Читать книгу Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 68, No 422, December 1850 - Various - Страница 7

Eloquence, in its highest flights, is beyond all question the greatest exertion of the human mind. It requires for its conception a combination of the most exalted faculties; for its execution, a union of the most extraordinary powers. Unite in thought the most varied and dissimilar faculties of the soul – strength of understanding with brilliancy of imagination; fire of conception with solidity of judgment; a retentive memory with an enthusiastic fancy; the warmth of poetry with the coldness of prose; an eye for the beauties of nature with a command of the realities of life; a mind stored with facts and a heart teeming with impressions – and you will form the elements from which the most powerful style of oratory is to be created. But this is not all. Physical powers, if not essential, are at least a great addition to the mental qualities required for its success. The orator must have at once the lengthened thought which is requisite for a prolonged argument, and the ready wit which can turn to the best advantage any incident which may occur in the course of its delivery. More than all is required the fixity of purpose, the energy in effort, the commanding turn, which, as it is the most valuable and important faculty of the mind, so it is the one most rarely to be met with in any walk of life, and least of all in combination with the brilliant and imaginative qualities, which are the very soul of every art which is to subdue or captivate mankind.

It is not surprising that the art of the orator should require, for its highest flights, so rare a combination of qualities, for of all the efforts of the human mind it is the most astonishing in its nature, and the most transcendent in its immediate triumphs. The wisdom of the philosopher, the eloquence of the historian, the sagacity of the statesman, the capacity of the general, may produce more lasting effects upon human affairs; but they are incomparably less rapid in their influence, and less intoxicating from the ascendency they confer. In the solitude of his library the sage meditates on the truths which are to influence the thoughts and direct the conduct of men in future times; amidst the strife of faction the legislator discerns the measures calculated, after a long course of years, to alleviate existing evils or produce happiness yet unborn; during long and wearisome campaigns the commander throws his shield over the fortunes of his country, and prepares in silence and amidst obloquy the means of maintaining its independence. But the triumphs of the orator are immediate; his influence is instantly felt: his, and his alone, it is

To stand up before a vast assembly composed of men of various passions, habits, and prepossessions; to conciliate their feelings by the art, and carry away their judgment by the eloquence, of the orator; to see every gaze at length turned on his countenance, and every ear intent on the words which drop from his lips; to see indifference turn into excitement, and aversion melt away amidst enthusiasm; to hear thunders of applause at the close of every sentence, and behold the fire of enthusiasm kindled in every eye, as each successive idea is brought forth; and to think that all this is the creation of the moment, and has sprung extempore from the ardour of his conceptions, and the inspiration they have derived from what passes around him, is perhaps the greatest triumph of the human mind, and that in which its divine origin and immortal destiny is most clearly revealed.

It is the magnitude of the combination requisite for its greatest efforts which renders eloquence of the loftiest kind so extremely rare among mankind. It is less frequent than the highest flights in epic or dramatic poetry. Greece produced three great tragedians, but only one Demosthenes; Cicero stands alone to sustain by his single strength the fame of Roman oratory. Antiquity could not boast of more than five or six persons who, by the common consent of their contemporaries, had attained the highest rank in forensic eloquence; it is doubtful if modern times could count as many: as many, we mean, who have attained the very highest place in this noble and difficult art; for, doubtless, in the second class, great numbers of names are to be found; and in the third their name is legion. It is not meant to be asserted that great temporary fame and influence by eloquence may not be, and often has been, acquired by persons who are deficient in many of the qualities above enumerated, as required to form a perfect orator. Without doubt, brilliancy of genius will often, for passing effect, compensate the want of solidity of judgment; and fire of imagination make us for the moment forget a squeaking voice, a diminutive figure, an ungainly countenance. No one, at times, commanded the attention of the House of Commons more entirely than the late Mr Wilberforce, and yet his stature was small, and his voice weak and painfully shrill. But great earnestness of will and brilliancy of fancy are required to compensate such defects; and we are persuaded that none will more readily admit the justice of these observations than those who have laboured under, and, by their powers, in a certain degree surmounted them.

As little is it intended to assert that vast influence may not be acquired, and unbounded celebrity for the time obtained, not merely without the cooperation of such varied and extensive qualities, but by the aid, in many cases, of the very reverse. As temporary influence, not lasting fame, is the immediate and chief end of oratory, its style must be adapted to the prevailing cast of mind, and ruling interests or passions, of the persons to whom it is addressed; and as it will share in elevation of sentiment, if that is their characteristic, so it will be deformed by vulgarity or selfishness when they are vulgar and selfish. It is a common saying, that a speaker must descend to the level of his audience, if he means to command their suffrages or enlist their passions; and we have only to look around us to see how often, in assemblies of an inferior, interested, or impassioned character, the highest celebrity and most unbounded success are attained by persons who not only have exhibited few of the qualities of a refined orator, but who had studiously concealed those which they did possess, and secretly despised in their hearts the arts to which their triumphs had been owing.4 But this is no more than is the case with all the arts which aim at influencing, or charming mankind. The theatre, the romance, poetry itself, share at times in the same degradation. It would be as unjust to stigmatise oratory as the art of sophists or declaimers, intended to seduce or deceive those who cannot see through its artifices, as it would be to reproach the stage with the vulgarity of the buffoon, or novels with the licentiousness of Aretin, or poetry with the seductions of Ovid. We must not think lightly of an art which has been ennobled by the efforts of Cicero and Burke in the most refined assemblies, because it has also led to the triumphs of O'Connell and Wilkes in the most ignorant.

