sense kept him from sacrificing / 
 anything to mere expression, his large knowledge deliv- 
 ered him from bondage to the symphonies of speech 
 on every occasion. He knew when magnificent decla- 
 mation was in place and also when plain and practical 
 discourse was equally imperative. The sense of fitness 
 never deserted him. 
 
 The criticisms which his oratory has received are in- 
 curred by the optimism of a hopeful and charitable 
 temper and by an artistic sense which sometimes led 
 him into a poetic use of imagery for its own sake, just 
 as his admiration for his country sometimes made him 
 oblivious to its perils and defects which appeared to less 
 sanguine spirits. But the evil day which they foresaw 
 had not yet arrived, and to this bright and cheerful 
 representative of a prosperous age of wealth and learning, 
 of art and literature, it would have been an incongruous 
 thing to be a prophet of evil. 
 
 As the result of his labors for a lifetime we possess 
 what one of the old Greek orators might have left, an 
 assemblage of occasional orations. As literature they 
 approach nearer the Hellenic standard in form and body 
 than any collection from the days of the famous Ten to 
 our own. What he might have done in the way of his- 
 torical or political writing to leave as a memorial of his 
 learning and his wisdom it is not pertinent to consider 
 here. What he did leave in his great masterpieces of 
 eloquence is of immeasurable worth in the history of that 
 art which he so assiduously cultivated. It constitutes a 
 special department of public speech and approximates 
 
364 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 closely to the ideal of oratory as an art, yet having a 
 high purpose withal and an object, noble and definite, of 
 inculcating lessons of patriotism by recalling the virtues 
 of patriots and the love of learning by exemplifying 
 what knowledge can become in the mouth of an 
 eloquent man. 
 
 The next name in the succession of orators who won 
 distinction in the first half of the present century is 
 that of RuFUS Choate. Only five years younger than 
 Everett he was yet old enough to be associated with 
 Webster, or opposed to him, in legal conflicts. The three 
 together may fairly be considered as forming a triad of 
 New England men representing, each in his own way, 
 the ruling ideas of the province without narrow provin- 
 cialism. One stood for profundity and strength, a second 
 for learning and polished diction, a third for broad cult- 
 ure, brilliant wit, and impetuous eloquence. 
 
 It is much the same story in the matter of his early 
 training as with the other two. Whatever New England 
 may have lacked it has had as good schools as the edu- 
 cation of the people could furnish from the colleges 
 which are scattered here and there from east to west 
 through her territory. Now and then a farmer has 
 thought it a pity that a boy who could lay a stone wall 
 as well as Rufus Choate should be spoiled for such work 
 by going to college, but the transfer to the larger field 
 has generally been made and also been justified, as in 
 his case, by the result. Sent over the New Hampshire 
 line to Hampton, the academy nearest his home in Ips- 
 wich, he in some w.av drifted into Dartmouth college in 
 those stormy years of litigation when there were two col- 
 
OCCASIONAL ORATORY. 365 
 
 leges, one of them "without buildings, without libraries, 
 without apparatus, without resources." But law, and law 
 mixed with politics, were at that time thicker than the river- 
 fog in Hanover. The cloud soon spread over the state 
 and finally cast a shadow over every college in the land, 
 until the question of collegiate rights was settled through 
 Webster's efforts in the Supreme court at Washington. 
 This legal contest turned the mind of Choate to the 
 study of law, and the most eminent lawyers of a pre- 
 eminently forensic age were his exemplars and his inspi- 
 ration. From the greatest of them may have come the 
 impulse "to become a national man," with large thoughts 
 of the country, the Union and the fathers of the repub- 
 lic. At all events these college days gave promise of 
 great vigor and grasp of mind, of richness and expressive- 
 ness of style, and of a strange fascination of eye and voice. 
 The traditions of his valedictory oration correspond 
 to those of his later achievements in persuasive eloquence. 
 The law-school at Cambridge and the law-office of Will- 
 iam Wirt in Washington widened his views of law and 
 politics. Then followed the years of waiting for clients 
 and business. They were also years of acquisition and 
 of study in letters and philosophy, as well as jurispru- 
 dence. By and by his first case came and with it the 
 beginning of his reputation as a forensic orator. A con- 
 temporary writes : "There had been giants among us, 
 some of national fame and standing, but no such giant 
 as this had appeared before at the Essex bar — such words, 
 such epithets, such involutions, such close and powerful 
 logic all the while, such grace and dignity, such profu- 
 sion and waste, even, of everything beautiful and lovely. 
 
366 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 No, not waste ; he never wasted a word. It was a new 
 school of rhetoric, oratory, and logic, and of all manner 
 of diverse forces, working steadily and irresistibly in one 
 direction to accomplish the speaker's purpose and 
 object." 
 
 His eloquence at the bar soon found a wider field in 
 Congress, to which he was elected at the age of thirty- 
 one. His speech on the tariff, begun to a house almost 
 empty, brought members from lobbies and committee- 
 rooms by the charm of its irresistible persuasiveness 
 until the hall was filled. He closed amidst the enthusi- 
 asm of his hearers, and his position as a parliamentary 
 orator was established. In a later session he made a 
 speech of which an old-stager in politics from Ken- 
 tucky said, " In accordance with my custom I took my 
 hat to leave, lingering a moment just to notice the 
 tone of his voice and the manner of his speech. But 
 that moment was fatal to my resolution. I became 
 charmed by the music of his voice and was captivated by 
 the power of his eloquence, and found myself wholly 
 unable to move until the last word of his beautiful 
 speech had been uttered." At this time his eloquence 
 was characterized as exuberant, fervid, and of a new 
 variety, not commonly accepted at the bar at first, but 
 gratifying at length a taste which it created. On the 
 lecture platform and on the floor of Congress it found 
 a greater variety of hearers and a more catholic taste 
 than in a Massachusetts court-room, where his vehement 
 gestures and wealth of imagination sometimes seemed 
 exotic and oriental in the midst of hard facts and hard- 
 headed lawyers and juries. 
 
OCCASIONAL ORATORY. 367 
 
 Ten years after he entered the House of Representa- 
 tives, where he served four years, Choate was elected to 
 the Senate to succeed Webster, the latter having been 
 appointed secretary of state under President Harrison, 
 who died one month from the day of his inauguration. 
 Choate's eulogy in Faneuil Hall upon one whom the 
 nation loved was a sincere and eloquent tribute to his 
 many virtues. In less than a month the new senator 
 was receiving warm commendations from all parties for 
 his defence of the government's policy in the then 
 famous M'Leod case, involving complications with 
 Great Britain. In a later discussion on the same gen- 
 eral topic he exhibited a generous statesmanship, resting 
 upon the inviolability of the Constitution and expressed 
 in strong and forcible language. Other measures were 
 discussed in the two years which remained of Web- 
 ster's uncompleted term, at the expiration of which 
 Choate returned to his professional labors in Boston. 
 He had won for himself an enviable reputation as a 
 deliberative orator in the golden age of American 
 eloquence among the great congressmen of that nota- 
 ble age. But he had little taste and less fondness for 
 political life and no aptitude at all for the drudgery by 
 which party eminence is gained and party favor kept. 
 He cared little for this sort of success. He counted 
 it as a hindrance to the cultivation of professional and 
 literary tastes, and could therefore hold fast to those 
 conservative opinions which tend to keep a person in 
 the retirement of a minority. 
 
 In making an estimate, therefore, of his oratorical 
 achievements it will be fair to consider his forensic and 
 
-v- 
 
 368 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 occasional efforts, for the most part. In the first, when 
 he addressed a jury he began in an easy, natural way, 
 with that conversational manner which he might have 
 caught from some of his eminent contemporaries at the 
 bar. The same clear and definite statement of the case 
 which has been noticed in other great lawyers was his 
 also. This he followed by minute analysis of the evi- 
 dence, taking care incidentally to broach his theory of 
 the case and introduce or insinuate his main proposi- 
 tions often enough to get them well before his hearers, 
 who were often unconsciously forming an opinion, as 
 they thought, for themselves. In the exordium his well 
 known sweetness of temper and courtesy of manner 
 served him admirably, as in other and more trying 
 places. He conciliated by overcoming prejudices with 
 fairness and kindness and won smiles by his gracious 
 pleasantry and the keen wit for which he was always 
 famous. He made his audience willing and delighted to 
 hear him. If a juryman grew sleepy he would wake him 
 up with a story from the vast collection in a memory that 
 retained everything which touched it. His ludicrous 
 representations and exaggerations that were almost sub- 
 lime always had a purpose as well as an efficacy which 
 argument often fails to have with " twelve honest men 
 and true." There was no fault to be found with his 
 logic. It used to be supposed, on account of the mar- 
 velous beauty of his rhetoric, that this was his chief 
 power. Very likely it was what caught the public ear 
 when the common understanding did not trouble itself 
 with his reasoning processes. These, however, were 
 strong and irrefragable as a chain of triple links. The 
 
OCCASIONAL ORATORY. 369 
 
 massiveness of his argumentation was equaled only by the 
 brilliance of his rhetoric. Indeed with him they were 
 not two processes, but one and indivisible. It was the 
 whole thought, in its spirit and its body, that he pre- 
 sented. 
 
 He had, moreover, what is equally valuable, the 
 skill to arrange his arguments in the most effective 
 order. He massed his forces at the proper point, the 
 strong against the weak, his own weak places covered 
 by the strong or artfully concealed. But the entire effect 
 was cumulative, argument upon argument, figure upon 
 figure, an overwhelming flood carrying everything before 
 it at last. Still, impassioned as were his addresses to 
 the jury his arguments before the bench were deferen- 
 tial, quiet, and precise. In a clear, musical voice, without 
 much gesture or change of position he would deliver a 
 long argument full of legal knowledge and acumen, 
 but without pretension or artificiality. Through it all 
 the driest technicalities were relieved and illuminated 
 by narrative and illustration, by imagination and 
 humor. In those trying positions to which the 
 advocate, of all men, is oftenest subjected he seldom 
 lost his presence of mind or quickness of wit to meet 
 the unexpected turn or to get out of an awkward 
 dilemma. 
 
 Logical, however, as he was, he was known among 
 contemporaries as a magician in the open and occult 
 forces of expression. He would have been termed a 
 rhetorician if he had dealt with words and sentences in- 
 stead of weightier matters through their instrumentality. 
 Gifted beyond most men with the powers of speech he 
 
370 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 had added to his talents "by trading with the same." 
 He was always a student of literature, full of appreciation 
 and sympathy for men of letters, especially fond of the 
 classics and of imaginative authors. In his busiest pro- 
 fessional days he would manage to steal an hour, too 
 often from sleep or exercise, for an ancient or modern 
 classic. Philosophy, history, and poetry were devoured 
 by turns, sometimes without much order ; but as from the 
 notorious jumble of papers in his desk he could quickly 
 find a document desired, so from the heterogeneous 
 stores of his memory be could summon the fact or the 
 figure he wanted, and when he wanted it most. By gift 
 and by acquirement he could not help being a master of 
 the high art of public speech. Given such a man as he 
 was, with such audiences as he was likely to have, com- 
 munication from him to them and responsive sympathy 
 from them to him were as certain and as free as electric 
 currents. Charged with thought, alive with emotion, 
 possessing the open vision and the ready word he was 
 as delighted to speak as they to hear. The one qualifica- 
 tion seems to have been that when the thought began to 
 flow forth it became so full and so abounding that no 
 sentence of ordinary length could contain it. Yet the 
 idea was so exact that fewer words could not express 
 its manifold character as it lay before the enlarged pros- 
 pect of the orator. Others would have seen less and 
 said less; but for him, thinking with marvelous rapidity 
 and intensity, the product must be delivered complete and 
 entire. Still his long sentences were so framed that the 
 ordinary hearer caught their meaning and strength as one 
 discovers the higher peaks on the horizon, while through 
 
OCCASIONAL ORATORY. 37 1 
 
 his discourse as a whole there ran a stateliness and a dig- 
 nity which was always kept in spite of an exuberance that 
 he knew as well as anyone was more permissible in a 
 speaker than in a ' writer. By no means were all of his 
 sentences long. In a paragraph that happens to be on 
 a page opened at random there are short sentences 
 where they are needed to gather up the substance of the 
 paragraph. The last one has but four words, the two 
 next to the last occupy one line each. But he could 
 make a sentence rivaling the philosopher Kant's, and 
 keep its proportion and balance and periodic structure 
 subservient and tributary to clearness and force and 
 beauty. 
 
 It is in the whole discourse, however, that we look for 
 the constructive power and manifold art of the orator. 
 The disposition of every part to contribute toward per- 
 fected unity, the sense of proportion and harmony, the 
 distribution of facts and reasons and inferences, a just 
 appreciation of the enlightening and illumining power 
 of imagery, these are the criteria of eloquence. Judged 
 by these and by the effects of his speech upon his 
 hearers there is no room for doubt that his rank as a 
 forensic and an occasional orator is among the first. 
 Had he confined himself to literary studies and to the 
 lecture platform he would have been preeminent as an 
 instructor of the people by that method which prevailed 
 in the third quarter of this century, the lyceum lecture. 
 Such addresses as that on The Eloquence of Revolutionary 
 Periods and similar ones growing out of our early history 
 are alive with instruction and moving power. They 
 contributed largely to the stock of controlling ideas 
 
372 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 which have gone with the New Englander to every section 
 of the country and have helped to strengthen its stakes 
 and lengthen its cords. The day of such public instrac- 
 tion has passed with the generation that listened and the 
 men that spoke, but when its story shall be told one of 
 its pioneers and illustrious orators will be recognized in 
 this brilliant man of letters and of law. Much of his 
 greatness will be lost to posterity by reason of the vola- 
 tile nature of that power which depends upon a living 
 presence and an impressive personality, but enough re- 
 mains for the historic faculty to build upon and for the 
 historic imagination to restore to something of its orig- 
 inal proportions the fabric of marvelous strength and 
 beauty which Rufus Choate raised in his life of laborious 
 study, of conscientious endeavor, and of brilliant success. 
 
XXVIII. 
 CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 FOUR men, who have the distinction of being both 
 deliberative and occasional orators, were born within 
 the thirty years from 1782 to 1812. The last of these, 
 Charles Sumner, was twelve years the junior of his pre- 
 decessor, Choate, as Everett was by the same number of 
 years the junior of Webster. Accordingly they may be 
 regarded as a group of Massachusetts men having much 
 the same interests and associations, both state and 
 national. On the other hand the difference in their 
 defence and advocacy of common principles and policies 
 was as diverse as their own strong personalities could 
 make them, strengthened and emphasized by the march 
 of events and progress of public sentiment. As this 
 progress was greatly hastened in the lifetime of the last 
 of the group one may expect to find a wider separation 
 between him and his predecessor than could exist between 
 the other three. It will also be harder on this account 
 to separate the oratory of this man from the issues with 
 which it deals, for we are approaching the time when the 
 long strife of words is to fiame into civil war, and 
 Charles Sumner may be regarded as the exponent of 
 this stormy transition period. 
 
