up, would be to do violence to all the tendencies of his nature and all the habits of his life; he would sooner hazard his success as an orator, than sacrifice his tastes as a philosopher. He forgets, or remembers to no purpose, that others have no sympathy with these peculiar pleasures; that his intellect is, perhaps, the only one in the audience, which dwells with delight on such abstractions; and that where the great principles which he is so fond of explaining and illustrating, are viewed only in their practical relation to the matter in hand, and not as subjects of speculative interest, any elaborate statement of them must necessarily be tedious. The speeches of Burke, considered merely as speeches, are full of splendid errors of this description. He can seldom confine himself to a simple business-like view of the subject under discussion, or to close, rapid, compressed argumentation on it. On the contrary, he makes boundless excursions into all the regions of moral and political philosophy; is perpetually tracing up particular instances and subordinate principles to profound and comprehensive maxims; amplifying and expanding the most meagre materials into brief, but comprehensive, dissertations of political science, and incrusting (so to speak) the nucleus of the most insignificant fact with the most exquisite crystallizations of truth; while the whole composition glitters and sparkles again with a rich profusion of moral reflections, equally beautiful and just. Indeed it may be said, that in adorning and illustrating a dry or commonplace topic, in making even the most barren subject of disquisition suddenly and miraculously fertile, scarcely any author has even approached Burke. These very peculiarities, however, were often unfavourable to his success as an orator. But there was another quality of Burke's mind, almost as unfavourable to the attainment of the highest oratorical excellence, as his excessive tendency to philosophical speculation: we mean the exuberance of his fancy. Where this faculty is not used merely for the purpose of illustration, subordinated to the great object of conviction, it is sure to exert a pernicious influence; and where it is so used, it will be used sparingly. When a speaker indulges in very lengthened or elaborate imagery, a suspicion is sure to be engendered, (and, except in one or two instances of very extraordinary mental structure, that suspicion is uniformly just,) that he is scarcely in earnest; that if he has an object, it is to commend his own eloquence, rather than to convince his audience; that his inspiration is not the inspiration of nature; and for this very sufficient reason, that it is not natural for intense emotion to express itself in the fantastic forms of laboured imagery. It has no business to go in search of remote or curious analogies. It will often express itself figuratively, indeed, but the figures will be comparatively rare, briefly expressed, and in the condensed form of metaphor. Ulysses-like, the true orator is resolutely bent on pursuing his voyage, and the syrens of imagination sing in his ear in vain. When illustration is very abundant and elaborate, even the admiration it may excite will often be any thing but friendly to the speaker's professed object, nay, the very reverse; the admiration will resemble that which is excited by a fine piece of poetry. If the orator be really successful, his hearers will be, at the moment of his success, quite unconscious of his oratorical merits. That it is possible to indulge in such exuberance of illustration, as to suspend the current of strong passions, and defeat the orator's avowed object, it is needless to say. Such compositions, however beautiful the flowers of rhetoric which cover their surface, resemble some country brooks, whose beds shoot up such luxuriant vegetation, as almost to choke the channel of the waters. The rivers ceased to flow, said the fable, at the lyre of Orpheus; and the music of the imagination will sometimes operate with equal power on the tide of passion. Burke's imagination does not often betray him into such excesses; yet it cannot be denied that in his speeches it is often abused: the faults are of the same kind, they differ only in degree. It must at the same time be acknowledged, that the profuse employment of imagination is, in Burke, without affectation; he is one of the few above referred to, in whom prodigality of illustration was natural, and was perfectly compatible with intense emotion. Still this does not affect the observations just made on his character as an orator. An exuberant imagination will produce the same effect on the audience, whatever the idiosyncracies of the speaker; simply because they will judge from what they know to be the average of human nature, and not from individual peculiarities; they know and feel that such exuberance is not usually the natural ally of strong emotions. As human nature is generally constituted, it must be unfavourable to the exercise of intense passion. To illustrate these observations, it is only necessary for the reader to compare two or three passages of Demosthenes-who is universally admitted to be far superior to every other orator, and in nothing so much as in his sternly subordinating every thing to the great purpose of persuasion-with some of Burke on somewhat similar topics. The superiority of the former for the practical purposes for which they were composed