To the highest triumphs of the art of oratory, that first of blessings, Civil Liberty, is indispensable. More truly of it than of the liberty of the press, it may be said, "It is our vital air: withdraw it, and we perish." Regulated freedom is essential to its success. It is hard to say whether it perishes most rapidly amidst the studied servility of courtly rhetoric, or the coarse adulations of democratic flattery; whether the atmosphere of Constantinople or that of New York is most fatal to its existence. Genius, and that of the very highest kind, may exist in despotic communities; but it is degraded by selfishness and misdirected by servility.

Where there is only one ruling power in the state – be it monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic – this corruption is equally certain, and equally unavoidable. The sonorous periods in which Fontanes celebrated the triumphs of the empire, the impassioned strains in which Robespierre eulogised the incorruptible virtue of the people, the coarse flattery with which O'Connell captivated his ignorant and excitable audiences, equally marked the approach of the period in which oratory, if such a régime continued, must die a natural death. Under such influences it necessarily perished from its own exaggeration: it ceased to be impressive, it became ridiculous. As in all the other arts which are intended to please and instruct mankind, Truth, and a regard to the limits of nature, are essential to its success. Exaggeration and hyperbole not only degrade the character of eloquence, but destroy its influence, because they induce a style of expression with which subsequent times, emancipated from passing influences, cannot sympathise – look upon as contemptible. Then, and then only, will oratory attain its highest perfection, during that period "slow to come, soon to perish," as Tacitus said of balanced freedom, during which no one interest in the state is irresistible; and truth, in assailing the vices or resisting the encroachments of others, can find a fulcrum from whence to direct its efforts. Withdraw the fulcrum – remove the support – and truth, and with it genius, will sink to rise no more.

It is surprising, however, how solicitous the human soul is for liberty of expression; how eagerly, if one channel is closed, it seeks out and often finds another. When the power of Government, or the tyranny of the majority, has shut out the natural expression of unfettered opinion in the discussion of the social and political interests of man, it takes refuge in the regions of imagination. Romance becomes the vehicle of independent thought: the stage the arena of unrestrained debate. So delightful is free expression to the human mind, that it proves agreeable even to those whose ascendency may seem to be endangered by its prevalence. It may appear strange, but it is undoubtedly true, that the germ of the doctrines of human perfectibility, the general vices of those in authority, and the expedience of universal freedom alike in trade and employment, emanated from the precincts of the most despotic authority in Europe, and at the period of its highest exaltation. It was in the palace of Versailles, in the court of the Grande Monarque, and when discharging the duties of tutor to the Dauphin, that Fenelon wrote, for the instruction of his royal pupil, Telémaque– perhaps the most thoroughly democratic work, in its principles, that ever emanated from the pen of genius. It was in the boudoir of Madame de Pompadour, and when surrounded by the corruptions of Louis XV., that Quesnay first announced the doctrines of throwing all taxes on the land, and of universal freedom of trade and occupation, which have subsequently had so powerful an influence in producing the Revolution of France, and altering the political system and social conditions of Great Britain.

The extraordinary perfection to which tragedy has been brought in many modern countries where the institutions are of a despotic character, is mainly to be ascribed to this cause. The stage became the outlet of independent thought; it was there alone that unfettered expression could be safely attempted. Put into the mouths of historical or imaginary characters, portraying remote events, for the most part drawn from the classical ages of Greece or Rome, such unrestrained ideas attracted no disquietude in the depositories of authority. They were regarded as an attribute of a primeval world, which had as little relation to the present, and as little bearing on its fortunes, as the skeletons of the Mammoth, or the backbones of the Ichthyosauri, on its material interests. A direct argument in favour of republican institutions would have secured for its author a place in the Bastile, or in the dungeons of the Inquisition; an incitement to the people to take up arms, to dethrone the reigning monarch, would have led to the scaffold; but the most eloquent and impassioned declamations in support of both the one and the other, when couched in verse, put into the mouth of Virginius or Brutus, and repeated on the stage by a popular actor, excited no sort of apprehension. On the contrary, it was only the more admired from its very novelty. Such ideas fell on the mind, amidst the seductions and restrictions of a despotic court, with somewhat of the charm with which the voice of nature, and the picture of her beauties, was in the last days of the French monarchy listened to from the gifted pen of Rousseau, or the vehement and imaginary passions of the Greek Corsairs, as delineated by Byron, were regarded by the worn-out victims of London dissipation.

If we would see in modern literature the most exact counterpart which Europe has been able to present to the oratorical perfection of antiquity, we must look for it, not in the debates of its National Assemblies, or even the effusions of its pulpit eloquence, but in the speeches of its great tragic poets. The best declamations in Corneille, Alfieri, and Schiller, are often nothing but ancient eloquence put into verse. The brevity and force of Shakspeare belong to the same school. These men exhibit the same condensation of ideas, terseness of expression, depth of thought, acquaintance with the secrets of the heart, which have rendered the historians and orators of antiquity immortal. Like them in their highest flights, they present intellect and genius disdaining the attractions of style, the flowers of rhetoric, the amplifications of imagination, and resting solely on condensed reason, cogent argument, and impassioned pathos. They are the bones and muscles of thought, without its ornament or covering. It is this circumstance which rendered their drama so popular, and has given its great masters their colossal reputation; and in their lasting fame may be found the most decisive proof of the undying influence of the highest species of eloquence on cultivated minds. Men and women went to the theatre not to be instructed in the story – it was known to all; not to be dazzled by stage effect – there was none of it: but to hear oratory of the highest, pathos of the most moving, magnanimity of the most exalted kind, repeated with superb effect by the first performers. The utmost vehemence of action, with all the aids of intonation, action, and delivery, was employed to heighten the effect of condensed eloquence, conveying free and lofty sentiments which could nowhere else be heard. This was the secret of the wonderful influence of the stage on the polished society of Paris, during the latter days of the monarchy. The audience in the parterre might be seen repeating every celebrated speech with the actor.

