i;;;; J PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. By G. J. HOLYOAKE, \ ft AUTHOR OF " LOGIC OF FACTS," ETC. WITH AN ESSAY ON SACRED ELOQUENCE, By HENRY ROGERS. / 2~ X i REVISED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, By L. D. BARROWS, D.D. Common sense is the genius of humanity.— Gutzot. SECOND EDITION, IMPROVED AND ENLARGED. 3Stm ffiork: PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 200 MULBERRY-STREET. 3 % i 1863 ' m~~* sWk INDEX +•+ PAGE INTRODUCTION 5 PROEM It PUBLIC SPEAKING 23 EDITORIAL NOTES 167 SACRED ELOQUENCE : BRITISH PULPIT 183 CONTENTS. PART I.— DERIVATIVE POWERS. CHAPTER PAGB I. Rhetoric 23 IT. Delivery 27 III. Persuasion '. 35 IV. Method 44 V. Discipline 59 VI. Tact 65 PART H.— ACQUIRED POWERS. VII. Originality 73 VIII. Heroism * 77 IX. Proportion 80 X. Style 83 XI. Similes 90 XII. Pleasantry 95 XIII. Energy 97 XIV. Eloquence 100 XV. Premeditation 105 XVI. Reality 109 XVII. Effectiveness 113 XVIII. Mastery 121 PART III.— APPLIED POWERS. XIX. Criticism 127 XX. Debate 130 XXI. Personalities 139 XXII. Questioning 153 XXIII. Repetition 155 XXIV. Poetry 157 INTRODUCTION. It is a question of the first importance to all public speakers, especially ministers of the Gospel, how their utterances can be rendered the most effectual. Whatever promises aid in this direction will be seized with earnestness and appropriated with care. It has become obvious to careful observers that the modern pulpit is more distinguished for strong ability, sound learning, and deep piety than for its eloquence. Since it is true of the thousands now annually entering the ministry, so few are remarkable for their power and success as speakers who are distinguished scholars and writers, their study and training for speaking are either greatly neglected or fearfully misdirected. The numerous text-books on rhetoric, in every liberal course* of study, with the corresponding professorships and hebdomadal declamations, do not indicate a neglect of this branch of educa- tion. "We therefore conclude, that by some means its cultiva- tion lias become sadly defective. Public speaking, and even rhetoric, as taught and practiced of late among students and young speakers, have fallen into great abuses. They are exceedingly superficial. The very name of rhetoric strikes one now as implying little or nothing more than a painting, or outside adorning of discourse, adding a little flippancy to please the unthoughtful. It is supposed to imply something showy and trifling, rather than substantial and excellent. In a thorough course of study, and with good schol- ars, it does not seem to be generally regarded as an element of power, like that of logic and philosophy, but a kind of educa- tional plaything. Hence no moral quality is attached to its 6 INTRODUCTION. study or practice, nor is it coveted as among " the best gifts " so much for what it has power to accomplish, as for what it appears to be. Because rhetoric deals so much in forms, it does not follow that it is destitute of principles, and that its foundations do not lie deeper than the drapery of spoken or written discourse. If novices and sophomores treat the powers of oratory as a toy, upright and conscientious speakers should regard it as involving a moral responsibility, such as always accompanies all great powers. Sacred eloquence especially should be studied and practiced from another standpoint, high, pure, and commanding, like itself, or it will never occupy its true relative position in a course of education. If eloquence in its true character and pur- poses does not originate in moral emotions, if it does not deal with the moral element of humanity, if it does not propose moral achievements, we cannot affirm what other branch of science or education does. By what authority then has it been brought down, shorn of its inherent merit, and degraded in scholastic estimation ? If it has sometimes been used improperly, to influ- ence men against their judgments and interests, that does not show its nature and designs are such, any more than the per- version of any other science shows it useless or vicious. But, on the other hand, we claim that there is not in all the wide range of education any other department that leads us so directly into, and takes such a firm hold upon, the highest ele- ments of our nature, and influences so powerfully the great interests of humanity, as this. Benevolence and religion covet power to do good; and with men possessed of these qualities, all power will be used exclusively for that purpose, and with this view will.be earnestly sought. We are confirmed in the opinion that the essential qualities of good speaking are not correctly taught generally in modern training for that purpose, from the fact that of those who have studied the most carefully, written the most extensively, and INTKODUCTION. 7 taught the longest, there are found scarcely more really eloquent speakers, in proportion to their number, than of the uneducated. This, however, by no means indicates that this branch of educa- tion is not to be elaborately studied, provided it is under the right masters, and in a successful manner. Cudworth says: "Knowledge is not to be poured into the soul like liquor, but rather to be invited and gently drawn forth from it ; nor the mind so much to be filled therewith from without like a vessel, as to be kindled and awakened. 1 ' 1 The application of this fine thought to our modern teaching of oratory would be of decided advantage. Let us inquire if there are not in operation several causes, forestalling or undermining to a great extent everything that is now done to improve our public speaking. One formidable obstacle in the way of general success in improving pulpit ora- tory is the force of precedent, and the fear of breaking away from established style. In the ministry of every Christian Church there is a way, or manner, which, if it does not amount to a tone, does to a style, and this must more or less fashion every man's mode of speaking in the ministry. If the individ- ual speaker does not wish it should be so, his associations, with the power of habit, will make it so, unconsciously it may be to himself. Provided he does not feel that his denominational reputation depends on his following the beaten track of style and mannerisms, he will not be above the fear of being thought odd or singular in breaking away from usage. The result is, no matter what a man's natural utterance, he will be to some extent squared to these lines, which so far makes him unnatural. "Who ever was or ever can be eloquent who is not natural? The least constraint is perceptible to an audience and crippling to a speaker. The bar and the stage are comparatively free from this incubus which weighs upon the pulpit. Speakers must be natural or they are repulsive. The naturalness compre- hends alike tone, or modulation of voice, position of the body, and gesticulation. A practical observer will detect the least 8 INTRODUCTION. affectation in any one of these particulars. Here lies the danger in all anxious and critical study of eloquence — its continual tendency to interfere with nature, except when taught by mas- ters of the subject. When this occurs, it is mainly to be attrib- uted to the direction of the speaker's attention to wrong points. The young orator resolves to excel, so he speaks and acts as much like an eloquent man as possible, drops everything natural, puts on airs, assumes the gestures and tones of voice which he has observed as pleasing in others, and calls it a success ! A burlesque of eloquence. His efforts should be first to ascertain his own faults as a speaker. Is he too fast, too slow, too calm, too excited, too loud, too low, too argumentative, too superficial ? Having learned by some means what his faults are, he should remove them, no matter what the cost, or despair of success. This was the great effort of Demosthenes, and other great mas- ters of the art, who succeeded oy study. A short breath, a stam- mering tongue, or indistinct articulation were impediments to his eloquent nature, such as could be overcome only by the greatest painstaking. This is the point to which all public speakers can direct their attention safely and continually. But, alas ! almost any and everything else will be studied before this, which accounts largely for the surprising non-improvement in modern oratory. When from any cause ministers of the Gospel cease to feel a deep and thrilling interest in their own utterances, they are no longer eloquent. Then the most profound logic and finished rhetoric, though applied to the vital truths of Christianity, will fall dead upon an audience, for in hearing hearts answer only to hearts in spealcing. Without a vital interest of the speaker in what he says, his melodious voice will be like a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, and the people will sleep on. If a minister of Christ does not "grow in grace," and make con- tinual progress in personal and experimental religion; if he studies but superficially the great truths of Christianity; if his discourses are, with himself, old and stale; if his illustrations INTRODUCTION. 9 are trite and worn ; if his attention is drawn off from the salva- tion of souls, while he preaches or studies to the securing of popular favor, or to his own livelihood ; if the great truths of God, eternity, and the soul are not deeply impressed on his mind, his own soul will grow less and less susceptible, and his speaking more and more ineffectual. When he becomes con- scious of this lack of feeling, his first expedient will be to raise his voice, throw about his hands, stamp with his foot, or smite with his fist; and thus, by a superabundance of sound and bluster, strive to atone for lack of thought or real feeling. Should this fail, he will probably start a torrent of exclama- tions, "O, my hearers!" " O, my brethren!" etc., repeated so frequently and with so little emotion that they become insipid. Such unmeaning phrases, and any sort of clap-trap, used to fill the blanks of thought and real emotion in a discourse, are ridic- ulous. They discover the nakedness of the land, and show the speaker anxious to be pathetic without the power to be so. The Greeks and Eomans made but little use of these empty sounds, or of the exclamation; neither have such strong and modern writers as Barrow, Sherlock, and Atterbury. Swift says he knew a man who, when he spied an exclamation point at the end of a sentence skipped the whole sentence. Those speakers might do the same who have to manufacture their feeling to order as they go along with 'their discourses. Exclamations, personifications, and apostrophes are dangerous in the hands of unskillful workmen, especially such speakers as attempt to warm their lips with words from frozen hearts. The forbearance and kindness of a pious people, and their reluctance to find fault with their ministers, we fear have con- tributed to a growing self-complacency among the clergy, and moreover to a false view of their real abilities. This doubtless has had considerable influence in producing the deficiency of the modern pulpit. We do not think it uncharitable to say, that with a large class of clergymen there is a sad deficiency in hard consecutive study; in profound. original thought; in a clear and 10 INTRODUCTION. impressive apprehension of divine truth ; in a bold, comprehen- sive, and earnest diction ; in a fearless and manly energy, such as a Christian honesty inspires. But instead of this kind of pulpit attraction we have commonplace thoughts, tame and insipid illustrations, a hesitating and patronizing air of delivery, and apparent indifference to probable or possible results. Such public speaking as this is tolerated nowhere else but in the pulpit, and only tolerated there. Under its deadening influence the lawyer would lose his business, the political orator his audience, and the tragedian would be hissed from the stage. These feeble and forceless incumbents seem quite at ease if they have gained the doubtful compliment: "They are good men, though not great preachers." They should know that this is said often, more because nothing else can be said of them, or because this cannot be well disproved, than because they have any special goodness of character. The speaking of the pulpit, unlike that of the bar and ros- trum, does not furnish the speaker with the immediate and ocu- lar proofs of his success or failure. Hence his constant and imminent danger of deceiving himself, alike as to his success and real abilities. This has a tendency to satisfy him with ordinary efforts, and this cannot fail to make him an ordinary man. In ministerial qualifications goodness should surely be held as a sine qua non; but if the days of miracles are past, strength, both human and divine, is its right arm of power, now as of old. This state of things in the ministerial profession of the present age has had a tendency to invite into it a class of men who are too weak and powerless to get a living in any other way. In all other professions the incumbents must have some talent and vigorous application, or fail ; but a young man who has not tact or courage to badger a false witness, or extract a tooth, will do for a minister, for "he is a very good young man." By this means the eloquence of the pulpit is greatly marred. For a dis- course superficially studied, made up mostly of commonplace and stale thoughts, with dry and antiquated illustrations, no INTRODUCTION. 