cannot fail to be perceived. The character of Cicero, in many respects, bore a wonderful resemblance to that of Burke: they resembled each other in versatility of talents, in extent and variety of knowledge, in the unusual degree in which they both conjoined some of the great elements of the philosophical and oratorical characters, and in splendour of imagination. It might be reasonably expected, therefore, that his Orations, as such, would display some of the same excellences and the same defects. The most casual examination evinces the justice of this representation. They are marked by the same excess of disquisition and reflection; the same beautiful, but needless, amplification of important truths. That Burke's speeches were characterized by the peculiarities which we have attributed to them-that they were deficient in exact adaptation to a particular audience and the particular occasion—is, in our opinion, confirmed by two circumstances. The first is, that they are read with at least as much interest as they could have been listened to; not to say with more. This could not have been the case, had the great peculiarities of the " agonistical " style, as Aristotle terms it, been preserved. "Burke's speeches," says the able critic in the Edinburgh, to whom reference has been already made, " differ not at all from his pamphlets; these are written speeches, as those are spoken dissertations, according as any one is over-studious of method and closeness in a book, or of ease and nature in an oration.” The second circumstance is, that they are read with just as much interest now, and will be throughout all time, as when they were first given to the world. This is because they are not so exclusively adapted to the audience and the occasion as the speeches of the greatest masters of the art; more especially of Demosthenes himself. They are not calculated for the meridian of the House of Commons merely; they will enchant all posterity. This is attributable to the large infusion of general reasoning and beautiful reflection, of profound speculation and exquisite imagery, they contain; rendering them interesting not only to some men, but to the whole race; and not to one age or country, but to all. The very peculiarities which detract from their merit as speeches, increase their value as political dissertations. This is the main reason why readers who are only superficially acquainted with the principles of rhetoric so generally prefer the orations of Cicero to those of Demosthenes. They forget that the qualities for which they chiefly admire the former (and which alone could stir such instant enthusiasm in readers at such remote distance in point of time, and who have no sympathy with the subjects of which they treat) are, after all, those which have the least connexion with his oratorical merits. Upon a careful comparison of the orations of both, however, for the very purpose of analyzing their merits as orations-upon viewing them simply with reference to the audiences to which they were addressed, and the purposes for which they were professedly composed, the illusion vanishes. Not that the orations of Demosthenes can ever become equally interesting in the same sense with those of Cicero or Burke, and sim ply because they want an equal quantity of matter of universal interest. But as specimens of oratory, they cannot fail to fill an intelligent reader with a far profounder admiration. Their exquisite adaptation, in all their parts, for the purposes which they were designed to accomplish, will appear more and more on each perusal, and their very inferiority as general compositions will be seen to be the necessary consequence of their surpassing merit as orations. To attain this critical taste, however, much labour is necessary. The orations of Cicero and Burke are easily understood, and consequently appreciated, and for the very reasons above stated; but to enter into the spirit and appreciate the merits of Demosthenes, his readers must endeavour to transport themselves into a different age; to become Greeks; to imagine themselves part of his audience; they must attain a profound knowledge, not only of the language in which the orator spoke, but of the whole history of the age. It is an unhappy circumstance connected with the most perfect specimens of political oratory, that they must be less generally read, and less generally admired, than many of an inferior order; while these latter, imbued with the spirit of philosophy, and adorned with all the graces of imagination, will preserve an amaranthine freshness and beauty through all ages. Considered in this light, the speeches of Burke are beyond all praise, and justly deserve to be reckoned amongst the most wonderful productions of the human mind. The inauspicious effects which Burke's impetuosity of temper had on his influence as a politician, has been already remarked. It interfered not less seriously with his success as an orator. The manner, the time, the circumstances, were seldom regarded. Of many of the inferior accomplishments of an orator Burke was almost wholly destitute. His voice was harsh and unmusical; his pronunciation strongly marked with his native accent; and his manner awkward. To these things the feeble impression which many of his speeches made on delivery must in a measure be attributed.