To illustrate these observations, we shall subjoin a few passages – two from Corneille, one from Shakspeare, one from Alfieri, and two from Schiller, in prose – partly to show how nearly they approach to the style of ancient oratory, and partly from a sense of the hopelessness of any translation conveying more than a prosaic idea of the terseness and vigour of the originals, —

"When the people are the master, tumults become national events. Never is the voice of reason consulted. Honours are sold to the most ambitious, authority yielded to the most seditious. These little sovereigns, made for a year, seeing the term of their power so near expiring, cause the most auspicious designs to miscarry, from the dread that others who follow may obtain the credit of them. As they have little share in the property which they command, they reap without hesitation in the harvest of the public, being well assured that every one will gladly pardon what they themselves hope to do on a future occasion. The worst of states is the popular state."5

Corneille's celebrated picture of Attila, which he puts into the mouth of Octar, but which was really intended for Louis XIV., exhibits another example of the condensed style of oratory, perhaps still more applicable to a greater man than the Grande Monarque, —

"I have seen him, alike in peace and war, bear everywhere the air of the conqueror of the earth. Often have I beheld the fiercest nations disarm his wrath by their submission. I have seen all the pleasure of his heroic mind savouring of the grand and the magnificent, while his ceaseless foresight in the midst of peace had prepared the triumphs of war; his noble anxiety, which, amidst his very recreations prepared the success of future designs. Too happy the people against whom he does not turn his invincible arms! I have seen him, covered with smoke and dust, give the noblest example to his army – spread terror everywhere by his own danger – overturn walls by a single glance, and heap his own conquests on the broken pride of the haughtiest monarchs."6

Napoleon said, if he had lived in his time, he would have made Corneille his first councillor of state. He was right: for his thoughts were more allied to the magnanimity of the hero than the pathos of the tragedian; and his language savoured more of the sonorous periods of the orator than the fire of the poet.

Beside these specimens of French tragic eloquence, we gladly place the well-known speech of Brutus in Julius Cæsar, which proves that Shakspeare was endowed with the very soul of ancient oratory: —

"Romans, countrymen, and lovers! Hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear; believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour that you may believe; censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cæsar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Cæsar was not less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is my answer: not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather that Cæsar were living and die all slaves, than that Cæsar were dead to live all free men? As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice in it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his valour, and death for his ambition. Who is there so base that would be a bondsman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak, for him have I offended. I have done no more to Cæsar than you should do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory is not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offences enforced for which he suffered death."7

This is in the highest style of ancient oratory. Whoever has had the good fortune to hear this noble speech repeated by the lips, and with the impressive manner of Kemble, will have no difficulty in conceiving how it was that eloquence in Greece and Rome acquired so mighty an ascendency. Shakspeare has shown, however, in the speech of Antony, which follows, that he is not less master of that important part of oratory which consists in moving the feelings, and conciliating by pathos an adverse audience. Antiquity never conceived anything more skilful, or evincing a more thorough knowledge of the human heart, than thus turning aside the lofty patriotic and republican ideas awakened by Brutus' speech, first by the exhibition of Cæsar's garments, rent by the daggers of his murderers, and yet wet with his blood, and then unveiling the mangled corpse itself!

The eloquence of Alfieri and Schiller, perhaps, of all modern writers, is that which approaches most closely to the brief and condensed style of ancient oratory. The speech of Icilius, in the noble drama of Virginia, by the first of these writers, affords a fair specimen of its power: —

"Listen to my words, O people of Rome! I who heretofore have never been deceitful, who have never either betrayed or sold my honour; who boast an ignoble origin, but a noble heart! hear me. This innocent free maid is daughter of Virginius. At such a name, I see your eyes flash with resplendent fire. Virginius is fighting for you in the field: think on the depravity of the times; meanwhile, exposed to shame, the victim of outrage, his daughter remains in Rome. And who outrages her? Come forward, O Marcus! show yourself. Why tremble you? He is well known to you: the last slave of the tyrant Appius and his first minister – of Appius, the mortal enemy of every virtue – of Appius, the haughty, stern, ferocious oppressor, who his ravished from you your freedom, and, to embitter the robbery, has left you your lives. Virginia is my promised bride: I love her. Who I am, I need not say: some one may perhaps remind you. I was your tribune, your defender; but in vain. You trusted rather the deceitful words of another than my free speech. We now suffer, in common slavery, the pain of your delusion. Why do I say more? The heart, the arm, the boldness of Icilius is known to you not less than the name. From you I demand my free bride. This man does not ask her: he styles her slave – he drags her, he forces her. Icilius or Marcus is a liar: say, Romans, which it is."8

That Schiller was a great dramatic and lyric poet, need be told to none who have the slightest acquaintance with European literature; but his great oratorical powers are not so generally appreciated, for they have been lost in the blaze of his poetic genius. They were, however, of the very highest order, as will at once appear from the following translation (imperfect as it, of course, is) in prose, which we have attempted of the celebrated speeches of Shrewsbury and Burleigh, who discussed before Queen Elizabeth the great question of Queen Mary's execution, in his noble tragedy of Maria Stuart: —

