time.

INTRODUCTION

ORATORY AND ELOQUENCE

SELECTIONS FROM VARIOUS AUTHORS

Oratory.-Oratory is like music; it must have tone and G. Grote. The Injudicious Orator.-An orator without judgment is a horse without a bridle. Theophrastus.

Perfection in Oratory.-Oratory and poetry are of little. value unless they reach the highest perfection. Pliny.

Logic and Eloquence.-Sound logic is the sinews of elo quence; without solid argument, oratory is empty noise, and the orator is a declaimer or a sophist. 7. Wilkins.

Oratory Rare.-We have a hundred speakers, but where is the orator? Where shall we find one from whose soul pours eloquence as naturally as poetry from the poet's lips? E. Hildreth.

End of Oratory.—Oratory is an engine invented to manage and wield at will the fierce democracy, and like medicine to the sick, is only employed in the paroxysms of a disordered state. Montaigne.

Affectation in Oratory.-In oratory, affectation must be avoided; it being better for a man by a native and clear eloquence to express himself, than by those words which may smell either of the lamp or inkhorn. Lord Herbert.

Use of Oratory.-The art of oratory is designed to instruct people, express their passions, and reform their manners; to support the laws, direct public counsels, and to make men good and happy. Fénelon.

Effect of Oratory.-The really great orator shines like the sun, making you think much of the things he is speaking of; the second-best shines like the moon, making you think much of him and his eloquence. R. Whately.

The Power of Oratory.-There is no power like that of oratory; Cæsar controlled men by exciting their fears, Cicero by captivating their affections and swaying their passions; the influence of the one perished with its author, that of the other continues to this day. H. Clay.

Great Oratory of Slow Attainment.-The orator whose eye flashes instantaneous fire, and whose lips pour out a flood of noble thoughts, startling by their unexpectedness and elevating by their wisdom and truth, has learned his secret by patient repetition and after many disappointments. Smiles.

Universality of Oratory.-The matchless eloquence of oratory is applicable everywhere, in all classes of life; the rich and the poor experience the effects of its magic influence; it excites the soldier to the charge, and animates him to the conflict; the guilty are living monuments of its exertion, and the innocent hail it as the vindicator of their violated rights and the preserver of their sacred reputation. How often in the courts of justice does the criminal behold his arms unshackled, his character freed from suspicion, and his future left open before him with all its hopes of honors, station, and dignity. Melvill

The Orator's First Step in His Art.-The beginning of the art of oratory is to acquire a habit of easy speaking; the next step is the grand one-to convert this style of easy speaking into chaste eloquence. Though speaking, with writing beforehand, is very well until the habit of easy speech is acquired, yet, after that, one can never write too much; it is laborious, no doubt, and it is more difficult, beyond comparison, than speaking offhand; but it is necessary to perfect oratory, and at any rate it is necessary to acquire the habit of correct diction. But I go further, and say, even to the end of a man's life he must prepare, word for word, most of his finer passages. Brougham.

Advantages of Clearness and Conciseness.-The public orator who presents in a clear, concise, and forcible manner the strong points of his case, whose every sentence strikes home, who says just all that is necessary, and there stops, is always listened to with a marked attention, unknown to those who indulge in flights of oratory, plucking flowers from the regions of fancy, drawing more largely upon imagination than upon sound logic and plain common sense. L. C. Judson.

Tediousness.-The orator must never bore; he must never be obscure; he must never seem hesitating in his assertions; he must not be minutely refining, nor metaphysically subtle, in his philosophical deductions; all the knowledge he thinks fit to press into his service he must seek to render clear to the commonest understanding; all his imagination must be employed, not in creating new worlds of thought, but in bringing thoughts the most generally admitted as sound into brilliant light. S. A. Allibone.

Persuasion.-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 object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion; 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 T. B. Macaulay.

not an orator.

Clear Thinking.-Whenever men think clearly and are thoroughly interested, they express themselves with perspicuity and force. F. W. Robertson. Canons of Perspicuity.-The three canons of perspicuity are, the word that is necessary, the quantity that is necessary, and the manner that is necessary. Catherall.

What is Perspicuity ?-Perspicuity consists in the using of proper terms for the thoughts which a man would have pass from his own mind into that of another. Locke.

