Page images
PDF
EPUB

ous Greek, and if Demosthenes and Cice- | ers gave the law to their eloquence. They ro found elaborate preparation essential framed their speeches upon the model of to success, it is no wonder that lesser men sermons, divided them into heads, and should not be speakers before they have deadened inflammatory sentiments by a studied how to speak. Lord Chesterfield didactic style. The famous orations of declares that he succeeded in Parliament Mr. Pym are read in our day with such simply by resolving to succeed. He early intolerable weariness, that we wonder saw the importance of eloquence, and neg- they could ever have been listened to lected nothing which could assist him to with patience by any assembly, ignorant become a proficient in it. He conned care- or educated. They are able no doubt, fully all the fine passages he met with in but cumbersome and dreary, and never his reading; he translated from various before or since did enthusiasm find vent languages into English; he attended to in such inanimate language. Though Lord his style in the freest conversations and Strafford spoke at his trial with genuine most familiar letters; he never allowed a eloquence, it is almost a solitary speciword to fall from his lips which was not men, and nobody dreams of reverting to the best he could command! By these the debates of that exciting time for grand means he arrived at such an habitual ac- sentiments expressed in burning words, curacy that at last he said the pains would or for maxims stamped in the mint which have been necessary to express himself in- gives a perpetual currency to ideas. The elegantly. A rapid review of the small style of speaking changed at the Restoraband of preeminent speakers who have tion. The cavaliers were men of the adorned our senate, which has been the world, who talked the language of the chief school of eloquence, the bar produc- world. They flung aside that heavy ing far fewer orators than might have scholastic garb which stifled sentiments been expected, will lead to the conclu- instead of adorning them, and made a sion, that however varied in detail may closer approximation to simplicity and have been the methods by which men nature. In the reign of Queen Anne learned to clothe ready conceptions in parliamentary eloquence took much the ready language, laborious study has been same shape that it retains at present, as common to them all. From Demosthe- we can infer from casual specimens, and nes downwards no one has become an the descriptions of men in the next geneadept in the art without a special adapta- ration who had listened to it in their tion of means to the end. Nothing more youth. Very little, however, has been is wanting to enable the enlightened part preserved, and nearly the whole of that of the community to bring their minds little is garbled and abridged. An iminto closer contact with the uninstructed, perfect abstract of the discussions in the and thus to elevate the lower orders by a Lords and Commons was commenced in potent influence which hitherto has been 1711, in a publication called the "Politiimperfectly exerted, than that they should cal State of Great Britain;" but these have the self-confidence to believe that the epitomes merely aim at stating the opineducation which formed the Chesterfields ions of the speakers, and make no prewill not be thrown away upon themselves. tense of preserving their language. Even Nature has not destined every one to be of the opinions they were an untrustwora Chatham or a Burke, but there are few thy indication, for they were compiled persons of fair abilities who might not at- from the information of the door-keepers tain to the power of expressing good and subordinate officers of the Houses of sense, and useful knowledge, in clear, Parliament. In 1736 Cave commenced a flowing, and agreeable language. more elaborate system in the Gentleman's The old oratory, unlike the old litera- Magazine. He employed persons to take ture of England, is effete and out of date. notes by stealth, which were handed over It was pedantic in the reigns of Elizabeth to some author who used them as raw maand James. In the great Rebellion, when terials from which to manufacture finished the passions were roused to the utmost speeches. Guthrie discharged the task till pitch, and it was employed to move the November, 1740, when it passed into the multitude as well as the senate, it might more powerful hands of Johnson. He rehave been expected to assume a more linquished it in February, 1743, and was modern and popular air. But the theo- succeeded by Hawkesworth, who carried logical studies of the parliamentary lead-on the process for near twenty years.

Whatever the debates may have gained | by this method in importance, they lost in accuracy. The memoranda were merely used as heads upon which to enlarge, and we must look in the printed reports for the characteristics of Guthrie, Johnson, and Hawkesworth, and not of Pulteney, Pitt, and Chesterfield.

The reason why Cave employed authors to compose debates instead of short-hand writers to report them, was the refusal of the legislature to permit the public to be a party to its proceedings. No notes could be taken openly, and Cave was quickly warned by the Speaker of the House of Commons to desist from printing the discussions at all. He evaded the injunction by inserting them under fictitious names, and by various devices contrived to furnish his readers with a key. The interest which was felt in this portion of his magazine showed that the curiosity of the country was awakened. The debaters on their part were many of them eager for a larger audience, and speeches were often conveyed underhand to Cave by the authors themselves. The growing desire of those without to hear, and of those within to be heard, at last threw open the doors of both houses; the style of reporting became more and more exact, and though it was long in attaining to the habitual completeness which prevails at present, many of the greater efforts of the principal speakers were recorded towards the close of the last century with perfect precision.