SHREWSBURY

"God, whose wondrous hand has four times protected you, and who to-day gave the feeble arm of gray hairs strength to turn aside the stroke of a madman, should inspire confidence. I will not now speak in the name of justice; this is not the time. In such a tumult you cannot hear her still small voice. Consider this only: you are fearful now of the living Mary; but I say it is not the living you have to fear. Tremble at the dead – the beheaded. She will rise from the grave a fiend of dissension. She will awaken the spirit of revenge in your kingdom, and wean the hearts of your subjects from you. At present she is an object of dread to the British; but when she is no more, they will revenge her. No longer will she then be regarded as the enemy of their faith; her mournful fate will cause her to appear only as the granddaughter of their king, the victim of man's hatred and woman's jealousy. Soon will you see the change appear! Drive through London after the bloody deed has been done; show yourself to the people, who now surround you with joyful acclamations: then will you see another England, another people! No longer will you then walk forth encircled by the radiance of heavenly justice which now binds every heart to you. Dread the frightful name of tyrant which will precede you through shuddering hearts, and resound through every street where you pass. You have done the last irrevocable deed. What head stands fast when this sacred one has fallen?"

BURLEIGH

"Thou sayest, my Queen, thou lovest thy people more than thyself – show it now! Choose not peace for yourself, and leave discord to your people. Think on the Church! Shall the ancient faith be restored with this Stuart? Shall the monk of new lord it here – the legate of Rome return to shut up our churches, dethrone our queen? I demand the souls of all your subjects from you. As you now decide, you are saved or lost. This is no time for womanish pity: the salvation of your people is your highest duty. Has Shrewsbury saved your life to-day? I will deliver England, and that is more." —Maria Stuart, Act iv. s. 7.

Demosthenes could have written nothing more powerful – Cicero imagined nothing more persuasive.

We shall now, to justify our assertion that it is in the dramatic poets of modern Europe that a parallel can alone be found to the condensed power of ancient eloquence, proceed to give a few quotations from the most celebrated speeches of antiquity. We have selected, in general, those from the historians, as they are shorter than the orations delivered in the forum, and can be given entire. A fragment from a speech of Demosthenes or Cicero gives no sort of idea of the original, because what goes before is withheld. To scholars we need not plead indulgence for the inadequacy of our translations: they will not expect what they know to be impossible.

Tacitus, in his Life of Agricola, puts into the mouth of Galgacus the following oration, when he was animating the Caledonians to their last battle with the Romans under Agricola.

"As often as I reflect on the origin of the war, and our necessities, I feel a strong conviction that this day, and your will, are about to lay the foundations of British liberty. For we have all known what slavery is, and no place of retreat lies behind us. The sea even is insecure when the Roman fleet hovers around. Thus arms and war, ever coveted by the brave, are now the only refuge of the cowardly. In former actions, in which the Britons fought with various success against the Romans, our valour was a resource to look to, for we, the noblest of all the nation, and on that account placed in its inmost recesses, unused to the spectacle of servitude, had our eyes even inviolate from its hateful sight. We, the last of the earth, and of freedom, unknown to fame, have been hitherto defended by our remoteness; now, the extreme limits of Britain appear, and the unknown is ever regarded as the magnificent. No refuge is behind us; naught but the rocks and the waves, and the deadlier Romans: men whose pride you have in vain sought to deprecate by moderation and subservience. The robbers of the globe, when the land fails they scour the sea. Is the enemy rich, they are avaricious; is he poor, they are ambitious – the East and the West are unable to satiate their desires. Wealth and poverty are alike coveted by their rapacity. To carry off, massacre, seize on false pretences, they call empire; and when they make a desert, they call it peace.

"Nature has made children and relations dearest to all: they are carried off by levies to serve elsewhere: our wives and sisters, if they escape the lust of our enemies, are seduced by these friends and guests. Our goods and fortunes they seize on as tribute, our corn as supplies; our very bodies and hands they wear out amidst strifes and contumely, in fortifying stations in the woods and marshes. Serfs born in servitude are once bought, and ever after fed by their masters; Britain alone daily buys its slavery, daily feeds it. As in families the last slave purchased is often a laughing-stock to the rest, so we, the last whom they have reduced to slavery, are the first to be agonised by their contumely, and reserved for destruction. We have neither fields, nor minerals, nor harbours, in working which we can be employed: the valour and fierceness of the vanquished are obnoxious to the victors: our very distance and obscurity, as they render us the safer, make us the more suspected. Laying aside, therefore, all hope of pardon, assume the courage of men to whom salvation and glory are alike dear. The Trinobantes, under a female leader, had courage to burn a colony and storm castles, and, had not their success rendered them negligent, they would have cast off the yoke. We, untouched and unconquered, nursed in freedom, shall we not show, on the first onset, what men Caledonia has nursed in her bosom?

"Do not believe the Romans have the same prowess in war as lust in peace. They have grown great on our divisions: they know how to turn the vices of men to the glory of their own army. As it has been drawn together by success, so disaster will dissolve it, unless you suppose that the Gauls and the Germans, and, I am ashamed to say, many of the Britons, who now lend their blood to a foreign usurpation, and in their hearts are rather enemies than slaves, can be retained by faith and affection. Fear and terror are but slender bonds of attachment; when you remove them, as fear ceases terror begins. All the incitements of victory are on our side: no wives inflame the Romans; no parents are there, to call shame on their flight; they have no country, or it is elsewhere. Few in number, fearful from ignorance, gazing on unknown woods and seas, the gods have delivered them shut in and bound into your hands. Let not their vain aspect, the glitter of silver and gold, which neither covers nor wounds, alarm you. In the very line of the enemy we shall find our friends: the Britons will recognise their own cause; the Gauls will recollect their former freedom; the other Germans will desert them, as lately the Usipii have done. No objects of terror are behind them; naught but empty castles, age-ridden colonies; dissension between cruel masters and unwilling slaves, sick and discordant cities. Here is a leader, an army; there are tributes, and payments, and the badges of servitude, which to bear for ever, or instantly to avenge, lies in your arms. Go forth then into the field, and think of your ancestors and your descendants."9

It is scarcely necessary to say that this speech was written by Tacitus: most certainly nothing half so perfect was ever conceived by Caledonian chief or Caledonian orator, from that day to this. But as the great speeches in antiquity were all written, this gives a specimen, doubtless of the most favourable kind, of the style of oratory which prevailed amongst them. No modern historian has either ventured or been able to put anything so nervous and forcible into the mouth of any orator, how great soever. If he did, it would at once be known that it had not been spoken, but was the fruit of the composition of the closet.

