erally result from a partial view of the question, and cannot be kept under examination long enough to be corrected. Men of great conversational powers almost universally practice a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration, which deceives, for the moment, both themselves and their auditors. Thus we see doctrines, which cannot bear a close inspection, triumph perpetually in drawing-rooms, in debating societies, and even in legislative or judicial assemblies. To the conversational education of the Athenians, I am inclined to attribute the great looseness of reasoning which is remarkable in most of their scientific writings. Even the most illogical of modern writers would stand perfectly aghast at the puerile fallacies which seem to have deluded some of the greatest men of antiquity. Sir Thomas Lethbridge would stare at the political economy of Xenophon, and the author of "Soirées de Petersbourg" would be ashamed of some of the metaphysical arguments of Plato. But the very circumstances which retarded the growth of science, were peculiarly favorable to the cultivation of eloquence. From the early habit of taking a share in animated discussion, the intelligent student would derive that readiness of resource, that copiousness of language, and that knowledge of the temper and understanding of an audience, which are far more valuable to an orator than the greatest logical powers. Horace has prettily compared poems to those paintings of which the effect varies as the spectator changes his stand. The same remark applies with at least equal justice to speeches. They must be read with the temper of those to whom they were addressed, or they must necessarily appear to offend against the laws of taste and reason, as the finest picture, seen in a light different from that for which it was designed, will appear fit only for a sign. This is perpetually forgotten by those who criticise oratory. Because they are reading at leisure, pausing at every line, reconsidering every argument, they forget that the hearers were hurried from point to point too rapidly to detect the fallacies through which they were conducted; that they had no time to disentangle sophisms, or to notice slight inaccuracies of expression; that elaborate excellence, either of reasoning or of language, would have been absolutely thrown away. To recur to the analogy of the sister art, these connoisseurs examine a panorama through a microscope, and quarrel with a scene painter because he does not give to his work the exquisite finish of Gérard Dow. Oratory is to be estimated on principles different from those which are applied to other productions. Truth is the object of philosophy and history. Truth is the object even of those works which are peculiarly called works of fiction, but which, in fact, bear the same relation to history which algebra bears to arithmetic. The merit of poetry, in its wildest forms, still consists in its truth,-truth conveyed to the understanding, not directly by the words, but circuitously by means of imaginative associations, which serve as its conductors. The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion. The admiration of the multitude does not make Moore a greater poet than Coleridge, or Beattie a greater philosopher than Berkeley. But the criterion of eloquence is different. A speaker who exhausts the whole philosophy of a question, who displays every grace of style, yet produces no effect on his audience, may be a great essayist, a great statesman, a great master of composition, but he is not an orator. If he miss the mark, it makes no difference whether he have taken aim too high or too low.

The effect of the great freedom of the press in England has been, in a great measure, to destroy this distinction, and to leave among us little of what I call oratory proper. Our legislators, our candidates, on great occasions even our advocates, address themselves less to the audience than to the reporters. They think less of the few hearers than of the innumerable readers. At Athens, the case was different; there the only object of the speaker was immediate conviction and persuasion. He, therefore, who would justly appreciate the merit of the Grecian orators, should place himself, as nearly as possible, in the situation of their auditors; he should

divest himself of his modern feelings and acquirements, and make the prejudices and interests of the Athenian citizens his own. He who studies their works in this spirit will find that many of those things which, to an English reader, appear to be blemishes, - the frequent violation of those excellent rules of evidence, by which our courts of law are regulated; the introduction of extraneous matter; the reference to considerations of political expediency in judicial investigations; the assertions, without proof, the passionate entreaties, the furious invectives, -are really proofs of the prudence and address of the speakers. He must not dwell maliciously on arguments or phrases, but acquiesce in his first impressions. It requires repeated perusal and reflection to decide rightly on any other portion of literature. But with respect to works of which the merit depends on their instantaneous effect, the most hasty judgment is likely to be best.

The history of eloquence at Athens is remarkable. From a very early period great speakers had flourished there. Pisistratus and Themistocles are said to have owed much of their influence to their talents for debate. We learn, with more certainty, that Pericles was distinguished by extraordinary oratorical powers. The substance of some of his speeches is transmitted to us by Thucydides, and that excellent writer has doubtless faithfully reported the general line of his arguments. But the manner, which in oratory is of at least as much consequence as the matter, was of no importance to his narration. It is evident that he has not attempted to preserve it. Throughout his work, every speech on every subject, whatever may have been the character or the dialect of the speaker, is in exactly the same form. The grave King of Sparta, the furious demagogue of Athens, the general encouraging his army, the captive supplicating for his life, all are represented as speakers in one unvaried style,-a style, moreover, wholly unfit for oratorical purposes. His mode of reasoning is singularly elliptical,-in reality most consecutive, yet in appearance often incoherent. His meaning, in itself sufficiently perplexing, is compressed into the fewest possible words. His great fondness for antithetical expression has not a little conduced to this effect. Everyone must have observed how much more the sense is condensed in the verses of Pope and his imitators, who never ventured to continue the same clause from couplet to couplet, than in those of poets who allow themselves that license. Every artificial division which is strongly marked, and which frequently recurs, has the same tendency. The natural and perspicuous expression which spontaneously rises to the mind, will often refuse to accommodate itself to such a form. It is necessary either to expand it into weakness, or to compress it into almost impenetrable density. The latter is generally the choice of an able man, and was assuredly the choice of Thucydides.