* It is perhaps foolish to conjecture in what department a man of rare genius, like that of Burke, would have acquitted himself to most advantage, especially when he has attained such eminence in those which he has actually filled. Yet if conjecture might be indulged for a moment on such a subject, we should say that he was best fitted for the office of HisTORIAN. In that species of composition, it seems highly probable that he would have surpassed any historian that ever lived, both in variety and degree of excellence. To produce a finished history demands as great a diversity of talents and accomplishments, as can well be conceived. Some of them are not often met with at all; while a combination of the whole is a phenomenon indeed. Many of them-equally necessary— are almost incongruous and inconsistent; as a cautious judgment and a splendid imagination. Nor is this all; his qualifications are partly the gift of nature, partly the acquisition of industry. Now when nature has done her part, and mingled the requisite elements of mind in due proportion, it will be happy if that harmony be not disturbed by the very discipline necessary for using them with effect; it will be well, if the process necessary for obtaining the acquired qualifications do not impair the natural. Those who consider the usually hebetating influence of dry and long-continued research, even on powerful minds, will not think this danger small. To form a perfect historian, a sagacious and comprehensive mind, and a calm and clearsighted judgment, must be united to a splendid and powerful imagination. Without the former, history will be divested of those great lessons which have entitled it to the proud distinction of being philosophy teaching by examples; without the latter, it will be told It was often observed by many of the most celebrated of Burke's auditors, that the very speeches which they had listened to with such doubtful interest in the House of Commons, inspired them with the most enthusiastic admiration, in print. A stronger confirmation of the correctness of the views we have endeavoured to explain, cannot well be imagined. without vividness or impression; and in either case, it must sink down into a dry and barren chronology. But more than this. To many of the highest elements of the philosophic and poetical characters, must be added all the indomitable patience and dull industry of a Dutch commentator; a capacity of research which will shrink from no details, however perplexing or insignificant, nor leave any sources of information unperused, however uncouth their style or voluminous their contents. Still further; there must not only be this capacity for dry research, but all the tasks which such research can impose must be endured without impairing the vigour of the reason or dimming the lustre of the fancy. These higher faculties must submit to be checked and repressed without impatience; and yet to retain amidst inactivity all their freshness and vigour, in defiance of the stupifying influence of such uncongenial pursuits. Judgment must patiently stand by till the most laboured and toilsome research has supplied all the materials which are to exercise it; and imagination, unextinguished by all the foul and mephitic vapours of these subterraneous recesses, must again brighten up the moment it emerges from them, and be ready once more to shed over the composition its immortal radiance. In a word, a perfect historian would be a creature made up of incongruities and contradictions; a harmony of discords; a being born under the contending influences of Mercury and Saturn. Such a perfect historian was of course never seen; yet it is not too much to affirm that Burke approached more nearly to such various intellectual excellence, and more nearly reconciled these apparent contradictions and inconsistencies, than any other man. To profound talents for speculation, especially in the department of political science, he added all the splendour of an imagination seldom equalled and never surpassed. With these were conjoined, in most marvellous union, the utmost patience of investigation, an industry equal to the most tedious and uninteresting research. Seldom before have these more homely household virtues of intellect been associated with the coronetted splendours of genius. Not only so. As the philosophical and imaginative faculties never unfitted him for the meanest drudgeries of investigation, so they recovered all their elasticity at a single bound, the moment he bade them resume their proper office. He preserved, strange to say, all the ruddy glow of intellectual health, amidst the daily and nightly toil of the shop and the factory. As to style, it has been already remarked that he was master of all its various excellences. It may be safely affirmed that history has not that scene for which he could not have mixed appropriate colours. Above all, his diversified powers, if exercised on remote events, would have had nothing to fear from the violence of passion; that judgment which, where prejudice had no room to operate, (as in political economy, for instance,) uniformly showed itself so singularly perspicacious and comprehensive, would never have been misled by any sinister bias. The imagination loves to dwell on the beauties of the work which such various powersso admirably attempered and proportioned-might have produced, had they been employed in their full maturity, on some grand and inspiring theme of history; it loves to dwell on the profound principles of political wisdom, and the ennobling