tion of mankind, and properly denominates one an orator, is never found without warmth or passion. Passion, when in such a degree as to rouse and kindle the mind, without throwing it out of the possession of itself, is universally found to exalt all the human powers. It renders the mind infinitely more enlightened, more penetrating, more vigorous and masterly, than it is in its calm moments. A man, actuated by a strong passion, becomes much greater than he is at other times. He is conscious of more strength and force; he utters greater sentiments, conceives higher designs, and executes them with a boldness and a felicity, of which, on other occasions, he could not think himself capable. But chiefly, with respect to persuasion, is the power of passion felt. Almost every man, in passion, is eloquent. Then he is at no loss for words and arguments. He transmits to others, by a sort of contagious sympathy, the warm sentiments which he feels; his looks and gestures are all persuasive; and nature here shows herself infinitely more powerful than art. This is the foundation of that just and noted rule: 'Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi.'

This principle being once admitted, that all high eloquence flows from passion, several consequences follow, which deserve to be attended to; and the mention of which will serve to confirm the principle itself. For hence the universally acknowledged effect of enthusiasm, or warmth of any kind, in public speakers, for affecting their audience. Hence all laboured declamation, and affected ornaments of style, which show the mind to be cool and unmoved, are so inconsistent with persuasive eloquence. Hence all studied prettinesses, in gesture or pronunciation, detract so greatly from the weight of a speaker. Hence a discourse that is read, moves us less than one that is spoken, as having less the appearance of coming warm from the heart. Hence, to call a man cold, is the same thing as to say, that he is not eloquent. Hence, a skeptical man, who is always in suspense, and feels nothing strongly; or a cunning mercenary man, who is suspected rather to assume the appearance of passion than to feel it; have so little power over men in public speaking. Hence, in fine, the necessity of being, and being believed to be, disinterested, and in earnest, in order to persuade.

Those are some of the capital ideas which have occurred to me, concerning eloquence in general; and with which I have thought proper to begin, as the foundation of much of what I am afterwards to suggest. From what I have already said, it is evident that eloquence is a high talent and of great importance in society: and that it requires both natural genius, and much improvement from art. Viewed as the art of persuasion, it requires, in its lowest state, soundness of understanding, and considerable acquaintance with human nature; and, in its higher degrees, it requires, moreover, strong sensibility of mind, a warm and lively imagination, joined with correctness of judgment, and an extensive command of the power of language; to which must also be added, the graces of pronunciation and delivery. Let us next proceed, to consider in what state eloquence has subsisted in different ages and nations.

It is an observation made by several writers, that eloquence is to be looked for only in free states. Longinus, in particular, at the end of his treatise on the sublime, when assigning the reason why so little sublimity of genius appeared in the age wherein he lived, illustrates this observation with a great deal of beauty. Liberty, he remarks, is the nurse of true genius; it animates the spirit, and invigorates the hopes of men; excites honourable emulation, and a desire of excelling in every art. All other qualifications, he says, you may find among those who are deprived of liberty; but never did a slave become an orator; he can only be a pompous flatterer. Now, though this reasoning be, in the main, true; it must, however, be understood with some limitations. For, under arbitrary governments, if they be of the civilized kind, and give encouragement to the arts, ornamented eloquence may flourish remarkably. Witness France at this day, where, ever since the reign of Louis XIV. more of what may be justly called eloquence, within a certain sphere, is to be found, than, perhaps, in any other nation in Europe; though freedom be enjoyed by some nations in a much greater degree. The French sermons, and orations pronounced on public occasions, are not only polite and elegant harangues, but several of them are uncommonly spirited, are animated with bold figures, and rise to a degree of the sublime. Their eloquence, however, in general, must be confessed to be of the flowery rather than the vigorous kind; calculated more to please and sooth, than to convince and persuade. High, manly, and forcible eloquence, is, indeed, to be looked for only, or chiefly, in the regions of freedom. Under arbitrary governments, besides the general turn of softness and effeminacy which such governments may be justly supposed to give to the spirit of a nation, the art of speaking cannot be such an instrument of ambition, business, and power, as it is in democratical states. It is confined within a narrower range; it can be employed only in the pulpit, or at the bar; but is excluded from those great scenes of public business, where the spirits of men have the freest exertion; where important affairs are transacted, and persuasion, of course, is more seriously studied. Wherever man can acquire most power over man by means of reason and discourse, which certainly is under a free state of government, there we may naturally expect that true eloquence will be best understood, and carried to the greatest height.