Catiline, who, like many other revolutionists, possessed abilities commensurate to his wickedness, thus addressed the conspirators who were associated to overturn the sway of the Roman patricians: —

"Had not your valour and fidelity been well known to me, fruitless would have been the smiles of Fortune: the prospect of as mighty domination would in vain have opened upon us; nor would I have mistaken illusive hopes for realities, uncertain things for certain. But since, on many and great occasions, I have known you to be brave and faithful, I have ventured to engage in the greatest and noblest undertaking; for I well know that good and evil are common to you and me. That friendship at length is secure which is founded on wishing and dreading the same things. You all know what designs I have long revolved in my mind; but my confidence in them daily increases, when I reflect what our fate is likely to be, if we do not vindicate our freedom by our own hands. For, since the republic has fallen under the power and dominion of a few, kings yield their tributes, governorships their profits to them: all the rest, whether strenuous, good, noble or ignoble, are the mere vulgar: without influence, without authority, we are obnoxious to those to whom, if the commonwealth existed, we should be a terror. All honour, favour, power, wealth, is centred in them, or those whom they favour: to us are left dangers, repulses, lawsuits, poverty. How long will you endure them, O ye bravest of men? Is it not better to die bravely, than drag out a miserable and dishonoured life, the sport of pride, the victims of disgrace? But by the faith of gods and men, victory is in our own hands: our strength is unimpaired; our minds energetic: theirs is enfeebled by age, extinguished by riches. All that is required is to begin boldly; the rest follows of course. Where is the man of a manly spirit, who can tolerate that they should overflow with riches, which they squander in ransacking the sea, in levelling mountains, while to us the common necessaries of life are awanting? They have two or more superb palaces each; we not wherein to lay our heads. When they buy pictures, statues, basso-relievos, they destroy the old to make way for the new: in every possible way they squander away their money; but all their desires are unable to exhaust their riches. At home, we have only poverty; abroad, debts; present adversity; worse prospects. What, in fine, is left us, but our woe-stricken souls? What, then, shall we do? That, that which you have ever most desired. Liberty is before your eyes; and it will soon bring riches, renown, glory: Fortune holds out these rewards to the victors. The time, the place, our dangers, our wants, the splendid spoils of war, exhort you more than my words. Make use of me either as a commander or a private soldier. Neither in soul or body will I be absent from your side. These deeds I hope I shall perform as Consul with you, unless my hopes deceive me, and you are prepared rather to obey as slaves, than to command as rulers."10

The topics here handled are the same which in every age have been the staple of the conspirator and the revolutionist; but it may be doubted whether they ever were put together with such force and address. The same desperate chief, on the eve of their last conflict with the consular legions: —

"I well know, fellow-soldiers, that words add nothing to the valour of the brave; and that an army will not be made from slothful, strenuous – from timid, courageous, by any speech from its commander. Whatever boldness nature or training has implanted in any one, that appears in war. It is vain to exhort those whom neither dangers nor glory excite. Terror shuts their ears. But I have called you together to mention a few things, and to make you sharers of my councils. You know, soldiers, what a calamity has been brought upon us by the cowardice of Lentulus; and how, when I awaited succours from the city, I was unable to set out for Gaul. Now, however, I will candidly tell you how our affairs stand. Two armies, one issuing from Rome, one from Gaul, beset us: want of provisions obliges us quickly to change our quarters, even if we inclined to remain where we are. Wherever we determine to go, we must open a way with our swords. Therefore it is that I admonish you that you have now need of stern and determined minds: and when you engage in battle, recollect that riches, honour, glory, in addition to liberty, are to be won by your own right hands. If we conquer, everything awaits us: provisions will be abundant, colonies ready, cities open. If we yield from fear, circumstances are equally adverse: neither solitude nor friend shields him whom his arms cannot protect. Besides, soldiers, the same necessity does not impel them as us. We fight for our country, our liberty, our lives; they for the domination of a few. On that account, mindful of your pristine valour, advance to the attack. You might have, with disgrace, lingered out a miserable life in exile: a few, bereft of their possessions, might have remained, fed by charity, at Rome: but as such a fate seemed intolerable to freemen, you have attended me here. If you would shun these evils, now is the moment to do so. None ever exchanged war for peace, save by victory. To hope for safety in flight, and, at the same time, rescue from the enemy the arms by which the body is covered, is the height of madness. Ever in battle they run the greatest danger who are most timid: boldness is the only real rampart. When I reflect on you and your deeds, O soldiers, I have great hopes of victory. Your spirit, your age, your bravery, encourage me: besides necessity, which makes heroes even of cowards. The straits of the ground secure you from being outflanked by the enemy. Should Fortune fail to second your valour, beware lest you perish unavenged. Rather fall, fighting like men, and leave a mournful and bloody triumph to your enemies, than be butchered like sheep when captured by their arms."11

With what exquisite judgment and taste is the stern and mournful style of this speech suited to the circumstances, all but desperate, in which Catiline's army was then placed!