The Fundamental Quality of Style.-Perspicuity is the fundamental quality of style; a quality so essential in every kind of writing that for the want of it nothing can atone. Without this the richest ornaments of style only glimmer through the dark, and puzzle instead of pleasing the reader. H. Blair.

A Good Argument.-A chain of reasoning ought to have an adequate number of links, a hook for the nose of the auditor, a grapple for the subject, and a swivel to every pair of propositions to relieve the kinks. L. Dow. Rules of Rhetoric.-The two best rules of a system of rhetoric are: first, have something to say; and next, say it.

Emmons.

Reasoning and Rhetoric.-By reasoning we satisfy ourselves; by rhetoric we satisfy others. Most modern orators and rhetoricians content themselves with fulfilling the first part of this proposition. P. B. Randolph.

What is Rhetoric ?-Without attempting a formal definition of the word, I am inclined to consider rhetoric, when reduced to a system in books, as a body of rules derived from experience and observation, extending to all communications by language, and designed to make it efficient.

W. E. Channing.

The Idleness of Sophistry.-Genius may dazzle, eloquence may persuade, reason may convince; but to render popular cold and comfortless sophistry, unaided by these powers, is a hopeless attempt.

7. Hall.

Use of Words.-Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes; for they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win themselves a kind of gracelike newness; but the eldest of the present and newest of the past language is the best. Ben Jonson.

Wisdom Learnt through Emotion.-Lessons of wisdom have never such power as when they are wrought into the heart through the groundwork of a story which engages the passions; is it that we are like iron, and must first be heated before we can be wrought upon; or is the heart so in love with deceit that where a true report will not reach it, we must cheat it with a fable in order to come at the truth? Sterne.

Antithesis. Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk, and truth the root.

Colton.

Falsehood in Wit.-I give you full credit for your elegant diction, well-turned periods, and Attic wit; but wit is oftentimes false, though it may appear brilliant; which is exactly the case of your whole performance. Junius.

The Human Face.-Look in the face of the person to whom you are speaking, if you wish to know his real sentiments; for he can command his words more easily than his countenance. Chesterfield.

The Countenance of the Orator.-As the language of the face is universal so is it very comprehensive; no laconicism can reach it; it is the short-hand of the mind, and crowds a great deal in a little room. A man may look a sentence as

soon as speak a word; the strokes are small, but so masterly drawn that you may easily collect the image and proportions of what they resemble. Jeremy Collier.

Expression of Features More than Sound of Words.-The face of a man, as a rule, speaks more eloquently and in a more interesting manner than his mouth, for it is the compendium of everything which the latter has to say, since it is the monogram of the thinking and acting of the man. Besides the mouth only utters the thoughts of nature; wherefore every Iman is worth being closely observed, though every man is not worth being talked to. Schopenhauer.

Vain Speaking.-Some in their discourse desire rather commendation of wit, in being able to hold all arguments, than of judgment, in discerning what is true; as if it were a praise to know what might be said, and not what should be thought. Some have certain commonplaces and themes wherein they are good and want variety; which kind of poverty is for the most part tedious, and when it is once perceived, ridiculous. Bacon.

Something for All.-A speech being a matter of adaptation, and having to win opinions, should contain a little for the few, and a great deal for the many. Burke hurt his oratory by neglecting the latter half of this rule, as Sheridan must have spoilt his by his carelessness about the former. But the many always carry it for the moment against the few; and though Burke was allowed to be the greater man, Sheridan drew most hearers. Guesses at Truth.

The Orator's Eye.-Oratory may be symbolized by a warrior's eye, flashing from under a philosopher's brow. But why a warrior's eye, rather than a poet's? Because in oratory the will must predominate. Guesses at Truth.

Sincerity. How many faithful sentences are written now? —that is, sentences dictated by a pure love of truth, without any wish, save that of expressing the truth fully and clearly— sentences in which there is neither a spark of light too much, nor a shade of darkness? Guesses at Truth.

Fox and Demosthenes.-What made Demosthenes the greatest of orators was that he appeared the most entirely possessed by the feelings he wished to inspire. The main use. of his action was that it enabled him to remove the natural hindrances which checked and clogged the stream of those feelings, and to pour them forth with a free and mighty tor