11 man of sense can deliver with interest or enthusiasm to himself; and then he will fall into a dull, empty, and indifferent way of speaking — the tomb of all eloquence. But when the speaker feels he has elaborated something new, worthy of himself and his hearers, his eye kindles, his spirit rises, his soul is stirred, his voice adjusts itself to his thoughts, and then he has the people with him, and lo, he is pronounced an eloquent man! Non-progressive, unstudious, and unthinking clergymen are often if not generally monotonous in style. This is a common and ruinous feature in pulpit speaking. So little variations of the voice stupefy the hearers, and obscure the fine thoughts of the speaker, if he utters them. Says one writer : " The monotonous wearisome sound of a single bell might be almost as soon expected to excite moral impressions as the general tenor of our pulpit discourses, which are, with few exceptions, drowsily composed and drowsily delivered." On the other hand, some fall into the habit of a hurried and impetuous style of speaking. This, though less common, is hardly less disagreeable. It is frequently the result of embar- rassment or timidity. A fear of coming to a stop, or being unable to call up words rapidly enough, naturally creates hurry. This will often superinduce some trifling mistake, which is hastily corrected, increasing the hurry and confusion, till it becomes painful to both speaker and hearer. A desire also to be forcible or impressive tends to this impetu- osity of style. A rapid torrent of words is thought by some sufficient to carry away an audience, as the current sweeps all before it. An audience without brains, or heart, might possibly be thus overcome — not otherwise. A slight difficulty in the articulation of words, or sounds, serves to rush a speaker on as rapidly as possible ; and this, too, only augments the evil, as it suppresses, rather than develops the power to articulate. Practice, careful and continued, will soon furnish ability to overcome any such hesitancy in utterance. But such practice requires great deliberation in speaking. 12 INTKODUCTION. Among the disadvantages of this manner of delivery are the following : it injures the organs of speech, and the health ; it is annoying to the hearers; it obscures the thoughts of the speaker by covering them over with a stream of words; it destroys the power of emphasis, by a constant exhaustion of breath and voice ; it bewilders the attention, and destroys the hearer's power of memory, and thus prevents lasting good results. To correct this injurious pulpit habit there should be thorough preparation to speak, which will inspire a perfect confidence of the speaker in his ability to proceed. Great care and sufficient time must be taken to enunciate fully and distinctly every word and sound. No long time in this careful practice will be required to obviate wholly the injurious habit of which we complain, provided the correction is undertaken with a truth- ful view of the existence and extent of the difficulty. Ko fault of delivery will be eradicated until the erring speaker feels his imperfection, and that particular imperfection, and determines it shall cease. The basis of delivery in preaching should be a dignified and earnest conversational tone ; and there should be no departure from it, except when strong excitement compels it. Let the clerical reader now cast his eye over the circle of his ministerial acquaintances, and ask himself how many of these would, and how many would not be improved by some change in this respect. There is generally too much volume of voice used, too loud and harsh. This diverts attention from the thought of discourse and deadens the feeling. This fault, though common and very detrimental, is easily remedied with care and perse- verance. It is said of Cicero, that before he went into Greece he had a rude and coarse voice ; but after remaining there for some time, by industry and force of habit he brought it to a charming smoothness and delicacy. The little attention paid to the voice, its tones and culture, by public speakers, is really surprising. In noticing other INTRODUCTION. 13 speakers, nothing sooner attracts our attention than the voice. "We at once determine whether it is base, tenor, or soprano, as we do also whether it is agreeable or otherwise. The voice is not only susceptible of these essential qualities, but also of vari- ous gradations between them. Its flexibility and susceptibility of culture are almost incredible. It can express every emotion of the soul, and every degree of that emotion. More, it is almost sure to utter the speaker's soul whether he will or not ! It will not play him false, but may expose his hypocrisy if he has any. Such is the power of the human voice ; yet how few public speakers ever attempt in earnest to change their harsh and stupefying tones, tones which not unfrequently utterly ruin their efficiency as speakers ; men whose chief business, too, is speaking ! The base voice has great dignity, and is not at first repulsive, nor is it when occasionally used ; but it will soon grow heavy, and become monotonous, and when long continued it is sure to produce drowsiness. To listen for an hour to a sermon in a uniformly deep and heavy base voice, is about as entertaining as to listen as long to a solitary base singer. The tenor voice is the best adapted to public speaking, and hence should be cultivated by those whose voices are base or soprano, as all these tones can with ease be greatly modified. This tenor voice, occupying a middle position between the other two, plays up and down most readily. This tone is also more persuasive and sympathetic, a secret few understand and none can explain, yet an element of great power in a speaker. It has greater variety, and is less inclined to monotony. The highest voice is sharp and ungraceful. It is more liable to impair the organs of speech and health, and also to create uneasiness with the hearers. It approaches a scream when long continued. It can be used only occasionally with pleasure to the hearers, or with safety to the speaker, except where it is natural, and even then it is disagreeable to the ear. 14 INTRODUCTION. Speakers cannot be too cautious in watching against bad habits until they are wholly removed. Yet it is possible to become so careful and anxious about the grammar, rhetoric, and pronunciation, and to allow the whole attention to be absorbed, so that the subject itself and the results of its delivery may be entirely forgotten. Many of our most learned and polished speakers, we judge, fall into this grave mistake. Impression and success are sacrificed to a cold exactness, to a dead orthodoxy. Eather than this, let them speak right on, in the fullness of their souls, trusting to the force of accurate habit of study and speak- ing; then the mind and feelings' will be unembarrassed, and free to enter directly and earnestly into the subject itself. The preacher must not be fastidiously solicitous, or elaborately nice in the arrangement of his sentences and in .the marshaling of periods; for, as Milton says, "True eloquence I find to be none but the serious and hearty love of truth ; and that whose mind soever is fully possessed with a fervent desire to know good things, and with the dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of them into others, when such a man would speak, his words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at com- mand, and in well-ordered files, and as he would wish, fall aptly into their own places." Such speaking as this, with a tolerable accuracy and clearness of utterance, constitutes a manly and impressive eloquence, scorning the tricks of the stage, the buf- foonery of mountebanks, and the bombast of sophomores. The following brief quotations contain thoughts worth a per- manent place in all literature embracing sacred eloquence : " Oratory, as it consists in the expression of the countenance, graces of attitude and motion, and intonation of voice, although it is altogether superficial and ornamental, will always command admiration; yet it deserves little veneration. Flashes of wit, coruscations of imagination, and gay pictures ; what are they ? Strict truth, rapid reason, and pure integrity are the only essen- tial ingredients in oratory. I flatter myself that Demosthenes, by his action! action! action! meant to express the same opinion." — John Adams. INTRODUCTION. 15 " Clearness, force, and earnestness are qualities that produce conviction. True eloquence does not consist in speech. It can- not be brought from. far. Labor and learning may toil for it ; but they toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way ; but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it, but they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the out- breaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the courtly ornaments, studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives and the lives of their wives and children and their country hang on the decisions of an hour. Then words have lost their power; rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Then even genius feels rebuked and subdued, as if in the pres- ence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent. The clear conception outrunning the deductions of logic; the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward — right onward to his object — this, this is eloquence, or rather it is something greater than eloquence ; it is ^ctiye, noble, sublime, and god-like action." — Unknown. (AMA^tAV* r * r " Ehetoric, as taught in the seminaries, and by itinerant elo- cutionists, is one thing; genuine, heart-thrilling, soul-stirring eloquence is a very different thing. The one is like the rose in the wax, without odor ; the other like the rose in its native bush, perfuming the atmosphere with its rich odor, distilled from the dew of heaven. The one is the finely finished statue of a Cicero or Demosthenes, more perfect in its lineaments than the original, pleasing the eye and entrapping the imagina- tion; the other is the living man, animated by intellectual power, rousing the deepest feelings of every heart, and electrify- ing every soul, as with vivid lightning. The one is a picture of the passions all on fire ; the other is the real conflagration, pouring out a volume of words that burn, like liquid flames bursting from the crater of a volcano. The one attracts the admiring gaze, and tickles the fancy of an audience ; the other sounds an alarm that vibrates through the tingling ears to the 16 INTKODUCTION. soul, and sends back the rushing blood upon the aching heart ; the one fails, when strong commotion and angry elements agi- tate the public peace ; the other can ride upon the whirlwind, -Judson. "We have been induced to offer to the reading public a repub- lication of this volume, chiefly because we think it supplies a long-felt desideratum in the literature of public speakers, a kind of connecting link between the theory of rhetoric, as taught in our text-books, and the application or practice of it. In this most important aspect of this noble subject, we think the remarks of this author the most highly suggestive and pertinent of any we have ever read. In his sententious and terse style, he sparkles with thought and abounds with practical hints. He assumes from first to last what we think is true, that public speakers generally are more familiar with the rules of rhetoric than they are skillful in the application of them. Could our countless corps of public speakers be reached at this point and thoroughly roused, we might hope to see a much-needed improvement in public speaking. It will be noticed that the idioms, or forms of expression, are not all modern, nor exactly American. Many not such, however, have been changed : but some are left as we found them, where a severe literary taste would seem to require change, fearing we might lessen or mar the author's thought by introducing our own phraseology. The careful reader will observe that in what we have said in this Introduction, and in the Notes, together with the valuable essay of Henry Eogers in the appendix, we have aimed at pro- ducing a book worthy of the attention of clergymen, and such as we think is adapted to promote the efficiency of the pulpit. And if our clerical readers can read this little work as many times as we have, with unflagging interest, they will not regret that it has fallen into their hands. L. D. Baeeows. Boston, Mass., Nov., 1862. PROEM The highest truths of transcendental metaphysics will one day reach the populace. Not only the stand- ard of intellect, but that of morality, will be raised. The race of the Papinians, the Cromwells, and Mar- vels, will be multiplied. It was once said all could not learn to read, write, and account. Now they do learn these and other things. They will one day learn all things. Intellect will conquer all obstacles, and teach the human race to realize untold perfection. But it will be accomplished piecemeal. Progres- sion is a series of stages. Individuals first, then groups, then classes, then nations, are raised. You can no more introduce, at once, the multitude to the highest results of philosophy, than you can take a man to the summit of a monument without ascending the steps, or reach a distant land without traveling the journey. This book is a stage. As the preceding ones in this series, it is designed for the class of young thinkers to whom knowledge has given some intel- lectual aspiration, and fate denied the means of its scholastic gratification. It is therefore neither ele- mentary nor ultimate, but a medium between the two. It addresses itself to a want. It deals in results. It dictates doing. 