No one supposes that these were the identical words delivered by Catiline on this occasion. Unquestionably, Sallust shines through in every line. But they were probably his ideas; and, unquestionably, they were in the true style of ancient oratory. And that what was spoken fully equalled what has come down to us written, is proved by innumerable passages in speeches which undoubtedly were spoken; among which, we select the graphic picture of Antony in his revels – spoken by Cœlius, and preserved by Quintilian: —

"They found him (Antony) oppressed with a half-drunken sleep, snoring aloud, lying across the most beautiful concubines, while others were reposing around. The latter, when they perceived the approach of an enemy, strove to awaken Antony, but in vain. They called on him by name, they raised him by the neck: one whispered softly in his ear, one struck him sharply; but to no purpose. When he was so far roused as to recognise the voice or touch of the nearest, he put his arms round her neck, unable alike to sleep and to rise up; but, half in a stupor, he was tossed about between the hands of the centurions and the harlots."12

What a picture of the triumvir and rival of Brutus, as well as of the corrupted manners of Rome!

Demosthenes, in his celebrated speech against Æschines, burst into the following strain of indignant invective: —

"You taught writing, I learned it: you were an instructor, I was the instructed: you danced at the games, I presided over them: you wrote as a clerk, I pleaded as an advocate: you were an actor in the theatres, I a spectator: you broke down, I hissed: you ever took counsel for our enemies, I for our country. In fine, now on this day the point at issue is – Am I, yet unstained in character, worthy of a crown? while to you is reserved the lot of a calumniator, and you are in danger of being silenced by not having obtained the fifth part of the votes.

"I have not fortified the city with stone, nor adorned it with tiles, neither do I take any credit for such things. But if you would behold my works aright, you will find arms, and cities, and stations, and harbours, and ships, and horses, and those who are to make use of them in our defence. This is the rampart I have raised for Attica, as much as human wisdom could effect: with these I fortified the whole country, not the Piræus only and the city. I never sank before the arms or cunning of Philip. No! it was by the supineness of your own generals and allies that he triumphed."13

We add only an extract from the noble speech of Pericles, on those who had died in the service of their country, which is the more valuable that Thucydides, who has recorded it in his history, says that the version he has given of that masterpiece of oratory is nearly the same as he heard from Pericles himself.

"Wherefore I will congratulate rather than bewail the parents of those who have fallen that are present. They know that they were born to suffering. But the lot of those is most to be envied who have come to such an end, that it is hard to say whether their life or their death is most honourable. I know it is difficult to persuade you of this, who had often rejoiced in the good fortune of others; and it is not when we are deprived of goods not yet attained that we feel grief, but when we are bereaved of what we have already enjoyed. To some the hope of other children, who may emulate those who have gone before, may be a source of consolation. Future offspring may awaken fresh interests in place of the dead; and will doubly benefit the city by peopling its desert places, and providing for its defence. We cannot expect that those who have no children whom they may place in peril for their country, can be considered on a level with such as have made the sacrifices which those have made. To such of you as time has denied this hope, I would say, 'Rejoice in the honour which your children have won, and let that console the few years that still remain to you – for the love of glory alone knows no age; and in the decline of life it is not the acquisition of gain, as some say, which confers pleasure, but the consciousness of being honoured.

"To the children and brothers of those we mourn, who are here present, I foresee a noble contest. Every one praises the dead. You should endeavour, I will not say to equal those we have lost, but to be only a little inferior to them. Envy often divides the living; but the grave extinguishes jealousy, for it terminates rivalry. I must speak of the virtue of the women who have shared in our bereavement; but I shall do so in a few words. Great will be your renown, if you do not yield to the weakness of your sex; and place as little difference as possible between yourselves and the virtue of men. I propose that the children of those who have fallen should be maintained, till puberty, at the public expense – a reward at once to the virtue of the dead, and an incitement to the emulation of the living: for among those to whom the highest rewards of virtue are opened, the most worthy citizens are found. And now, having honoured the dead by your mourning, depart every one to his home."14

Enough – and some may, perhaps, think more than enough – has been done to convey an idea of that far-famed oratory, of which Milton has said —

For comparison with these splendid passages, we gladly lay before our readers the famous peroration of Mr Burke's oration against Mr Hastings, long esteemed the masterpiece of British eloquence.

"My Lords, at this awful close, in the name of the Commons, and surrounded by them, I attest the retiring, I attest the advancing generations, between which, as a link in the great chain of eternal order, we stand. We call this nation, we call the world to witness, that the Commons have shrunk from no labour; that we have been guilty of no prevarication; that we have made no compromise with crime; that we have not feared any odium whatsoever, in the long warfare which we have carried on with the crimes – with the vices – with the exorbitant wealth – with the enormous and overpowering influence of Eastern corruption. This war, my Lords, we have waged for twenty-two years, and the conflict has been fought, at your Lordships' bar, for the last seven years. My Lords, twenty-two years is a great space in the scale of the life of man; it is no inconsiderable space in the history of a great nation. A business which has so long occupied the councils and the tribunals of Great Britain cannot possibly be huddled over in the course of vulgar, trite, and transitory events. Nothing but some of those great revolutions, that break the traditionary chain of human memory, and alter the very face of nature itself, can possibly obscure it. My Lords, we are all elevated to a degree of importance by it; the meanest of us will, by means of it, more or less, become the concern of posterity – if we are yet to hope for such a thing, in the present state of the world, as a recording, retrospective, civilised posterity: but this is in the hand of the great Disposer of events; it is not ours to settle how it shall be. My Lords, your House yet stands; it stands as a great edifice; but let me say, that it stands in the midst of ruins – in the midst of the ruins that have been made by the greatest moral earthquake that ever convulsed and shattered this globe of ours. My Lords, it has pleased Providence to place us in such a state, that we appear every moment to be upon the verge of some great mutations. There is one thing, and one thing only, which defies all mutation, that which existed before the world, and will survive the fabric of the world itself – I mean justice; that justice which, emanating from the Divinity, has a place in the breast of every one of us, given us for our guide with regard to ourselves and with regard to others, and which will stand, after this globe is burned to ashes, our advocate or our accuser before the great Judge, when He comes to call upon us for the tenor of a well-spent life.

