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at the moment, were both delighted and awed, and what they themselves then conceived of the immeasurable superiority of the orator over every human being that surrounded him. In the passages which we have cited, there is nothing which an ordinary speaker might not have said; it was the manner, and the manner only, which produced the effect.

MR. FOX AND MR. PITT.

On his first separation from the ministry, Mr. Fox assumed the character of a Whig.

Almost the whole of his political life was spent in opposition to his majesty's ministers. In vehemence and power of argument he resembled Demosthenes; but there the resemblance ended. He possessed a strain of ridicule and wit which nature denied to the Athenian; and it was the more powerful, as it always appeared to be blended with argument, and to result from it. To the perfect composition which so eminently distinguishes the speeches of Demosthenes, he had no pretence. He was heedless of method: having the complete command of good words, he never sought for better; if those which occurred expressed his meaning clearly and forcibly, he paid little attention to their arrangement or harmony.

The moment of his grandeur was when, after he had stated the argument of his adversary, with much greater strength than his adversary had done, and with much greater than any of his hearers thought possible, he seized it with the strength of a giant, and tore and trampled on it to destruction. If, at this moment, he had possessed the power of the Athenian over the passions or the imaginations of his hearers, he might have disposed of the House at his pleasure; but this was denied to him; and, on this account, his speeches fell very short of the effect which otherwise they must have produced.

It is difficult to decide on the comparative merit of him and Mr. Pitt. The latter had not the vehement reasoning or argumentative ridicule of Mr. Fox; but he had more splendor, more imagery, and much more method and discretion. His long, lofty, and reverential panegyrics of the British Constitution, his eloquent vituperations of those whom he described as advocating the democratic spirit, then let loose on the inhabitants of the earth, and his solemn adjuration of the House to defend, and to assist him in defending, their all against it, were, in the highest degree, both

imposing and conciliating. In addition, he had the command of bitter, contemptuous sarcasm, which tortured to madness. This he could expand or compress at pleasure: even in one member of a sentence, he could inflict a wound that was never healed.

Mr. Fox had a captivating earnestness of tone and manner; Mr. Pitt was more dignified than earnest. The action of Mr. Fox was easy and graceful; Mr. Pitt's cannot be praised. It was an observation of the reporters in the gallery, that it required great exertion to follow Mr. Fox while he was speaking; none to remember what he had said: that it was easy and delightful to follow Mr. Pitt; not so easy to recollect what had delighted them. It may be added that, in all Mr. Fox's speeches, even when he was most violent, there was an unquestionable indication of good humor, which attracted every heart. Where there was such a seeming equipoise of merit, the two last circumstances might be thought to turn the scale; but Mr. Pitt's undeviating circumspection-sometimes concealed, sometimes ostentatiously displayed -tended to obtain for him, from the considerate and the grave, a confidence which they denied to his rival.1

I cannot but transcribe here the spirited and eloquent comparison of Fox and Pitt by H. B. Stanton, Esq., in his most instructive book, "Reforms and Reformers of Great Britain and Ireland;" a book which every young man entering upon life ought to read.