2 18 PEOEM. Spontaneous life is the life of the people. Their knowledge is confined to phenomena. Their practical philosophy is the reality of Hobbism. Disguise it as we may, their sole business is the betterance of their condition. All you can do is to guide their rude in- terpretation of nature, men, and manners — -to give plain method to their classification, coherence to their inferences, justice to their invectives. They want no new philosophy. There are more old ones which are good than they can study. There is more wisdom extant than they can master, more precepts than they can apply. Weapons innumerable surround them, of which they have to be taught the use. Their watch- word is work. The scaling-ladders of the wise which they, having mounted the citadel of wisdom, have kicked down, are yet of service to those who are below. I have picked a few of these ladders up, and reared them in these pages for the use of those who have yet to rise. Fastidious punctilios of scholarship would be out of place in such a book as this. He who addresses the artisan class must, like the Spartans, write to be read, and speak to be understood. Mechanics and literary institutions cannot cultivate their frequenters, and those greatly mistake the requirements of learn- ing and the state of the people who think they can. They can stimulate improvement, and this is their province. Nations never become civilized and learned till subsistence is secure and leisure abundant. So of individuals. The populace are still engaged in the lowest battle of animal wants ; and even the middle classes are in the warfare of intellectual wants. In the ancient state ofsociety war was the only trade, force the only teacher, and the battle-ax the only PROEM. 19 argument. A transition has indeed taken place 5 the time, and means, and ends are changed ; but not the relative position of men. ~No more do we struggle for the victory of conquest, but we struggle for wages and more intelligence. Knowledge has reached the mass so as to make them sensible of their ignorance without diminishing their privations, and they are now engaged in a double battle against Want and Error. The struggle, therefore, is resolute. The training wanted is practical ; the weapons serviceable and ready for use. Provided the literary sword will cut, few will quarrel about the polish. If the blade has good temper, he who needs it will put up with a plain hilt. "When I contemplate the appliances which learning and science present to the scholar, and see how mul- tiplied are its means of knowing the truth upon all subjects, I cannot conceive that he can be struggling like the untaught thinker between right and wrong. To the scholar, truth and falsehood must be apparent ; and since the learned do not penetrate to the intellect of the populace, and establish intelligence among them, it must be that the learned want courage or condescension, or that common sense among them is petrified in formulas. We want either a hammer or a fire to break the spell or dissolve the ice. Those words of Guizot which I have placed on the title-page indicate the broad obviousness of precept aimed at in this work. Hudibras tells us that " All the logician's rules Teach nothing hut to name their tools." I have attempted to recast this order. In the " Logic of Facts " I have dealt with the materials of reason- 20 PKOEM. ing. This is such " Application " of them as I should make. In this matter I have striven to speak without affecting superiority or infallibility. Writer and reader stand on the same level, and from a common ground thus established mutual inquiry starts. The information attempted is essentially practical. It is not the heavy inexorable theory of the last age ap- plied to the bustle and elasticity of this ; but upon the learning of the schools is endeavored to be en- grafted the learning of life, the literature of the streets and of trade, the logic of the newspaper and the platform, and the rhetoric of daily conversation; that the reader may acquire a public as well as a scholastic spirit : the aim being to elicit originality, to realize a distinct individual, who shall go forth into the arena of the world with determinate and dis- ciplined powers capable of usefully influencing its affairs. In the division of the Parts' and the succession of the Chapters, there is no pretension to scientific clas- sification. The distinction drawn between the Parts, though not recognized, will, I believe, be found prac- tically suggestive. The order of the Chapters is that which seemed to me to be natural, at least to throw light, one upon the subject of the other. In " Hints " a greater license is allowed, and strict sequence is not so much looked for as suggestiveness. The First Part treats of the Rudiments of Rheto- ric, the elements which the student derives from the instruction of others. After the " Proem " has in- formed the reader of the design of the book, " Rhet- oric" defines and explains the subject; "Delivery" commences with the laws of tone, founded on the study of feeling. "The Theory of Persuasion " accu- PEOEM. 21 mulates materials from the study of manifestation ; "Method" teaches how to use these materials with power ; " Discipline " teaches how this power is con- firmed ; "Tact" teaches its special application. The Second Part includes those topics, a knowledge of which is not so much, or rather, not so well, de- rived from the instruction of others, as acquired by the personal observations of the student. Doubtless the teacher can impart them, but only in a qualified sense. The student will never excel unless he trust to himself and to his independent exertions. The practical relation between the subjects in this Part seem to be this: "Originality" is a source of inde- pendent power ; "Heroism" its manifestation ; "Pro- portion " prunes " Heroism " of Exaggeration and Declaration; "Style" indicates individuality of ex- pression; "Similes" offer themselves as weapons of expression; "Pleasantry" its relief; "Energy" is a species of lemma to Eloquence ; "Eloquence" mar- shals the powers to effect conviction on a given point; "Premeditation" teaches how effect is to be provided for; "Reality" infuses confidence; "Ef- fectiveness" sums up the condition of complete im- pression; "Mastery" denotes the signs of rhetorical perfection. The Third Part, again, relates in its distinction rather to the student than to the subject intrinsically considered. This Part treats of topics in which the student finds the application of previous acquisitions. "Criticism" applies preceding topics to the develop- ment of beauties and correction of faults; "Debate" is tact applied to conversion; "Questioning," or Socratic Disputation, is the auxiliary of Debate; "Personalities" treat of the conduct of Controversy; 22 PROEM. " Eepetition " is the philosophy of Reformation; " Poetry " is the highest result of Rhetoric. Whatsoever well expressed thought I have found which illustrated my subject I have taken, and, what is somewhat more unusual, I have acknowledged it ; because the author of a useful idea ought to be re- membered as one who leaves a legacy. Through this punctiliousness the critics will say that I have not composed, but that I have compiled a bool^; though I see books published around me in which there is more that belongs to others than in this book, but the obligations being concealed, the ostensible authors get the credit of being original. We are all of us indebted to those who have thought before us, and we say with Montaigne : "I have gathered a nosegay of flowers in which there is nothing of my own but the string which ties them." But in this case the string which ties them is my own. The architect (to pass from nature to art) has the credit of his conception and erection of an edifice. Yet he does not create the materials. . The materials he finds, but he gives them proportion, place, and design. The idea is his ; and if good, we credit him with distinct merit. Why, therefore, should not the author of a book, even if made up of other men's materials, be credited also with distinct merit, if his work has an idea which subordinates the materials he employs and shapes them to a new utility % G. J. EL PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE P A E T I. DERIVATIVE POWERS CHAPTER I. KHETOEIC. Rhetoric is the application of logic to mankind. By reasoning we satisfy ourselves, by rhetoric we satisfy others. The rhetorician is commonly con- sidered most perfect who carries his point by what- ever means. Men like to see the man who is a match for events, and equal to any exigency. But it is plain we must make some distinction as to the manner in which a point is to be carried. We may as well say that a man may carry the point of life, that is, fill his pockets by any means, as influence men by any means. A low appeal to the passions we call clap-trap. I know no better definition of rhet- oric than Dr. Johnson's definition of oratory. " Ora- tory," said the doctor, "is the power of beating down your adversaries' arguments and putting better in their places." 24 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. Descending more into detail, the description given by Lord Herbert of Oherbury is the happiest and healthiest delineation of rhetoric that has fallen under my notice. " It would be fit that some time be spent in learn- ing rhetoric or oratory, to the intent that upon all occasions you may express yourself with eloquence and grace ; for, as it is not enough for a man to have a diamond unless it is polished and cut out into its due angles, so it Will not be sufficient for a man to have a great understanding in all matters, unless the said understanding be not only polished and clear, but underset and helped a little with those figures, tropes, and colors which rhetoric affords, where there is use of persuasion. I can by no means yet com- mend an affected eloquence, there being nothing so pedantical, or indeed that would give more suspicion that the truth is not intended, than to use overmuch the common forms prescribed in schools. It is well said by them, that there are two parts of eloquence necessary and commendable ; one is, to speak hard things plainly, so that when a knotty or intricate business, having no method or coherence in its parts, shall be presented, it will be a singular part of ora- tory to take those parts asunder, set them together aptly, and so exhibit them to the understanding. And this part of rhetoric I much commend to every- body ; there being no true use of speech but to make things clear, perspicuous, and manifest, which other- wise would be perplexed, doubtful, and obscure. " The other part of oratory is to speak common things ingeniously or wittily ; there being no little vigor and force added to words when they are de- livered in a neat and fine way, and somewhat out of RHETORIC. 25 the ordinary road, common and dull language savor- ing more of the clown than the gentleman. But herein also affectation must be avoided; it being better for a man by a native and clear eloquence to express m himself, than by those words which may smell either of the lamp or inkhorn ; so that, in general, one may observe, that men who fortify and uphold their speeches with strong and evident reasons, have ever operated more on the minds of the auditors than those who have made rhetorical excursions. Aristo- tle hath written a book of rhetoric, a work in my opinion not inferior to his best pieces, whom there- fore with Cicero ole Oratore, as also Quinctilian, you may read for your instruction how to speak ; neither of which two yet I can think so exact in their ora- tions, but that a middle style will be of more efficacy, Cicero in my opinion being too long and tedious, Quinctilian too short and concise." " Between grammar, logic, and rhetoric there ex- ists a close and happy connection, which reigns through all science, and extends to all the powers of eloquence. "Grammar traces the operations of thought in known and received characters, and enables polished nations amply to confer on posterity the pleasures of intellect, the improvements of science, and the his- tory of the world. " Logic converses with ideas, adjusts them . with propriety and truth, and gives the whole an elevation in the mind consonant to the order of nature or the flight of fancy. "Rhetoric, lending a spontaneous aid to the de- fects of language, applies her warm and glowing tints to the portrait, and exhibits the grandeur of the uni- 26 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. verse, the productions of genius, and all the works of art, as copies of the fair original."