"My Lords, the Commons will share in every fate with your Lordships; there is nothing sinister which can happen to you, in which we shall not all be involved; and if it should so happen that we shall be subjected to some of those frightful changes which we have seen – if it should happen that your Lordships, stripped of all the decorous distinctions of human society, should, by hands at once base and cruel, be led to those scaffolds and machines of murder upon which great kings and glorious queens have shed their blood, amidst the prelates, amidst the nobles, amidst the magistrates, who supported their thrones, may you in those moments feel that consolation which I am persuaded they felt in the critical moments of their dreadful agony!.. My Lords, if you must fall, may you so fall! but, if you stand – and stand I trust you will – together with the fortune of this ancient monarchy – together with the ancient laws and liberties of this great and illustrious kingdom – may you stand as unimpeached in honour as in power; may you stand, not as a substitute for virtue, but as an ornament of virtue, as a security for virtue; may you stand long, and long stand the terror of tyrants; may you stand the refuge of afflicted nations; may you stand a sacred temple, for the perpetual residence of an inviolable justice."16

The peroration of Lord Brougham's speech in favour of Queen Caroline, which was carefully studied, and, it is said, written over several times, is not unworthy to be placed beside this splendid burst.

"Such, my Lords, is the case before you! such is the evidence in support of this measure – evidence inadequate to prove a debt, impotent to deprive of a civil right, ridiculous to convict of the lowest offence, scandalous, if brought forward to support a charge of the highest nature which the law knows, monstrous to ruin the honour and blast the name of an English Queen! What shall I say, then, if this is the proof by which an act of judicial legislation, a parliamentary sentence, an ex post facto law, is sought to be passed against a defenceless woman? My Lords, I pray you to pause: I do earnestly beseech you to take heed. You are standing upon the brink of a precipice – then beware! It will go forth as your judgment, if sentence shall pass against the Queen. But it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced which, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back upon those who give it. Save the country, my Lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe – save yourselves from this peril. Revere that country of which you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no longer, when severed from the people, than the blossom when cut off from the roots and stem of the tree. Save that country, that you may continue to adorn it; save the crown, which is in jeopardy, the aristocracy, which is shaken; save the altar, which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred throne! You have said, my Lords, you have willed, the church to the Queen have willed that she should be deprived of its solemn service. She has instead of that solemnity the heartfelt prayers of the people. She wants no prayers of mine. But I do here pour forth my humble supplication to the Throne of mercy, that that mercy may be poured down upon the people, in a larger measure than the merits of its rulers may deserve, and that your hearts may be turned to justice."17

On the trial of Mr John Stockdale, Lord Erskine thus spoke: —

"I have been speaking of man and his nature, and of human dominion, from what I have seen of them myself among nations reluctant of our authority. I know what they feel, and how such feelings can alone be repressed. I have heard them in my youth from a naked savage, in the indignant character of a prince, surrounded by his subjects, addressing the governor of a British colony, holding a bundle of sticks in his hand, as the notes of his unlettered eloquence. 'Who is it,' said the jealous ruler of the desert, encroached upon by the restless foot of English adventure – 'who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again in summer? Who is it that causes this river to rise in the high mountains, and to empty itself into the ocean? Who is it that rears up the shade of these lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick lightning at his pleasure? The same Being who gave to you a country on the other side of the waters, and gave ours to us; and by this title we will defend it,' said the warrior, throwing his tomahawk upon the ground, and raising the war-sound of his nation. These are the feelings of subjugated man all round the globe; and, depend upon it, nothing but fear will control where it is vain to look for affection."18

Some of Mr Grattan's speeches are said to have been the most eloquent ever delivered in the House of Commons. The following burst of indignant patriotism, on the supposed wrongs of Ireland, affords a favourable specimen of his style of oratory: —

"Hereafter, when these things shall be history, your age of thraldom and poverty, your sudden resurrection, commercial redress, and miraculous armament, shall the historian stop to declare, that here the principal men amongst us fell into mimic traces of gratitude: they were awed by a weak ministry, and bribed by an empty treasury; and when liberty was within their grasp, and the temple opened her folding-doors, and the arms of the people clanged, and the zeal of the nation urged and encouraged them on, that they fell down, and were prostituted at the threshold.

"I will not be answered by a public lie in the shape of an amendment: neither, speaking for the subjects' freedom, am I to hear of faction. I wish for nothing but to breathe in this our island, in common with my fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be the ambition to break your chains, and contemplate your glory. I never will be satisfied as long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clanking in his rags: he may be naked, he shall not be in irons. And I do see the time is at hand, the spirit is gone forth, the declaration is planted: and though great men should apostatise, yet the cause will live: and though the public speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the organ which conveyed it, and the breath of liberty, like the word of the holy man, shall not die with the prophet, but survive him."19

We shall add only to these copious and interesting quotations two passages from the greatest masters of French eloquence.