It is scarcely necessary to say that such speeches could never have been delivered. They are, perhaps, among the most difficult passages in the Greek language, and would, probably, have been scarcely more intelligible to an Athenian auditor than to a modern reader. Their obscurity was acknowledged by Cicero, who was as intimate with the literature and language of Greece as the most accomplished of its natives, and who seems to have held a respectable rank among the Greek authors. The difficulty to a modern reader lies, not in the words, but in the reasoning. A dictionary is of far less use in studying them than a clear head and a close attention to the context. They are valuable to the scholar, as displaying, beyond almost any other compositions, the powers of the finest languages; they are valuable to the philosopher, as illustrating the morals and manners of a most interesting age; they abound in just thought and energetic expression; but they do not enable us to form any accurate opinion on the merits of the early Greek authors.

Though it cannot be doubted that, before the Persian wars, Athens had produced eminent speakers, yet the period during which eloquence most flourished among her citizens was by no means that of her greatest power and glory. It

commenced at the close of the Peloponnesian War. In fact, the steps by which Athenian oratory approached to its finished excellence seem to have been almost contemporaneous with those by which the Athenian character and the Athenian empire sunk to degradation. At the time when the little commonwealth achieved those victories which twenty-five eventful centuries have left unequaled, eloquence was in its infancy. The deliverers of Greece became its plunderers and oppressors. Unmeasured exaction, atrocious vengeance, the madness of the multitude, the tyranny of the great, filled the Cyclades with tears, and blood, and mourning. The sword unpeopled whole islands in a day. The plow passed over the ruins of famous cities. The imperial republic sent forth her children by thousands to pine in the quarries of Syracuse, or to feed the vultures of Ægospotami. She was at length reduced by famine and slaughter to humble herself before her enemies, and to purchase existence by the sacrifice of her empire and her laws. During these disastrous and gloomy years oratory was advancing towards its highest excellence. And it was when the moral, the political, the military character of the people was most utterly degraded; it was when the viceroy of a Macedonian sovereign gave law to Greece, that the courts of Athens witnessed the most splendid contest of eloquence that the world has ever known.

The causes of this phenomenon it is not, I think, difficult to assign. The division of labor operates on the productions of the orator as it does on those of the mechanic. It was remarked by the Ancients that the Pentathlete who divided his attention between several exercises, though he could not vie with a boxer in the use of a cestus, or with one who had confined his attention to running in the contest of the stadium, yet enjoyed far greater general vigor and health than either. It is the same with the mind. The superiority in technical skill is often more than compensated by the inferiority in general intelligence. And this is peculiarly the case in politics. States have always been best governed by men who have taken a wide view of public affairs, and who have rather a general acquaintance with many sciences than a perfect mastery of one. The union of the political and military departments in Greece contributed not a little to the splendor of its early history. After their separation more skillful generals and greater speakers appeared,- but the breed of statesmen dwindled and became almost extinct. Themistocles or Pericles would have been no match for Demosthenes in the assembly, or Iphicrates in the field. But surely they were incomparably better fitted than either for the supreme direction of affairs.

There is, indeed, a remarkable coincidence between the progress of the art of war and that of the art of oratory among the Greeks. They both advanced to perfection by contemporaneous steps and from similar causes. The early speakers, like the early warriors of Greece, were merely a militia. It was found that in both employments practice and discipline gave superiority. Each pursuit, therefore, became first an art and then a trade. In proportion as the professors of each became more expert in their particular craft, they became less respectable in their general character. Their skill had been obtained at too great expense to be employed only from disinterested views. Thus, the soldiers forgot that they were citizens and the orators that they were statesmen. I know not to what Demosthenes and his famous contemporaries can be so justly compared as to those mercenary troops, who, in their time, overran Greece; or those who, from similar causes, were, some centuries ago, the scourge of the Italian republics,- perfectly acquainted with every part of their profession, irresistible in the field, powerful to defend or to destroy, but defending without love and destroying without hatred. We may despise the characters of these political Condottieri, but it is impossible to examine the system of their tactics without being amazed at its perfection. From his miscellaneous essays.

EPES SARGENT

(1812-1880)

PES SARGENT, author of "A Life on the Ocean Wave" and compiler of a series of "Speakers," which showed taste and judgment of a high order, was born at Gloucester, Massachusetts, September 27th, 1812. He was a journalist by profession and was for several years editor of the Boston Transcript. Retiring from it to devote himself to literature he published numerous works, original and compiled. Among his compilations his "Cyclopædia of English and American Poetry » shows the same admirable taste which he illustrated in compiling his "Speakers." His "ear" for melody and rhythm in language made his judgment of oratory invaluable, and his "Speakers," though now out of print, still command good prices. He died in Boston, December 31st, 1880.