* He who gives directions for the attainment of ora- tory is supposed, if a public speaker, to be capable of illustrating his own precepts. " He may be thought to challenge criticism, and his own performances may be condemned by a refer- ence to his own precepts ; or, on the other hand, his precepts may be undervalued through his own fail- ures in their application. Should this take place in the present instance, I have only to urge, with Hor- ace in his Art of Poetry, that a whetstone, though itself incapable of cutting, is yet useful in sharpening steel. No system of instruction will completely equalize. natural powers ; and yet it may be of service toward their improvement. The youthful Achilles acquired skill in hurling the javelin under the in- struction of Chiron, though the master could not com- pete with the pupil in vigor of arm.f But there is little danger, in these days, of any serious judgment being passed upon the indifferent ex- emplar of the rhetorical maxims he lays down. Our orators escape as our statues do. Good public monu- ments are so scarce that the people are no judges of art, and great speakers so seldom arise that the peo- ple are no judges of oratory. England has not reached the age of excellence in this respect. Great events can excite it, but only a national* refinement, including opulence and a liberal philosophy, can sus- tain it. The power of oratory requires the union of intellect, leisure, and health, discipline of thought, accuracy of expression, method, a manly spirit, an absolute taste, copiousness of information upon the * Spectator, No. 421. t Whately's Rhetoric, preface. DELIVERY. 27 given subject, a vivid imagination and concentration. Oratory — by which term I always mean the highest efforts in the art of public persuasion — might exist in the Church but for its dread of imitating the theater.* It is suppressed among the Dissenters by the influence of evangelism. Did this not exist, their precarious pay would deter them from the pursuit of the art. The bar is too full of business and too anxious for fees, to reach much distinction where leisure and choice are necessary. The politician is generally in- dolent if not dependent, and if necessitous he has to struggle for himself when he should be struggling for excellence. Besides these drawbacks, there are vari- ous popular prejudices which few minds are strong enough to withstand, and which deter the young aspirant after eloquence. Under various heads, as "Premeditation," "Discipline," and others, these points* of prejudice will be discussed. CHAPTEK H. DELIVERY. "Elocution," says Walker, "in the modern seMse of the word, seems to signify that pronunciation which is given to words when they are arranged into sen- tences, and form discourse." The power of distinct and forcible pronunciation is the basis of delivery. Between deliberate, full-toned, and energetic speak- ing, and feeble, indistinct, and spiritless utterance, there is the difference of live and dead oratory. * See Note A. page 167. 28 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. The rudiments of speaking are few and simple. Yowels should have a bold, round, mellow tone. This is the lasis of speaking. A slight, short, mincing pronunciation of the accented vowels is the prime fault to be avoided. Audibility depends chiefly on articulation, and ar- ticulation depends much on the distinctness with which we hear the final consonants. R has two sounds, a rough and a smooth one. The rough r is proper at the beginning of words, and the smooth r at the end of words, or when succeeded by a consonant. The audibility of the r in each case gives strength to the utterance. In about twenty-two words in our language, begin- ning with A, the h is not sounded. These words must be carefully attended to, and all other words begin- ning with h must have that letter distinctly heard. In illustration of this neglect of aspiration where proper, teachers of elocution are accustomed to say, that if the Indian swallows the sword we (h)eat the poker. A strong delivery is to be constantly cultivated — that is, an energy that shall prevent drawling, and a slowness that shall avoid mumbling words or chop- ping half the sounds away, as hasty speaking does. Tajse time to articulate fully and intonate. Speak "trippingly" without tripping. If you must be ex- treme, better be solemn than hasty. Robert Hall, whose talent for extempore speaking was such that, when eleven years of age, he was set up to preach extempore to a select auditory of full- grown men, says of himself: "To me to speak slow was ruin. You know, sir, that force or momentum is conjointly as the body and the velocity ; therefore, as DELIVERY. 29 my voice is feeble, what is wanted in body must be made up in velocity." This is a mathematical figure of speech, and is more true of dynamics than rhet- oric. This remark has seriously misled many young speakers. There is a distinction to be noted between a small voice arising from peculiarity in the conform- ation of the larynx, and the feeble voice which arises from the narrow chest or from physical debility. Unless there is a great strength to support any mo- mentum imparted, indistinctness and alternations of screechings and whispers will be the inevitable results. At a Corn-law meeting held in Glasgow, in 1845, 1 sat at half distance from the platform. Having of- fered my services to the Lord Provost, I was uncer- tain whether I should not be required to take part in the proceedings. I was therefore anxious to hear all that was said. It was at this time that I first felt perfectly the annoyance of indistinct speaking. At the Newhall Hill meetings in Birmingham I had been accustomed to hear the Warwickshire orators roar, but in Glasgow I found they only spoke, and spoke as though they were paid for the sound they made, and did not get a good price for it. At length the Rev. Dr. King arose, who spoke with strong deliber- ateness. His speech was ably conceived and wisely delivered. Every word fell on the ear like the steady tolling of a bell. His voice was the anodyne of the night. Whenever I go to a public meeting I pray that one Dr. King may be present. It is said of Mr. Macaulay, (I think by Francis in his " Orators of the Age,") that when an opening is made in a discussion in the House of Commons, he rises, or rather darts up from his seat, and plunges at 30 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. once into the very heart of his subject, without exor- dium or apologetic preface. In fact, you have for a few seconds a voice pitched in alto, monotonous and rather shrill, pouring forth words with inconceivable velocity, ere you have become aware that a new speaker, and one of no common order, has broken in upon the debate. A few seconds more and cheers, perhaps from all parts of the house, rouse you com- pletely from your apathy, compelling you to follow that extremely voluble and not very enticing voice, in its rapid course through the subject on which the speaker is entering, with a resolute determination, as it seems, never to pause. You think of an express train, which does not stop even at the chief stations. On, on he speeds, in full reliance on his own momen- tum, never stopping for words, never stopping for thoughts, never halting for an instant, even to take breath ; his intellect gathering new vigor as it pro- ceeds, hauling the subject after him, and all its pos- sible attributes and illustrations, with the strength of a giant, leaving a line of light on the pathway his mind has trod, till, unexhausted and apparently inex- haustible, he brings his remarkable effort to a close by a peroration so highly sustained in its declamatory power, so abounding in illustration, so admirably framed to crown and clench the whole oration, that surprise, if it has even begun to wear off, kindles anew, and the hearer is left utterly prostrate and powerless by the whirlwind of ideas and emotions that has swept over him. This, however, only illus- trates the liberty a man may take with elocution if he has genius to compensate for it. That member must beware, who attempts to charm the House of Commons by a monotonous alto without Macau] ay's DELIVERY. 31 wit, his power of enlightenment, and fecundity of illustration. From Quinctilian to Blair, rhetoricians have in- sisted on the value of accuracy of expression as pro- motive of accuracy of thought. Accuracy of de- livery tends equally to this result ; it does more, it improves the memory as well as the understanding, and imparts the power of concatenation of speech. The naturally voluble may dispense with this aid, but others will find it the only mode of learning public speaking. A clergyman, who in his early days denied that grammar or emphasis had anything to do with pulpit exercises, one day found his mistake by the laughter created on his reading this text : " And he spake to his sons, saying, Saddle me, the ass, and they saddled him." Of this same divine it is told that a man whom he reprimanded for" swearing replied that he did not see any harm in it. " ISTo harm in it," said the minister ; " why do you not know the command- ment, " Swear not at all V " I do not swear at all" said the man, "I only swear at those who annoy me." The emphasis which is suggested by the sense is the best guide. Let a person make sure of the sense and his emphasis will be natural and varied. An active and original conception can alone produce personality of enunciation, which is the chief charm of oratory. Conception is the sole governor of into- nation. Of the delicious magic of inflection Eben Jones has given us a poet's idea in his lines " To a Personification of Ariel at the Theater :" "If a new sound should music through the sky, How would all hearing drink the challenging tone ; 32 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. And when thou uttered'st thy denying reply To this questioning of love, as Ariel alone Only could utter it, suddenly making known New voice, new human music ; then did burn Each listener, to divine, ere it was gone, What feelings toned it ; though none might learn, How many, divine and deep, in that sweet 'No ' did yearn. " The offensiveness of affectation was justly satirized in the confessions of a dandy given in a recent ro- mance. Mr. Affection is recounting his rejection by a young lady, upon whom he had inflicted his at- tentions. " 'You are mistaken !' said she, replying to my look, ' it was not your dress, it was not your man- ners. The young gentleman who comes from Bond- street to tune our piano, is quite as affable and much more dressy.' * The people at the Koyal Lodge, prob- ably, afford you some little insight into my condition, as a pretext for your doing me the honor of admit- ting me into your acquaintance,' said I with con- siderable bitterness, for I was stung home. 'No, it was jour voice; it was the hypocritical modulation of your voice that satisfied me you had moved in the best society,' replied Miss Yavasour, with provoking coolness ; 'I saw that you were a most delicate mons- ter; that you had a voice for me and another for Annie, a third for the pony, a fourth for "the lodge- keepers ; there was nothing natural about you !' " Attracted by the pretensions of a placard, adorned by a testimonial from the " Times," I went, in Glas- gow,, to hear some professional recitations. One of them was the "Story of a Broken Heart." The un- fortunate girl of whom it was told did not die imme- diately, but it struck me she would have done so had she heard Mr. Wilson recite her story. The subject was that piece of gracefuleffeminacy in which Wash- DELIVERY. 