 It is true that he gave little promise of such a dis- 
 tinction in early years. A Boston boy, educated at the 
 
 373 
 
374 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 Latin school and Harvard, and also by such schoolmates 
 as Robert C. Winthrop, George S. Hillard, James Free- 
 man Clarke, Wendell Phillips, and such elders as Presi- 
 dent Quincy, Professors Channing and Ticknor he 
 lacked no advantages of learning. Those which he 
 made the most of were the classics and belles letires, 
 \ir\\mg^jii^.fiX^:^j^_3:..^^:^^SLJ^liSL was somewhat heavy 
 and pedantic with undigeste d lea rning. But his knowl- 
 edge was wide in its scope and acquired with great 
 readiness. It was after he left college that he began to 
 develop rapidly by laborious days and nights of study 
 and by listening to lectures, orations, and legal argu- 
 ments and by converse with the jurist Story, his idol. 
 To be a jurist and not merely a lawyer naturally became 
 his ambition. To this purpose he devoted six morning 
 hours, but afternoons and evenings were reserved for 
 classics and literature. These were the days when he 
 was laying up stores of knowledge for future use in a 
 memory that retained everything and re-presented every- 
 thing at need. The productive period came later. Just 
 now there were legal articles and editing and lectures 
 at the Harvard law-school and in popular courses on 
 professional topics. Not yet an orator he was, neverthe- 
 less, laying deep and broad foundations. His ambitions 
 were divided, his purposes not fully established ; both 
 were waiting for an inspiring motive to arouse and direct 
 them. European travel followed as a broadening edu- 
 cator, opening a large mind to wider views and the 
 social world to a spirit that was eager to be cosmopolitan. 
 He was thirty-five before his first famous oration in- 
 augurated the period of his occasional oratory. It was 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 375 
 
 delivered before the city of Boston, assembled in state on 
 the Fourth of July, 1845. The memories of Bunker Hill 
 and of the war of. 181 2, with the prospect of a Mexican 
 war, did not tend to make his subject in harmony with the 
 occasion ; for peace was the burden of the address in the 
 True Grandeur of Nations. But it was in harmony 
 with the sentiments of the speaker, and his task was to 
 bring his auditory into sympathy with himself. That he 
 failed to do this was owing to the spirit of that age more 
 than to the lack of eloquence in the orator. He was in 
 advance of his generation, full of enthusiasm, which 
 the elders called youthful and visionary, but they also 
 recognized the power and promise of the man. Person- 
 ally he was tall and commanding in stature, possessing 
 a voice of great power and compass and a mind full of 
 learning and the wisdom of the ancients, with which he 
 illustrated the science of modern times. His discourse 
 was freighted with allusions from every department of 
 knowledge. History, mythology, literature of fiction and 
 the drama, the poets and orators of every country were 
 woven into the fabric of his speech until it became a very 
 cloth of gold and gems in its barbaric splendor. It was 
 what might be expected as the outcome after years of 
 continuous storage. These accumulated riches were 
 poured forth with a lavish hand, as if it were the first and 
 last occasion for their use. Jewels of silver and jewels of 
 gold were cast into this molten image, which has never 
 lacked its contingent of worshipers among youth whose 
 studies and aspirations have upon them the dew of the 
 morning. Even the older heads must revere the massive- 
 ness of that lore upon which the structure rests. A lib- 
 
376 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 eral education is essential to its comprehension. Within 
 the turning of a leaf are contributions from Plutarch and 
 Livy, from Homer and Dante, from Demosthenes and 
 Cicero, from Virgil and the Troubadour, from Hobbes 
 and Sir Thomas Browne, from Bacon, Vattel, and the 
 great jurists in every nation. Another turn brings up 
 Hesiod and Anacreon, Herodotus and Froissart, Sis- 
 mondi, Montesquieu, Liutprand and Muratori, and the 
 historians of every century. The dicta of the Christian 
 fathers, the superstitions of mediaeval doctors, the com- 
 edies of Moliere and the dialogues of Plato, the discourse 
 of Brantome and the sayings of Malte-Brun, the epistles 
 of Augustine and the letters of Madame de Sevignd are 
 drawn upon in turn to embellish this Boston oration. 
 And not these alone, but the authorities and authors that 
 are the furniture of each man in his own profession and 
 calling all belonged to this young lawyer and man of let- 
 ters, whose first public appearance in his native city was a 
 prophecy of his approaching public life, with its distinc- 
 tions and oppositions. For there were friends who did 
 not fail to express their surprise and enemies who did 
 not wait to declare their antagonism to his views. Still 
 both friends and foes admitted that another prophet had 
 arisen among them. As with the prophets of Israel, how- 
 ever, the burden was not of a kind to appeal to their 
 taste. For awhile his orations were mainly literary and 
 almost academic in their character. A lecture on the 
 Employment of Time before the Boston lyceum is full 
 of examples of diligent workers in many fields and has 
 all the interest of personal narrative. Then follows the 
 oration of July 4. 1846, a eulogy upon the lives and 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 377 
 
 characters of four illustrious men, Pickering, Story, 
 Allston, and Channing, personifications of scholarship, 
 jurisprudence, art, and philanthropy. Yet underneath 
 all his tributes ran the strong current which was rising 
 in his soul against war and slavery and war for slavery, 
 for it was within a twelvemonth of the incursion into 
 Mexico. The occasion was academic, the Phi Beta 
 Kappa anniversary at Harvard, the subject as inoffensive 
 as a memorial of departed worth, but living and approach- 
 ing issues were mingled with retrospective thoughts. It 
 is of this memorial discourse that John Quincy Adams 
 wrote the author, "I trust I may now congratulate you 
 on the felicity, first of your selection of the subject, sec- 
 ondly of its consummation in the delivery. The pleasure 
 with which I listened to your discourse was inspired far 
 less by the success of the present moment than by the 
 vista of the future which was opened to my view. Beyond 
 my time I see you have a mission to perform. I look 
 from Pisgah to the Promised Land; you must enter.upon 
 it. Delenda est servitus." 
 
 Edward Everett thanks Sumner for his " most mag- 
 nificent address of unsurpassed felicity and power. 
 Should you never do anything else you have done enough 
 for fame." Chancellor Kent wrote, " You have raised 
 a noble monument to the four great men who have 
 adorned your state, in a production glowing with images 
 of transcendent worth and embellished with classical and 
 literary allusions drawn from your memory and guided 
 by your taste with extraordinary force." Such are a few 
 of the sympathetic criticisms of distinguished contempo- 
 raries upon this early work of Sumner's. They also con- 
 
37^ THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 tain, as can easilv be seen, a foreshadowing of the transi- 
 tion from literarv to political discourse which soon fol- 
 lowed. In a similar vein were a few succeeding efforts 
 with a still stronger expression of his hatred of war and 
 slaverv in some of them, as in his Tremont Templf 
 speech of ii"46, and his lecture in rS47 on }mig S.\!T^rr 
 in the Bjr}.ary Slates, with an eye upon black slavery in 
 the United States. In this year came the oration before 
 the literary societies of Amherst College entitled F>imi 
 and Glcry, written in true academic style, opening 
 with mention of the last work of the Roman orator 
 mentioned by Valerius Maximns upon the same subject. 
 The next allusions are to the .Emfid and the lUad, to 
 Dion Cassius, the De OfilcHs. to the Mahimo^mi and the 
 Chronicles tif the GJ, to the Drrime Comedy and Mon- 
 taigne, to Cameades and Chrysippus, to Epicurus and 
 Piogenes, to Pliny and Tacitus, to Milton and Pascal, to 
 Mansfield and Burke, to historians and statesmen, to ora- 
 tors and poets, to explorers and generals. From them 
 all he extracts their views of fame and glorv to show, in 
 one way or another, that they do not consist in the vic- 
 tories of war and bloodshed and that "all war is fratri- 
 cidal," More than this he calls in Rabelais to help him 
 degrade pagan heroes by making Alexander a mender of 
 old clothes in the Eljsian Fields, and Hannibal a poor 
 tinker, and Arthur's knights ferrymen of Phlegethon and 
 Lethe, Styx and Acheron, Then follows his own esti- 
 mate of greatness and glory. " There is another and 
 higher comjMmy that thought little of praise and power, 
 whose lives shine before men with those good works 
 which glorify their authors — Milton bating not a jot of 
 
3J9 
 
 keut or Ih^; mnceat de ^nl, Ae fqgitive sibne «te 
 derated lomsrif to dte s(i«id of aunty and peace; Hov- 
 aid illuiuBins daogeoasas mtih an angciic presence; 
 CfaiksfiiB» iu^iRd incnlfege widi tte so^Riae dotf of a 
 crasade ^^obeA the Afncait shne trade. Sock are ex~ 
 emj^ais of trae ^oiy. mnthoat lanl^ ofio^ or the 
 swQid th^ actomplislted immortal §ood and teadi tltt 
 smmasal kssoB of imgnaiiimoas daty. WemostieKKe 
 the poles of vodi^ in tihe past. Farewdl to the ffismal 
 plwatom of martial loiovB ! .... Goodworts! 
 S«^ etea now is the Ikki^^ ladder on lAock an- 
 gds are asDcaadiais and descendiitg, idiile veuy k«ma»- 
 itf on pilkms of sabone slombeRheavitf aft its feet.'* 
 
 It is onfy a seatenoe here and time that has been 
 qnoledt lint the moiing fioice is evid^t in all tte ont- 
 tion. Thnm^rttnt the slatid}- and sometimes lo^ stjie 
 diere ms die enAasiasm of reneraace for his ideals in 
 firiendshqi and of detotion to an ideal fntaore in vlukk 
 fireedom and peace shall go hand in hand. H&dktiQtt 
 is a sdtolai^ Ids imagination kfetoric if not poetic^ his 
 spiiilthatof a caneader against estabfished wnmgs. It 
 is Ae spirit and &e letter tog«&erthat make these ad- 
 dresses oiatioBS indeed in the classic siense. Eveninthe 
 semt-political speeches that fdl in those 3pe«is firoml^ 
 aoDElnmed to other than pofitkad phrases there ms tte 
 same readiness of attasion to the remote in time or pfane^ 
 ^riucfti vas nererthdess near in esa»atial relation. In 
 tte WoreeSter convoition of nhigs in 1847 ^ <3dib in 
 the poacB of IndHi to condemn American sfaweiy as 
 tihqr Ittd already done bf the Ganges, and Constantino- 
 pie ligr the Bosphora^ and tihe Bartmy Slates bqr^ 
 
380 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 Mediterranean. He compares the slave power to Ence^ 
 ladus struggling beneath Etna, causing eruptions of evil, 
 threatening a deep, abiding, unutterable curse from the 
 existence of a national wrong imbedded in our Consti 
 tution. 
 
 It is time to contemplate his oratory as taking on 
 something more than a scholastic complexion. The 
 cosmopolitan man of letters, the lawyer who had com- 
 posed fewer arguments than legal papers and delivered 
 fewer arguments than orations, the man who loved lit- 
 erature and art and converse with the best in the society 
 of two continents was being drawn into advocacy of a 
 cause which would make him an exile from the social 
 world and take him out of the academic walks he loved. 
 A sense of the inconsistency between the boasted free- 
 dom and the cherished slavery in the nation grew 
 stronger each day in a soul which could see nothing but 
 the absolute truth. No coloring of partisanship or con- 
 venience or custom or general sentiment tinged his vis- 
 ion. Moreover he could never understand why every one 
 else did not discern the ugliness of injustice and crime and 
 see its enormity as he saw it. Furthermore for him to 
 see was to follow. If there was a crime against human- 
 ity, a standing crime, it became his business to put it 
 down as if he were clothed with omnipotence. Conse- 
 quences were not thought of, obstacles were unconsid- 
 ered, the sentiments he held were the only ones to be 
 contemplated. With such a single-heartedness, and al- 
 most simple-mindedness, it is not hard to understand 
 what sort of speech would follow. Add to this a sublime 
 confidence in his own power and a strange misapprehen- 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 38 I 
 
 sion of the power and prejudices of others and there 
 may be expected words of sincerity and soberness, some- 
 times of inconsideration and unsparing severity. 
 
 To understand the conditions and formative influences 
 of his oratory we must go back fifty years. Half a cen- 
 tury is sufficient in uneventful times to make a former 
 age incomprehensible. But the changes in the last half 
 of this century have been marvelous. In 1850 any allu- 
 sion to the sin of keeping one-sixth of our population in 
 bondage was dangerous in the South and unwelcome, to 
 say the least, in the North. An uneasy feeling, bred of 
 a consciousness of wrong, kept men busy with compro- 
 mises, but they knew that they were living over a pow- 
 der-mine. Accordingly neither North nor South were 
 tolerant of what they called firebrands. For the most 
 part abolitionists were at first of the class which is ready 
 for any break with the existing order, extremists in all 
 other things, hard to deal with, radicals who are not 
 helpful to the genuine reformer. But the cause was too 
 good and the issue too vital to be destroyed by the 
 factions and whims of its early defenders. Still it was 
 not an illustrious company in which Sumner found him- 
 self, and his companions must have been much prouder 
 of their leader than he of his followers. These soon in- 
 creased in number and value after the passage of the 
 Fugitive Slave bill in 1850. The South threw the match 
 and the North was shortly in flames. The ancient and 
 honorable whig party contributed of its best, the new 
 free-soilers, and democrats not a few, helped to swell the 
 ranks of the growing anti-slavery army. Charles Sum- 
 ner was its candidate for the vacant senatorial chair, in 
 
382 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 which he took his seat in the thirty-second Congress in 
 1850. Against what political odds may be inferred 
 from the fact that up to this time the Southern party, 
 numbering less than one-tenth of the nation's voters, 
 had placed in office from two-thirds to three-fourths of 
 the presidents, presidents of the Senate, speakers of the 
 House, Supreme court judges, and attorney-generals, 
 with a corresponding majority of smaller national offi- 
 cials. With him stood only three famous defenders of 
 liberty, Seward, Chase, and Hale. With no parliamentary 
 training and late to enter political life he came into his 
 high position to maintain the cause of freedom and to 
 attack the usurpations of slavery. These two sides of a 
 single question filled his vision so completely as to shut 
 out all secondary issues, blinding him to considerations 
 of policy and person. His spirit was that of a Crom- 
 wellian Ironside, but his port and mien was that of Ithu- 
 riel with his spear or the traditional St. George in con- 
 flict with the dragon. 
 
 For eight months he kept a silence which, though en- 
 forced by the tactics of his foes, began to disquiet his 
 Massachusetts constituency, and then one day when his 
 vigilant enemies were off guard he offered an amend- 
 ment to an amendment with an unlooked-for clause, 
 "which said Fugitive Slave act is hereby repealed." 
 Upon this amendment he spoke for nearly four hours, 
 beginning as follows : 
 
 " Painfully convinced of the unutterable wrong and 
 woe of slavery, profoundly believing that according to 
 the true spirit of the Constitution and the sentiments of 
 the fathers it can find no place under our national 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 383 
 
 government ; that it is in every respect sectional and in 
 no respect national ; that it is always and every- 
 where creature and dependent of the states, and never 
 anywhere creature and dependent of the nation ; and 
 that the nation can never by legislative or any other act 
 impart to it any support, under the Constitution of 
 the United States — with these convictions I could not 
 allow this session to reach its close without making or 
 seizing an opportunity to declare myself openly against 
 the usurpation, injustice, and cruelty of the late intoler- 
 able enactment for the recovery of fugitive slaves." 
 This was new talk in senatorial ears, and hands that had 
 just joined in burying a live question and voices that 
 had chanted the requiem of compromise over the grave 
 were now raised in angry remonstrance. Webster had 
 staked his last political chance upon a final effort to put 
 off the evil day and Henry Clay had tottered out as 
 Charles Sumner came in, but the survivors were men 
 who had conquered and made their own terms with the 
 North. Who was this new-comer, so unskilled in par- 
 liamentary fencing and broadsword that he was not even 
 condescending to preliminary conciliation in his speech, 
 but going right on to add, " The discussion of slavery 
 will proceed wherever two or three are gathered together, 
 by the fireside, on the highway, at the public meeting, 
 in the church. Even now it is gathering its forces, soon 
 to be felt everywhere. The movement against it is from 
 the Everlasting Arm. It may not be felt yet in the 
 places of office or power, but all who can put their ears 
 humbly to the ground will hear and comprehend its 
 incessant and advancing tread." 
 
384 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 Then followed his masterly argument showing that 
 slavery was sectional and unsupported by the Constitu- 
 tion. " And, by implication, nowhere can the nation, by 
 legislation or otherwise, support slavery, hunt slaves, or 
 hold property in man." 
 
 It is not easy at this day to estimate the wrath which 
 such speech aroused on the Southern side. But it also 
 excited admiration. A pro-slavery senator said, " I did 
 not know it was possible that I could endure a speech 
 for over three hours upon the abolition of slavery. 
 But this oration of the senator from Massachusetts has 
 been so handsomely embellished with poetry, both Latin 
 and English, is so full of classical allusions and rhetorical 
 flourishes, as to make it much more palatable than I sup- 
 posed it could have been made." If this was Southern 
 testimony it is easy to imagine what came from North- 
 ern and even European friends. The speech was an- 
 -r"^ other landmark in the progress of liberty. It did for 
 abolitionists what Webster's reply to Hayne had done 
 for union-men twenty-one years before. It placed them 
 upon the solid ground of the Constitution instead of 
 the uncertain foothold of personal conviction. Right 
 was henceforth might. 
 
 It also placed Sumner in his own proper position of 
 a prophet who should not hold his peace until this 
 righteousness should finally triumph. Henceforth there 
 shall be no less learning and cultivation of its graces, 
 but they will be consecrated to the one cause and tribu- 
 tary to its success through the speech which convinces 
 and persuades. Oration will follow oration, each more 
 earnest and direct than the last. The speaker will be- 
 
CHARLES SUMNER. 385 
 
 come more and more oblivious of consequences. When 
 the opposing faction assail him with bitter words they 
 will be repaid in their own coin with interest. Argu- 
 ment will end in indictment, invective in malediction. 
 Not inspired by personal animosity, but by a hatred of 
 slavery so deep that nothing can stand in its shadow 
 without seeming to be a part of it and to fall under its 
 curse he exclaims, " From the depth of my soul, as a 
 loyal citizen and as a senator, I plead, I remonstrate 
 against the passage of this [Kansas-Nebraska] bill. I 
 struggle against it as against death ; but as in death 
 itself corruption puts on incorruption and this mortal 
 puts on immortality, so from the sting of this hour I 
 find assurance of that triumph by which freedom will be 
 restored to her immortal birthright in the republic." 
 
 The next day, after the midnight passage of this bill, 
 Boston saw Anthony Burns returned to slavery from her 
 streets and all New England binding itself with an 
 oath to the destruction of slavery. Hear Sumner speak 
 to his state three months later: " In doing this deed of 
 woe and shame the mayor of Boston was converted to a 
 tool, the governor of the commonwealth to a cipher ; 
 the laws, the precious sentiments, the religion, the pride 
 and glory of Massachusetts were trampled in the dust, 
 and you and I and all of us fell down while the slave 
 power flourished over us." Over the orator himself it 
 flourished political billingsgate. "A miscreant, a mad- 
 man, a serpent" were parliamentary refinements of epi- 
 thet, to which he replied with the contempt and scorn 
 that filled his soul for the abettors of bondage and for 
 Southern chivalry. The impending war was preceded 
 
386 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 by words as sharp as swords, words wfaidi were fol- 
 lowed often bj- the dick of pistols and at last by the 
 blows of the bludgeon upon the head of Snmner, after 
 he had deUTcred his great ^leedi on The Crime 
 Agahut Kansas, May 19-20, 1856. 
 