The orators of the unreported parliaments were at very little disadvantage. The reputation of a debater is made much more by his hearers than by his readers. The politician who spells the newspaper over his breakfast reaches the conclusion of passages which drew forth "loud cheers" without experiencing the slightest emotion, and sarcasms which elicited "loud laughter" without being lured into the faintest smile. There are instances at this moment, as there always have been instances, of persons who are held in considerable estimation in both Houses, who have scarce any name with the country, and those who only know the efforts even of the most celebrated speakers through the medium of the printing-press are apt to wonder at their fame. If this is the case among contemporaries to whom the topics are matter of absorbing interest, how much more must the orator lose with

posterity when his subjects are obsolete, and appear as cold and repelling as the ashes of a fire which has burnt out. Notwithstanding that Pitt desired to have a speech of Lord Bolingbroke in preference to the most precious lost works of the ancients, we venture to think that after it had been glanced at from curiosity, it would be flung aside from disappointment. Lord Chesterfield, who had been among his auditors, applauds the "force and charm of his eloquence," and says that, "like Belial in Milton, he made the worse appear the better cause; " but then the same authority bestows still stronger praise upon his writings, where we can form an estimate of the degree of justice in the panegyric. He considers that Cicero alone could compete with him in composition; and he asserts of the "Letters on Patriotism" that they are adorned with all the beauties of oratory, and that until he read them he "did not know the extent and powers of the English language.” Burke, in the preface to his earliest work, the "Vindication of Natural Society," in which he imitated the style of Lord Bolingbroke, and ironically maintained his principles for the purpose of exposing them, is little less complimentary, and allows that his books were "justly admired for the rich variety of their imagery and the rapid torrent of an impetuous and overbearing eloquence."* It may be doubted whether Burke would have repeated this eulogy in maturer years, when he called him "a presumptuous and superficial writer," and said that his works had not left any permanent impression on his mind." Nothing at any rate can be less rapid and impetuous than the manner of Lord Bolingbroke, which is in a singular degree slow and fatiguing, nor does any one revert to him now as model of eloquence" from which to learn the extent of the English tongue. He tediously unfolds his thinly scattered ideas in a long array of sounding sentences, and, though the diction is pure and harmonious, it is neither pointed nor

66

*Lord Chatham was another great admirer of Lord Bolingbroke, and said that his "Remarks on the History of England" should "almost be got by heart for the inimitable beauty of the style." Lord Grenville, in commenting upon this opinion, states the common judgment of our day, when he asserts that the style of the "Remarks" is "declamatory, diffusive, and involved, and deficient both in elegance and precision."