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"Mr. Fox was totally unlike his great rival. Pitt was stately, taciturn, and of an austere temper. Fox was easy, social, and of a kindly disposition. Pitt was tall and grave, and, entering the House carefully dressed, walked proudly to the head of the Treasury bench, and took his seat as dignified and dumb as a statue. Fox was burly and jovial, entered the House in a slouched hat and with a careless air, and, as he approached the Opposition benches, had a nod for this learned city member, and a joke for that wealthy knight of the shire, and sat down, as much at ease as if he were lounging in the back parlor of a country inn. Pitt, as the adage runs, could speak a king's speech off-hand.' so consecutive were his sentences; and his round, smooth periods delighted the aristocracy of all parties. Fox made the Lords of the Treasury quail as he declaimed in piercing tones against ministerial corruption, while his friends shoutedHear! hear!' and applauded till the House shook. Pitt's sentences were pompous and sonorous, and often their sound revealed their own hollowness.' Fox uttered sturdy Anglo-Saxon sense; every word pregnant with meaning. Pitt was a thorough business man, and relied for success in debate upon careful preparation. Fox despised the drudgery of the office, and relied upon his intuitive perceptions and his robust strength. Pitt was the greater secretary-Fox the greater commoner. Pitt's oratory was like the frozen stalactites and pyramids which glitter around Niagara in mid-winter, stately, clear, and cold: Fox's like the vehement waters which sweep over its brink, and roar and boil in the abyss below. Pitt, in his great efforts, only erected himself the more proudly, and uttered more full Johnsonian sentences, sprinkling his dignified but monotonous state-paper style' with pungent sarcasms, speaking as one having authority, and commanding that it might stand fast. Fox on such occasions reasoned from first principles, denouncing where he could not persuade, and reeling under his great thoughts until his excited feelings rocked him like the ocean in a storm. Pitt displayed the most rhetoric, and his mellow voice charmed like the notes of an organ. Fox dis

MASSILLON AND BOURDALOUE.

In delivering his sermons, Bourdaloue used no action; Bossuet and Massillon used much. The action of the last was particularly admired. It produced an extraordinary effect when he pronounced his funeral oration upon Louis the Fourteenth. The church was hung with black, a magnificent mausoleum was raised over the bier, the edifice was filled with trophies and other memorials of the monarch's past glories, daylight was excluded, but innumerable tapers supplied its place, and the ceremony was attended by the most illustrious persons in the kingdom. Massillon ascended the pulpit, contemplated, for some moments, the scene before him, then raised his arms to heaven, looked down on the scene beneath, and, after a short pause, slowly said, in a solemn subdued tone, "GOD ONLY IS GREAT!" With one impulse, all the auditory rose from their seats, turned to the altar, and slowly and reverently bowed.

Those who read sermons merely for their literary merit will generally prefer the sermons of Massillon to those of Bourdaloue and Bossuet. But those who read sermons for instruction, and whose chief object, in the perusal of them, is to be excited to virtue or confirmed in her paths, will generally consider Bourdaloue as the first of preachers, and every time they peruse him will feel new delight.

When we recollect before whom Bourdaloue preached; that he had for his auditors the most luxurious court in Europe, and a monarch abandoned to ambition and pleasure, we shall find it impossible not to honor the preacher for the dignified simplicity with which he uniformly held up to his audience the severity of the Gospel, and the scandal of the cross. Now and then, and ever with a very bad grace, he makes an unmeaning compliment to the monarch. On these occasions, his genius appears to desert him; but he never disguises the morality of the Gospel, or withholds its threats. In one of the sermons which he preached

played the most argument, and his shrill tones pierced like arrows. Pitt had an icy taste; Fox a fiery logic. Pitt had art; Fox nature. Pitt was dignified, cool, cautious; Fox manly, generous, brave. Pitt had a mind; Fox a soul. Pitt was a majestic automaton; Fox a living man. Pitt was the minister of the king; Fox the champion of the people. Both were the early advocates of parliamentary reform; but Pitt retreated, while Fox advanced; and both joined in denouncing and abolishing the horrors of the middle passage. Both died the same year, and they sleep side by side in Westminster Abbey, their dust mingling with that of their mutual friend Wilberforce; while over their tombs watches with eagle eye and extended arm the moulded form of Chatham."