 This oration may be r^arded ai the dimax (A a series 
 of attacks upon the slave power. Its draggles for dom- 
 ination were recounted; the apologies for the dime 
 «±aiacterized as imbeole, tyrannical, absord, and infa- 
 mo::s : the remedies he styled those of tyranny, folly, 
 injustice, and ciril war, as contrasted with the remedy 
 of justice and peace: Such is the faintest outline of 
 an argument whidi occupied two days in the ddiveiy 
 and corers one hundred and twelve octavo pages. 5o3:e 
 extracts bom it would be misleading, and any single 
 paragraph would fail to give an idea of the magnitude 
 of the issue and the fearful odds that existed against 
 it. It was the j^otest of an outraged public soitiment 
 at the Xorth against the extension of the power that 
 had hunted its victiics in the streets of Bostcm, aided 
 by the anthoiity and resources of the national govern- 
 ment. Its ^okeanan was a senator who was learned, 
 logical, and fearless, able to ndnm every malignant 
 epithet with a more forcible equivalent; able, also, to 
 interprrt history trtt'iy. to unite fire and fervor with irref- 
 J- razsble logics and throw over all the grace and charm 
 of classic el^ance. It is the b^trcing force, however, that 
 is most apparent here. The deadly earnestness is beyond 
 all other qualities, great and eminent as they are. >> otii- 
 ing can stand in 13 way ; it hesitates at nothing. Right 
 on over ancient prejudices, over vested right so-called. 
 
CHARLES SOMNER. 387 
 
 over intrenched wrong, over slave-holding senators from 
 the South and their obsequious henchmen from the North 
 this majestic orator strides with no thought of anything 
 but the wrong which is to be righted. His unconscious- 
 ness is sublime. " Mr. President, I mean to keep abso- 
 lutely within the limits of parliamentary propriety. I 
 make no personal imputations, but only with frankness 
 such as belongs to the occasion and my own character 
 describe a great act, now enrolled in the Capitol. Sir, 
 the Nebraska bill was in every respect a swindle of the 
 North by the South ... a swindle of God-given, 
 inalienable rights. . . It is everywhere a swindle. 
 No other word will adequately express the mingled 
 meanness and wickedness of the cheat." 
 
 Men fared no better at his hands th.-m the measures 
 they had advocated, but it was because they were ad- 
 vocates of the wrong he hated and not because he 
 hated them. Vet he could never understand why they 
 should be offended, nor why, if in their senses, they 
 should not see the evil he had plainly pointed out 
 
 All his later speeches upon domestic themes are in 
 the strain of the two which have been noticed. He 
 was essentially an orator devoted to the reform of that 
 anomaly in our nation which was the taunt of critics at 
 home and abroad. It fell to him to lead the forces 
 opposed to it in the final struggle in Congress, where an 
 unequal war had been carried on by skirmishing for 
 thirty years. Hitherto truces had followed wordy con- 
 flicts and compromises had ended great debates. But 
 debjites now were no longer discussions and the day of 
 compromises was over. The next measure was to be war, 
 
388 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 and the words exchanged over the issue were desperate 
 with determination, on the one side for justice with 
 peace if possible, on the other sovereignty at all hazards. 
 There have been greater orators than Sumner in the 
 direction of native ability and of acquired art, but they 
 have been few. Some have been devoted to their re- 
 spective causes with a similar earnestness, but they have 
 been fewer still. If, however, one be sought for in all 
 the illustrious succession who has combined surpassing 
 talent for public speech with wide learning, profound 
 convictions, and uncompromising surrender of self to a 
 righteous purpose, none will be so able to stand the test 
 as this man, who was deaf to every solicitation to swerve 
 from the single aim of his public life. This is the secret 
 of his oratorical power — the whole heart was in it, the 
 entire life was given to it His opportunity was great, 
 and his strength was equal to his opportunity. Equally 
 great was the moral power, the ethical force, the strongest 
 element of all, buttressing and fortifying every other. As 
 the generations of men draw away from the culmination 
 of a long series of conflicts in our legislative assembly at 
 Washington, as they see more clearly the historical rela- 
 tions of that stormy period to those compromising times 
 that preceded it and the bloody years which followed it, 
 the worth of Charles Sumner and his speech will be more 
 and more appreciated as the power which comforted the 
 discouraged few, confirmed the wavering many, and finally 
 inspired crusading hosts to follow to the utmost verge in 
 the direction he himself had already gone before. 
 
XXIX. 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS. 
 
 AS SUMNER was the advocate in Congress of liberty 
 to all the inhabitants of the land, so Wendell 
 Phillips became the great agitator in the same cause 
 among the people. There was nothing, however, in his 
 antecedents to warrant a prophecy of such a mission. By 
 birth, social surroundings, education, and natural afifini- 
 ties it might have been expected that he would keep his 
 place in that sphere of eminent respectability and con- 
 servatism into which he had been born. His ancestors 
 had amassed wealth, founded academies, become eminent 
 in learned professions, and been distinguished in the 
 state. His home was a colonial mansion, abounding 
 with all that refines and cultivates. Books, pictures, 
 statuary, and above all the atmosphere which goes with 
 the traditions of an honorable family contributed to 
 make gentle and noble the children who grew up among 
 such influences. His companions were of the same class. 
 Motley was his nearest playmate, Wendell Holmes his 
 kinsman, the Appletons lived near by. Revolutionary 
 traditions were the most dangerous influences around 
 him. Bunker Hill was in sight and the church tower 
 where Paul Revere hung his lantern. Brattle street 
 church. Old South, and Faneuil Hall were not far away. 
 At the Boston Latin school, famous for its illustrious 
 
 389 
 
390 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 sons, he followed Sumner by a year. There also it was 
 that he recited the classic eulogies of brave men and 
 martyrs for freedom, and became the chief object of 
 interest on declamation days. From snch trimnphs 
 among his schoolmates he woidd go out to listen to 
 Daniel Webster, Harrison Gray Otis, Edward Everett, 
 and other "masters of assemblies," his real teachers in 
 the art in which he was to be their peer. Harvard Col- 
 lege classmates remember him as an excellent scholar 
 and an orator preeminent among the graduates of the 
 time. Handsome in form and feature, with superior 
 elegance of manners, of rare conversational ability, and 
 a character upright and transparent there was no lack of 
 anything which might make his start in life prosperous 
 and his ultimate intellectual and social position assured- 
 Harvard law-school was the next natural step in the 
 predestined course of a gilded youth, and then admission 
 to the bar, followed by a practice which soon became 
 absorbing. It was in the midst of his studies in his 
 office at the beginning of the second year of his legal 
 practice that an event occurred which gave a new direc- 
 tion to his energies and altered the purpose of his life. 
 A mob was dragging a man, bare-headed, with a rope 
 about his waist, toward the city-hall with cries of "Hang 
 the abolitionist ! Lynch him! Killhiml" Phillips, going 
 on to the street, asked who the man was. " Garrison, the 
 abolitionist ; they are going to hang him." He was sent 
 to jail for safety from the " mob in broadcloth," but the 
 occurrence showed the young lawyer that law was of 
 little account when it stood in the way of popular preju- 
 dice. The thoughts which this outrage suggested found 
 
WENDELL PHILUPS. 39 1 
 
 an oppoitonitT for utterance about two years later, on ■ 
 the occasion of a public meeting in Faneuil Hall to de- 
 nounce the murder of Elijah P. Lovejov, of Alton, 111., 
 who vas mobbed and shot while protecting his printing 
 pr^s, from which had issued a denunciatory editorial on 
 the burning of a negTO alive in St. Louis for killing an 
 officer who had attempted to arrest him. The freedom 
 of the pres had been availed in a free state and a free 
 man had been shot down like a dog ; it wis not yet time 
 to jvay much attention to the bittnintr of a negra Con- 
 sexvitive Boston was slightly stirred and the old Cradle 
 of Liberty was filled with a crowd a good deal mixed in 
 its chaiacier. Among the speeches that were made, gen- 
 erally sympathetic in tone, was one by the attomey- 
 genoal of Massachusetts which was intended to defeat 
 the cbiect of the meeting, and at its dose the prot^t was 
 likely to end in an endorsement of mob law. With this 
 ptfispect impending Wendell Phillips sprang from the 
 andienoe to the plaiform. His self-ptKsession, his digni- 
 fied bearing, his m.irv elous voice compelled the silence 
 of wonder and then of rKpect It was his first oppor- 
 tunirr to prove what years of education had done with 
 native ability. But something greater than either was 
 back of talent and culture. It was his purpose to secure 
 the passage of resolutions in sympathy with freedom and 
 against lawi^smss on the border. In the quietet tones 
 he said: 
 
 •• We have met for the fneest discussion of these reso- 
 lutions and the events wfaidi gave rise to them. I hope 
 I diall be permitted to express my siiiprise at the senti- 
 ments of the last speaker, surprise not only at such 
 
392 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 sentiments from such a man, but at the applause they 
 have received within these walls. We have heard the 
 drunken murderers of Lovejoy compared to the patriot 
 fathers who threw the tea overboard. Is this Faneuil 
 Hall doctrine ?" Then he went on to refute the sophis- 
 tries of the attorney-general, who had based his justifica- 
 tion of a murderous mob upon the resistance of the 
 Revolutionary patriots to British tyranny, and continued 
 with the words : " Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay 
 down principles which place the murderers of Alton side 
 by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, 
 I thought those pictured lips (pointing to the portraits 
 in the hall) would have broken into voice to rebuke the 
 recreant American, the slanderer of the dead. . . . For 
 the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the 
 prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth 
 should have yawned and swallowed him up." 
 
 It is said that the scene that followed was beyond 
 description. Delirious enthusiasm seized upon the audi- 
 ence. The opposing faction attempted in vain to create 
 a stampede from the hall, but the orator enchained the 
 throng. Waiting for silence he pursued his victory un- 
 interrupted to the end of what he had to say and was 
 greeted by a whirlwind of applause. He had the pleas- 
 ure of seeing the resolutions carried by an overwhelming 
 majority. The speaker's reputation was made at the 
 start. Whatever Boston might think of his discretion 
 and worldly wisdom it knew that another prophet had 
 arisen in the city who was worthy to wear the mantle of 
 her best orators. None of them had sprung full-fledged 
 into the arena as he had. On the other hand none of 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS. 393 
 
 them had dared place himself at such odds against the 
 great power of general opinion. As they had climbed 
 step by step into eminence, so they had espoused causes 
 which were dear to the heart of the majority. This man 
 had sided with a handful who were regarded as senti- 
 mental fanatics, but his defence of them and their princi- 
 ples was a surprise and an astonishment to friends and 
 foes alike. 
 
 An absence in Europe was followed, after his^ return, 
 by his next opportunity to speak for his adopted cause, 
 when a protest against slavery and an appeal for their 
 fellow-countrymen in America to join the abolition 
 movement came from seventy thousand Irishmen abroad. 
 It was this speech in Faneuil Hall that O'Connell pro- 
 nounced the most classic short speech in the English 
 language, and declared the young American orator to be 
 without an equal. The purpose of the petition failed. 
 The times were not yet ripe, but they were ripening 
 slowly. Webster had taught the country to reverence 
 the Constitution. Phillips in 1842 began to denounce it 
 as a pro-slavery document which needed amending. He 
 would not practice law under its provisions, he would 
 not participate in national affairs even by voting. In 
 consequence he brought down upon himself the rage of 
 both the South and the North. His skill in persuasion 
 and his ability as an organizer, however, called out the 
 beginnings of a movement which was to sweep over the 
 land. 
 
 By this time Phillips came to be what was character- 
 ized as an agitator. Such a designation he himself re- 
 joiced in, and in agitation he saw a final result of better 
 
394 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 things. The platform was his arena and the people of 
 cities and towns throughout the North were his audience. 
 It was in the palmy days of the lyceum lecture and 
 no course was considered complete without Wendell 
 Phillips. Lecturing became his calling in large places 
 and small wherever the people would listen to him, first 
 on the arts or literature or biography, and -having won 
 attention and stimulated the thirst for more he would 
 return when again invited with some discussion of the 
 slavery question. He believed in the ultimate decision 
 of an enlightened public conscience and in the power 
 of a nation to eradicate evils that were rooted in dis- 
 honor. He used to say, "The people always mean right, 
 and in the end they will do right. I believe in the 
 twenty millions to arrange this question of slavery. . 
 . . Drag it from its concealment and give it to the 
 people; launch it on the age and all will be safe. But 
 there rnust be no half-declaration of the issue, no com- 
 promise with convictions, no concealment of an ugly 
 fact." In accordance with this sentiment he was most 
 plain and uncompromising in his utterance. Truths for 
 which the people were not ready were proclaimed with 
 remorseless clearness and received by them with corre- 
 sponding expression of disgust and sometimes of horror. 
 And then the speaker would proceed to demonstrate with 
 invincible logic that his positions were based upon solid 
 ground, however far from the present attainment of the 
 multitude. He would have been called a leader if he 
 had not been too far in advance to secure an immediate 
 following. A few did indeed follow him close, and more 
 afar off, but the common crowd of conservative respect- 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS. 395 
 
 ability looked upon him as a foolhardy fanatic bearing 
 the excelsior banner up dangerous heights which they 
 had no inclination to climb. By and by the logic of 
 events hurried this same multitude on to overtake him 
 and establish themselves on his uttermost outpost. 
 
 Meantime the aggressive orator went on with his 
 ceaseless warfare against bondage of every sort' in every 
 place. In his own city he brought the exclusion of col- 
 ored children from the public schools before the author- 
 ities until they were compelled to yield the point. With 
 equal success he appealed to the legislature to compel 
 railroads to admit colored travelers to the cars their 
 tickets entitled them to enter. When fugitive slaves were 
 hunted in Boston Phillips was active in *aiding their 
 escape, or if captured and remanded to slavery he was 
 the man to call citizens into Faneuil Hall to Jiear words 
 that branded with eternal infamy the city where Crispus 
 Attucks, a negro, was first to fall in the struggle for 
 American freedom in Revolutionary days. In the fight 
 over the admission of California and the opening up of 
 the territories to slavery Phillips did more to inform the 
 people of impending dangers than the congressmen 
 whose speeches were heard in Washington but not 
 always read by constituencies. He was educating 
 future electors of congressmen while representatives and 
 senators, even from Massachusetts, were patching up 
 compromises. Indorsing and supporting fugitive slave 
 laws did not, however, rescue these legislators from a 
 political grave, while the growth of the heresies which 
 Wendell Phillips preached sent other law-makers to take 
 their places, who in turn repealed compromises and 
 
39^ THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 amended the Constitution nntil it became the consistent 
 expression of the doctrines it professed to uphold. 
 
 By 1853 abolitionism was merged in the rising tide 
 of anti-slavery sentiment, which began to flow into every 
 valley north of the Ohio river. In May of that year 
 Phillips was before a great audience in New York city, 
 cheered by some and hissed by others in one sentence, 
 and cheered by all in the next when he turned the hisses 
 to the credit of an antagonist. Two weeks later he was 
 in Boston defining the difference between a reformer 
 and a politician. " The reformer is careless of numbers, 
 disregards popularity, and deals only with ideas, con- 
 science, and common sense. He feels, with Copernicus, 
 that as God. waited long for an interpreter, so he can 
 wait for his followers. He neither expects nor is 
 anxious for immediate success. The politician dwells 
 in an everlasting now. His motto is 'success,' his aim 
 votes. His object is not absolute right, but as much 
 right as the people will sanction ; his object is not to 
 instruct public opinion, but to represent it." 
 
 From New York and Boston he went to other cities 
 and towns, everywhere disseminating the claim for an 
 absolute and unqualified freedom for all, irrespective of 
 race or class. Events were helping him. The dastardly 
 assault upon Sumner, the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
 promise, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's raid, 
 secession, and the attack upon Fort Sumter marked so 
 many stages which gave new phases to discussion and a 
 fresh impulse to his "speech. In all these stages the 
 orator was the same self-contained, all - commanding 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS. 397 
 
 power. He was a man never to be forgotten by those 
 who had the privilege of seeing and hearing him. In 
 form he is said to have closely resembled, by actual 
 measurement, the Greek Apollo. Graceful in pose and 
 gesture " every change of attitude was a new revelation 
 of manliness." His presence was conciliatory without a 
 shadow of self-depreciation, full of repose, combined 
 with supreme action. His voice was smooth, sweet, and 
 penetrating, with a modulation which expressed every 
 shade of thought. His tones were seldom above the 
 middle notes, although the lower ones were impressive. 
 It is said that no other speaker, here or in Europe, put 
 such intense feeling into so small a compass of voice and 
 into a colloquial manner. What he lacked in range be 
 made up in distinctness of enunciation. One by one, 
 without hesitation or artificial elocution his words came 
 as in dignified conversation with the multitude before 
 him. You might be expecting a burst of eloquence, so- 
 called, which never came, and yet you were not disap- 
 pointed. You went away feeling that he might have 
 flown higher and yet were glad that he did not. It pleased 
 you more to know that there was still a mighty reserve 
 force which was not drawn upon. The speaker always 
 seemed greater than his audience. The phrase " an host 
 in himself " was more than once demonstrated to be true 
 of Wendell Phillips. No man of this century had such 
 elements to deal with who mastered them as he did. 
 There were great speakers who could sweep an audience 
 along with them, there were none who ceuld turn the 
 tide rushing against them as he invariably did. It was 
 
398 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 because he kept his composure when the contagious fury 
 that sometimes seizes upon a public assembly ran away 
 with it. He could always rule the storm. 
 