brilliant. His treatises have been consign- | well-aimed shot rips up the ranks of the ed to a practical oblivion, because they adversary, or blows up the magazine. are found to be nearly unreadable, and The effect under these circumstances of a what Lord Chesterfield considered "the damaging reply arises as much from the most splendid eloquence," appears in our state of mind of the auditors, as from the age to be very little better than empty vigor of the retort. It is because the rhetoric. Since his speeches greatly re- powder lights upon a heated surface that sembled the productions of his pen, and an explosion is produced, though, unless were not considered to be the least supe- the powder was itself inflammable, the rerior by an admirable judge who was sult could not ensue, and therefore the dust familiar with both, we may conclude that which is thrown by minor speakers falls their preservation would have contributed feeble and harmless. The mere presence little to our pleasure, and added nothing of numbers aids the impression even to the reputation of Bolingbroke. What- where the assembly is not split into parever were his merits, he is an example on ties, and no especial interest has been the side of Lord Stanhope's doctrine, for roused in advance on the question discusshe told Lord Chesterfield that the whole ed. The speech which would be listened secret of his style was the constant atten- to calmly by half a dozen people will stir tion he paid to it in his youth. Declama- a multitude, and an observation will raise tion less polished than his, language less a laugh in public, which would not pass copious, and metaphors less appropriate, for a joke in private. But perhaps the when set forth by a fine figure, voice, and most influential element of all is the deelocution, would be highly imposing in light which is derived from the real or delivery, and would call forth rapturous apparently spontaneous production of cheers. But his was the eloquence which appropriate thoughts in well-chosen lanis born of the occasion, and dies with the guage-in the exhibition of the feat of occasion, and this is the ordinary rule. pouring out off-hand elaborate composition, There is not one of the great debaters and a connected series of apt ideas. The who reached their zenith in the last cen- art is so remote from the common practury, with the exception of Burke, whose tice of mankind, that however often regrandest displays appear to the reader peated it always excites the pleasure of our day to warrant their renown. The which arises from the manifestation of politician may revert to the harangues of unusual power. Every great orator writes Pitt, Sheridan, and Fox. The speeches of passages which he commits to memory, Burke alone have become incorporated but it is a part of his science to blend the with the literature of our country. There extemporaneous and the prepared portions is a system of compensation in fame as into an indistinguishable whole, and were in greater things. If the oratory of each he by his clumsiness to betray the joints generation is neglected by succeeding he would destroy the charm. The times, there is no species of intellectual readers of a debate are no longer under excellence which produces such an imme- the spell of this seeming facility. The diate return. While the speaker is in language does not flow living to them the very act of forming his sentences his from the lips of the speaker, and they triumph is reflected from the countenances judge it exactly as they would estimate of the auditors, and is sounded from their the same quantity of printed matter by lips. He proceeds, animated at every step whatever means produced. In many cases by the full chorus of applause, which only in addition to the figure, the voice, the comes to other men in feeble echoes long manner of the man contribute largely to delayed, and which are more often lost give force and animation to his words. before they can reach the ear of him who The famous saying of Demosthenes that is the subject of the praise. action, which includes delivery, was the first, second, and third great requisite of an orator, is repeated and confirmed by Cicero, who calls it the principal accomplishment in speaking. He affirms that the highest excellence is nothing without it, and that with it mediocrity can often surpass the most gifted. In modern times preeminent powers have enabled a few to

The causes of the prodigious success of oratory spoken over oratory read are easy to be distinguished. When the contending forces are drawn out face to face in hostile array there is the excitement of a battle, and every blow which tells against the enemy is received with the same sort of exultation that soldiers feel when a

dispense with it. The assertion that it sets off feeble matter is as true as ever. In every age there are speakers who owe nearly the whole of their success to their delivery.

Another predominant cause of the different impression which a speech produces in the closet from what it does when heard is to be found in the nature of the oratorical style. When Dr. Johnson furnished Boswell with materials for an address to a Committee of the House of Commons on election petition he added: "This you must enlarge on. You must not argue there, as if you were arguing in the schools. You must say the same thing over and over again, in different words. If you say it but once, they miss it in a moment of inattention." The masters of eloquence have enforced the rule. Fox advised Sir Samuel Romilly, when about to sum up the evidence in Lord Melville's trial, "not to be afraid of repeating observations which were material, since it were better that some of the audience should observe it than that any should not understand." Though he himself was censured for the practice, he declared it to be his conviction, from long experience, that the system was right. Pitt urged a similar defense for the amplification which was thought by some to be a defect in his style. "Every person," he said, "who addressed a public assembly, and was anxious to make an impression upon particular points, must either be copious upon those points or repeat them, and that he preferred copiousness to repetition." Lord Brougham gives his testimony on the same side. The orator, he remarks, often feels that he could add strength to his composition by compression, but his hearers would then be unable to keep pace with him, and he is compelled to sacrifice conciseness to clearness. The Greeks appeared to shun every species of prolixity, which Lord Brougham justly considers to be an indication that they condensed their harangues when they committed them to writing. Burke shared the conviction that not even an Athenian audience could have followed the orations of Demosthenes, if he had uttered them in the concentrated form in which they have come down to us, and Cicero objects to the Greeks that they sometimes carried brevity to the point of obscurity. The expansion which is a merit at the moment

of delivery is turned to a defect when a speech is printed. What before was impressive seems now to be verbose, and the effect is diminished in much the same proportion that it was originally increased. It was for some such reason that Fox asserted that if a speech read well it was not a good speech.