33 ington Irving has told, with drawing-room sentiment- ality, the. story of the proud love of the daughter of Curran for the unhappy and heroic Emmet. ]STo one can recite with propriety what he does not feel, and the key to gesture, as well to modulation, is earnestness. ISTo actor can portray character unless he can realize it, and he can only realize it by making it for a time his own. Eoger Kemble's wife had been forbidden to marry an actor, and her father was inexorable at her disobedience ; but after he had seen her husband upon the stage he relented, and forgave her with this observation : " "Well, well ! I see you have not disobeyed me after all ; for the man is not an actor, and never will be an actor !" As the presence of genius will compensate for. the neglect of the elocution of utterance, so earnestness and great ideas will produce eloquence of effect with- out gesture in delivery. It is said of Robert Hall that the text of his discourse was usually announced in the feeblest tone, and in a rapid manner, so as fre- quently to be inaudible to the majority of his congre- gation. After the exordium, he would commonly hint at, rather than explicitly announce, the very simple divisions of the subject on which he intended to treat. Then his thoughts would begin to multiply, and the rapidity of his utterance, always considerable, would increase as he proceeded and kindled. He had no oratorical action, scarcely any kind of mo- tion, excepting an occasional lifting or waving of the right hand, and, in his most impassioned moments, an alternate retreat and advance in the pulpit by a short step. Sometimes the pain in his back, to which lie was so great a martyr, would induce him to throw his arm behind, as if to give himself ease or support 84 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. in the long continued, and, to him, afflictive position of standing to address the people. Nothing of the effect which he produced depended on extraneous circumstances. There was no pomp, no rhetorical nourish, and few (though whenever they did occur, very appropriate) images, excepting toward the close of his sermon, when his imagination became excursive, and he winged his way through the loftiest sphere of contemplation. His sublimest discourses were in the beginning didactic and argumentative, then descriptive and pathetic, and finally, in the highest and best sense, imaginative. Truth, to him, was their universal element, and to enforce its claims was his constant aim. Whether he attempted to en- gage the reason, the affections, or the fancy, all was subsidiary to this great end. He was always m earn- est, profoundly in earnest. But it is also true that as a chaste, concise, and energetic style is more effective than a florid, turgid, and prolix one, so the judicious employment of moderate gesture is more effective upon the genius of the English people, who love moderation, than any possible amplification of spasmodic attitudes or redundancy of grimace. The prompting of Lucio to Isabel, when pleading be- fore Angelo for the life of her brother, as rendered by Shakspeare in Measure for Measure, is one of the happiest practical lessons in elocutionary art on rec- ord. As a piece of preceptive teaching, neither the rhetoric of ancient or modern times has produced anything so happy, so concise, and yet so compre- hensive, as Hamlet's directions to his players. It is a manual of elocution in miniature.* * See Note B, page 1 68. THEORY OF PERSUASION. 35 CHAPTER HI. THEORY OF PERSUASION. "Rhetoric," saysTlato, " is the art of ruling the minds of men ;" but to rule mind you must know it.* One touch of nature makes the whole world kin : but we cannot touch nature through the rules of art without knowing nature. " He who in an enlight- ened and literary society aspires to be a great poet must become a little child. He takes to pieces the whole web of his mind."* This is what the young rhetorician must do. He must tread backward the path of life to the first moment of consciousness, and ask all possible questions of his own experience. Carlyle has said that a healthy man never asks him- self such personal questions. But a thoughtful man does. Could the disembodied experience of men be presented to view, so that the conscious life of each could be palpable in bodily form, how few figures would present the entire lineaments of mankind. We should behold an assemblage of mutilated figures, the limbs of some, the arms of others, the trunk, or the head, would be invisible; so little, as respects consciousness, do men generally possess themselves. As, however, man is himself essentially his own standard of judgment, is himself the measure of other men, it is inevitable that he will form a defective esti- mate of others who is defective himself. The rhetori- cian, then, who would hope to operate on the natures of others, must primarily make himself acquainted with his own. * Macaulay, Crit. and Hist. Essays, vol. i. 36 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. An appeal to experience is the best test we have of the force of an inducement. "The argument," says Emerson, " which has not the power to reach my own practice, I may well doubt will fail to reach yours. I have heard an experienced counselor say, that he never feared the effect upon a jury of a law- yer who does not believe in his heart that his client ought to have a verdict." A remarkable instance of the result of an appeal to personal conviction is af- forded in Bailey's Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision. " Many years ago," says Mr. Bailey, " I held what may be styled a derivative opinion in favor of Berkeley's Theory of 'Vision ; but having in the course of a philosophical discussion had occasion to explain it, I found on attempting to state in my own language the grounds on which it rested, that they no longer appeared to me to be so clear and conclu- sive as I had fancied them to be. I determined to make it the subject of a patient and dispassionate ex- amination. The result has been a clear conviction in my own mind of its erroneousness, and a desire to state to the philosophical world the grounds on which that conviction has been formed." A philosophical illustration of the truth of Emerson's observation, that that statement is only fit to be made public which you have come at in attempting to satisfy your own curiosity. Men may live, and think, and reason, with the mere surface knowledge which life presents to every observer; but no one can master persuasion, as an art, unless he passes in review the origin of ideas and analyzes the motives of men. A sound theory of intelligence is the basis of all systematic persuasion. Metaphysical philosophy has been prolific in its dissertations on the facts and attri- THEORY OF PERSUASION. 37 butes of human mentality ; but the classification of intelligence laid down by some of the more judicious followers of Gall is the most scientific, and, conse- quently, the most intelligible which the student can follow. It is not possible to indicate a particular theory in detail with "a chance of its being univers- ally useful. For the general characteristics of hu- manity are variously combined with the national, local, and individual, in every audience who may be addressed by tongue or pen. The simple elements of humanity, like the letters of the alphabet, are, ac- cording to the arrangement of circumstances, spread out into countless volumes of character, each written in a peculiar language, and requiring a copious lexi- con to render it intelligible to the reader.* The gen- eral principles, say of phrenology, indicate the out- lines of human nature, and the study of men and manners fills up the detail. An old writer, I think Ralph Cudworth, says : " It is acknowledged by all, that sense is passion. And there is in all sensation, without dispute, first a passion in the body of the sentient, which bodily passion is nothing else but local motion impressed upon the nerves from the objects without, and thence propagated and com- municated to the brain, where all sensation is made. For there is no other action of one body upon another, nor other change or mutation of bodies conceivable or intelligible, besides local motion ; which motion in that body which moves another, is called action ; in that which is moved by another, passion. And, therefore, when a compound object very remotely distant is perceived by us, since it is by some passion made upon our body, there must of necessity be a * Mrs. L. Grimstone. 38 PUBLIC SPEAKING A^D DEBATE. • continual propagation of some local motion of press- ure from thence unto the organs of our sense or nerves, and so unto the brain. As when we see many fixed stars sparkling in a clear night, though they be all of them so many semi-diameters of the earth distant from us, yet it must, of necessity, be granted that there are local motions or pressure from them, which we call the light of them, propagated continually or uninterruptedly through the fluid heaven unto our optic nerves, or else we could not see them." This indicates very plainly the philoso- phy of impressions. We have nothing to do here with the controversies of metaphysicians concerning the transcendentalism of intuitive knowledge. It may be supernatural. It is, however, certain that a great proportion of human knowledge is the result of material relations, and to these relations the precepts of knowledge apply. We may therefore indicate with sufficient accuracy for practical purposes, that the consciousness of external things is produced or generated by the actions of those things on the or- gans of sense. The brain has no power to create, only a susceptibility to receive notions. The brain is the forge of thought,* and the rhetorician is the smith who hammers out ideas in it. So far as human conduct is influenced by material considerations, and these are capable of being com- bined into a system, confidence can be imparted to the speaker, and certainty infused into his efforts. It might be illustrated at considerable length and by distinguished examples, that appeals to religious sentiments will always be avoided by a judicious orator when addressing mixed assemblies.f They * Carlyle. f See Note C, page 170. THEORY OF PERSUASION. 39 are proper enough when spoken to a religious audi- ence, but when employed for the purpose of influenc- ing a mixed meeting they may fail to affect a con- siderable portion. The experienced and well-in- formed speaker has always a wider resource. He can draw his arguments from moral and political considerations, founded on utility. These all men can understand and feel. In those cases in which an orator cannot conscientiously restrict himself to this species of reasoning, he must take the other course, but let him not calculate on complete success or universal impressions. The great business is to find out the right notion, and adapt it to the understandings of those whom we address. This world is very matter-of-fact ; men are very much the creatures of ideas. Notions govern everything. Impulses are the real destiny ; men fol- low them as surely as the stars or the planets, and it is in this sense that what is to be is. As garment draws the garment's hem, Men their fortunes bring with them.* From lowest to highest all are attached by that which has the attractive relation. Matter draws matter. The magnet has no attraction for gold or copper, but how it clings to the iron ! Man has va- rious attractions — gold, honor, love. To know what ideas are common to men, is to know humanity ; to know how they are gained, is to know how to govern men by speech or pen. Every man, said Walpole, has his price. Whether "Walpole had sounded the venality of all patriotism I know not. Of course he had fixed the market price * Emerson. 40 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. of his own virtue. But with more truth and less of- fensiveness it may be said that every man has his reason, which, when once presented to him, will sway him ; and to find this out is the problem rhetoric has to solve. I am not more favorable than Hood to the plan of dropping truth gently, as if it were china, and likely to break. But if a fair case be so stated as not to mortify others by assumed arrogance, as not to annoy by ceaseless importunity, as not to disgust by seeming vanity, but accompanied by evident indi- cations of disinterested sincerity, it will nearly always prove acceptable. It is not the truth men hate, but the unwise and untutored auxiliaries which so often attend its enunciation. " He who would correct my false view of facts," said one who understood the des- potism of a wise method, " he must hold up the same facts in the true order of thought, and I can never go hack. A man who thinks in the same direction as myself, but sees further, who has tastes like mine, but greater power, will rule me any day, and make me love my ruler."* The young orator will do well to notice that moral- ity is better understood, at least in theory, than in former periods of our history, and that the public re- quire sincerity on the part of a speaker ; and a life which shall illustrate w T hat the orator seeks to enforce, will add materially to his influence. The reader may ask : May not a recommendation be a good one though the giver of it be bad ? This is not the ques- tion. Is it not an advantage when both are worthy ? The public may accept good advice from men who will not take it themselves. But is it not the object of a wise rhetoric to increase the number of men * Emerson. THEORY OF PERSUASIOX. 