 The colloquial style which was so varied as not to 
 tire was equaled and surpassed by the matter of his 
 speech. This was never heavy nor dull. In the first 
 place his logic was irresistible. He convinced men against 
 their own convictions. They were sure that there were 
 flaws in the reasoning or in their own conclusions, possi- 
 bly in their inherited prejudices, and for the time it 
 seemed that Phillips must be right. It is probable that 
 for the moment they saw the law of eternal justice and 
 humanity on which he based all his logic rather than on 
 the sophistry which makes the worse appear the better 
 reason. He tore away the disguises of pecuniary inter- 
 est and political advantage which so long obscured the 
 living issues of the mid-century, and brought men face 
 to face with righteousness. He knew on what his prem- 
 ises were based, and when those should begin to be ad- 
 mitted he had no fear for the conclusion nor the conse- 
 quence. This iron logic was not, however, cast-iron. It 
 was alive with electric charges of wit, glowed with pic- 
 turesque description, abounded in anecdote, thrilled with 
 personal appeal, bristled with epithets which were char- 
 acterizations in themselves. "Vesuvius in" full eruption 
 in the calm of a summer day" is the report of a Northern 
 hearer, while a Southern newspaper said, "Wendell Phil- 
 lips is an infernal machine set to music." He usually 
 spoke without notes, as he composed his speeches with- 
 out pen. This does not mean without preparation. He 
 
WENDELL PHILLIPS. 399 
 
 was always preparing and storing his memory with facts, 
 pursuing fallacies, linking chains of argument that 
 seemed to have no weakest link, gathering anecdotes, 
 culling illustrations that found their own places when 
 and where they were wanted. Above all for years he 
 cultivated the habit of thinking on the platform and off, 
 and was never so effective as when apparently the most 
 extemporaneous. His own explanation seems simple 
 enough : "The chief thing I aim at is to master my sub- 
 ject. Then I earnestly try to get the audience to think 
 as I do." Many orators, however, might have as lauda- 
 ble aims without his success. It is the constantly recur- 
 ring reason, that the character and soul of the man was 
 in all his speech with persistent earnestness. He was the 
 incarnation of the cause he championed. 
 
 If we should recall the great speakers who made the sec- 
 ond and third quarters of the century the golden age of 
 American oratory it would be found that each had some 
 excellence in a superlative degree and that one who should 
 combine all these virtues would be an impossibility. But if 
 the criterion of eloquence be the ability to hold all sorts of 
 audiences in rapt attention for one hour, two hours, and 
 more, in all sections of a broad belt from ocean to ocean, 
 audiences hostile and amicable and sometimes both at 
 once, then the palm must be awarded to Wendell Phil- 
 lips. He fought his way up through obloquy and oppo- 
 sition, and carried with him the burden of an unpopular 
 cause to its final triumph. He did this without a follow- 
 ing or support that in the beginning was of more ad- 
 vantage than disadvantage to him, but in the end a nation 
 
400 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 was on his side by virtue of its acceptance of the princi- 
 ples which he advocated at the start. Therefore for 
 every word of detraction and calumny which he endured 
 in the early years and in later years the judgment of the 
 future, looking back as he looked forward, shall return 
 him a thousand words of praise. 
 
XXX. 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 IT WAS a maxim of the best Hellenic orators that a 
 composition should not be closed with a climax, 
 but rather that the aroused interest and emotion of the 
 audience should be allowed to decline toward the nor- 
 mal level of ordinary quietude. Perhaps it would be 
 according too much to the subject of the last chapter to 
 place him at the top of the ladder, and too little to the 
 subject of the present one to place him much below the 
 other. Those who have had the good fortune to hear 
 both will follow their recollection in forming their judg- 
 ment, and those who have not will appeal to the printed 
 speech and contemporaneous testimony here as else- 
 where. In the remote future any such comparison will 
 doubtless be of individual qualities rather than of de- 
 grees of excellence in several of our recent orators. This 
 last one was something besides an orator, and in his 
 capacity as a man of letters and a journalist may repre- 
 sent an age of transition, or possibly of combination, in 
 which the public speaker and the public press are work- 
 ing together for the welfare of communities. Let it be 
 observed here that it is a narrow and one-sided view which 
 places these two agencies in antagonism or asks which 
 is greater in its influence. Each has its own sphere 
 which the other cannot fill, but each is the complement 
 
 401 
 
402 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 and fulfilment of the other's limitations. The orator's 
 audience is multiplied a thousand-fold, and the printed 
 page is suffused with something of the light and heat 
 which belong to the spoken word. Together the plat- 
 form and the press offer a field to the thinking mind 
 more inviting and wider than any which previous centu- 
 ries have afforded for the dissemination of useful truths. 
 George William Curtis was a man to discern the 
 equal value of both agencies and to employ both with 
 equal effectiveness. The restrictions of the subject, 
 however, confine consideration mainly to his oratorical 
 achievements. 
 
 It was in the political campaign of 1856 that he de- 
 livered his first important speech, a fair example of that 
 form of oratory by which he made a distinctive reputa- 
 tion. In it the academic and the political elements are 
 found side by side, as might be expected from its title. 
 The Duty of the American Scholar to Politics and the 
 Times. Delivered before the literary societies of Wes- 
 leyan University the oration touches fondly upon the 
 charms of intellectual pursuits and the delights of a 
 scholar's life. From this pleasant contemplation the 
 speaker turns to say in effect that studies are but a self- 
 ish indulgence unless consecrated to the service of some- 
 thing broader than personal gratification. Material suc- 
 cess has its dangers for the state as for the citizen, and 
 unless there be a class of men who shall form the public 
 conscience disaster will surely come. "This is the class of 
 scholars. The elevation and correction of public senti- 
 ment is the scholar's office in the state. If, then, such 
 be the scholar's office, if he be truly the conscience of 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 403 
 
 the State, the fundamental law of his life is liberty, lib- 
 erty of thought and liberty of speech." Later he adds, 
 " Brothers, the call has come to us. I bring it to you in 
 these calm retreats. I summon you to the great fight of 
 freedom. ... I call upon you to determine whether 
 this great experiment of human freedom, which has been 
 the scorn of despotism, shall by its failure be also our 
 sin and shame. I call upon you to defend the hope of 
 the world." 
 
 In this beginning of his oratorical career it is plain 
 what is to be its character. It will represent devotion to 
 freedom, inspired at first by a young man's enthusiasm, 
 tempered later by a broad view of impending issues and 
 dangers. The ballot and the widening influence of the 
 emphatic word, spoken or printed, became the instru- 
 mentalities of reform, which he advocated with no appar- 
 ent thought at the outset of violence on either side. The 
 power of the educated class to wield a control out of all 
 proportion to their numbers was uppermost in his mind, 
 and the final resort in which he put his trust. Therefore 
 his appeal was to this class, particularly to the young 
 men who were going forth from the colleges of the land 
 in a time full of momentous questions. 
 
 His first speech had been under every favoring cir- 
 cumstance that can gather around a literary anniversary 
 in a New England college. Another was delivered three 
 years later amidst the hootings of a rabble rout, threats 
 of violence, and the danger of incendiarism. The topic 
 was The Present Aspects of the Slavery Question, and 
 though repeated attempts were made to drown the speak- 
 er's voice and to break up the meeting he kept on with 
 
404 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 undisturbed self-possession. The stormy assemblage of 
 such elements as came together in Philadelphia in 1859, 
 when the irrepressible conflict was coming on, found 
 that the accomplished scholar and the elegant man of 
 society and of letters was also a man of heroic spirit and 
 intrepid resolution. These were qualities which had to 
 be added to the customary qualifications of an orator in 
 that decade. As a time to bring out all a speaker's skill, 
 his self-control, and command of a turbulent throng it 
 has seldom been equaled. The rude times that are 
 called the Dark Ages and the stormy scenes of the 
 French Revolution furnished similar demonstrations, but 
 for persistent and frantic attempts to silence free speech 
 one must turn to sundry cities of the North between 
 1850 and 1865, and, as the most successful of any the 
 world over, to Liverpool when, appealing to the English- 
 man's love of fair play, Henry Ward Beecher attempted 
 to state the cause of the North. Something, therefore, 
 ought to be credited to the oratorical ability of such 
 speakers as were eloquent not only in the piping times 
 of peace, but who were also masters of assemblies that 
 were mad with rage, or like the mob at Ephesus, "full 
 of wrath, some crj'ing one thing and some another, but 
 the more part knowing not wherefore they were come 
 together." 
 
 In the next year there was another occasion of the 
 same kind but differing in the character of the assem- 
 bly, which was the Republican National Convention at 
 Chicago, met to announce the platform and nominate 
 the candidate of the party for the presidency. The ad- 
 vanced element desired to insert among its avowed prin- 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 405 
 
 ciples the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, 
 containing the assertion of equal and inalienable rights, 
 a doctrine which at that time was in advance of the 
 actual condition of human freedom in the nation. It was 
 a resolution looking to the limitation and final extinc- 
 tion of slavery, and was rejected by vote of the conven- 
 tion eleven months before the first gun was fired upon 
 Fort Sumter. Curtis at once moved to renew the motion. 
 His voice was drowned in the clamor of the men who 
 feared to alienate possible supporters by the radical sen- 
 timents of 1776 pushed to their legitimate conclusion. 
 "Gentlemen," said he, "this is the convention of free 
 speech, and I have been given the floor. I have only a 
 few words to say to you, but I shall say them if I stand 
 here until to-morrow morning." Again the yells of a 
 faction shook the roof of the wigwam, but pluck and 
 serenity were mightier than the throats of Thurlow 
 Weed's henchmen, and a hearing was granted at last. 
 Then he " dared the representatives of the party of free- 
 dom to reject the doctrine of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence affirming the equality and defining the rights 
 of man." When he had finished the resolution was 
 adopted "with a shout of enthusiasm more unanimous 
 and deafening than the yell with which it had been pre- 
 viously rejected." 
 
 Let these two exhibitions of personal power re- 
 move any impression of uniform mildness that may be 
 associated with one who is known more widely through 
 the graceful emanations from an editor's chair. The re- 
 serve forces of such men as Curtis are among the inspi- 
 rations of biography. 
 
406 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 In those unquiet years such a speaker found abundant 
 opportunity to voice the sentiments of a large and grow- 
 ing body of sympathizers in what he named the American 
 Doctrine of Liberty, in the title of an oration which he 
 delivered at Harvard University in the summer of 1862, 
 and repeated forty times in Northern states during the 
 ensuing year. It was the year of the emancipation proc- 
 lamation, and the liberty for which he demanded the 
 service of all Americans was a grade higher than that 
 which any nation had yet achieved. "Seated in the 
 temperate latitudes of a new continent, with free hands, 
 free hearts, free brains, and free tongues, we are called 
 to a destiny as manifest as the great heroism and the 
 lofty principle that made us a nation. That destiny is 
 the utmost development of liberty . . . not in any 
 single direction, political, social, or moral, but in all the 
 ample and jubilant splendor of its spirit and promise . 
 . . the absolute personal and political freedom of 
 every man to think, speak, and act, subject to the equal 
 rights of other men, protected in their exercise by com- 
 mon consent or law." This definition of the new doc- 
 trine of liberty he unfolds and amplifies by contrast with 
 the narrow conceptions and realizations of freedom in 
 former times and in our own land hitherto. 
 
 In the emancipation of the slave population he saw 
 a fulfilment of the declaration of the natural equality of 
 human right to life and liberty which the fathers had 
 considered the corner-stone of the new republic. Con- 
 sistency was the key-note of his argument. His ideal was 
 no higher than the declaration of 1776. He demanded 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 407 
 
 no more for all men than the rebels against British 
 tyranny had demanded for themselves. 
 
 The inconsistency which made this declaration a half- 
 truth he denounced in a lecture entitled Political Infi- 
 delity, delivered more than fifty times in the years 1864 
 and 1865. In the midst of a war which was not yet ter- 
 minated he asserted that republican principles of 
 government are not necessarily a failure nor impractica- 
 ble, that war is the result of disregarding and denying 
 the fundamental truths on which our nationality was 
 based, and that enduring peace can come only by re- 
 turning fidelity to original principles. In this oration 
 he arraigns the attempts to limit the power of public 
 opinion by silencing debate, also the mincing and 
 sneaking subserviency of the North, the confident arro- 
 gance of the South ; and shows the reason of England's 
 contempt, and the general demoralization of the coun- 
 try. In this arraignment the scholar's obligation is not 
 forgotten, as it never was by Curtis. " How true is it," 
 he remarks, " what Theodore Parkfer wrote to me eight 
 years ago : ' If our educated men had done their duty we 
 should not now be in the ghastly condition we bewail.' " 
 And then follows a peroration which is a bugle-note of 
 inspiration and a clear strain of prophecy : " Let the se- 
 curity of free discussion be maintained and jealously de- 
 fended by all parties in the land, north, south, east, and 
 west, at every country cross-road and in every city and 
 state, and the Union and government are forever secure." 
 . . . "To the American republic belongs the national 
 domain. To the American heart belong the national 
 
408 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 principles of liberty and union. To the American flag 
 belongs the national victory which shall secure those 
 principles from sea to sea." 
 
 When the war was over speeches followed on The 
 Good Fight and The Right of Suffrage, and similar dis- 
 cussions of reconstruction issues. In 1877 came the ora- 
 tion at Union College on The Public Duty of Educated 
 Men, and one on The Leadership of Educated Men, deliv- 
 ered before the alumni of Brown University in 1882. 
 Education and patriotism, learning and loyalty to the 
 nation was evermore the recurring theme. 
 
 It was the same high thought that appeared when he 
 delivered a eulogy upon Charles Sumner at the request 
 of the legislature of Massachusetts. This new phase of 
 public address gave him a new opportunity and added a 
 new lustre to his fame. Hitherto he had spoken of 
 abstract truths and of personal convictions ; now he was 
 to put himself in another's place and give a fair interpre- 
 tation of another's views of truth and duty, by no means 
 so easy a task to perform. To mingle praise and its 
 qualifications duly, to reconcile the real man of ordi- 
 nary, commonplace days with the ideal and possible 
 inan of the rare and high occasion, to estimate character 
 by the strain it will bear and the latent force that is in it, 
 to see how it avoids the pitfall and seizes the grand op- 
 portunity, above all to judge justly of the average and 
 sum of attainment according to gifts and environments 
 is an undertaking in which there is seldom the likeli- 
 hood of unqualified approval and often the chance of 
 but partial success. That he would be likely to succeed 
 was the opinion of the assembly which invited him ; that 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 4O9 
 
 he did fulfil the obligation of honor and friendship com- 
 pletely is the testimony of his auditors and of the eulogy 
 itself. One paragraph may stand for all : 
 
 " During all that tremendous time, on the one hand 
 enthusiastically trusted, on the other contemptuously 
 scorned and hated, Sumner's heart was that of a little 
 child. He said no unworthy word, he did no unmanly 
 deed ; dishonor fled his face ; and to-day those who so 
 long and so naturally but so wrongfully believed him 
 their enemy strew rosemary for remembrance upon his 
 grave. . . . This is the great victory, the great les- 
 son, the great legacy of his life, that the fidelity of a 
 public man to his conscience, not to party, is rewarded 
 with the sincerest popular love and confidence." 
 
 Another masterpiece of commemorative discourse, 
 that on Wendell Phillips, has these among its closing 
 words: "The radiant figure passing swiftly through 
 these streets, plain as the house from which it came, 
 regal with a royalty beyond that of kings ; the ceaseless 
 charity untold ; the strong, sustaining heart of private 
 friendship ; the eloquence which, like the song of 
 Orpheus, will fade from living memory into a doubtful 
 tale ; the surrender of ambition ; the mighty agitation 
 and the mighty triumph with which his name is forever 
 blended ; the consecration of a life hidden with God 
 in sympathy with man; these, all these, will live among 
 your immortal traditions, heroic even in your heroic 
 story. But not yours alone. As years go by and only 
 the large outlines of lofty American characters and 
 careers remain, the wide republic will confess the bene- 
 diction of a life like this and gladly own that if, with 
 
410 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 perfect faith and hope assured, America would still stantf 
 and ' bid the distant generations hail,' the inspiration 
 of her national life must be the sublime moral couragei, 
 the all-embracing humanity, the spotless integrity, the 
 absolutely unselfish devotion of great powers to great 
 public ends which were the glory of Wendell Phillips." 
 