before the monarch, he described, with matchless eloquence, the horrors of an adulterous life, its abomination in the eye of God, its scandal to man, and the public and private evils which attend it but he managed his discourse with so much address that he kept the king from suspecting that the thunder of the preacher was ultimately to fall upon him. In general, Bourdaloue spoke in a level tone of voice, and with his eyes almost shut. On this occasion, having wound up the attention of the monarch and the audience to the highest pitch, he paused. The audience expected something terrible, and seemed to fear the next word. The pause continued for some time: at length, the preacher, fixing his eyes directly on his royal hearer, and in a tone of voice equally expressive of horror and concern, said, in the words of the prophet, "thou art the man!" then, leaving these words to their effect, he concluded with a mild and general prayer to heaven for the conversion of all sinners. A miserable courtier observed, in a whisper, to the monarch, that the boldness of the preacher exceeded all bounds, and should be checked. "No, sir," replied the monarch; "the preacher has done his duty; let us do ours." When the service was concluded, the monarch walked slowly from the church, and ordered Bourdaloue into his presence. He remarked to him his general protection of religion, the kindness which he had ever shown to the Society of Jesus, his particular attention to Bourdaloue and his friends. He then reproached him with the strong language of the sermon; and asked him, what could be his motive for insulting him, thus publicly, before his subjects? Bourdaloue fell on his knees: "God is my witness that it was not my wish to insult your majesty; but I am a minister of God, and must not disguise his truths. What I said in my sermon is my morning and evening prayer. May God, in his infinite mercy, grant me to see the day when the greatest of kings shall be the holiest." The monarch was affected, and silently dismissed the preacher: but, from this time, the court began to observe that change which afterward, and at no distant period, led Louis to a life of regularity and virtue.

GEORGE CRABBE, 1754-1832.

GEORGE CRABBE was born at Aldborough, in Suffolk, on the 24th of December, 1754, and was the son of an officer of the customs. He was

apprenticed to an apothecary, and had received an education merely sufficient to qualify him for that occupation, but by no means answering to that eminent literary success which he afterwards attained. His poetical taste was first kindled by the perusal of verses, which from time to time appeared in the "Philosophical Magazine"-a periodical taken by his father. The attractions of the Muse soon overcame those of Æsculapius, and in 1778 he quitted the profession of medicine, which he had always disliked, and went to London, determining to apply himself to literature. He had but little more in his pocket than a bundle of his poems; and these, alas! he could find no one who would venture to publish; so that at length he printed, at his own risk, his first published work, "The Candidate," which appeared anonymously in 1780. It was favorably noticed in the "Monthly Review," to the editor of which it was addressed. Finding, however, that he could not hope for much success while he remained personally unknown, without any introduction, and impelled by distress, be made himself known to Edmund Burke. From this moment his fortune was made. That great and good man received him with much kindness, read his productions with approbation, afforded him the advantage of his criticism and advice, recommended him to Dodsley, the publisher, invited him to his house, and introduced him to some of his distinguished literary friends, among whom were Johnson, Reynolds, and Fox.

Crabbe's first published poems, after his acquaintance with Burke, were "The Library," and "The Village," both of which received the benefit of the observations of the great statesman and critic, and the second of which was mainly composed at Burke's residence at Beaconsfield. In 1781, Crabbe, who had been qualifying himself for "the church," at Burke's recommendation, was "ordained a deacon, and took priest's orders the following year," and he, of course, had two or three "livings" presented to him.' In 1783, appeared "The Village," which had received the corrections and commendations of Dr. Johnson. He next produced "The Newspaper," in 1785, after which his poetical labors were suspended for some time, probably on account of the duties of his profession, and the cares of a growing family, though he ascribes it to the loss of those early and distinguished friends who had given him the benefit of their criticism. In 1809, appeared "The Parish Register;" in 1810 one of his best poems, "The Borough;" and in 1812 "Tales in Verse." His last publication was entitled "Tales of the Hall," and was published in 1819. The latter years of his life he spent in the tranquil and amiable exercise of his domestic and clerical duties, at the rectory of Trowbridge, esteemed and admired by his parishioners, among whom he died, after a short illness, on the 8th of February, 1832.

Lord Chancellor Thurlow bestowed upon him, successively, the "living" of Frome St. Quintin, in Dorsetshire, which he held for six years, and the rectories of Muston and West Allington, in the diocese of Lincoln.

Johnson, in a letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds, thus writes: "I have sent you back Mr. Crabbe's poem, which I read with great delight. It is original, vigorous, and elegant."

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