41 who will take sound advice ? If the public should be composed of men who hear only and never practice, who does not see that we may give over all exhorta- tions of amendment. Mankind reason that whatever is good for the public is good for individuals, since individuals make up the public. And when it is seen that a man does not follow his own advice, it is con- cluded that either he is a simpleton, and consequently is not to be heeded, or that he is secretly conscious of some inapplicability in his own recommendations, and consequently is to be suspected. The moral existence of men is made up of a few trains of thought, which, from the cradle to the grave, are excited and re-excited, again and again, at the suggestion of sensitive impressions. These leading ideas rule despotically over conduct, and whoever awakens these associations governs those whom he addresses. It is in the appeals to these ancient im- pressions that we recognize the power and genius of the poet. It is in these leading ideas that we see the source of character. These are the great features in the lives of men which the rhetorician studies. His knowledge of them constitutes the weapons with which he works. When Napoleon in Egypt was threatened by his disaffected generals, he vanquished them by an appeal to the three leading traits in their character — their pride, their honor, and their bravery. Walking coolly among them, he said : " Soldiers, you are Frenchmen ! You are too many to assassinate, and too few to intimidate me." The rebellion was blown aside with the breath of these words. The fury of the men was subdued to admiration, and they turned away, exclaiming : " How brave he is." Truly is it said the heart has no avenue so open as that of 42 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. flattery, which, like some enchantment, lays its guards asleep. A groundless outcry has been raised against speak- ers who appeal to the feelings. The only question to be decided is, "What are the proper feelings of men ? To appeal to these must always be right. The con- clusions arrived at through the medium of such feel- ings are as legitimate as conclusions arrived at by appeals wholly belonging to the understanding. Feel- ings are the stays of intellect, the first links in the chain of powerful argument. The appeal to reality is the foundation of conviction. The lion was not to be subdued by pictures of Hercules and Theseus; he wanted the fact of his superior strength displayed. It was necessary that Hercules and Theseus should appear. In nine years' experience in the office of a public tutor in one of the universities, Paley found, in dis- coursing to young persons upon topics of morality, that unless the subject was so drawn up to a point as to exhibit the full force of an objection, or the exact place of a doubt, before any explanation was entered upon — in other words, unless some curiosity was ex- cited before it was attempted to be satisfied — the labor of the teacher was lost. When information was not desired, it was seldom, he found, retained. The art of education consists in finding out what the child or adult wants to know. Inspired with de- sire to know, he is inspired with power to learn, and excited aptitude is the happy moment of acquirement. This neglected progress is arrested. This fact ex- plains the failure of half the orations and lectures of these days. An audience is an adult school. It has, in the short space of an hour, to be educated in a THEORY OF PERSUASION. 43 new purpose. The undertaking is presumptuous, and is only to be accomplished by the union of rare judg- ment, disciplined powers, a store of means, and un- faltering energy. Yet how many rush into the arena of oratory without forethought, and go home wonder- ing why they failed, and blaming the apathy of the people. Humanity is an instrument not to be played upon by unskillful performers. Had we men who studied oratory as great artists do music, painting, and sculpture, the majesty of ancient eloquence would yet flourish among us. We can do without any article of luxury we never had, but when once obtained it is not in human na- ture to surrender it voluntarily. Of twelve thousand clocks left by Sam Slick, only ten were returned. " We trust to soft sawder," said Sam, " to get them into the house, and to human nature that they never come out of it." Yet how many persons expect to produce effects upon assemblies of men who never bestow half the time upon the study of their natures as was given by our American clock-seller ! The wise persuader will therefore treasure up all such facts as strikingly influence character, adapt- ing, with rigid justice, the motive to the condition ; to the great occasion, the strong inducement. Then, to borrow the words of Hazlitt : " The orator is only concerned to give a tone of mas- culine firmness to the will, to brace the sinews and muscles of the mind ; not to delight our nervous sens- ibilities, or soften the mind into voluptuous indolence. The flowery, and sentimental style is, of all others, the most intolerable in a speaker. He must be confi- dent, inflexible, uncontrollable, overcoming all oppo- sition by his ardor and impetuosity. We do not com- 44 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. mand others by sympathy with them, but by power, by passion, by will." On other occasions the orator is not reluctant to remember that the words of sincerity and kindness never fail when addressed to people not stirred by passion -or rendered sullen by real or fancied contempt. Then the iron argument and the imperious air give place to the happier philosophy sung by Darwin, which teaches " How Love and Sympathy, with potent charm, Warm the cold heart, the lifted hand disarm ; Allure with pleasures, and alarm with pains. And bind society in golden chains," CHAPTEE IV. METHOD. The art of persuasion is dependent on no one thing so much as method. To have the fact, and to know how to tell it, is to hold rhetorical success in our hands. But it is of no use to have the fact unless we know how to tell it, and it is this which method teaches. There is, said the " Quarterly Review " lately, no power over human affairs like the right word spoken at the right season. Method is derived from a Greek word signifying a path, a way, or transit. Where there are many transits, step follows step in pursuit of an object. And as there must be, for a true pursuit, a definite object in view, the principle of unity is implied in that of progression. Hence in a true method there METHOD. 45 must be a definite pursuit, otherwise circumstances will create sensations ; but there will be no thought without method ; and there may be restless and inces- sant activity, but without method there will be no progress. When the mind becomes accustomed to the outward impressions of objects, it turns to their relations, which hence become its prime pursuit, and may be called the materials of method. The kinds of relations are two, the one arising from that which must he, the other that by which we merely perceive that it is. The former is called law, in its original acceptation, laying down the rule ; the other is called the relation of theory.* This is the method of science ; it applies to the order pursued in the arrangement of encyclopedias. The method of art, if not so rigid, is yet regular, and marks both performances and character. Coleridge asks: "What is it that first strikes us, and strikes us at once, in a man of education, and which, among educated men, so instantly distinguishes the man of superior mind ? ISTot always the weight or novelty of his remarks, nor always the interest of the facts which he communicates, for the subject of conversation may chance to be trivial, and its dura- tion to be short. Still less can any just admiration arise from any peculiarity in his words and phrases, for every man of practical good sense will follow, as far as the matters under consideration will permit him, that golden rule of Cesar's : Insolens verhum, tanquam scojpulum, evitare. The true cause of the impression made on us is, that his mind is methodi- cal. We perceive this in the unpremeditated and evidently habitual arrangement of his words, flow- * See Encyclopedia Metropolitans, Art. "Method." 4:6 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. ing spontaneously and necessarily from the clearness of the leading idea, from which distinctness of mental vision, when men are fully accustomed to it, they ob- tain a habit of foreseeing at the beginning of every sentence how it is to end, and how all its parts may be brought out in the best and most orderly suc- cession. However irregular and desultory the con- versation may happen to be, there is method in the fragments."* The illustration of this is easy. Two persons of opposite opinions will often meet ; the one to convert the other. For instance : A seeks to bring B to the adoption of his opinions. I have witnessed the experiment often. The general course of procedure is this. A commences to unfold, expa- tiate on, and enforce his views. He expects thus to win B to their entertainment. But the mistake is a grave one. A argues at B when he should reason with him. A thus stands on the platform of his opinions and preaches to B, who is perched upon a platform of his own. A thus expects B to come to him. B probably expects the same of A. Thus both expect what neither intends. A, in expecting B to come to him, assumes that on the part of his opponent there exists a predisposi- tion for his views. This should never be assumed. It is the first endeavor of a wise propagandist to cre- ate it if it does not exist, and strengthen it if it does ; and whether it exists or not' he should always conde- scend as though it did not. The business of A, the converter, is to go down to the platform B stands upon, to inquire his principles, study his views and turn of thought until he finds some common ground of faith, morals, opinion, or practice, with which he * Encyclopedia Metropolitana. METHOD. 47 can identify himself. The propagandist should com- mence by playing the pathfinder. The business of A is to find a path from B's platform to his own, down which B can agreeably walk. When a common ground is found, A argues on that to B. The narrow spot of identity soon enlarges if A has truth on his side, for all truth, like electricity, has a tendency to pass into all bodies uncharged with it, until an equi- librium of light is established, and the current is universal. A, in finding a common ground in B's intellectual sphere, establishes an equality with B. This gives A an advantage. By studying B's views, instead of making B study his, he condescends to B ; he thus establishes fraternity. This predisposes B to good will. Equality and fraternity are the two inlets to the understanding. Conversion is uniformity. It ends in intellectual equality. It must begin so. The pleasure of universal opinion is the harmony it cre- ates ; the propagandists commence in fraternity, that being the auspicious harbinger of harmony. It is of no use to say you cannot find a common ground. He who cannot find it, cannot convert. How can persons, any more than bodies, cohere who never touch ? So long as each denies to the other a particle of reason on his side ; so long as each main- tains an infallibility of pretension to complete truth ; they both assume what is contrary to the nature of things, and exclude the common ground which must be established between them, where truth and error can join issue. There is no impassible gulf between contending men or contending opinions but that dug by pride and passion*. We all have a common start- 48 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. ing point. "We have a common consciousness of im- pression ; a common nature to investigate ; a com- mon sincerity actuates us ; truth is our common ob- ject, and we have a common interest in discovering it. Nature made us friends : it is false pride that makes us enemies. A common ground exists be- tween all disputants. This is an important fact too little attended to, or indeed too little understood by inexperienced thinkers. The common ground which exists is not one which policy makes, but one that nature provides. These remarks make conviction to depend upon truth, not upon forms of procedure. Nothing is rec- ommended here which is inconsistent with truth; no Gunning questioning, no sophistical entrapment. The sole precepts are those of condescension and contrast. Find a common ground of agreement, and you find a common point of sight, from which all objects are seen in the same light ; and a clear plane is obtained on which principles can be drawn, and a perfect contrast of truth and error displayed. He who has the truth will make it plainer by wisdom of procedure. Differences are often made wider by ir- relevant, repulsive debate. Differences which did not exist are often created in this way. All men de- sire the truth, and there is a way in which all can find it. The understandings of men run in a given channel ; each thinker looks as it were through a telescope of his own. Let A bring his views within the vision of B, and the chances are in favor of B seeing the truth, if truth there be. If he sees error, A is benefited by the discovery made by a clearer sight than his own. "The faculty of speech," says Quinctilian, " we derive from nature ; but the art METHOD. 49 from observation. For as in physic, men, by seeing that some things promote health and others destroy it, formed the art upon those observations ; in like manner, by perceiving that some things in discourse are said to advantage and others not, they accord- ingly marked those things in order to imitate the one and avoid the other. 1 ' It is a maxim of the schoolmen, " contrariorum eadem est scientia /" we never really know what a thing is, unless we are also able to give a sufficient account of its opposite. This is the maxim of con- trast that enters into all effective persuasion. Various rules are given to direct the treatment of regular subjects. We are to begin, says Walker, with : 1. Definition, 2. Cause, 3. Antiquity or Novel- ty, 4. University or Locality, 5. Advantages or Dis- advantages. A theme, which is proving some truth, is said to have these parts : 1. The proposition or meaning of the theme ; 2. The reason in favor of it, 3. The Con- firmation or display of the unreasonableness of the contrary opinion ; 4. The simile or illustration ; 5. Ex- ample from history ; 6. Testimony of others ; 7. Con- clusion or summary. Writers are not all agreed in determining the parts of an oration, though the difference is rather in the manner of considering them than in the things them- selves.