ter of the great Demosthenes, in whom, it must be acknowledged, eloquence shone forth with higher splendour, than perhaps in any that ever bore the name of an orator, and whose manner and character, therefore, must deserve our particular attention.

I shall not spend any time upon the circumstances of Demosthenes' life; they are all well known. The strong ambition which he discovered to excel in the art of speaking; the unsuccessfulness of his first attempts; his unwearied perseverance in surmounting all the disadvantages that arose from his person and address; his shutting himself up in a cave, that he might study with less distraction; his declaiming by the sea-shore, that he might accustom himself to the noise of a tumultuous assembly, and with pebbles in his mouth, that he might correct a defect in his speech; his practising at home with a naked sword hanging over his shoulder, that he might check an ungraceful motion, to which he was subject; all those circumstances which we learn from Plutarch, are very encouraging to such as study eloquence, as they show how far art and application may avail, for acquiring an excellence which nature seemed unwilling to grant us.

Despising the affected and florid manner which the rhetori cians of that age followed, Demosthenes returned to the forcible and manly eloquence of Pericles; and strength and vehemence form the principal characteristics of his style. Never had orator a finer field than Demosthenes in his Olynthiacs and Philippics, which are his capital orations; and, no doubt, to the nobleness of the subject, and to that integrity and public spirit which eminently breathe in them, they are indebted for much of their merit. The subject is, to rouse the indignation of his countrymen against Philip of Macedon, the public enemy of the liberties of Greece; and to guard them against the insidious measures, by which that crafty prince endeavoured to lay them asleep to danger. In the prosecution of this end, we see him taking every proper method to animate a people, renowned for justice, humanity, and valour, but in many instances become corrupt and degenerate. He boldly taxes them with their venality, their indolence, and indifference to the public cause; while at the same time, with all the art of an orator, he recals the glory of their ancestors to their thoughts, shows them that they are still a flourishing and a powerful people, the natural protectors of the liberty of Greece, and who wanted only the inclination to exert themselves, in order to make Philip tremble. With his contemporary orators, who were in Philip's interest,

and who persuaded the people to peace, he keeps no measures, but plainly reproaches them as the betrayers of their country. He not only prompts to vigorous conduct, but he lays down the plan of that conduct; he enters into particulars; and points out, with great exactness, the measures of execution. This is the strain of these orations. They are strongly animated; and full of the impetuosity and fire of public spirit. They proceed in a continued train of inductions, consequences, and demonstrations, founded on sound reason. The figures which he uses, are never sought after; but always rise from the subject. He employs them sparingly indeed; for splendour and ornament are not the distinctions of this orator's composition. It is an energy of thought peculiar to himself, which forms his character, and sets him above all others. He appears to attend much more to things than to words. We forget the orator, and think of the business. He warms the mind, and impels to action. He has no parade and ostentation; no methods of insinuation; no laboured introductions; but is like a man full of his subject, who, after preparing his audience by a sentence or two for hearing plain truths, enters directly on business.

Demosthenes appears to great advantage, when contrasted with Æschines, in the celebrated oration "pro Corona." Æschines was his rival in business, and personal enemy; and one of the most distinguished orators of that age. But when we read the two orations, Eschines is feeble in comparison of Demosthenes, and makes much less impression on the mind. His reasonings, concerning the law that was in question, are indeed very subtle; but his invective against Demosthenes is general and ill supported. Whereas Demosthenes is a torrent, that nothing can resist. He bears down his antagonist with violence; he draws his character in the strongest colours; and the particular merit of that oration is, that all the descriptions in it are highly picturesque. There runs through it a strain of magnanimity and high honour: the orator speaks with that strength and conscious dignity which great actions and public spirit alone inspire. Both orators use great liberties with one another; and. in general, that unrestrained license which ancient manners permitted, and which was carried by public speakers even to the length of abusive names, and downright scurrility, as appears both here and in Cicero's Philippics, hurts and offends a modern ear. What those ancient orators gained by such a manner in nomt of freedom and boldness is more than compensated by

want of dignity; which seems to give an advantage, in this respect, to the greater decency of modern speaking.

The style of Demosthenes is strong and concise, though sometimes, it must not be dissembled, harsh and abrupt. His words are very expressive; his arrangement is firm and manly; and, though far from being unmusical, yet it seems difficult to find in him that studied, but concealed, number and rhythmus, which some of the ancient critics are fond of attributing to him. Negligent of these lesser graces, one would rather conceive him to have aimed at that sublime which lies in sentiment. His action and pronunciation are recorded to have been uncommonly vehement and ardent; which, from the manner of his composition, we are naturally led to believe. The character which one forms of him, from reading his works, is of the austere, rather than the gentle kind. He is, on every occasion, grave, serious, passionate; takes every thing on a high tone; never lets himself down, nor attempts any thing like pleasantry. If any fault can be found, with his admirable eloquence, it is, that he sometimes borders on the hard and dry. He may be thought to want smoothness and grace; which Dionysius of Halicarnassus attributes to his imitating too closely the manner of Thucydides, who was his great model for style, and whose history he is said to have written eight times over with his own hand. But these defects are far more than compensated, by that admirable and masterly force of masculine eloquence, which, as it overpowered all who heard it, cannot, at this day, be read without emotion.