Hence, in tracing the rise of oratory, we need not attempt to go far back into the early ages of the world, or search for it among the monuments of eastern or Egyptian antiquity. In those ages, there was, indeed, an eloquence of a certain kind; but it approached nearer to poetry than to what we properly call oratory. There is reason to believe, as I formerly showed, that the language of the first ages was passionate and metaphorical; owing partly to the scanty stock of words, of which speech then consisted; and partly to the tincture which language naturally takes from the savage and uncultivated state of men, agitated by unrestrained passions, and struck by events which to them are strange and surprising. In this state, rapture and enthu

siasm, the parents of poetry, had an ample field. But while the intercourse of men was as yet unfrequent, and force and strength were the chief means employed in deciding controversies, the arts of oratory and persuasion, of reasoning and debate, could be but little known. The first empires that arose, the Assyrian and Egyptian, were of the despotic kind. The whole power was in the hands of one, or at most of a few. The multitude were accustomed to a blind reverence; they were led, not persuaded; and none of those refinements of society, which make public speaking an object of importance, were as yet introduced.

It is not till the rise of the Grecian republics, that we find any remarkable appearances of eloquence as the art of persuasion; and these gave it such a field as it never had before, and, perhaps has never had again since that time. And, therefore, as the Grecian eloquence has ever been the object of admiration to those who have studied the powers of speech, it is necessary that we fix our attention, for a little, on this period.

Greece was divided into a multitude of petty states. These were governed, at first, by kings who were called tyrants, on whose expulsion from all these states, there sprung up a great number of democratical governments, founded nearly on the same plan, animated by the same high spirit of freedom, mutually jealous, and rivals of one another. We may compute the flourishing period of those Grecian states to have lasted from the battle of Marathon, till the time of Alexander the Great, who subdued the liberties of Greece; a period which comprehends about 150 years, and within which are to be found most of their celebrated poets and philosophers, but chiefly their orators: for though poetry and philosophy were not extinct among them after that period, yet eloquence hardly made any figure.

Of these Grecian republics, the most noted, by far, for eloquence, and, indeed, for arts of every kind, was that of Athens. The Athenians were an ingenious, quick, sprightly people; practised in business, and sharpened by frequent and sudden revolutions, which happened in their government. The genius of their government was altogether democratical; their legislature consisted of the whole body of the people. They had, indeed, a senate of five hundred; but in the general convention of the citizens was placed the last resort; and affairs were conducted there, entirely, by reasoning, speaking, and a skilful application to the passions and interests of a popular assembly. There, laws were made, peace and war decreed, and thence the magistrates were chosen. For the highest honours of the state were alike open to all; nor was the meanest tradesman excluded from a seat in their supreme courts. In such a state, eloquence, it is obvious, would be much studied, as the surest means of rising to influence and power; and what sort of eloquence? Not that which was brilliant merely, and showy; but that which was found, upon trial, to be most effectual for convincing, interesting, and persuading the hearers. For there, public speaking was not a mere competition for empty applause, but a serious contention

for that public leading which was the great object both of the men of ambition, and the men of virtue.

