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LORD JOHN RUSSELL

"Lest you should think that verse shall die,

Which sounds the silver Thames along."

But in the instances which he gives he mentions Newton, and says that not only brave men had lived and fought, but that other Newtons "systems fram'd." Now, here he has not kept to the merit and truth of his original; for, though it may be quite true that there were distinguished armies and wonderful sieges, and that their memory has passed into oblivion, it is not at all probable that any man like Newton followed by mathematical roads the line of discovery, and that those great truths which he discovered should have perished and fallen into oblivion.

I give you these two instances of want of truth even in celebrated poets, and I think it is a matter you will do well to keep in view, because there is a remarkable difference between the history of science and the history of literature. In the history of science the progress of discovery is gradual. Those who make these discoveries sometimes commit great errors. They fall into many absurd mistakes, of which I could give you numerous instances; but these blunders and these errors disappear-the discoveries alone remain; other men afterwards make these discoveries the elements and groundwork of new investigations, and thus the progress of science is continual; but truth remains, the methods of investigation even are shortened, and the progress continually goes on.

But it is not so with regard to literature. It has, indeed, happened often in the history of the world, among nations that have excelled in literature, after great works had been produced which brought down the admiration of all who could read them, that others, attempting to go further, attempting to do something still better,-have produced works written in the most affected and unnatural style, and, instead of promoting literature, have corrupted the taste of the nation in which they lived. Now, this is a thing against which I think we should always be upon our guard, and, having those great models of literature which we possess before us, -having Shakespeare, and Milton, and Pope, and a long list of illustrious poets and authors,-we should always study to see that the literature of the day is, if not on a par with, at least as pure in point of taste as that which has gone before it, and to take care that we do not, instead of advancing in letters, fall back and decay in the productions of the time.

RICHARD LALOR SHEIL (1793-1851)

IRISH DRAMATIST AND ORATOR

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MONG the famous orators of Irish birth and inspired by Irish patriotism must be named Richard Lalor Sheil, a native of Dublin and a friend and associate of O'Connell, whom he most nearly approached in oratory. Elected to Parliament in 1829, he soon became conspicuous there for his brilliant eloquence. He was made Master of the Mint in Russell's Cabinet of 1846, and was British Minister at Florence in 1850. As an orator, his enunciation was quick and impetuous, his gesture rapid and continuous, while his wealth of illustration and unrivalled power in the use of words held spell-bound all who heard him.

IRISH ALIENS AND ENGLISH VICTORIES

[Sheil's most brilliant speech, and one of the most eloquent known in British oratory, was instigated by an expression made by Lord Lyndhurst in the House of Lords, in which he spoke of the Irish as "aliens, in blood and religion." Sheil took the opportunity to reply, while speaking, February 22, 1837, on the Irish Municipal Bill. Never had the House of Commons heard a finer burst of indignant oratory.]

I should be surprised, indeed, if, while you are doing us wrong, you did not profess your solicitude to do us justice. From the day on which Strongbow set his foot upon the shore of Ireland, Englishmen were never wanting in protestations of their deep anxiety to do us justice; even Strafford, the deserter of the People's cause,-the renegade Wentworth, who gave evidence in Ireland of the spirit of instinctive tyranny which predominated in his character,-even Strafford, while he trampled upon our rights, and trod upon the heart of the country, protested his solicitude to do justice to Ireland! What marvel is it, then, that gentlemen opposite should deal in such vehement protestations? There is, however, one man, of great abilities,-not a member of this House, but whose talents and

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whose boldness have placed him in the topmost place in his party,-who, disdaining all imposture, and thinking it the best course to appeal directly to the religious and national antipathies of the people of this country; abandoning all reserve, and flinging off the slender veil by which his political associates affect to cover, although they cannot hide, their motives; dislinctly and audaciously tells the Irish people that they are not entitled to the same privileges as Englishmen ; and pronounces them, in any particular which could enter his minute enumeration of the circumstances by which fellow-citizenship is created, in race, identity and religion, to be aliens :-to be aliens in race, to be aliens in country, aliens in religion! Aliens! good God! was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim: "HOLD! I HAVE SEEN THE ALIENS DO THEIR DUTY?"