 Curtis' memorial addresses upon Bryant and Lowell 
 bring out his twofold appreciation of patriotism and let- 
 ters, so preeminently illustrated in the lives and writings 
 of these two distinguished men. Of the first he said, 
 " Here, then, we leave him with tender reverence for the 
 father of our song, with grateful homage to the spotless 
 and faithful citizen, with affectionate admiration for the 
 simple and upright man." And of Lowell, "Intellectual 
 excellence, noble character, public probity, lofty ideals, 
 art, literature, honest politics, righteous laws, conscien- 
 tious labor, public spirit, social justice, the stern, self- 
 criticizing patriotism which fosters only what is worthy 
 of an enlightened people; such qualities and achieve- 
 ments, and such alone, measure the greatness of a state, 
 and those who illustrate them are great citizens. They 
 are the men whose lives are a glorious service and whose 
 memories are a benediction. Among that great com- 
 pany of patriots let me to-day reverently and gratefully 
 blend the name of Lowell with that of Washington." 
 
 The mention of Bryant and Lowell recalls the liter- 
 ary sympathies and aptitudes of Curtis, for the consider- 
 ation of which there could be no place here were it not 
 that he must be regarded as the man who united in his 
 personality and activity the power of the platform and 
 the press. In the discourse upon Bryant he paid tribute 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 4 1 I 
 
 to a fellow-worker in the broad field of journalism, and 
 in the editorship of a great newspaper in the metropolis 
 he recognized an agency for wielding a wide and con- 
 stant influence. While Curtis least of all editors had 
 reason to underrate the advantages of a personal pres- 
 ence and the living voice on great occasions, he also 
 knew that the echoes of noble speech are carried by the 
 press beyond the remotest hills. Accordingly he found 
 in his own Easy Chair and in his weekly editorials a way 
 to reach thousands who might never come within the 
 sound of his voice. For nearly forty years he dis- 
 coursed of literature and science, art and politics in a 
 style so simple and colloquial that none would suppose 
 that the pen he used was often scarcely dry from writing 
 rhythmical periods of orations that held multitudes en- 
 tranced. It was the talk of a sympathetic man with his 
 neighbor at his elbow, and there was no snobbish in- 
 quiry about who his neighbor might be. What he sacri- 
 ficed for such editorial labor, that might easily have gone 
 into the field of elegant literature, it would be idle to 
 discuss. He had higher purposes and devoted to them 
 the noblest resources of public speech and the familiar 
 forms of conversational prose. His was the grand 
 opportunity of the occasional orator ; the continuous 
 instruction of the periodic press was also his. With 
 voice and pen, with pen and voice, he alternately gave 
 renewed impulses or steadily followed them with unceas- 
 ing pressure. Therefore it is probable that, taking all 
 his working years together, with all his hearers and all 
 his readers, he reached more minds and hearts, more 
 souls and consciences than any other orator of his time, 
 
412 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 and must always be remembered as the representative 
 of the closing years of the nineteenth century, when 
 words may not only be fitly spoken but also widely pub- 
 lished. 
 
 It was eminently appropriate that toward the end of 
 his days his devotion to the cause of educated manhood, 
 as well as to universal freedom and political reform in 
 official stations, should be recognized by an election to 
 the chancellorship of the University of New York, in 
 1890, to say nothing of academic honors from different 
 colleges seven times conferred. Passing from the stage 
 in 1892 he was the last in the stately procession of 
 American orators who were actors in the latest Reforma- 
 tion. The lessons which he left to youth of kindred 
 aspirations were first that nothing should be spared in 
 the preparation for public speech, even to the perfect 
 ^ memorizing" that has all the force of extemporization 
 without its inevitable blemishes of repetition and dispro- 
 portion, of things better left unsaid, of good things 
 arriving too late to be uttered, and a general deteriora- 
 tion in the speaker who follows it exclusively. Then 
 there is the inspiration of a lofty ideal and profound 
 sense of duty and an unswerving devotion to convic- 
 tions. These were the strong foundations on which he 
 built a fabric of sweet persuasiveness that was itself the 
 natural expression of a gracious and noble character. 
 The charm of manner, the musical and flexible voice, 
 the engaging countenance were elements that made for 
 peaceful assent with his hearers. Their hearts might 
 not be rent nor their judgments swept away by stormy 
 eloquence, but the sound sense, the high range, the clear 
 
GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 4I3 
 
 reasonableness of his utterances commended them to 
 what was best and broadest in his audiences. Not that 
 he did not often rise to the upper levels of speech in 
 form and in thought. He commanded all the reserves 
 of the language. He knew where its dynamics abide, 
 but he also knew what they are for and that their power 
 depends upon the rarity of their use. A friend's testi- 
 mony is true that " for a certain sustaining elevation 
 and dignity, for uniformity of grace and unruffled ful- 
 ness and richness he had few peers;" and again "the 
 perfect symmetry and completeness of the whole, no part 
 obtrusive and no part deficient, and all permeated with 
 such consummate ease and grace of delivery that no 
 room was left for any emotion but that of admiration 
 and delight." 
 
 In speaking of Curtis as the last orator of the group 
 whose chief representatives have been noticed it is not 
 to be supposed that there were no contemporaries who, 
 in their several ways, were not as great or greater than 
 those who have been mentioned ; and the same is true 
 in all the ages here reviewed. It may be doubted, how- 
 ever, if any enumeration of names entitled to great dis- 
 tinction would be deemed complete by those whose 
 memory runs back of the half-century line. There have 
 been great speakers, in the old Greek sense of the word, 
 in this age and country as in every other, whose light 
 has been dimmed by the effulgence of greater contem- 
 poraries. Men like Chapin and Beecher and Phillips 
 Brooks in the pulpit, Corwin and Winter Davis in Con- 
 gress, Douglas and Lincoln in the political arena, and 
 some whose continued life forbids present mention, 
 
414 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 great speakers all, or who could make a great speech 
 upon occasion ; such names will be recalled by one and 
 another as fit to be enrolled among those that have been 
 emphasized in these pages. Some who were young in 
 the palmy days of the lyceum lecture will recall ora- 
 torical efforts unsurpassed in interest even by the present 
 spectacular shows of high and low degree. But after all 
 is said the greater orators will always hold their preem- 
 inence like fixed stars in the firmament, though some- 
 times outshone by planets less remote in time or place. 
 The verdict of the future, if not of the present, will de- 
 termine here, as in Athens of old, who shall be enrolled 
 among the Immortal Ten. 
 
 In regard to the present condition of oratory it is 
 not necessary to suppose that the former times were 
 better than these in order to account for the general 
 low estate of it that has prevailed for the last twenty- 
 five years. To say that the preceding age was worse 
 is a better explanation. The wave of discussion over a 
 vital question rose high and higher until it broke in a 
 clash of arms. Prolonged for a while it receded at 
 length and comparative silence followed. A recon- 
 structive period for legislators and a commercial one 
 for the public at large is not favorable to eloquence. 
 Questions of ways and means of doing what all agree 
 should be done inspire nothing beyond heated discus- 
 sions. Therefore oratory is at its ebb, as it has been 
 a hundred times before. It has also been at the flood 
 again as often. The wave-law of succession holds true 
 here as in light and sound, in winds and waters, in 
 
PROSPECT. 415 
 
 growth and decay, in decline and revival. Crests may- 
 be near together, or so far apart as to be spanned by 
 generations, but so sure as history repeats itself, so 
 truly as a time of adversity is followed by a time of 
 prosperity, so surely will the temporary depression of 
 eloquence be followed by a renewal of interest in it. 
 The problems of the future may not be of such magni- 
 tude as those in the immediate past, but they are likely 
 to be important enough to call for such a personal ap- 
 peal of the wise to the unwise, of the educated to the 
 uninformed, as nothing but the voice can make with 
 head and heart behind it. When that time of need 
 shall come, eloquence will come with it. 
 
 Are there indications of a renewed interest even now? 
 If it is true, as has often been observed, that the univer- 
 sities are the first to catch returning light, it may be that 
 the revived interest in public speaking among students 
 can be taken as the harbinger of a revival of oratory. 
 For thirty years academic debate has languished. The 
 open society hall has been closed like the temple of 
 Janus Quirinus in times of peace. Now once more keys 
 are turning in rusty locks, there is a dusting of furniture 
 long unused, and a lighting of council fires afresh. In- 
 tercollegiate debates are arranged in the East ; interstate 
 oratorical contests and discussions are held in the West. 
 Heads are not used solely as battering rams, nor voices 
 for college yells alone, greatly as these exercises may con- 
 tribute to vigorous disputation, or indirectly to effective 
 speech. Long journeys are made and distant libraries 
 consulted in preparation for literary contests. Living 
 issues are studied with an interest which leaves no doubt 
 
4l6 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 that the men of the future will :reet isielligently the 
 c:.;es!ion5 that are likely to confroa: than, and that one 
 of the chief factois in the solution of rhese problenK will 
 "*"be the powtr of instructive, reasonable, and persuasive 
 speech. For from these academic performances it is not 
 a loE^ step to the court-room, the pidpit, the town meet- 
 iiiff, the representative assembly, to the people's platform 
 and the coaimemoratiTe occasicii. Not far again, and in 
 consequence, to a restored oratory and a rerired elo- 
 quence, as it EST not be far to i tir^e when both diallbe 
 needed, as thev have been ever and anon centurv after 
 century in the past When that time comes men will 
 turn insrinctiTely to hear what their leaders will hare to 
 teli them, and leadoship may depend largely upon the 
 m£umer of the telling. 
 
 A retrospect of oratory daring twentr-fonr caitmles 
 is not unlike a glance along the horizon line of a moun- 
 tain range with its elevsrions and d^r^sions: for the 
 history of eloquence, like that of liboty its companion, 
 is marked by diversified fortunes. On this horizon there 
 are lofty peaks showing where volcanic fires reared their 
 monuments : there are leser heights beside them and 
 low table lands and shadowy valleys and sunless gorges. 
 The mountain tops upon which light perpetual lingers 
 are named for the Greek Demosthenes and Cicero the 
 Roman : for John of Antioch and Tstnllian of Car- 
 thage and Ambrose of Milan: for Savonarola of Flor- 
 ence, Peter of Picaxdv, Taqties de Vitrv and his succes- 
 sors at the court of Louis the Great. Westward there is 
 a giant group in England, and across the ocean another 
 
RETROSPECT. 4 1 7 
 
 group upholding the honor of free and fearless speech in 
 the remotest West. 
 
 A more deliberate view also reveals eloquence and 
 liberty going hand in hand from the Orient to the Occi- 
 dent ; in Greece amidst Hellenic resistance to Asiatic des- 
 potism, at Rome in a long warfare against imperialism, 
 in the early Church against papal usurpation, in mediae- 
 val ages against the sacrilege of the Saracen, at the Ref- 
 ormation in protest against ecclesiastical corruption, in 
 France against the dominion of Satan in high places, 
 and later against the grinding oppression of the people 
 by kings. In England voices are lifted up for authority 
 tempered with justice and generosity, in America for 
 equal rights of all subjects of the Crown, and afterward 
 for general liberty under the laws, with the natural 
 sequence of freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. 
 
 In all this movement there can also be observed di- 
 verse phases of expression in different ages and coun- 
 tries : Attic simplicity and strength running into Asian 
 splendor, degenerating at length into barbaric tawdri- 
 ness, followed by a restored severity not untainted with 
 the finery of a later time, passing into an almost savage 
 crudeness, uncouth and grotesque, to be refined at last 
 by the revival of letters to a style blending the classic 
 and romantic tendencies, which henceforward will fare on 
 together according to the temperament of each nation, 
 age, and orator as the subject, the issue, and the occa- 
 sion shall demand. In all the long procession there is 
 also a similar variety of method and manner and form, 
 the same repetition of unchangeable principles in a diver- 
 sity of manifestation that prevails in material and imma- 
 
4l8 THE HISTORY OF ORATORY. 
 
 terial nature throughout the universe, so far as observa- 
 tion has reached; variety in unity, diversity of form 
 amidst uniformity of law, changing phases of expres- 
 sion, but ceaseless persistence of purpose toward larger 
 truth, a better liberty, and a nobler life. Until, however, 
 these are more completely attained it cannot be affirmed 
 that the movement which has continued so long with va- 
 rious degrees of acceleration will wholly cease, or that 
 there will be no need of the speaking man in the future. 
 Therefore the necessity still remains of gathering up the 
 lessons left by masters of the art in the past, that, profit- 
 ing by their successes and their failures, the men of the 
 present and the future may know how they can best in- 
 struct, convince, and persuade. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aaron, spokesman to Is- 
 rael 28 
 
 Abelard and Bernard 195 
 
 Abolitionism 376, 384 
 
 Abusive words 385 
 
 Academies, French — 228, 231 
 
 Italian 211 
 
 Plato's, Aristotle at 81 
 
 Cicero on 113 
 
 Acheron 378 
 
 Action, oratorical III, 26g 
 
 following speech — 309, 
 
 355. 392 
 
 Actors, stage 67, 70 
 
 Adam of St. Victor's hymn i88 
 Adams, John Quincy--309, 377 
 Adams, Samuel — 304, 306, 
 
 307. 309. 392 
 Adaptation of discourse -- 
 
 57, 76, 249, 256, 258, 358 
 Addison in Parliament — 292 
 
 in Spectator 339 
 
 Admiration for speaker - - 125 
 Advocates in New Eng- 
 land 339, 340 
 
 jEldred 193 
 
 ^neid 200, 378 
 
 ^tna 30, 380 
 
 vEschines, with Demos- 
 thenes 56 
 
 with Gorgias -- 41 
 
 characteristics 6j 
 
 at Rhodes 105 
 
 his style 106 
 
 ^schylus and contempo- 
 raries — 33 
 
 at Syracuse 30 
 
 Afer, Domitius, Quintilian 
 
 on 141 
 
 Affectation, at Rome-- 127, 
 
 132. 137 
 
 elsewhere 213, 341 
 
 Africa 162, 166, 281 
 
 Aix 243 
 
 Africanus, Julius 141 
 
 Afterthoughts added to 
 
 sentence 52 
 
 Agitator 389, 393, 394 
 
 Albertus Magnus 198 
 
 Alcibiades with Gorgias-- 41 
 
 Alexander 79, 104, 228, 378 
 
 Alexandria and Athens 91 
 
 and Tarsus 147 
 
 and Athanasius 152 
 
 Alexandrian library 179 
 
 schools 107 
 
 Alfred the Great, trans- 
 lator 178 
 
 Alliteration 225 
 
 Allston, W 377 
 
 Allusion, imderstanding of 
 
 by Greeks 78, 288, 384 
 
 Ambrose of Milan i65-sq» 
 
 419 
 
420 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 and Augustine i68 
 
 eulogist 167 
 
 preacher 166 
 
 mentioned also — 223, 417 
 
 Ames, Fisher 310 
 
 America-266, 269, 283, 361, 417 
 
 Amherst College 378 
 
 Amiens, Peter of 190 
 
 treaty ot 303 
 
 Amplification, Cicero's- 117, 126 
 
 other instances-238, 257, 258 
 
 Anacreon 376 
 
 Analysis, Aristotle's — 81, 
 
 82, 83, 89, 334, 354 
 Anaximines, as an orator- 54 
 
 rhetorician 83 
 
 Anecdote, Andocides' use 
 of 54 
 
 Fox's- -200, 201, 202, 204, 
 
 300. 301. 417 
 
 Andocides 5i-sq. 
 
 criticisms of 53 
 
 excellencies 54 
 
 traits 54 
 
 Anglo-Saxon element in — 
 
 English langtiage 120 
 
 in taste 107 
 
 Anne of Austria 231, 233 
 
 Animation in discourse — 260 
 
 Anselm... 192 
 
 Anthony of Padua _ _ 196 
 
 Antioch, Chrysostom in 153 
 
 159, 161, 416 
 
 Antiphon 39 sq. 
 
 legal and political ora- 
 tory 39, 40 
 
 Plutarch on 53 
 
 ihetorician 40, 42 
 
 style 41 
 
 strong point 40 
 
 also 60,62,68, 174, 175 
 
 Antisthenes, with Gorgias. 41 
 
 Antoninus Pius 137 
 
 Antonius iii, 114, 137 
 
 Antony, Mark-88, 100, loi, in 
 
 Apollinaris 137 
 
 Apollo 200, 261, 362, 376 
 
 Apollonius of Rhodes 108 
 
 Appeal, personal 288 
 
 Appropriation 258 
 
 Applause and hisses 376 
 
 Archias 108, 116 
 
 Argumentation -37, 56, 57, 
 q6, 233, 299, 302, 343, 
 
 345. 346, 353, 369. 399 
 
 Aristides 33 
 
 Aristotle-27, 31, 33, 78, 80, 
 81,82.83,84,87.88.90. 
 91. 92, 104, no, n3, 
 
 138. 140, 145, 208 
 
 Arpinum 116 
 
 Arraignment 407 
 
 Arrangement 52, 369 
 
 Arrian 146 
 
 Art concealed 43, 66 
 
 Arthur 228 
 
 his knights 378 
 
 Artificiality 199 
 
 Asia loi. 104, 116,281, 417 
 
 Asianism 104 
 
 Asiatic style 102, 104, 105 
 
 Athanasius--I49, 151, 152, 
 
 174, 196, 223 
 Athens, 42, 45, 60, 70,' 71, 
 82, 91. 94, loi. 105, 106. 
 
 107, 108, 147, 242 
 Attic style- 104. 106, 109. 
 
 115. "9 
 
 Attic Ten 358. 363 
 
 Attica 175 
 
INDEX. 
 