and sublime sentiments, which would perpetually have dignified the page; on the splendour of illustration which would have adorned it! Under the fecundity of such a genius, even the dullest periodsthe most sterile and desolate patches of history, would have become rich in philosophy and wisdom; and under the magic influence of such an intensely vivid imagination, the illustrious dead would have been called up as by the power of necromancy, and the long series of past events made to pass before us with the distinctness of some splendid piece of phantasmagoria! Such would have been the vivid and life-like descriptions which would have filled his rich and tapestried page; while a thousand nameless graces of poetical epithet and classical allusion would have almost equalled him with the masters of epic song, in rendering names and places attractive and musical. Indeed, it is not too much to affirm, that to embellish this stupendous monument of genius, the historic muse would have snatched some grace or other from every one of the inspired sisterhood. But lest we should be suspected of dealing in little else than wholesale and indiscriminate eulogy, we must justify these remarks on the peculiar adaptation of Burke's genius for history, by bringing together some few specimens of his wondrous power of description. This is easily done; for though Burke did not devote himself to history, he has left behind him brief sketches, which fully vindicate all that has been said of what he could have accomplished, had he attempted some great historical work. The gallery shall open with three portraits. They are those of Mr. Grenville, Charles Townshend, and Lord Chatham; all in one speech, that on American Taxation. What discrimination of character, what delicacy of taste and execution, in the following! "No man can believe, that at this time of day I mean to lean on the venerable memory of a great man, whose loss we deplore in common. Our little party differences have been long ago composed; and I have acted more with him, and certainly with more pleasure with him, than ever I acted against him. Undoubtedly Mr. Grenville was a first-rate figure in this country. With a masculine understanding, and a stout and resolute heart, he had an application undissipated and unwearied. He took publick business not as a duty which he was to fulfil, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy; and he seemed to have no delight out of this house, except in such things as some way related to the business that was to be done within it. If he was ambitious, I will say this for him, his ambition was of a noble and generous strain. It was to raise himself, not by the low, pimping politicks of a court, but to win his way to power through the laborious gradations of publick service; and to secure himself a well earned rank in parliament, by a thorough knowledge of its constitution, and a perfect practice in all its business. "Sir, if such a man fell into errours, it must be from defects not intrinsical; they must be rather sought in the particular habits of his life; which, though they do not alter the ground-work of character, yet tinge it with their own hue. He was bred in a profession. He was bred to the law, which is, in my opinion, one of the first and noblest of human sciences; a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding, than all the other kinds of learning put together; but it is not apt, except in persons very happily born, to open and to liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion. Passing from that study he did not go very largely into the world; but plunged into business; I mean into the business of office; and the limited and fixed methods and forms established there. Much knowledge is to be had undoubtedly in that line; and there is no knowledge which is not valuable. But it may be truly said, that men too much conversant in office are rarely minds of remarkable enlargement. Their habits of office are apt to give them a turn to think the substance of business not to be much more important than the forms in which it is conducted. These forms are adapted to ordinary occasions; and therefore persons who are nurtured in office do admirably well as long as things go on in their common order; but when the high roads are broken up and the waters out, when a new and troubled scene is opened, and the file affords no precedent, then it is that a greater knowledge of mankind, and a far more extensive comprehension of things is requisite, than ever office gave, or than office can ever give. Mr. Grenville thought better of the wisdom and power of human legislation than in truth it deserves. He conceived, and many conceived along with him, that the flourishing trade of this country was greatly owing to law and institution, and not quite so much to liberty; for but too many are apt to believe regulation to be commerce, and taxes to be revenue." "I have done with the third period of your policy; that of your repeal; and the return of your ancient system, and your ancient tranquillity and concord. Sir, this period was not as long as it was happy. Another scene was opened, and other actors appeared on the stage. The state, in the condition I have described it, was delivered into the hands of Lord Chatham-a great and celebrated name; a name that keeps the name of this country respectable in every other on the globe. It may be truly called, Clarum et venerabile nomen |