The Duke of Wellington is not a man of an excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved; but, notwithstanding his habitual inflexibility, I cannot help thinking that, when he heard his Roman Catholic countrymen (for we are his countrymen) designated by a phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of his eloquent confederate could supply,-I cannot help thinking that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown.

"The battles, sieges, fortunes that he has passed," ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that, from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to that last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable,-from Assaye to Waterloo,-the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned.

Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimiéra through the phalanxes that never reeled in the shock of war before? What desperate valor climbed the steeps and filled the moats at Badajos?

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All his victories should have rushed and crowded back upon his memory-Vimiéra, Badajos, Salamanca, Albuéra, Toulouse, and, last of all, the greatest Tell me,-for you were there,-I appeal to the gallant soldier before me (Sir Henry Hardinge), from whose opinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in an intrepid breast ;— tell me,-for you must needs remember,-on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance, while death fell in showers, when the artillery of France was levelled with a precision of the most deadly science; when her legions, incited by the voice and inspired by

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the example of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset, -tell me if, for an instant, when to hesitate for an instant was to be lost, the "aliens' blenched?

And when, at length, the moment for the last and decided movement had arrived, and the valor which had so long been wisely checked was, at last, let loose,-when, with words familiar, but immortal, the great captain commanded the great assault,-tell me if Catholic Ireland with less heroic valor than the natives of this your own glorious country precipitated herself upon the foe?

The blood of England, Scotland, and of Ireland flowed in the same stream, and drenched the same field. When the chill morning dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together; in the same deep pit their bodies were deposited; the green corn of spring is now breaking from their commingled dust; the dew falls from heaven upon their union in the grave. Partakers in every peril, in the glory shall we not be permitted to participate; and shall we be told, as a requital, that we are estranged from the noble country for whose salvation our life blood was poured out?

THE HORRORS OF CIVIL WAR

War in Ireland would be worse than civil. A demon would take possession of the nation's heart,-every feeling of humanity would be extinguished, neither to sex nor to age would mercy be given. The country would be deluged with blood; and when that deluge had subsided, it would be a sorry consolation to a British statesman, when he gazed upon the spectacle of desolation which Ireland would then present to him, that he beheld the spires of your Established Church still standing secure amidst the desert with which they would be encompassed. You have adjured us, in the name of the oath which we have sworn on the gospel of God,—I adjure you, in the name of every precept contained in that holy book; in the name of that religion which is the perfection of humanity; in the name of every obligation, divine and human; as you are men and Christians, to save my country from those evils to which I point, and to remember, that if you shall be the means of precipitating that country into perdition, posterity will deliver its great finding against you, and that you will not only be answerable to posterity, but responsible to that Judge, in whose presence, clothed with the blood of civil warfare, it will be more than dreadful to appear.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

(1800-1859)

THE BRILLIANT ORATOR, HISTORIAN AND ESSAYIST

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HE whole story of Macaulay's life is too broad for us to detail here, our concern being simply with his record as an orator. Whatever he touched he adorned. There are no essays with the glowing charm of those of Macaulay. There is no history which holds its readers so entranced. There are no poems with the galloping swing of his "Lays of Ancient Rome" and his "Battle of Ivory," and in oratory his marvelous power in the use of language is equally displayed. While a student at Cambridge he won distinction as an orator, and on entering Parliament in 1830 he fulfilled the highest expectations of his friends. His speeches on the Reform Bill and on the renewal of the charter of the East India Company were among the finest examples of his powers. His rapidity of speech, however, detracted from the effect of his orations, and they are among those that are more effective when read than they were in delivery. Of his style as writer and orator it is said, "Its characteristics are vigor, animation, copiousness, clearness, above all, sound English, now a rare excellence."

SUPERFICIAL KNOWLEDGE

[We cannot offer a more interesting example of Macaulay's oratorical style and method of handling than in the following extract from the speech delivered by him at the opening of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institute, in 1846. Its lucid picturing of the superficiality of all human knowledge is marked by his most effective lucidity and interest of statement and charm of manner.]

Some men, of whom I wish to speak with great respect, are haunted, as it seems to me, with an unreasonable fear of what they call superficial knowledge. Knowledge, they say, which really deserves the name, is a

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