After the days of Demosthenes, Greece lost her liberty; eloquence of course languished, and relapsed again into the feeble manner introduced by the rhetoricians and sophists. Demetrius Phalereus, who lived in the next age to Demosthenes, attained indeed some character, but he is represented to us as a flowery, rather than a persuasive speaker, who aimed at grace rather than substance. "Delectabat Athenienses," says Cicero, « magis quam inflammabat." "He amused the Athenians, rather than warmed them." And after his time, we hear of no more Grecian orators of any note

LECTURE XXVI.

HISTORY OF ELOQUENCE CONTINUED-ROMAN ELOQUENCECICERO-MODERN ELOQUENCE.

HAVING treated of the rise of eloquence, and of its state among the Greeks, we now proceed to consider its progress among the Romans, where we shall find one model, at least, of eloquence, in its most splendid and illustrious form. The Romans were long a martial nation, altogether rude, and unskilled in arts of any kind. Arts were of late introduction among them; they were not known till after the conquest of Greece; and the Romans always acknowledged the Grecians as their masters in every part of learning.

Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes
Intulit agresti Latio.*-

HOR. Epist. ad Aug. v. 156.

As the Romans derived their eloquence, poetry, and learning, from the Greeks, so they must be confessed to be far inferior to them in genius for all these accomplishments. They were a more grave and magnificent, but a less acute and sprightly people. They had neither the vivacity nor the sensibility of the Greeks; their passions were not so easily moved, nor their conceptions so lively; in comparison of them, they were a phlegmatic nation. Their language resembled their character; it was regular, firm, and stately; but wanted that simple and expressive naïveté, and, in particular, that flexibility to suit every different mode and species of composition, for which the Greek tongue is distinguished above that of every other country.

Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotundo
Musa loqui.

Ars Poet. v. 323.

And hence, when we compare together the various rival productions of Greece and Rome, we shall always find this distinction obtain, that in the Greek productions there is more native genius; in the Roman, more regularity and art. What the

"When conquer'd Greece brought in her captive arts,

She triumph'd o'er her savage conquerors' hearts;
Taught our rough verse its numbers to refine,

And our rude style with elegance to shine."-FRANCIS.

"To her lov'd Greeks the Muse indulgent gave,
To her lov'd Greeks with greatness to conceive;

And in sublimer tone their language raise:

Her Greeks were only covetous of praise."-FRANCIS.

Greeks invented, the Romans polished, the one was the original, rough sometimes, and incorrect; the other, a finished

copy.

asperum

As the Roman government, during the republic, was of the popular kind, there is no doubt but that, in the hands of the leading men, public speaking became early an engine of government, and was employed for gaining distinction and power. But in the rude unpolished times of the state, their speaking was hardly of that sort that could be called eloquence. Though Cicero, in his treatise" de Claris Oratoribus," endeavours to give some reputation to the elder Cato, and those who were his contemporaries, yet he acknowledges it to have been " et horridum genus dicendi," a rude and harsh strain of speech. It was not till a short time preceding Cicero's age, that the Roman orators rose into any note; Crassus and Antonius, two of the speakers in the Dialogue de Oratore, appear to have been the most eminent, whose different manners Cicero describes with great beauty in that dialogue, and in his other rhetorical works. But as none of their productions are extant, nor any of Hortensius's, who was Cicero's contemporary and rival at the bar, it is needless to transcribe from Cicero's writings the account which he gives of those great men, and of the character of their eloquence.*

The object in this period most worthy to draw our attention, is Cicero himself; whose name alone suggests every thing that is splendid in oratory. With the history of his life, and with his character as a man and a politician, we have not at present any direct concern. We consider him only as an eloquent speaker; and, in this view, it is our business to remark both his virtues and his defects, if he has any. His virtues are, beyond controversy, eminently great. In all his orations there is high art. He begins, generally, with a regular exordium; and with much preparation and insinuation prepossesses the hearers, and studies to gain their affections. His method is clear, and his arguments are arranged with great propriety. His method is indeed more clear than that of Demosthenes; and this is one advantage which he has over him. We find every thing in its proper place; he never attempts to move, till he has endeavoured to convince; and in moving, especially the softer pas

Such as are desirous of particular information on this head, had better have recourse to the original, by reading Cicero's three books de Oratore, anc his other two treatises, entitled, the one, Brutus, sive de Claris Oratoribns. the other, Orator ad M. Brutum; which, on several accounts, well deserve perusal.