sink into insignificance when man speaks to man. The orator penetrates to the equality of humanity. It is in the equality of our common nature that a common purpose originates. He alone who penetrates there inspires unanimity. It is when the multitude are of one opinion that the orator's power is revealed; that is the seal that nature stamps upon his genius.

It is said that one day when Massillon was preaching upon the Passion before Louis XIV. and all the court, he so affected his hearers that everybody was in tears, except a citizen, who appeared as indifferent to what he heard as to what he saw. One of his neighbors, surprised at such insensibility, reproached him for it, and said to him, "How can you refrain from weeping, while we are all bathed in tears?" "That is not astonishing," answered the citizen, “I am not of this parish." The eloquence which I have endeavored to describe would have included this man also in the general weeping. To say that a touch of nature makes the whole world kin, is only another way of saying, That "man is related to all nature." Eloquence discovers this relation. In the first remark, Shakspeare gives the effect, of which, in the second remark, Emerson has assigned the cause.

With respect to passion, to which much importance has been assigned, it will be useful to remark, that though we must admit, with Lord Kames, that the plainest man animated with passion affects us more than the greatest speaker without it, we must keep in view that the only passion tolerated among us is the passion of conviction.* All the rest is, to Englishmen, rant. The passion of conviction is modest, manly, and earnest.

*See Note I, page 176.

CHAPTER XV.

PREMEDITATION.

THERE is every reason to believe that the greatest masters of oratory have been most sensible of the value of, and have most practiced premeditation. It is only the young would-be speaker who expects to be great without effort, or whose vanity leads him to impose upon others the belief that he is so, who affects to despise the toil of preparation. One of the biographers of Canning tells us that it is remarkable that, with his broad sense of great faculties in others, he was himself fastidious to excess about the slightest turns of expression. He would correct his speeches and amend their verbal graces till he nearly polished out the original spirit. He was not singular in this. Burke, whom he is said to have closely studied, did the Sheridan always prepared his speeches; the highly-wrought passages in the speech on Hastings's impeachment were written beforehand and committed to memory; and the differences were so marked that the audience could readily distinguish between the extemporaneous passages and those that were premeditated. Mr. Canning's alterations were frequently so minute and extensive that the printers found it easier to recompose the matter afresh in type than to correct it. This difficulty of choice in diction sometimes springs from l'embarras des richesses, but oftener from poverty of resources, and generally indicates a class of intellect which is more occupied with costume than ideas. But here are three instances which set all popular notions of verbal fastidiousness by the

same.

ears; for certainly Burke, Canning, and Sheridan were men of capacious talents; and two of them at least present extraordinary samples of imagination and practical judgment, running together neck and neck in the race of life to the very goal.

We owe the low state of oratory in this country, to a great extent, to the false contempt for "cut and dried speeches," till it has come to be considered a sign of weakness for a man to think before he speaks. Archbishop Whately has wisely cautioned young preachers against concluding that because the apostles spake well without premeditation, that others will speak so, unless, like the apostles, they are specially inspired.* Perhaps, although we use the term, we never have had oratory in England. There is an essential difference between oratory and debating; oratory seems an accomplishment confined to the ancients, unless the French preachers may put in their claim, and some of the Irish lawyers. Mr. Shiel's speech in Kent was a fine oration; and the boobies who taunted. him with having got it by rote were not aware that in doing so he only wisely followed the example of Pericles, Demosthenes, Lycias, Isocrates, Hortensius, Cicero, Cesar, and every great orator of antiquity.t

It has been said by a popular writer that Demosthenes not only prompts to vigorous measures, but teaches how they are to be carried into execution. His orations are strongly animated, and full of the impetuosity and ardor of public spirit. His composition is not distinguished by ornament and splendor. It is an energy of thought, peculiarly his own, which forms his character and raises him above his species. He appears not to attend to *See Note J, page 177. "Young Duke," by B. D'Israeli.

words, but to things. We forget the orator and think of the subject. He has no parade and ostentation, no studied introduction; but is like a man full of his subject, who, after preparing his audience by a sentence or two for the reception of plain truths, enters directly on business.

Blair should have said Demosthenes had no elaborate exordiums. They were "studied," as is proved by their pertinency and fitness. Demades says that Demosthenes spoke better on some few occasions when he spoke unpremeditatedly.* Probably he spoke well in some of these instances, but it was the result of power acquired by premeditation. As a general rule, he who thinks twice before speaking once will speak twice the better for it.

When Macaulay was about to address the House of Commons, his anxious and restless manner betrayed his intention. Still he was regardless of the laugh of the witlings, and continued intent on his effort. This is the real courage that does things well; the courage that is neither laughed nor frowned from its purpose. Macaulay spoke early in the evening, before the jarring of the debate confused him or long attention enfeebled his powers. Only the ignorant despise attention to minute details. When the great Lord Chatham was to appear in public he took much pains about his dress, and latterly he arranged his flannels in graceful folds. It need not then detract from our respect for Erskine, that on all occasions he desired. to look smart, and that when he went down into the country on special retainers, he anxiously had recourse to all manner of innocent little artifices to aid his purpose. He examined the court the night before

*See Note K, page 179.

the trial, in order to select the most advantageous place for addressing the jury. On the cause being called, the crowded audience were perhaps kept waiting a few minutes before the celebrated stranger made his appearance; and when at length he gratified their impatient curiosity, a particularly nice wig and a pair of new yellow gloves distinguished and embellished his person beyond the ordinary costume of the barrister of the circuit.*

Amid the applause in this chapter bestowed upon premeditation, it would not be just to omit the ridicule with which it has been visited by the Rev. Sidney Smith: "It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind can be very powerfully affected. What can be more ludicrous than an orator delivering stale indignation and fervor of a week old? turning over whole pages of violent passions, written out in German text; reading the tropes and apostrophes into which he is hurried by the ardor of his mind, and so affected at a preconcerted line and page that he is unable to proceed any further?" True, "it is only by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind can be very powerfully affected." But nature is always fresh, and he who reproduces nature will always affect. Macready never stabbed his daughter to preserve her honor; yet every man is moved at his Virginius. As Othello, Macready's "indignation" at Iago is thirty years old, yet we are as much affected by its intensity as on the first day when he displayed it. The speech of Antony over the dead body of Cesar was written in German text" in the days of Elizabeth; it was "cut and dried" two hundred years ago; yet, whatever our satirical canon may

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*Campbell's Lives of the Chapcelors.