 421 
 
 Atticus 112 
 
 Attucks, Crispus 395 
 
 Audiences -— --197, 262 
 
 violent — 403, 405 
 
 Augustan age 96 
 
 Augustine-- -169, 174, 219, 
 
 223, 230, 376 
 Augustus, Caesar- 104, 139, 147 
 
 Aurelius, Marcus 137, 146 
 
 Authoritative speech- 165, 
 
 194, 195, 249, 272, 352 
 
 Avicebron 189 
 
 Avicena 189 
 
 B 
 
 Backsliding, comparison-- 202 
 
 Bacon 376 
 
 Bacon's Essays 87 
 
 Barbary States, slavery in 379 
 
 Barr^, Colonel 286 
 
 Basil of Caesarea-155, 156, 
 
 174, 219 
 
 Bailey's dictionary — 268 
 
 Barbaroux 248 
 
 Barot, Odillon 260 
 
 Barrow 268 
 
 Bede, the venerable — 178-sq. 
 Beecher, Henry Ward 404, 414 
 
 Begum charge 291 
 
 Belhaven, Lord 268 
 
 Bellerophon 200 
 
 Bernard- -i7S-sq., 193, 194, 195, 
 
 196, 216, 219 
 
 Berenice, Queen 138 
 
 Bible-203, 204, 210, 230, 
 
 284, 338, 351 
 
 Biel, Gabriel 201 
 
 Billingsgate -- 385 
 
 Biographies 69 
 
 Boethius 177 
 
 Bonaparte — 248-sq. 
 
 Bonaventura 198 
 
 Boniface 182 
 
 Borgia, house of 214 
 
 Bossuet 229-sq., 237 
 
 Boston 358,369. 391 
 
 Boulogne, Counts of igo 
 
 Bourdaloue ---229-sq., 233, 240 
 
 Brantome 376 
 
 Brescia 211 
 
 Bristol 287 
 
 Brocken, spectres of the- 355 
 
 Brooks, Phillips 414 
 
 Brown, John - 396 
 
 Brown, Sir Thomas 376 
 
 Brown University 408 
 
 Bruno of Aste 193 
 
 Brutus iii-sq., 315 
 
 Bryant, W. C. 410, 411 
 
 Bucer 222 
 
 Buddha 152 
 
 Buffoonery 199 
 
 Bulwer 292 
 
 Bunker Hill 375, 389 
 
 oration 358 
 
 Bunyan, John 162 
 
 Burke, Edmund---72, 283, 
 
 285, 294, 297, 305 
 Burgesses, House of- -3 14, 378 
 
 Bums, Anthony 385 
 
 Byron 291 
 
 California 395 
 
 Caecilius 141 
 
 Caelius 114, 115 
 
 Caasar, Julius-93, 114, 141, 315 
 
 Caesarea 159 
 
 Calhoun, J. C.-323, 332-sq., 334 
 Callidus 114, 115 
 
422 IKDEX. 
 
 Calvin 222,2281 Chronicla of the Cid 578 
 
 Calms 114,115, 141 j Cbr:.r;pp-js 378 
 
 Cambridge, Massu yS^^Oayscstom—is^ 154,155. 
 
 Camden 27'> 174, I7«. 223. 230. 4i6 
 
 Canada 267, 243 
 
 Canterbury 180 
 
 Cany-e 24 
 
 Carbo I14 
 
 Cameades 378 
 
 Carthage 173 
 
 Castas, Dion 378 
 
 Cassiodoms 177 
 
 Catiline 149 
 
 Chnrdi, early, CLapters 
 
 XL and XII. fmssim 
 medkevaltCbapters XIIL 
 
 XIV. pasrim. 
 Ttionaaiioa, Cbacptex 
 
 XVll. ^assail 
 Gallican, Chapter' XVIIL 
 
 passitn 
 Brattle St. Boston 389 
 
 Cato 9£, g^ii4, 174 Old South 389 
 
 Catnllns 171 Cicero 43, 49^ 62, 92, 
 
 Celtic 2901 100, 103, :sT, ic^, 109^ 
 
 traits 295 no, 112, 113, 114, irf^- 
 
 ancestry 335 117, 124, 130, 13^ 141. 
 
 Ce:s:;s iSi 142, U7. M9k aog^ 2z>:. 
 
 CeatiaiiziirJ.ozi 316 376, 416 
 
 Cerbems 300 Cineas ^ 
 
 CemegT^s 96 Gozea advocates 36 
 
 CLsrror.ea, battle of 48 Gtizensfaip, Greek 35, 179 
 
 Chaldee beliefs 152 Castty 236 
 
 C!:^!n:ers 126 C-alr-.ajo: 196 
 
 Gz^i^iz.s, W. E 374, 377 Carke, James Freeman — 374 
 
 Cr-apiit, E. H 4:4 Car^iS'-^r, Thomas 379 
 
 Cbarieinagiie 177, 2z8 f Classics^ (Jassical Ihera- 
 
 Charles I 267 rtire and Teartxizg-lj^ 
 
 G^i^e. S.P. — 382 
 
 Chatham -1Q2, 268, 27s, 270 
 
 214,297. 305 
 
 181, 2SI, 2Ii, 23^,298, 
 
 311, 37;, 374 
 Clay, Henry- -325-sq, 335, 383 
 
 Ctaicer 92 Qeamess 262 
 
 Cfcer.6Tf.eld 2^ j Climax 2C5, 1206, 401 
 
 Ci.icagoCo:iTaitiono£i86o 4a4|ciintoD, De Witt 321 
 
 Cz.':-y= 45 C-:.iV.rz.t.r= 244,293, 344 
 
 Create, R-zi-^ 3fi4-sq., 3"5 C .ari. Royer :^ 
 
 GinsiaT.ity.ifs, :€2, l^ | Colloquial d;~i.c.i.-se--.66t 
 
 22S. 390; 357. 398 
 CLro-icIers ;—, iQO'Cologne 191 
 
INDEX. 
 
 423 
 
 Colonies of Great Britain- — 
 280, 281, 283 
 
 Columbus 214 
 
 Comines 228 
 
 Commemorative oratory- - 
 
 239. 358, 409 
 
 Commendation 250 
 
 Commonplaces 87 
 
 Common sense 94, 250, 
 
 261, 294, 330 
 
 Commonwealth 281 
 
 Comneni igo 
 
 Compactness 201 
 
 Comparison 197 
 
 Composition, practice of-- 67 
 Compromise-314, 381, 387, 396 
 Conciliation with America 287 
 Conciliatory speech-24, 29, 
 
 117,287, 3q6 
 
 Conciseness 127, 128 
 
 Conclusion 43,57 
 
 Cond6 223 
 
 Connecticut 348 
 
 Conscience, public 394 
 
 Conservatism 395 
 
 Consistency 406 
 
 Constant, Benjamin — 255, 256 
 
 Constantinople 72, 161, 379 
 
 Constitution of the United 
 
 States 338, 339, 348 
 
 Contests, mock 139 
 
 literary 27 
 
 oratorical 416 
 
 Conversation 286 
 
 Conviction 56, 125, 126, 
 
 329. 334 
 
 Copiousness 99 
 
 Corneille 230 
 
 Corwin, Thomas 414 
 
 Cotta Ill, 114 
 
 Courts of law — 35, 43, 49, 
 57.58,59.61,69,70,71, 
 
 278, 344, 364 
 
 Creative power 99 
 
 age -- 80 
 
 Cranmer ..; 194,222, 223 
 
 Criteria of eloquence-- 192, 
 
 199. 371. 399 
 
 Critics and criticism-50, 53, 
 
 58, 66, 67, 68, •](>, 79, 82, 
 
 91, 115, 117, 151, 192, 
 
 210, 331. 336. 362. 363. 
 
 377. 414 
 
 Crispus, Vibius 141 
 
 Cromwell 315 
 
 Crusader spirit 379 
 
 Crusades 190, 195, 207 
 
 Culture 113, 269 
 
 Cumulative effects 245, 379 
 
 Curatii 200 
 
 Curio 100, 114, 115 
 
 Curtis, George William- 40 i-sq. 
 
 Dalrymple, Colonel - 308 
 
 Damiani i86-sq. 
 
 Dance 157 
 
 the devil's way 200 
 
 Dante 93, 311, 376 
 
 Dartmouth College — 338, 
 
 344. 345. 352, 364 
 
 Davis, Henry Winter 414 
 
 De Barzia 203 
 
 Debate and debaters- -299, 
 
 311,326,327, 359 
 
 intercollegiate 415 
 
 Declamation- 108, 134, 137, 
 
 170. 327. 363 
 
 De Claris Oratoribus 112 
 
 Delaying action 258 
 
424 
 
 INPK.T. 
 
 Deliberative oraior\---6S, 547) 
 
 Deli\-er>- 103, iii, 141 j 
 
 Demetrius of Phalerum .- 70 
 Demonstration , . _ ffv, 191, ^45 
 Deniosthenes -- -55, jo, 57. 
 
 55.62.67,70.73,74,75, I 
 
 76, 77, So, Q2, 105. 106. j 
 
 107. loS, IIQ, 122. I2S, 
 
 156, 159, 102, 24a. a6S, 
 
 -ro. 31* 5"ti 
 
 Denunciation 05 
 
 Df OJ'L-iis 3-S 
 
 Dc OraUTf in 
 
 De Rfpublha 7g 
 
 Descartes 22S 
 
 Descent ot man 1 56 j 
 
 De Serre 253,255; 
 
 Description 54 
 
 Desmoulins 24S 
 
 Despotism and oraior>- 
 
 148, 2c^S, 209-sq. 
 Devil and the dance- -aoo, 
 
 221, 225 
 
 Dexter, Samuel 354 
 
 Deia, Maxmilian 20; 
 
 Dialectics 68,82.83. 1S9 
 
 Diction. - -qo, 112. iiq, 120, 
 
 121, 166, 23S. 2S4, 285. 
 
 288, 289, 370 
 
 Dignity— -63, 103. 150, 154, 
 
 165, 201, 413 
 
 Diligence 48,285, 202 
 
 Dio Chrysostom 146 
 
 Diodorus of Taisus 1 55 
 
 Diogenes of Apollonia 23 
 
 Diogenes Laertius 37S 
 
 Dionysiusof Halicamassus 
 
 61, 65, 7g 
 
 Dionysius of Syracuse 44 
 
 Directions, marginal igo 
 
 Directness iqa, 207 
 
 Discouragement 211 
 
 Discourse, divisions of 1 10 
 
 Discursiveness 223 
 
 Discussions, oral 170 
 
 Display 200 
 
 Disposition 87. 371 
 
 Disraeli :si2 
 
 Dissipating influences 297 
 
 Divuu- t>«r<'</r, the 3-8 
 
 Diversity 418 
 
 Division of subject-84. 1 14. 
 
 -53. -54 
 
 Domitian 138 
 
 Ik>K Qiri.rt>tt 339 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A. 414 
 
 Drama and oratory 27, 375 
 
 Knglish 228 
 
 Greek 26 
 
 Dramatic action 295 
 
 Dramatic interest 316 
 
 Dramatic style 27, 136 
 
 Drayton, W. H. 321 
 
 Dred Scott decision 396 
 
 Druids 178 
 
 Dublin 2S^ 
 
 Dumont 244 
 
 Dunstan 102 
 
 Dupin 260 
 
 Duioverav 244 
 
 Dust, sermon on 206 
 
 Dwight, President 322 
 
 Dynamic words 413 
 
 Earnestness aoi, 220, 
 
 East India Compiany 204 
 
 Eccentric eloquence— -igg-sq. 
 Editors 255. 411 
 
INDEX. 
 
 425 
 
 Education and politics 408 
 
 Educational advantages-- 312 
 
 lack of 312, 330 
 
 Educated class, power of- 403 
 
 Edward I 280 
 
 Edward VI. 224 
 
 Elective studies 2g8 
 
 Eliot, Sir John 268 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen 265 
 
 Elocution 232 
 
 Eloquence, American 367 
 
 Attic 68 
 
 British 267 
 
 commanding 399 
 
 commercial age, of a — 414 
 
 decline of 107 
 
 deliberative 288, 356 
 
 dignified 122 
 
 eccentric 199 
 
 famous passages of 262 
 
 freedom and 34 
 
 impetuous 364 
 
 moving 191 
 
 patriotic 358 
 
 patristic iS9-sq- 
 
 perpetuity of loi 
 
 precocious 229 
 
 prophetic 28 
 
 primeval 27 
 
 reputation for 323 
 
 road to honors 94 
 
 single-minded 388 
 
 storm of 295 
 
 susceptibility to 36 
 
 turbulent 164, 263 
 
 vigorous 231 
 
 England- 189, 194, 223, 225, 
 253, 266, 267, 268, 278, 
 
 304. 314. 417 
 English language 93 
 
 English literature 285, 305 
 
 English oratory- -300, 305, 306 
 Enthusiasm- 195, 221, 259, 
 
 331. 392, 405 
 
 Epaminondas 72 
 
 Ephesus 161, 242, 404 
 
 Epic poetry 25, 95 
 
 Epithets-- 96 
 
 Epicharmus -. 30 
 
 Epigrammatic style 259 
 
 Epicurus 378 
 
 Epos 23 
 
 Erasmus 222 
 
 Eratosthenes 44 
 
 Erudition in oratory 93 
 
 Essays, political 311 
 
 Escape from eloquence 311 
 
 331. 392 
 
 Essex bar 365 
 
 Ethical element in oratory 
 
 72, 140, 141, 272, 331, 398 
 
 Ethos 68 
 
 Eton 298 
 
 Euclid igo 
 
 Eulogy- 167. 311, 367, 376, 
 
 377. 39°. 408 
 
 Euphiletos 57 
 
 Euripides 33 
 
 Euthalus 108 
 
 Everett, Edward- -358-sq., 
 
 373. 390 
 
 Exaggeration 117, 333 
 
 Exeter Academy 338 
 
 Exordiimis — 115, 199,238, 
 
 254. 313. 343. 350. 391 
 
 Exposition 204, 213 
 
 Extemporization, and writ- 
 ten speech 262, 412 
 
 Clay's - 332 
 
 Fox's 299 
 
426 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Mansfield's 277 
 
 Mirabeau's 245, 246 
 
 Phillips' 398, 399 
 
 faults of 246, 412 
 
 F 
 
 Faber, Matthias 202 
 
 Faction 257, 392 
 
 "Fame and Glory," 278 
 
 Fanaticism 295 
 
 Fashions, literary 139 
 
 Faneuil Hall 367, 389, 
 
 391. 395 
 Fastidiousness in style — 127 
 
 Fathers, the Christian 376 
 
 Faust tradition and Em- 
 
 pedocles 31 
 
 Fearlessness 246 
 
 Fees of ancient rhetori- 
 cians 108 
 
 Ferrara 208, 209 
 
 Fervor 201 
 
 Feudalism 189 
 
 Field practice of oratory-- 327 
 
 Fifth century B. C 32 
 
 Figures of speech and — 
 thought, Antiphon's 52, 53 
 Greek and Roman use of 125 
 
 Bede's treatise on 182 
 
 Demosthenes' use of 106 
 
 Fimbria, orator 100 
 
 Fitness and harmony-361, 
 
 362, 363 
 Five principles, Corax'__- 43 
 Florence, Savonarola in 
 
 175, 199, 209, 212, 214, 216 
 
 Flood 292 
 
 Fluency, Tiberius Grac- 
 chus' 99 
 
 Foote, Senator 348 
 
 Force, Demosthenes'-- 106, 246 
 
 Formalism 221 
 
 Forty years' discussion — 332 
 Fourth of July orations-339, 
 
 340, 375. 376 
 Fox-279, 294, 297-sq., 298, 
 
 299. 305 
 
 Foy, General 253, 255 
 
 Franklin, B 270, 305 
 
 Frankness 329 
 
 France-- ig5, 242, 269,301, 417 
 
 Free-Soilers 381 
 
 French langu age and 
 Greek 92 
 
 in America 267 
 
 orators 228 
 
 Revolution 241, 242 
 
 Norman French 120 
 
 Friars, preaching 200 
 
 Friendships, Cicero's 130 
 
 Froissart and Herodotus 
 
 26, 228, 376 
 Fronto's "Praise of Dust 
 
 and Smoke," 137 
 
 Fugitive-slave act 381, 382 
 
 Fulness of treatment 128 
 
 Funeral sermon 239 
 
 G 
 
 Galba, orator 97 
 
 emperor 138 
 
 Garrick 269 
 
 Garrison, W. L 390 
 
 Gaul 139 
 
 Geiler 219 
 
 Gelo, tyrant 39 
 
 Genius and orders of no- 
 bility 297 
 
 in groups 265 
 
INDEX. 
 