* Cicero mentions six, namely : Introduction, Narration, Proposition, Confirmation, Confutation, and Conclusion. Writers are not agreed upon the division of ora- tions, because nature has not agreed. All subjects will not admit of being treated under so many heads, and some audiences will not admit of the formality. 4 50 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. Sometimes an exordium is a bore, and a peroration tedious. Tact retrenches method as circumstances dictate. Palej's custom was to break down a subject into as many distinct parts as it really appeared to contain, and make each of them the subject of a separate and rigorous investigation. This seems a wise rule ; we then take such parts as the subject affords, in the order prescribed, abbreviating them as the knowledge or temper of the audience -may require. . The facts of necessity and discretion premised, the most practical formula of general procedure seems to me to be : 1. Give the introduction. 2. Explain the terms of the proposition, show what is granted and what disputed on each side, and then state the point of controversy. 3. Examine objections, and establish your own proposition. 4. Refute objections, and ex- pose fallacies. 5. Make observations of enforcement naturally suggested by the subject: These rules of old discovered, not devised, Are Nature still, but nature methodized. It is our opinion, says one of our critical journals, that all things should be made known in their proper places. No knowledge can be complete or thorough- ly wholesome which is partial. Dr. Paley has furnished two observations which may be usefully borne in mind in the enforcement of topics : 1. In all cases, where the mind feels itself in dan- ger of being confounded by variety, it is safe to rest upon a few strong points, or perhaps upon a single instance. Among a multitude of proofs, it is one that does the business. METHOD. 51 2. A just reasoner removes from his consideration not only what he knows, but what he does not know, touching matters not strictly connected with his argu- ment, that is, not forming the very steps of his deduc- tion : beyond these his knowledge and his ignorance are alike relative. The simplicity and wisdom of profound method has been illustrated in the works of Morelly. Yillegar- delle says of Morelly's Essays on the Human Mind, treating on the analysis of the intellectual faculties, published in 1743: "The substance of this small educational treatise, which contains the developed germ of the method of instruction to which Mr. Jacotot has given his name, is comprised in the two following propositions : " 1. The inclinations of the mind are reducible to two, namely, Desire to know and Love of order • to these two ends we must refer all, even the amuse- ments of children. " 2. It is sufficient to present to the soul [under- standing ?] objects in the same order as it generally follows, without making it perceive that it must at- tend to them." The first essential of any kind of greatness is that it should have a purpose. We do not suspect the presence of genius till we feel this manifest. The Duke of Wellington has few arts which win applause. He is illiterate. All the school-boys in the kingdom laughed at his letters. Instead of the refinement of the classic council- table, his " Dispatches " are as coarse as fish-market bulletins; yet has he achieved greatness of a certain kind because he has decision, of character. One of his biographers — I think it is the Kev. Mr. 52 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. "Wright — has given us the key to the duke's success in a few thoughtful words : " One characteristic of the Duke of Wellington strikes the reader from the very first, even when but a novice in war or statesman- ship : his resolute will and unbounded self-reliance. Confident in his own capacity, he thinks, decides, and acts while other men are hesitating and asking advice. He is evidently conscious that decision and promptitude, even though sometimes a man may err for want of due deliberation, will, in the long run, more often conduct to success than a slow judgment, that comes too late." This is the secret. The ca- pacity to see this .truth and the resolution to act upon it, is the capacity to rise above common men. In- numerable people will strike out a course and pursue it while all goes well ; but the temper of greatness ever remains unshaken by reverses. It places its life on the hazard of a well-chosen plan, and looks for failures and defeats, but relies on the "long run" of persistency for success. The intellectual character of the Duke of Welling- ton, so far as it has been displayed in civil affairs, accords with what his military exploits indicate. A simple and brief directness are the qualities of his speeches. " He strips a subject of all extraneous and unnecessary adjuncts, and exposes it in its natural proportions. He scents a fallacy afar off, and hunts it down at once without mercy. He has certain con- stitutional principles which are to him real standards. He measures propositions or opinions by these stand- ards, and as they come up or fall short, so they are accepted or disposed of." The Duke of Wellington early took sides ; he learned well the principles of which he would become the partisan. I have itali- METHOD. 53 cised the words in the sentence just quoted from " Fraser," which indicates his intellectual habit. It is hard to tell, generally, what are the " constitu- tional principles " of British liberty. But it is not hard to tell what they are when you know who uses the phrase. The principles of the throne and court may be expressed in three propositions. The duke having adopted these, sits at ease, and measures the plausible speeches of progress by them, and unmasks the sophism of the quasi-liberal. But, however directed, men will ever respect straightforwardness of character. It is heroic in that man, whoever he may be, who looks over the troubled sea of time and manfully elects his course. "Stern is the on-look of necessity : Not without shudder may a human hand Grasp the mysterious urn of destiny." There is heroism in the very act, which cannot be too much applauded. It is this which converts life from being a phantom or a maneuver into a reality and a process. It throws into ignoble shade your petty men of expedients. Principle either gives success or confers dignity ; by chicanery all may be lost, and nothing noble can ever be gained. By maneuver weak men seek to cheat human nature, cajole fate, and win a glorious destiny by paltry tricks. But the whole order of things is against it. Such, a course may triumph, but it is the triumph of luck, not success. It is accident, not merit. Dignity is alone borne of principle and purpose. "He who by principle is swayed In truth and justice still the same, Is neither of the crowd afraid, Though civil broils the state inflame. 54 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. Nor to a haughty tyrant's frown will stoop, Nor to a raging storm when all the winds are up." Horace, Ode 3, Lib. HE. What decision is to character, what principle is to morals, so is method to literature. To have a clear purpose, and vigorously pursue it, is the strong ele- ment of rhetorical success. It is this feature which leads to the delineation of individual character. Cole- ridge has shown that the character of Hamlet is de-. cided by the constant recurrence, in the midst of every pursuit, of philosophic reflections. Mrs. Quick- ley's talk is marked by that lively incoherence so common with garrulous women, whereby the last idea suggests the successor, each carrying the speaker further from the original subject. After this manner: "Speaking of tails, we always like those that end well — Hogg's, for instance. Speaking of hogs, we saw one of these animals the other day lying in the gutter, and in the opposite one a well dressed man ; the first had a ring in his nose, the latter had a ring on his finger. The man was drunk, the hog was sober. A man is known by the company he keeps," etc. As Dr. Cams clips English, some of Bulwer's characters amplify periods. Dominie Sampson ex- claims, " Prodigious." Sam "Weller talks slang. In other cases an overwhelmning passion pervades a character, or an intellectual idiosyncrasy is the pecu- liar quality, leading the possessor to look at everything in a given light. But whatever may be the feature fixed upon, its methodical working out constitutes in- dividuality of character. In the courts young barristers are drilled in an iron method. A judge always expects, at the outset, the enunciation of the object of the speech. A judi- METHOD. 55 clous speaker will always observe this rule for the sake of his audience. As a system of reasoning pro- ceeds from certain axioms which can never be lost sight of except at the peril of confusion, so a discourse proceeds on something which is taken for granted, and which must be confessed and explained at the beginning, or the speaker will be considered only as indulging in airy speculations, and his hearers will be bewildered instead of enlightened, and be anxious about the danger of a fall instead of intent on the scene placed before them. The advantages of the course here advised have been well enforced in the En- cyclopedia Metropolitana. " In purely argumentative statement, or in the argumentative division of mixed statements, and especially in argumentative speeches, it is essential that the issue to be proved should be distinctly announced in the beginning, in order that the tenor and drift that way of everything that is said may be # the better apprehended ; and it is also useful, when the chain of argument is long, to give a forecast of the principal bearings and junctures whereby the attention will be more easily secured, and pertinently directed throughout the more closely consecutive detail, and each proposition of the series will be clenched in the memory by its foreknown relevancy to what is to follow." These are well- known rules which it were superfluous to cite except for the instruction of the young. But examples may be occasionally observed of juvenile orators, who will conceal the end they aim at until they have led their hearers through the long chain of antecedents, in order that they may produce surprise by forcing a sudden acknowledgment of what had not been fore- seen. The disadvantage of this method is that it 56 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. puzzles and provokes the hearer through the discourse, and confounds him in the conclusion ; and gives an overcharged impression of the orator's ingenuity on the part of those who may have attended to him suf- ficiently to have been convinced. It is a method by which the business of the argument is sacrificed to a puerile ostentation in the conduct of it, and the ease and satisfaction of the auditors sacrificed to the vanity of the arguer. But though the purport of a speech must be avowed, the drift of an illustration may be concealed. One of Mr. Fox's Covent Garden orations affords a brilliant example. He took the case of certain poach- ers who had about that time suffered imprisonment in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and he calculated the days of their incarceration, and the pecuniary loss their fam- ilies had sustained by their detention from labor. The statistics were dry as' summer's dust. What this had to do with the question of the corn laws no one could divine, when, by a masterly turn of thought, he asked : " If poachers are so punished who take the rich man's bird, how ought peers to be punished who take the poor man's bread ?" The house rose with surprise. The climax had the effect of a light ap- plied to a funeral pile, in which the arguments of the protectionists were to be consumed before the meeting. Method is often of moment in trivial things. Some years ago it was the custom in Glasgow, when a fire broke out in the evening, for the police to enter the theater and announce the fire and the locality, that if any person concerned was present he might be ap- prised of the impending loss. On one occasion, when the watch commenced to announce, " Fire, 45 Candle- METHOD. 