Bossuet, in his funeral oration on Henrietta, daughter of France and Queen of England, the consort of Charles I., thus expresses himself: —

"Christians!" says he, in the exordium of his discourse, "it is not surprising that the memory of a great queen – the daughter, the wife, the mother of monarchs – should attract you from all quarters to this melancholy ceremony; it will bring forcibly before your eyes one of those awful examples which demonstrate to the world the vanity of which it is composed. You will see in her single life the extremes of human things: felicity without bounds, miseries without parallel; a long and peaceable enjoyment of one of the most noble crowns in the universe – all that birth and grandeur could confer that was glorious – all that adversity and suffering could accumulate that was disastrous; the good cause attended at first with some success, then involved in the most dreadful disasters. Revolutions unheard of, rebellion long restrained, at length reigning triumphant; no curb there to license, no laws in force. Majesty itself violated by bloody hands – usurpation and tyranny, under the name of liberty – a fugitive queen, who can find no retreat in her three kingdoms, and was forced to seek in her native country a melancholy exile. Nine sea voyages undertaken against her will by a queen, in spite of wintry tempests – a throne unworthily overturned, and miraculously re-established. Behold the lessons which God has given to kings! thus does He manifest to the world the nothingness of its pomps and its grandeur. If our words fail, if language sinks beneath the grandeur of such a subject, the simple narrative is more touching than aught that words can convey. The heart of a great queen, formerly elevated by so long a course of prosperity, then steeped in all the bitterness of affliction, will speak in sufficiently touching language; and if it is not given to a private individual to teach the proper lessons from so mournful a catastrophe, the King of Israel has supplied the words – 'Hear, O ye great of the earth! Take lessons, ye rulers of the world!'"20

A very different man from Bossuet, but who was perhaps his superior in nervous eloquence, Robespierre, thus spoke on the last occasion when he addressed the Convention, then bent on his destruction: —

"They call me a tyrant! If I were so, they would fall at my feet: I should have gorged them with gold, assured them of impunity to their crimes, and they would have worshipped me. Had I been so, the kings whom we have conquered would have been my most cordial supporters. It is by the aid of scoundrels you arrive at tyranny. Whither tend those who combat them? To the tomb and immortality! Who is the tyrant that protects me? What is the faction to which I belong? It is yourselves! What is the party which, since the commencement of the Revolution, has crushed all other factions – has annihilated so many specious traitors? It is yourselves; it is the people; it is the force of principles! This is the party to which I am devoted, and against which crime is everywhere leagued. I am ready to lay down my life without regret. I have seen the past; I foresee the future. What lover of his country would wish to live, when he can no longer succour oppressed innocence? Why should he desire to remain in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs over truth – where justice is deemed an imposture – where the vilest passions, the most ridiculous fears, fill every heart, instead of the sacred interests of humanity? Who can bear the punishment of seeing that horrible succession of traitors, more or less skilful in concealing their hideous vices under the mask of virtue, and who will leave to posterity the difficult task of determining which was the most atrocious? In contemplating the multitude of vices which the Revolution has let loose pell-mell with the civic virtues, I own I sometimes fear that I myself shall be sullied in the eyes of posterity by their calumnies. But I am consoled by the reflection that, if I have seen in history all the defenders of liberty overwhelmed by calumny, I have seen their oppressors die also. The good and the bad disappear alike from the earth; but in very different conditions. No, Chaumette! 'Death is not an eternal sleep!' – Citizens, efface from the tombs that maxim, engraven by sacrilegious hands, which throws a funeral pall over nature, which discourages oppressed innocence: write rather, 'Death is the commencement of immortality!' I leave to the oppressors of the people a terrible legacy, which well becomes the situation in which I am placed: it is the awful truth, 'Thou shalt die!'"21

It must be evident to every impartial person, from these quotations, that the superiority of ancient to modern eloquence, so far as the art itself is concerned, is great and indisputable. The strong opinion of Lord Brougham, on this subject, must command the universal assent of every reasonable mind: —

"It is impossible for any but the most careless observer, to avoid remarking the great differences which distinguish the oratory of ancient from that of modern times. The immeasurable superiority of the former is far from being the only, or even the principal, of these diversities: that proceeds, in part, from the greater power of the languages, especially the Greek – the instrument wielded by the great masters of diction; and in so far the superiority must for ever remain undiminished by any efforts on the part of modern rhetoricians. If, in such varied and perfect excellencies, the most prominent shall be selected, then doubtless is the palm due to that entire and uninterrupted devotion which throws the speaker's whole soul into his subject, and will not even – no, not for an instant – suffer a rival idea to cross its resistless course, without being swiftly swept away and driven out of sight, as the most rapid engine annihilates or shoots off whatever approaches it with a velocity that defies the eye. There is no coming back on the same ground, any more than any lingering over it. All is done at once; but the blow is as effectual as it is single, and leaves not anything to do. All is at each instant moving forward, regardless of every obstacle. The mighty flood of speech rolls on in a channel ever full, but which never overflows. Whether it rushes in a torrent of allusion, or moves along in a majestic exposition of enlarged principles, descends hoarse and headlong in overwhelming invective, or glides melodious in narrative and description, or spreads itself out shining in illustrations, its course is ever onward and ever entire; never scattered, never stagnant, never sluggish. At each point manifest progress has been made, and with all that art can do to charm, strike, and please. No sacrifice, even the smallest, is ever made to effect; nor can the hearer ever stop for an instant to contemplate or admire, or throw away a thought upon the great artist, till all is over, and the pause gives time to recover his breath."22