 427 
 
 Genoa 194, 212 
 
 Cjcnseric 173 
 
 George the Third. 265, 275, 
 
 276, 315 
 Georges of Hanover, the. . 265 
 
 Gcihert of Rheims 189 
 
 Germaine, Lord 287 
 
 Germany 194, 195, 223 
 
 Gesture, in Roman oratory 
 
 141.320, 33>. 396 
 Gibbon's praise of Sheri- 
 dan 2gi 
 
 Girondists - 247 
 
 Gnosticism --- 152 
 
 Good sense 363 
 
 Gore, Christopher 340 
 
 Gorgias 21, 41-sq. 
 
 methods-59, 68, 106, 147, 175 
 
 Gorgias 2r, 41 
 
 Gothic invasion 165 
 
 Gracchi, The, orators-. 98, 
 
 100, 114 
 
 Gracchus, Caius 93, 99 
 
 Gracchus, Tiberius - 98 
 
 Grace of Hyperides 67 
 
 Roman came late 93, 413 
 
 Grasp of subject 271, 343 
 
 Gratian, eulogy upon 167 
 
 Grattan - 292 
 
 Great Britain 282 
 
 Greek classics studied by 
 
 orators 167 
 
 Greek declamations 108 
 
 Greek fatlicis, their elo- 
 quence 146, 148 
 
 Greek language -32, 92, loi, 
 
 138. 193 
 Greek treasures in Italy.- 209 
 
 Greek manners loi 
 
 Greek teachers 147 
 
 Greek unpopularity at 
 
 Rome loi 
 
 Gregory the Great 175, 177 
 
 Gregory Nazianzen.is;, 157-sq. 
 
 Gregory of Nyssa 155 
 
 Gregory's pastoral 178 
 
 Guarric of Igniac 193 
 
 Guizot 261 
 
 H 
 Hall, J. P. 382 
 
 Hamlet, quoted 337 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander 321 
 
 Hamilton, Sir William, on 
 
 Aristotle 82 
 
 Hancock, John 392 
 
 Hannibal 97, 378 
 
 Harrison, W. H 367 
 
 Harshness of early Roman 
 
 oratory 100 
 
 Hartung Philip von 203 
 
 Harvard Law School- -374, 390 
 Harvard University. --311, 
 
 358, 375. 377. 379. 390. 406 
 
 Hastings, Warren 293, 294 
 
 Hayne's speech 349 
 
 replyto speech 348 
 
 Hebrew prophecy and song 28 
 
 poetry 34 
 
 Hellenist rhetoricians io8 
 
 Hermogenes' criticisms 52, 
 
 53.66 
 
 Henrietta of England 233 
 
 Henry the Eighth - 224 
 
 Henry, Patrick 312-sq., 323 
 
 HenryofSens 193 
 
 Hercules 200 
 
 Hermagoras, rhetorician- - 
 
 104, III 
 Heredity 335 
 
ISDKX. 
 
 Herodotus, imputed 
 speeches 
 
 historian — 20^ 5J>, +i 6oi 
 8^94. i5t>- 
 
 Hesiod -55. 
 
 Hexham 
 
 Hieixx patTOD of letters--,^ 
 
 tyrant - — 
 
 Hincmar 
 
 Hildebert of Tonr? 
 
 Hildebrand 
 
 Hildreth. Richard 
 
 Hinani.G. S. 
 
 Hisses 
 
 Historians, early Roman — 
 
 Hobbes 
 
 Holmes, O. W 
 
 Holy Land 
 
 Holy Septilchie 
 
 Homer 55. a:, ao^ 
 
 Homeric speakeis 
 
 Homilies 
 
 Horace 03, 
 
 Horatios 
 
 Honeasius 100, lO-, I03, 
 
 Hoose of Commons 
 
 House of Lords 
 
 Hutchinson, Governor 
 
 Hyperides co. 
 
 I 
 
 Idealists 
 
 lldefonse 
 
 I'iad :?ix\ 
 
 Illustratian.52, 06, ;•;;, 2SS, 
 
 500, 501, _«i:;, 3C«i. 
 
 Imag^erv- _ 253. roi . :;oo 56?. 
 
 371. 
 
 240 
 iJi j 
 
 5^ 
 
 506' 
 
 ^) 
 
 !00 ] 
 
 I?- 
 
 1?'. 
 
 Si 
 
 37^ 
 
 Imagination — g% 144.^^0. 
 ro3, ;-i, 3oot 311. 5tc, 579 
 
 Imitaiioa 6^ gfi^ 23o 
 
 Imitators :-— 
 
 ln:pennrhability Jjo 
 
 ImpetuositT — gg^iootac;. 309 
 
 Impressiveness iv6, \}4 
 
 Impnlsirene^ 193 
 
 Independence 306 
 
 dedaiaticnof 4:^5 
 
 India 3~o 
 
 princes of :\i4 
 
 Indians r-.:, ^S^ 
 
 Industry 55- 
 
 Inheritance 6" 
 
 cases of 5". 59 
 
 innocent II. 103 
 
 Inspiring occasions — is", 412 
 
 ImsiifiUis i.y (.Vjj-.-rj- 140 
 
 Interpretation, mysrical — 193 
 
 in:u;tion 2-1 
 
 In\-ect!ve 117, lexj, 16S, 
 
 1 _>, 3"3* 3'^' 3 "* i' 33^* 3^5 
 
 Inventicu 41, loa, iio^ 2~j; 
 
 Ireland, learning in — 179, 200 
 
 Irony 35:1 
 
 Imeiex-ancies 343 
 
 Is»us 4a 3;. 36, 3~, 3^ 
 
 30, 62, ro, S3, 139 
 
 Isaiah 336 
 
 Isidore 1-7 
 
 Islam 191 
 
 Isocrates 42,44 
 
 Cicero, on 43 
 
 Socrates, on 62; 68, S2, 
 
 no, 13a i~3 
 
 Issues,livinc 416 
 
 Italy 309, 212. 214, 213 
 
 Ithuriel 3S2 
 
 I>-o of Qiaxties 193 
 
INDEX. 
 
 429 
 
 Jacobins 247 
 
 Jarrow 181 
 
 Jay, John 321 
 
 Jeffrey 292 
 
 Jerusalem 190, 191, 192 
 
 Jest 124 
 
 Jester 201 
 
 Job, speeches in book of-. 28 
 
 John of Antioch iS3-sq. 
 
 John of Damascus 177 
 
 John, King of England—- 280 
 
 Johnson, Samuel 285 
 
 Johnston, Governor 286 
 
 Journalism 411 
 
 Journalist 244, 401 
 
 Judaism 147 
 
 Judgment of posterity-3S5, 400 
 
 Judges - 345 
 
 Julianas 137 
 
 Juries, addresses to 341, 342 
 
 Jiirisprudence 93 
 
 heroic ageof 340 
 
 Jurist— - 371 
 
 K 
 
 Kaiserberg 219 
 
 Kansas-Nebraslia bill 385 
 
 Kempis, Thomas k ig8 
 
 Kenedy, Abbot 227 
 
 Kent, Chancellor 377 
 
 Kentucky senator 366 
 
 Knights Templars 193 
 
 Arthur's 378 
 
 Knox, John 226 
 
 Labor 124 
 
 Lafayette 2S9-sq. 
 
 Lamech's defence — 28 
 
 Lanjeunais _ 189 
 
 Language, English 338,339 341 
 
 French 228, 229 
 
 Greek 104, 105, 119, 161 
 
 Latin. — 92,95, 103, 113, 
 
 155, 162, 210, 214 
 
 abusive 67 
 
 plain 341 
 
 strong 300 
 
 Languedoc - 196 
 
 Latimer-- 223-sq. 
 
 Latin poets 277 
 
 literature 180 
 
 race -_ 93 
 
 Law igo, 285 
 
 and politics 313, 327, 
 
 346, 364 
 
 skill in — . 342 
 
 Leaders 394, 395 
 
 Learning, in Britain-. 178, 180 
 
 Greek— - 180 
 
 pagan - — 204 
 
 stagnation of .189,223, 
 
 361, 394 
 Leo the Great-171-sq., 174, 177 
 Leonidas' supposed speech 134 
 
 Lethe 378 
 
 Letters, decline of 179 
 
 Liberty, Greek 34,48, 107 
 
 and oratory 208, 299, 403 
 
 Liege 192, 194 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham-279, 353, 414 
 
 Lindisfarne 181 
 
 Litchfield, Conn 332 
 
 Literature, Christian 164 
 
 classical 156 
 
 English .305, 339 
 
 French 228 
 
 Greek 95, 115, 146, igo 
 
 Roman 179 
 
430 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 of oratory 240, 288, 370 
 
 Liutprand 376 
 
 Liverpool, Beecher in 404 
 
 Livingston, Robert 321 
 
 Livy- 147, 249, 376 
 
 Logic-82, 83, 220, 233, 234, 
 278, 28s, 330, 333, 334, 
 
 346, 369. 386. 394, 398 
 
 Logographers 50-sq. 
 
 Longinus - 76, 123 
 
 Lorenzo de Medici 210, 214 
 
 Lottery system 256 
 
 Louis XIV 167 
 
 age of 229, 233, 236 
 
 Louis of Granada 199 
 
 Louvet 248 
 
 Lovejoy, E. P. 391, 392 
 
 Low countries 204 
 
 Lowell, J. R. 410 
 
 Loyalty, colonial 304, 314 
 
 Lucian 146 
 
 Lucidity 330 
 
 Lucretius 181 
 
 Luther, Martin--- 162, 194, 
 
 219, 222, 223-sq. 
 
 Luxury 208 
 
 Lyceum, Boston 376 
 
 lecture 371, 372, 394, 414 
 
 Lycurgus, character of 65 
 
 style 64,65 
 
 Lysias 43 
 
 style 44 
 
 orations- - 44, 49-sq., 106, 175 
 
 M 
 
 Mabinogion, the 378 
 
 Macbeth 351 
 
 Madison, James 321 
 
 Magnetism, personal-- 150, 
 
 167, 174, 196, 252, 313, 362 
 
 Maine 329 
 
 Malherbe '.— 11Z 
 
 Malte-Brun 376 
 
 Mansfield 277, 278, 279, 
 
 283,297, 378 
 
 Manuel 258 
 
 Macaulay 268,285, 292 
 
 Marat - 248 
 
 Marchant 204 
 
 Marcion 163 
 
 Mariano 210 
 
 Marlowe 55 
 
 Mary of Guise 226,227 
 
 Mason, Jeremiah 340 
 
 Massillon 167, 229, 237, 
 
 238, 239, 240 
 Massachusetts-- -349, 352, 
 
 366, 369, 373, 385, 395 
 Mausolus, panegyric of,27, 46 
 
 Mavilus - 164 
 
 McLeod case 367 
 
 Medici, Lorenzo de 210 
 
 Melancthon 218, 222 
 
 Memory -141,361, 370 
 
 Menot, Michael 200 
 
 Metaphors 74 
 
 Metellus, Quintus 96 
 
 Method 301 
 
 Methods, literary 151, 330 
 
 Mexican war 375, 377 
 
 Middle Ages 177 
 
 Milan 169,174, 194 
 
 Millennial year 187, 189 
 
 Military oratory 25, 249 
 
 Miltiades 33 
 
 Milton - .34, 49, 285, 378 
 
 Mirabeau-243-sq., 246, 248, 
 
 257. 293 
 
 "Mob in broadcloth," 390 
 
 Moderation 260 
 
INDEX. 
 
 431 
 
 Modesty, Demosthenes' -- 
 
 124, 352 
 
 Mohammedan cities 189 
 
 Monasticism 177, 219 
 
 Montaigne 228, 378 
 
 Montesquieu 376 
 
 Moliere .. 376 
 
 Moral element in oratory 
 
 68,70, 72 
 
 Mortality 206 
 
 Moses, poet, prophet — 
 
 speaker 28 
 
 Moslem igo 
 
 Motley 389 
 
 Movement 126, 271, 389 
 
 Muratori 376 
 
 Mystery plays 190 
 
 Mysticism 170 
 
 Mythology 375 
 
 N 
 
 Nsevius 94, 95 
 
 Napoleon 249, 252, 258, 282 
 
 Naples 282 
 
 Narration 37.43. S6 
 
 Nature and art 125 
 
 improved by study 62 
 
 Natural gifts 67,68, 330 
 
 Naturalness 54, 78 
 
 Nerva 135 
 
 New Hampshire 339, 364 
 
 New York City -- 396 
 
 Nicaea- 13S, 149. "SS. '59 
 
 Niebuhr 96 
 
 North American Review- 358 
 
 North, Lord 286, 298, 299 
 
 Northumbria 180 
 
 Nullification 325. 3^2 
 
 Occasion, power of. 75, 8g, 358 
 
 O'Connell -127, 292 
 
 " Old man eloquent,' 49 
 
 Olympic festival, oratory 
 
 at 44. 49 
 
 Opposition, the— 315, 334, 
 
 353.392, 399 
 
 Optimism 363 
 
 Orations, classic— -- 399 
 
 commemorative,36o, 377, 410 
 
 crown, on the 75 
 
 making orations flat 90 
 
 aggressive 395 
 
 Orators, comparison of 431 
 
 compared to statues 256 
 
 defined 112, 131, 300 
 
 greater, the 414 
 
 living 414 
 
 natural 312 
 
 obscure 73 
 
 press and orators. . -401, 402 
 
 qualifications of 87, iii 
 
 rhetoricians and 42 
 
 self-educated 67 
 
 their times, and 98, 192 
 
 American 304-sq., 324 
 
 English 128, 129, 358 
 
 French 228-sq. 
 
 Greek-32, 33, 48, 90, 106, 
 
 160, 363 
 
 Irish 290 
 
 Roman 91, 144 
 
 Oratorical art 363, 364 
 
 formative influences 381 
 
 methods 319 
 
 power 107, 173, 192, 397 
 
 purpose 389 
 
 studies 339 
 
 rules . 213 
 
432 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Styles 240 
 
 training — 140, 143, 298 
 
 Oratory, adroit 256 
 
 beginnings of 33 
 
 Christianity and 147 
 
 colonial, 304-sq., 323 
 
 commanding 260 
 
 congressional 323-sq. 
 
 deliberative 64, 86, 
 
 242-sq., 323-sq. 
 
 demonstrative 359 
 
 despotism and 34, 133 
 
 drama in 26, 27 
 
 early Christian 147 
 
 eccentric -igg-sq. 
 
 effective 105, 327 
 
 emotional 250, 345 
 
 erratic 241 
 
 evolved from laudation- 22 
 
 forcible 253 
 
 forensic in Sicily-30-sq., 
 
 64. 133. 366, 368, 371 
 
 future of 416 
 
 gentle 98 
 
 Hebrew 29 
 
 history in 23-sq. 
 
 impassioned 190, 311 
 
 impetuous 246, 256 
 
 Institutes of - 138 
 
 liberty and 34, 133 
 
 literature in 376 
 
 military---24, 93, 94, 249-sq. 
 
 natural —50, 51,62, 94 
 
 occasional-356, 363, 371, 
 
 374. 413 
 
 parliamentary 265-sq. 
 
 patristic, Greek 148-sq. 
 
 patristic, Latin i6i-sq. 
 
 poetry in early 23 
 
 political 64 
 
 plain 172, 181 
 
 practical 37 
 
 practice of 41 
 
 preferment and-3[ I, 313, 416 
 
 primeval 27,29, 38 
 
 retrospective 134 
 
 revival of ! — 415 
 
 rewards of 136 
 
 rude 192 
 
 sacred 176, 177, 178 
 
 sensible 254 
 
 scholastic 134, 386 
 
 showy 105 
 
 southern 312 
 
 treatment, historical-S, 6, 22 
 
 unique 247 
 
 vigorous 98 
 
 Origen 230 
 
 Originality, age of-gi, 223, 344 
 
 Ornamentation 135 
 
 Orpheus ^- 261 
 
 Osorius, John 204 
 
 Otis, Harrison Gray — 321, 340 
 
 Otis, James 282,309-sq., 392 
 
 Ovid 147 
 
 Oxford University 268, 298 
 
 P 
 
 Paganism 208 
 
 Palestine 195 
 
 PanathencUcus 48 
 
 Panegyric 118,136, 164 
 
 Papacy 193, 211 
 
 Parker, Theodore 407 
 
 Parliament — 281,287,304, 305 
 Parliamentaryoratory,265, 267 
 
 " Parson's case, the," 313 
 
 Parsons, Theophilus 340 
 
 Parthenon, the 159 
 
 Party favor—— 367 
 
INDEX. 
 
 433 
 
 Pascal 229, 378 
 
 Paterculus, Velleius 49 
 
 Pathos 67, 68, 76, loi 
 
 Patriotism 363 
 
 Patristic age 158 
 
 Patristic oratory 148-188 
 
 Paulus- 147 
 
 Paulinus' preaching.- 178 
 
 Paul's cross, sermon at 224 
 
 Pegasus 200 
 
 Pennsylvania 332 
 
 Pere de Neuville 231 
 
 Periclean age 32, 33 
 
 Pericles-26, 29, 33, 60, 62, 
 
 72. 1 59 
 
 Peripatetic school 33 
 
 Peroration-37, 70, IIS, 254. 345 
 379. 407 
 
 Persecution 148 
 
 Persia 71 
 
 Personalities 350 
 
 Personality 215, 354, 399 
 
 Personification 106 
 
 Perspicuity 80 
 
 Persuasion-- J- 56, 125, 129, 
 
 271, 412 
 Peter the Hermit- 175, 190, 
 
 192, 193, 19s, 213, 216 
 
 Peter of Leon 193 
 
 Petition of Right i68 
 
 Pevensey 67 
 
 Phcedrus of Plato, the 44 
 
 Phi Beta Kappa orations- 
 
 358. 377 
 
 Philip of Macedon 128 
 
 Philip of Nami 199 
 
 Philip of Neri 175 
 
 Philippics 117 
 
 Phillips, Wendell— 389-sq., 
 
 409, 410 
 
 Philo the Academic 108 
 
 Philosophical mind 289 
 
 Philosophy-- 113, igo, 209, 370 
 
 Phlegethon 378 
 
 Pickering, Timothy 377 
 
 Pinckney, Charles 321 
 
 Pindar 30, 33 
 
 Pisa 194 
 
 Pisistratus 33 
 
 Pitt, William, Lord Chat- 
 ham- -266, 268-sq., 277, 
 
 291. 293 
 
 Plan -74, 117, 125, 238 
 
 Plato 21, 31, 33, 44, 79, 
 
 81, 82, 92, 376 
 
 Platonism 113 
 
 Plato's Academy 33 
 
 Plemyrium 36 
 
 Pliny the Younger 378 
 
 Plumer, William 340 
 
 Plutarch -53.96. 376 
 
 Poetry 30, 93 
 
 Points, essential 343 
 
 Poland 301 
 
 Polemarchus 42 
 
 Political education 360 
 
 Political and academic ele- 
 ments 402 
 
 Politician 45, 396 
 
 Politics 367, 376 
 
 Politics and religion 226 
 
 PoUio 134 
 
 Polycrates 54 
 
 Pope — 339 
 
 Portsmouth bar 341 
 
 Power, personal 405 
 
 in reserve 406 
 
 Preachers 177, 201 
 
 of crusades i8g 
 
 early 146-sq. 
 