Though the force and splendor of oratory is only limited by the powers of the human mind, and though some of its displays rival any thing which exists under any other form, less intrinsic excellence is required upon the whole to secure fame than in the productions of the pen. The balance is made up by the difficulty of pouring forth composition off-hand, which shall at least impose or sparkle at the moment. This facility is therefore the first requisite of the speaker, and in whatever qualities he is deficient, a want of readiness must not be one of them. Essays written and learnt by heart, however brilliant, have never of themselves procured much reputation for any debater in modern times. Until he has proved that he is equal to extempore efforts he is rather sneered at than applauded. The first Mr. Pitt, the earliest, since the time of Queen Anne, of the great orators of whom we have specimens sufficient to enable us to judge of his style, had been at small pains to qualify himself for his part in other particulars, but a perennial flow of parliamentary eloquence can no more exist without prompt language than without a tongue, and he had taken especial care to furnish his memory with a copious vocabulary. Lord Chesterfield asserts that he had very little political knowledge, that his matter was generally flimsy, and his arguments often weak. This is confirmed by Dr. King, who states that he was devoid of learning, unless it was a slight acquaintance with the Latin classics, and his sister, Mrs. Anne Pitt, used to declare sarcastically-for being of the same haughty temperament they agreed, as Horace Walpole says, like two drops of fire-that the only book he had read was Spenser's “Fairy Queen," which drew from Burke the remark that whoever was master of Spenser "had a strong hold of the English language." But he had not trusted to the bright and romantic fancy of Spenser alone to supply him with the materials for contests so unlike the source from whence he fetched his aid. He studied the famous divines of

our Church, and especially Barrow, with the same view. Not only did he attain to a readiness which never failed him, and in the consciousness of power delighted to avail himself of any opportunity to reply, but according to Lord Chesterfield every word he employed was the most expressive that could be used. What remains of his eloquence would not bear out this last eulogium, but the reports are meager, and can not be trusted for more than an occasional fragment of which the vigor proves the accuracy. Neverthe less it is certain from contemporary accounts that, like all men who speak much, and trust to the inspiration of the hour, he sometimes made bad speeches, and would often interpose between his brighter sallies long passages of common-place rhetoric. A bold, brief, and pointed mode of expressing daring truths, sometimes by metaphor and sometimes by antithesis, is the characteristic of his most stirring appeals. He put what he had to say into the strongest words the English tongue would afford, and, possessing a spirit as dauntless as his language, the attempt to check him invariably drew from him an indignant and defiant repetition of the of fense. Hence he was a terrible antagonist, who awed his opponents by the fierceness and courage of his invectives, and on popular questions roused enthusiasm by the short and vehement sentences in which he embodied the feverish passions of his hearers. It required the utmost energy of style to sustain the commanding tone he assumed, and he would have been ridiculous if he had not been sublime. Of his manner we can with difficulty form an idea from the descriptions which have come down to us, but all are agreed that every art of elocution and action aided his imposing figure and his eagle eye. So consummate was his gesture and delivery, that Horace Walpole often calls him "Old Garrick." This, as much as his command of language must have been the result of study, and well deserved it for the effect which it produced.

In 1766 Johnson announced to Langton that Burke, who had recently obtained a seat in Parliament, "had made two speeches in the House for repealing the Stamp Act, which were publicly commended by Mr. Pitt, and had filled the town with wonder." This was the appropriate start of a man who, whether as a

statesman, a thinker, or an orator, was without an equal. Pitt and Fox were great, but Burke belongs to another order of beings, and ranks with the Shakspeares, the Bacons, and the Newtons. He was what he called Charles Townshend-" a prodigy"--and the conclusion of Moore, after reading the debates of the time, that his speeches, when compared with those of his ablest contemporaries, were "almost superhuman," must be shared by every one who adopts the same means of forming a judgment. Johnson said "he did not grudge his being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the first man every where ;" but the House of Commons was not composed of Johnsons, and when the novelty had worn off, they grew tired of his magnificent harangues. His manner was against him. Grattan, who heard him shortly after he had entered Parlia ment, and while he was yet listened to "with profound attention," and received the homage due to "acknowledged superiority," states that there was a total want of energy in his delivery, and of grace in his action. Later he was noted for frequent outbreaks of impetuosity bordering upon passion, but they rather conveyed the idea of irritability of temper than earnestness of feeling, and were thought no improvement upon the frigid tone of his early displays. His voice, which he never attempted to discipline, was harsh when he was calm, and when he was excited he often became so hoarse as to be hardly intelligible. But the main cause of the weariness he produced arose from his mode of treating his subject. Every man who has any opinions derived from deliberate investigation, unfolds them in the manner in which he himself arrived at them, and enforces the arguments which have carried conviction to his own understanding. Burke drew his conclusions from a wide survey of history and human nature-from enlarged principles, which looked far beyond the petty expodients and fitful passions of the hour. Upon this grand basis he founded his views of present policy. His hearers, on the contrary, were absorbed in the business of the moment, and were impatient of a process so circuitous, and so out of harmony with their own habits of thought. Whatever had not an immediate and obvious bearing upon the question before them, seemed foreign to the matter, and

« PreviousContinue »