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tainly correct in the opinion, that a state of nature is most favourable to the higher efforts of the imagination, and the more unrestrained and noble raptures of the heart. Civilization, wherever it has gained ground, has interwoven with society a habit of artificial and elaborate decorum, which mixes in every operation of life, deters the fancy from every bold enterprise, and buries nature under a load of hypocritical ceremonies. A man, therefore, in order to be eloquent, has to forget the habits in which he has been educated; and never will he touch his audience so exquisitely as when he goes back to the primitive simplicity of the patriarchal age.

I have said that instances of genuine and sublime eloquence have always been rare in every civilized country. It is true that Tully and Pliny the younger have, in their epistles, represented Rome, in their respective days, as swarming with orators of the first

class yet from the specimens which they themselves have left us, I am led to entertain a very humble opinion of ancient eloquence.

Demosthenes we know has pronounced, not the chief, but the sole merit of an orator to consist in delivery, or as Lord Verulam translates it, in action; and, although I know that the world would proscribe it as a literary heresy, I cannot help believing Tully's merit to have been principally of that kind: For my own part, I confess very frankly, that I have never met with any thing of his, which has, according to my taste, deserved the name of superior eloquence. His style, indeed, is pure, polished, sparkling, full and sonorous; and perhaps deserves all the encomiums which have been bestowed on it. But an oration, certainly, no more deserves the title of superior eloquence, because its style is ornamented, than the figure of an Apollo would deserve the epithet of elegant, merely from

the superiour texture and flow of the drapery. In reading an oration, it is the mind to which I look. It is the expanse and richness of the conception itself, which I regard, and not the glittering tinsel wherein it may be attired. Tully's orations, examined in this spirit, have, with me, sunk far below the grade at which we have been taught to fix them.

It is true, that at school, I learned, like the rest of the world, to lisp, "Cicero the orator :" but when I grew up and began to judge for myself, I opened his volumes again and looked in vain for that sublimity of conception, which fills and astonishes the mind; that simple pathos which finds such a sweet welcome in every breast; or that resistless enthusiasm of unaffected passion, which takes the heart by storm. On the contrary, let me confess to you, that, whatever may be the cause, to me he seemed cold and vapid, and uninteresting and tiresome: not only destitute of that com

pulsive energy of thought which we look for in a great man, but even void of the strong, rich and varied colouring of a superior fancy. His masterpiece of composition, his work, De Oratore, is, in my judgment, extremely light and unsubstantial; and in truth is little more than a tissue of rhapsodies, assailing the ear indeed, with pleasant sounds, but leaving few clear and useful traces on the mind. Plutarch speaks of his person as all grace, his voice as perfect musick, his look and gesture as all alive, striking, dignified and peculiarly impressive; and I incline to the opinion, that to these theatrical advantages, connected with the just reliance which the Romans had in his patriotism and good judgment, their strong interest in the subjects discussed by him, and their more intimate acquaintance with the idiom of his language, his fame, while living arose; and that it has been, since, propagated

by the schools on account of the classick purity and elegance of his style.

Many of these remarks are, in my opinion, equally applicable to Demosthenes. He deserves, indeed, the distinction of having more fire and less smoke than Tully. But in the majestick march of the mind, in the force of thought, and splendour of imagery, I think, both the orators of Greece and Rome eclipsed by more than one person within his majesty's dominions.

Heavens! how should I be anathematized and excommunicated by every pedagogue in Great Britain, if these remarks were made public! Spirits of Car and of Ascham! have mercy upon me! Wo betide the hand that plucks the wizard beard of hoary errour! From lisping infancy to stooping age, the reproaches, the curses of the world shall be upon it! -But to you, my dearest S......, my friend, my preceptor, to you I disclose my

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