434 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 eccentric . 
 French — 
 mediaeval - 
 plain 
 
 -199-sq- 
 -228-sq. 
 
 — 177 
 201 
 
 university 179 
 
 Preaching, bold 165, 168 
 
 effective 216 
 
 expository 204, 213 
 
 long 205 
 
 mission 204 
 
 mystical 204 
 
 open air 224, 226 
 
 plain 202, 219 
 
 realistic 204 
 
 topical 204 
 
 sensational 200 
 
 Preeminence in speaking. 
 
 270, 284, 294, 315 
 
 Premeditation 224 
 
 Preparation- -loi, 263, 313, 
 
 318, 319, 412 
 
 Precision 52 
 
 Precocity 298 
 
 Presence, personal 68, 331 
 
 Presentation, variety of — 118 
 Presidents and officials 
 
 from the South 382 
 
 Press, the, and oratory-53, 
 
 255, 256, 401 
 
 freedomof 391 
 
 Priests, hedge 200 
 
 Principles, general 82, 88 
 
 fiveof Corax 36, 39 
 
 Private causes 57 
 
 Probable, the doctrine of- 40 
 Proclamation, emancipa- 
 tion 325, 406 
 
 Proem 37 
 
 Proof 43, 84, 85, 117, 271 
 
 Prophecy ,— . 407 
 
 Prophets, Hebrew 223, 376 
 
 political— 211, 307, 317, 325 
 
 of evil 3^ 
 
 Proposition 288, 371 
 
 Prose, among Romans — 93 
 
 poetic 132 
 
 Prosper of Aquitaine 177 
 
 Prosperity 363 
 
 Proserpine 95 
 
 Protagoras "108 
 
 Protest 385, 386 
 
 Protestants 207 
 
 Providence Gazette 307 
 
 Proxy, arguing by 49 
 
 Prussia 301 
 
 Pulpit 172,174, 178 
 
 Purpose, singleness of 
 
 123, 125, 363 
 
 Pygmalion 175 
 
 Pyrrhus ^ 
 
 Quebec 267 
 
 Quincy, Josiah— 321, 374, 392 
 Quintilian, rhetorician.. 137-sq, 
 
 his place 139 
 
 purpose 139 
 
 criticisms 113,141, 145 
 
 follows Aristotle 140 
 
 knowledge of rhetoric — 143 
 
 on Cicero 122, 139 
 
 on Latin writers 119, 136 
 
 on orators 145, 147, 238 
 
 Quotations inadequate to 
 
 represent an orator, 
 
 151 and passim. 
 
 R 
 
 Rabanus 178^ 189 
 
 sermon 184 
 
 Rabble 403, 404 
 
INDEX. 
 
 435 
 
 Rabelais 238, 378 
 
 Radicals 381 
 
 Raillery 118, 293 
 
 Raleigh 34 
 
 Randolph, John 333, 325 
 
 Edmund 321 
 
 Ratramn 178 
 
 Raulin, John 201 
 
 Reading 140, 348 
 
 Reasonableness 413 
 
 Reasoning 25, 56, 343, 353 
 
 Redtutio adabsurdum 353 
 
 Redundancy 126 
 
 Reformation 207, 218, 
 
 221, 223, 417 
 
 in England 218, 222, 223 
 
 Reibaz 244 
 
 Refinements, scholastic— - 220 
 Repetition 301 
 
 of history 415 
 
 Reputation -^ — 292 
 
 Reporting 320 
 
 Republics 247, 322 
 
 Restoration, orators of 253 
 
 Resources, dep endence up- 
 on 43, 45, 70 
 
 Restraint 76, 99 
 
 Retrospect 416 
 
 Revere.Paul 389 
 
 Revision, Plato's- -79; 230, 272 
 Revolution, American-288, 
 
 389. 395 
 
 Revolutionary heroes 351 
 
 Rhetoric, Aristotle's-82, 83, 88 
 
 art of 5, 109 
 
 definitions of 47, 84 
 
 importance of 139 
 
 kinds of 42 
 
 philosophy of 5, 90 
 
 place of 84,136, 177 
 
 precept of 23 
 
 primer of 36 
 
 professors of, ancient 
 41-sq., 78-sq., 104-sq., 
 
 165, 168, 169, 369 
 
 rules of 41,83, 117 
 
 schools of loi 
 
 science of 5, 37, 125, 137 
 
 scope of 144 
 
 theoretical 97 
 
 Rhetorical instruction 138 
 
 methods 190 
 
 study 108, 138, 145, 169 
 
 systems 84, 94 
 
 Rhetoricians of Asia, 108 
 
 professional 137, 361, 
 
 363, 369 
 
 Rhine, the 191, 220 
 
 Rhodes 100,105, io7 
 
 Rhythm 59, 67, 206, 238 
 
 Ridicule 123 
 
 Ridley 226 
 
 Rights, citizen's 395 
 
 Rivals, The 291 
 
 Robespierre 248 
 
 Roger of Sicily 194 
 
 Roland 248 
 
 Roman empire 177 
 
 literature 91 
 
 orators, see "Orators," 
 
 Romancers igo 
 
 Rome- 148, 169, 171, 173, 
 174, 175. 181, 194. 199. 
 
 205, 417 
 
 Rude diction 93, 94 
 
 Rufus, Rutilius 97 
 
 Rugged style 103 
 
 Rules 117 
 
 Russia 301 
 
 Rutledge, John 321 
 
436 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 S 
 
 Sacerdotalism -- 220 
 
 Sceculum obscurum 187 
 
 St. Aurelian, church of 222 
 
 St. Bartholomew massacre 227 
 
 St. Helena --- 253 
 
 St. George 382 
 
 St. Paul... 128-sq. 
 
 Saracen 417 
 
 Sarcasm 66, 195, 324 
 
 Satan 417 
 
 Satire 95 
 
 Saturn 248 
 
 Saville, Sir George 286 
 
 Savonarola. 17s, I95, 199, 
 208, 211, 213, 214, 215, 
 
 289-sq., 417 
 
 Saxon school at Rome 180 
 
 Scaevola 100 
 
 Scapula 164 
 
 Scholasticism 170, 189 
 
 Schools of Charlemagne.- 187 
 
 of Isocrates 106 
 
 Peripatetic 104 
 
 Rhetorical. 107, 127, 139, 365 
 
 Rhodian 104, 105 
 
 Boston, Latin 374, 389 
 
 New England 364 
 
 Scholar^the 358 
 
 American 402 
 
 Scotland 226, 268 
 
 Scott, Walter 38 
 
 Scotus, John 178, 193 
 
 Scipio Africanus Major 
 
 96, 99 
 Scipio Africanus Minor.97, 98 
 
 Scriptures, Holy 182, 336 
 
 Scythian tribes 93 
 
 Sects and divisions 152 
 
 Seclusion 208 
 
 Secundus 136, 142 
 
 Sedulius 181 
 
 Self-possession — 293, 391, 
 
 396, 397 
 
 Self-complacency 130 
 
 Self-confidence 380 
 
 Seneca 14, 135 
 
 Seneca the elder 139 
 
 Senate of U. S 328 
 
 Sentences, short and long 
 142, 186, 346, 358, 370, 371 
 
 Serenity 259 
 
 Sermons 183, 186, 383 
 
 before Louis XIV 235 
 
 eccentric 199-sq. 
 
 funeral 232 
 
 long 205 
 
 powerful 215 
 
 thoughtful 201, 202, 203 
 
 to fishes 198 
 
 Servius Sulpicius 141 
 
 Sevign^, Madame de 376 
 
 Seward, W.H -- 382 
 
 Shakespeare 38, 55, 88, 
 
 175, 244, 265 
 Sheridan-290-sq., 292, 293, 
 
 294, 297 
 
 Shrewdness 293 
 
 Simile 204 
 
 Sincerity 63 
 
 in an orator. 130, 192, 207, 
 
 214, 329 
 
 Sibylline books 200 
 
 Sicily 30, 34, 134 
 
 courts in 36,37, 40 
 
 literary resort 35 
 
 rhetoric in 68 
 
 Sismondi 376 
 
 Sixtus, pope 211 
 
 Slavery 377, 379,381, 384 
 
INDEX. 
 
 437 
 
 Slave trade 379 
 
 Smith, Adam 298 
 
 Sobriety -. 102 
 
 Socrates 21, 33 
 
 on Isocrates 44 
 
 Solidity, logical 334 
 
 Solon 33, 112 
 
 Sophists 26, 59, 68 
 
 Sophocles 33 
 
 Sophron 300 
 
 South Carolina- --332, 348, 
 
 349. 351. 352 
 
 Southern party- 382 
 
 Spain, teachers of rhetoric 
 
 138, 139, 199 
 Speaking, public, labor 
 
 of- 144 
 
 Speech, first words of 102 
 
 severe 162 
 
 sonorous - 123 
 
 reflection of character.- 25 
 
 writers -— - 39-sq. 
 
 writing 49, 244 
 
 Speeches, frequent 316 
 
 long 310, 316, 382 
 
 plain 240 
 
 short 393 
 
 interesting 263 
 
 Spencer, Herbert 28, 341 
 
 Spenser, Edmund 92 
 
 Stage Instruction 67, 213 
 
 Stamp Act 284 
 
 Standards of eloquence--- 
 
 242, 363 
 
 Stanhope, Earl of 268 
 
 Statement -330, 341, 352 
 
 Statesmanship 93, 333, 347 
 
 States rights 323, 348 
 
 Stephen of Paris 193 
 
 Story, Joseph .—345. 347. 377 
 
 Strafford, Earl of 268 
 
 Strength —244, 364 
 
 Studies, elective 298 
 
 Style 68,96, 221, 230 
 
 abrupt 90 
 
 adaptive 232 
 
 ancient and modern 136 
 
 Asiatic 102, 104, 105, 
 
 29s, 417 
 Attic--io4, 105, 106, 109, 
 
 115, H9, 417 
 
 beauty of 67 
 
 brilliant 263 
 
 careful - 102 
 
 clear -- 10, 53, 231, 341 
 
 colloquial- -226, 300, 342, 411 
 
 concise 126, 127, 128, 129 
 
 conversational 259, 263 
 
 dignified 371 
 
 diversified 96, 106 
 
 earnest 52 
 
 easy 271 
 
 energetic 311 
 
 English 361 
 
 epigrammatic 253 
 
 exuberant 366 
 
 fervid 366 
 
 figurative 125 
 
 finished 132 
 
 flexible - 118 
 
 florid 339 
 
 flowing 129, 136 
 
 forensic 61 
 
 forcible 174 
 
 free -loo, 330 
 
 French _. 263 
 
 Greek and Roman-- 125, 346 
 
 grand 43 
 
 grotesque 417 
 
 inflated 339 
 
438 
 
 -3nk3l.3S.» 
 
 SoasoiBl pieoes 
 
 Sdiject and object 
 
 Saocess and bSne 
 
 as 
 
 3M» 
 
 43 
 4iS 
 
 SidpiciiE— r-^RXv III. 114 
 
 Samner. Oudes^STS^q, 
 
 374. 3f^ 3^ 
 
 Sumter Foil ^ j^ 
 
 Smribty- ..- 184 
 
 Si^astitian, i8s 
 
 Syimis 43 
 
 SfadiaGsni l8y 
 
 SyimiMflws 116 
 
 Synipadtjr — -^ 333, 3piK 
 
 ^^ 3S» 3^ 37S 
 
 .30^311 
 
 3*» 
 Teadei^AelKsflatfiBU Mf 
 
 Thiasfbrtos 35>3t^ 39 
 
 Tkias^madws 54 
 
INDEX. 
 
 439 
 
 Thucydides, impute d — 
 speeches-24, 25, 26,33, 38 
 
 his frankness 38 
 
 on Pericles-24, 26, 29,60, 
 
 62, 68, 94, 156, 230, 249 
 
 Thurii ... 42 
 
 Tiberius, Caesar 134 
 
 Ticknor, George 374 
 
 Timoleon 1 36 
 
 Tisias 42 
 
 Town meeting 306 
 
 Townsend, Lord John 286 
 
 Trachalus 141 
 
 Training, oratorical 298 
 
 Trajan 93, 136, 164 
 
 Transition, orators of a- 
 
 27.97 
 Treves 174 
 
 Trivium and Quadrivium 177 
 
 Tudor, Mary 226 
 
 Tusculum 95 
 
 Tyranny 242 
 
 Tyrants, the thirty 42 
 
 Tyrian colonies 284 
 
 U 
 
 Ulysses' bow 174 
 
 Uncompromising speech-- 394 
 Unconsciousness, sublime 387 
 Unfavorable conditions — 415 
 
 Union, the 349, 364 
 
 Uniformity 418 
 
 Unity in composition 418 
 
 University, Cambridge — 222 
 
 of New York 412 
 
 Oxford 268, 298 
 
 Universities 190, 219 
 
 and oratory 415 
 
 Uproar 404, 405 
 
 "Upsetters, The," 169 
 
 Vagueness of thought 341 
 
 Valentinian 167 
 
 Valerius Maximus 378 
 
 Valley of Wormwood 193 
 
 Vandals 171 
 
 Varennes 248 
 
 Variety 199.398, 4i8 
 
 Vattel 376 
 
 Vergniaud 247 
 
 Variety in discourse- --75, 
 
 149, 204, 255, 418 
 Vehemence- --94, 123, 135, 245 
 
 Veneration for past 360 
 
 Venice 205 
 
 Verbosity 121, 127, 128 
 
 Versailles 235 
 
 Versatility— -23s, 264, 271, 320 
 
 Vespasian 108, 138 
 
 Vesuvius 398 
 
 Vexilla Regis 188 
 
 Views, broad 347 
 
 Vigor 93, 119, 219, 365 
 
 Villehardouin 228 
 
 Vincent of Lerins 177 
 
 Vincent de Paul 379 
 
 Viret 222 
 
 Virgil 93, 171, 181, 219, 376 
 
 Virginia 281, 315, 316 
 
 Vision, singleness of 380 
 
 Visions and dreams — 190, 
 
 191, 211 
 
 Vitry, Jaques de--- 417 
 
 Voice- --45, 67, 68, 99, 166, 
 220, 232, 268, 270, 320, 
 324, 326, 331, 358, 362, 
 369. 391. 397. 412, 415 
 
440 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 W 
 
 Wags, pnlpit 202 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert— 268, 
 
 269, 2g7 
 
 War 377 
 
 Washington, George— 260, 
 
 321. 352. 395. 410 
 
 eulogy on 311 
 
 Watts, Isaac 3315 
 
 Wave law of revival and 
 
 decline 415 
 
 Wealth 69 
 
 Wearmonth Abbey 178 
 
 Webster, Daniel- -267, 325, 
 334, 336-sq, 356, 362, 
 
 364, 383. 390. 393 
 
 Webster, Ebenezer 340 
 
 Weed, Thurlow 405 
 
 Wesley2ui University 402 
 
 Westminster Hall 294, 295 
 
 scmtiny, speech on 302 
 
 Whig party 2gc», 379, 381 
 
 William of Normandy 67 
 
 William of Tyre igo 
 
 Windom, allnsion to ice 
 
 Winfrid 182 
 
 Winthrop, ROsezt C 374 
 
 Wirt, William — 365 
 
 Wit 78 
 
 Attic X46 
 
 Celtic 66, 68, g6, 123, 
 
 224, 256, 260, 293, 295, 
 
 351, 361, 364 
 Women, troublesome-- 157, 
 
 185, 202 
 
 Words, archaic .1 65 
 
 exact 362 
 
 desperate 388 
 
 common 74, 76, 341 
 
 single 76 
 
 strong 358 
 
 Writers, obscure 80 
 
 Writing 7g, 221 
 
 X 
 Xenophon 33, 81, 92 
 
 Y 
 Yale CoUege 1, 332 
 
 Z 
 
 Zama, battle of 96 
 
 Zoroaster 152 
 
 Zwingli : 218, 222