In so enlightened and acute a nation, where the highest attention was paid to every thing elegant in the arts, we may naturally expect to find the public taste refined and judicious. Accordingly, it was improved to such a degree, that the Attic taste and Attic manner have passed into a proverb. It is true, that ambitious demagogues, and corrupt orators, did sometimes dazzle and mislead the people, by a showy but false eloquence: for the Athenians, with all their acuteness, were factious and giddy, and great admirers of every novelty. But when some important interest drew their attention, when any great danger roused them, and put their judgment to a serious trial, they commonly distinguished very justly between genuine and spurious eloquence; and hence Demosthenes triumphed over all his opponents; because he spoke always to the purpose, affected no insignificant parade of words, used weighty arguments, and showed them clearly where their interest lay. In critical conjunctures of the state, when the public was alarmed with some pressing danger, when the people were assembled, and proclamation was made by the crier, for any one to rise and deliver his opinion upon the present situation of affairs, empty declamation and sophistical reasoning would not only have been hissed, but resented and punished by an assembly so intelligent and accustomed to business. Their greatest orators trembled on such occasions, when they rose to address the people, as they knew they were to be held answerable for the issue of the counsel which they gave. The most liberal endowments of the greatest princes never could found such a school for true oratory, as was formed by the nature of the Athenian republic. Eloquence there sprung, native and vigorous, from amidst the contentions of faction and freedom, of public business, and of active life; and not from that retirement and speculation, which we are apt sometimes to fancy more favourable to eloquence than they are found to be.

Pisistratus, who was contemporary with Solon, and subverted his plan of government, is mentioned by Plutarch, as the first who distinguished himself among the Athenians by application to the arts of speech. His ability in these arts he employed for raising himself to the sovereign power; which, however, when he had attained it, he exercised with moderation. Of the orators who flourished between his time and the Peloponnesian war, no particular mention is made in history. Pericles, who died about the beginning of that war, was properly the first who carried eloquence to a great height; to such a height, indeed, that it does not appear he was ever afterwards surpassed. He was more than an orator; he was also a statesman and a general; expert in business, and of consummate address. Forty years he governed Athens with absolute sway; and historians ascribe his influence, not more to his political talents than to his eloquence, which was of that forcible and vehement kind, that bore every thing before it, and triumphed over the passions and affections of the people. Hence

he had the surname of Olympias given him; and it was said, that, like Jupiter, he thundered when he spoke. Though his ambition be liable to censure, yet he was distinguished for several virtues, and it was the confidence which the people reposed in his integrity, that gave such power to his eloquence. He appears to have been generous, magnanimous, and public spirited; he raised no fortune to himself; he expended indeed great sums of the public money, but chiefly on public works; and at his death is said to have valued himself principally on having never obliged any citizen to wear mourning on his account, during his long administration. It is a remarkable particular recorded of Pericles by Suidas, that he was the first Athenian who composed, and put into writing, a discourse designed for the public.

Posterior to Pericles, in the course of the Peloponnesian war, arose Cleon, Alcibiades, Critias, and Theramenes, éminent citizens of Athens, who were all distinguished for their eloquence. They were not orators by profession; they were not formed by schools, but by a much more powerful education, that of business and debate; where man sharpened man, and civil affairs carried on by public speaking brought every power of the mind into action. The manner or style of oratory which then prevailed, we learn from the orations in the history of Thucydides, who also flourished in the same age. It was manly, vehement, and concise, even to some degree of obscurity. Grandes erant verbis,' says Cicero, 'crebri sententiis, compressione rerum breves, et, ob eam ipsam causam, interdum subobscuri."* A manner very different from what, in modern times, we would conceive to be the style of popular oratory; and which tends to give a high idea of the acuteness of those audiences to which they spoke.

The power of eloquence having, after the days of Pericles, become an object of greater consequence than ever, this gave birth to a set of men till then unknown, called rhetoricians, and sometimes sophists, who arose in multitudes during the Peloponnesian war; such as Protagoras, Prodicas, Thrasymus, and one who was more eminent than all the rest, Gorgias of Leontium. These sophists joined to their art of rhetoric a subtile logic, and were generally a sort of metaphysical skeptics. Gorgias, however, was a professed master of eloquence only. His reputation was prodigious. He was highly venerated in Leontium of Sicily, his native city; and money was coined with his name upon it. In the latter part of his life, he established himself at Athens, and lived till he had attained the age of 105 years. Hermogenes (de Ideis, l. ii. cap. 9.) has preserved a fragment of his, from which we see his style and manner. It is extremely quaint and artificial: full of antithesis and pointed expression; and shows how far the Gre

*They were magnificent in their expressions; they abounded in thought; they compressed their matter into few words, and by their brevity, were sometimes obscure