ORATORY, ANCIENT AND MODERN

RATORY, which has its derivation from the Latin verb oro, signifying to plead, to beseech, may be defined as the art of producing persuasion or conviction by means of spoken discourse. The word eloquence, in its primary signification, as its etymology implies, had a single reference to public speaking; but it is applied by Aristotle, as well as by modern writers, to compositions not intended for public delivery. A similar extension of meaning has been given to the word rhetoric, which, in its etymological sense, means the art of the orator, but now comprehends the art of prose composition generally.

It is apparent, from the speeches attributed by Homer to the chiefs of the "Iliad," as well as by the commendations which he bestows on Nestor and Ulysses for their eloquence, that the art of oratory was early understood and honored in Greece. But it was not till Demosthenes appeared that Grecian eloquence reached its perfection. Demosthenes, who, by the consent of all antiquity, was the prince of orators, still maintains his pre-eminence. Of his style, Hume has happily said: "It is rapid harmony, exactly adjusted to the sense; it is vehement reasoning, without any appearance of art; it is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, involved in a continued stream of argument; and of all human productions, the orations of Demosthenes present to us the models which approach the nearest to perfection." It is related of this great orator that, in his first address to the people, he was laughed at and interrupted by their clamors. He had a weakness of voice and a stammering propensity which rendered it difficult for him to be understood. By immense labor, and an undaunted perseverence, he overcame these defects; and subsequently, by the spell of his eloquence, exercised an unparalleled sway over that same people who had jeered at him when they first heard him speak in public. The speeches of Demosthenes were not extemporaneous. There were no writers of shorthand in his days, and what was written could only come from the author himself.

After the time of Demosthenes, Grecian eloquence, which was coeval with Grecian liberty, declined with the decay of the latter. In Rome, the military spirit, so incompatible with a high degree of civil freedom, long checked the growth of that popular intelligence which is the only element in which the noblest eloquence is nurtured. Rhetoricians were banished from the country as late as the year of the city 592. A few years subsequent to this period the study of oratory was introduced from Athens; and it at length found a zealous disciple and a consummate master in Cicero, whose fame is second only to that of his Athenian predecessor. The main causes to which the extraordinary perfection of ancient oratory is to be ascribed are the great pains bestowed on the education of the young in this most difficult art, and the practice among speakers of preparing nearly all their finest orations before delivery.

In modern times, oratory has not been cultivated with so much care as among the Ancients. The diffusion of opinions and arguments by means of the press has, perhaps, contributed in some degree to its neglect. A speaker is now mainly known to the public through the press, and it is often more important to him to be read than heard. Still, the power of oratory in republican countries must always be immense, and the importance of its cultivation must be proportionate. We see it flourish or decay according to the degree of freedom among the people, and it is a bad sign for a republic when oratory is slighted or undervalued. It was not till France began to throw off the trammels of her monarchical system that she produced a Mirabeau. Her parliamentary annals will show that the eloquence of her National Assembly has been in proportion to the predominance of the element of constitutional freedom in her government.

The struggle against incipient despotism in England, which resulted in the execution of King Charles I., was productive of some great bursts of eloquence from Vane, Pym, Eliot, and other champions of popular rights, whose speeches, however, have been strangely slighted by the majority of English critics. The latter part of the eighteenth century was illumined by the genius of Chatham, Pitt, Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and Grattan, all of whom were roused to some of their most brilliant efforts by the arbitrary course of government towards our ancestors of the American colonies. Ireland is well represented in this immortal list. Her sons have ever displayed a true genius for oratory.

The little opportunity afforded for the cultivation of forensic or senatorial eloquence by the different governments of Germany has almost entirely checked its growth in that country; and we may say the same of Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and most of the other countries of Europe. To the pulpit oratory of France the illustrious names of Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon have given enduring celebrity; and in forensic and senatorial eloquence France has not been surpassed by any modern nation. But it is only in her intervals of freedom that her senatorial eloquence reaches its high note.

The growth of eloquence in the United States has been such as to inspire the hope that the highest triumphs of oratory are here to be achieved. Already we have produced at least two orators, Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster, to whom none, since Demosthenes, in the authority, majesty, and amplitude of their eloquence can be pronounced superior. In proportion to the extent of our cultivation of oratory as an art worthy our entire devotion, must be our success in enriching it with new and precious contributions. And of the power of a noble oratory, beyond its immediate circle of hearers, who can doubt? "Who doubts?" asks Mr. Webster, "that in our own struggle for freedom and independence, the majestic eloquence of Chatham, the profound reasoning of Burke, the burning satire and irony of Barrè, had influence on our fortunes in America? They tended to diminish the