57 riggs," the audience took alarm at the word "fire," and concluded that it applied to the theater. A rush ensued which prevented the full notice being heard, and several persons lost their lives. The inversion of the order of the announcement, " 45 Candleriggs, Fire," would have prevented the disaster. But afterward the practice of such announcements was forbidden, it being impossible, I suppose, to reform the rhetoric of po- licemen. Of the effect of the want of method in neutralizing the most magnificent, powers, Burke is a remarkable instance. As an orator, Burke dazzled his hearers, and then distracted them, and finished by fatiguing or offending them. And it was not uncouth elocution and exterior only which impaired the efficacy of his speeches. Burke almost always deserted his sub- ject before he was abandoned by his audience. In the progress of a long discourse he was never satisfied with proving that which was principally in question, or with enforcing the single measure which it was his business and avowed purpose to enforce; he di- verged to a thousand collateral topics ; he demon- strated as many disputed propositions ; he established principles in all directions; he illuminated the whole horizon with his magnificent but scattered lights. There was, nevertheless, no keeping in his spoken compositions, no proportion, no subserviency of infe- rior groups to greater, no apparent harmony or unity of purpose. He forgot that there was but a single point to prove, and his auditors in their turn forgot that they had undergone the process of conviction upon any. When Fadladeen essays his critical opinion on the poem of Feramorz, he commences thus : " In order to 58 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. convey with clearness my opinion of the story this, young man has related, it is necessary to take a re- view of all the stories that have ever "■ " My good Fadladeen !" exclaimed Lalla Rookh, interrupting him, " we really do not deserve that you should give yourself so much trouble. Your opinion of the poem we have just heard will, no doubt, be abundantly ed- ifying, without further waste of your valuable erudi- tion." " If that be all," replied the critic, evidently mortified at not being allowed to show how much he knew about everything but the subject immediately before him, " if that be all that is required, the matter is easily dispatched." He then proceeded to analyze the poem. The wit of Moore was never more happily expended than in satirizing this learned dis- cursiveness. The race of Fadladeen is immortal. A few years ago a distinguished clergyman of the Universalist denomination was accused, while in Lowell, of " violently dragging his wife from a re- vival meeting and compelling her to, go home with him." Pie replied : "Firstly, I have never attempted to influence my wife in her views, nor her choice of a meeting. Secondly, my wife has not attended any of the revival meetings in Lowell. Thirdly, I have not attended even one of those meetings for any pur- pose whatever. Fourthly, neither my wife nor my- self has any inclination to attend those meetings. And, fifthly, I never had a wife !" This divine must have had " Order" large. Next to those who talk as though they would never come to the point, are a class of bores who talk as though they did not know what the point was. Be- fore they have proceeded far in telling a story, they stumble upon some Mr. What's-his-name, whom they METHOD. 59 have forgotten, and though it does not matter whether he had a name or not, the narrative is made to stand still until they have gone through the tiresome and fruitless task of trying to remember it, in which they never succeed. A gorgeous instance of method occurs in W. J„ Fox's Sermon on Human Brotherhood,* in which pol- ished taste has so adjusted each clause that they reach the climax worthy of that Grecian art which the passage celebrates. " From the dawn of intellect and freedom Greece has been a watchword on the earth. There rose the social spirit to soften and refine her chosen race, and shelter, as in a nest, her gentleness from the rushing storm of barbarism — there liberty first built her mountain throne, first called the waves her own, and shouted across them a proud defiance to despotism's banded myriads ; there the arts and graces danced around humanity, and stored man's home with com- forts, and strewed his path with roses, and bound his brows with myrtle, and fashioned for him the breath- ing statue, and summoned him to temples of snowy marble, and charmed his senses with all forms of elo- quence, and threw over his final sleep their vail of loveliness ; there sprung poetry, like their own fabled goddess, mature at once from the teeming intellect, gilt with the arts and armor that defy the assaults of time and subdue the heart of man ; there matchless orators gave the world a model of perfect eloquence, the soul the instrument on which they played, and every passion of our nature but a tone which the mas- ter's touch called forth at will ; there lived and taught the philosophers of bower and porch, of pride and * Sermons on Christian Morality. 60 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. pleasure, of deep speculation and of useful action, who developed all the acuteness, and refinement, and ex- cursiveness, and energy of mind, and were the glory of their country, when their country was the glory of the earth." CHAPTER Y. DISCIPLINE. Since custom, says the wise Bacon, is the principal magistrate of a man's life,"let him by all means en- deavor to obtain good customs. Digressiveness is the natural state of the human faculties, till custom or habit comes in to give them a settled direction. Man is as liable to be influenced by the last impression as by any preceding one ; and the liability of man is the characteristic of children. The teacher knows this, for it is only by infinite diversion that children can be instructed for hours together, or governed without coercion. It is the object of discipline to check the tendency to diversion, and give stability to method. A man may be made to perceive method, but not to follow it, without the power of discipline. A child accustomed to it will go to bed in the dark with peace and pleasure, but all the rhetoric in the world would not accomplish the same end without habit. Nothing but habit will give the power of habit. Mr. John Foster, in his prospectus of his ruled copy-books, remarks that " the grand secret in teach- ing writing is to bestow much attention upon a little DISCIPLINE. 61 variety. The necessity of a continued repetition of the same exercise till it can be executed with correctness, cannot be too strongly insisted on. But as this reit- eration is tedious for an age so fond of novelty as that of childhood, we should keep as close to the maxim as possible, and by a judicious intermixture of a few slightly differing forms, contrive to fix attention, and to insure repetition. 'The method of teaching any- thing to children,' says Locke, ' is by repeated prac- tice, and the same action done over and over again, until they have got the habit of doing it well ; a method that has so many advantages, whichever way we come to consider it, that I wonder how it could possibly be so much neglected.' Again : ' Children should never be set to perfect themselves in two parts of an action at the same time.' We have here the highest authority insisting on the very points which we labor to enforce, namely : 1. That it is only by constant reiteration, and persevering, pains-taking efforts, that ease and correctness in penmanship can be attained. 2. That the pupil should not advance too hastily, but proceed by natural gradations, from the simplest to the more difficult combinations." The discipline of penmanship may stand, also, for the dis- cipline of elocution, for men are as children on the verge of a new art. A speaker, like an actor, is subjected to the criti- cism of a casual hearing. The auditor who hears you but once will form an opinion of you forever. Against this injustice of judgment there is no protec- tion but in acquiring such a mastery over your pow- ers as to be able always to exert them well — to strike, astonish, or impress, in some respect or other, at every appearance. A man, therefore, who has a reputation 62 PUBLIC SPEAKING . AND DEBATE. to acquire or preserve will keep silence whenever he is in any danger of speaking indifferently. He will practice so often in private, and train himself so per- severingly, that perfection will become a second na- ture, and the power of proficiency never desert him. The uninitiated, who think genius is an impulsive ef- fort that costs nothing, little dream with what pa- tience the professional singer or actor observes regu- lar habits and judicious exercise ; how they treasure all their strength and power for the hour of appear- ance. From Demosthenes to Curran, the personnel of or- ators has illustrated the triumphs of application as much as the triumphs of genius. " One day an ac- quaintance, in speaking of Curran's eloquence, hap- pened to observe that it must have been born with him. ' Indeed, my dear sir,' replied Curran, ' it was not; it was born three and twenty years and some months after me ; and if you are satisfied to listen to a dull historian, you shall have the history of its na- tivity. When I was at the Temple a few of us formed a little debating club. Upon the first night of meet- ing I attended, my foolish heart throbbing with the anticipated honor of being styled " the learned mem- ber that opened the debate," or " the very eloquent gentleman who has just sat down," I stood up ; the question was the Catholic claims or the slave-trade, I protest I now forget which, but the difference, you know, was never very obvious ; my mind, was stored with about a folio volume of matter, but I wanted a preface, and for want of a preface the volume was never published. I stood up trembling through every fiber, but remembering that in this I was but imita- ting Tully, I took courage and had actually proceeded DISCIPLINE. 63 almost as far as " Mr. Chairman," when to mj astonish- ment and terror I perceived that every eye was turned upon me. There were only six or seven present, and the room could not have contained as many more, yet was it, to my panic-stricken imagination, as if I were the central object in nature, and assembled millions were gazing upon me in breathless expectation. I be- came dismayed and dumb. My friends cried " Hear him !" but there was nothing to hear. My lips indeed went through the pantomime of articulation, but I was like the unfortunate fiddler at the fair, who, upon coming to strike up ifre solo that was to ravish every ear, discovered that an enemy had maliciously soaped his bow. So you see, sir, it was not born with me. However, though my friends despaired of me, the cacoethes loquendi was not to be subdued without a struggle. I was for the present silenced, but I still attended our meetings with the most laudable regu- larity, and even ventured to accompany the others to a more ambitious theater, the club of Temple Bar. One of them was upon his legs — a fellow whom it was difficult to decide whether he was most distin- guished for the filth of his person or the flippancy of his tongue — just such another as Harry Flood would have called " the highly gifted gentleman with the dirty cravat and greasy pantaloons." I found this learned personage in the act of calumniating chronology by the most preposterous anachronisms. He descanted upon Demosthenes, the glory of the Roman forum ; spoke of Tully as the famous cotemporary and rival of Cicero, and in the short space of one half hour, transported the straits of Marathon three several times to the plains of Thermopylae. Thinking that I had a right to know something of these matters, I looked 64 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. at him with surprise. "When our eyes met there was something like a wager of battle in mine, upon which the erudite gentleman instantly changed his invective against antiquity into an invective against me, and concluded by a few words of friendly counsel (horresco referens) to " orator mum," who he doubted not possessed wonderful talents for eloquence, al- though he would recommend him to show it in future by some more popular method than his silence. I followed his advice, and I believe not entirely with- out effect. So, sir, you see that to try the bird the spur must touch his blood.' • "The discovery on this occasion of his talents for public speaking encouraged him to proceed in his studies with additional energy and vigor. The defect in his enunciation (at school he went by the cogno- men of ' Stuttering Jack Curran') he corrected by a regular system of daily reading aloud, slowly, and with strict regard to pronunciation, passages from his favor- ite authors. His person was short, and his appearance ungraceful and without dignity. To overcome these disadvantages he recited and studied his postures be- fore a mirror, and adopted a method of gesticulation suited to his appearance. Besides a constant attend- ance at the debating clubs, he accustomed himself to extemporaneous eloquence in private by proposing cases to himself, which he debated with the same care as if he had been addressing a jury."* Mr. Macready, in the level part of the character of Mordaunt, in the " Steward," and in some others, has been saidf to exhibit that very rare acquirement, a perfectly unconstrained and graceful style of ex- pression, accompanied by a cool, quiet, and uncon- * Hogg's Weekly Instructor. f Blackwood, 1819. TACT. 65 scious self-possession, in which the manners of a gen- tleman consist. This bearing, so indispensable in the speaker, is rarely to be acquired except by intercourse with good society. No closet theory will impart it so surely as the discipline of communication. Men of brilliant rather than solid powers dazzle themselves and others with isolated thoughts, too little caring for coherency. In this way Hazlitt has told us that "an improving actor, artist, or poet, never becomes a great one. A man of genius rises and passes by these risers, A volcano does not give warning when it will break out, nor a thunderbolt send word of its approach." To this it is sufficient to reply, that the volcano is not the production of a mo- ment, nor is the thunderbolt. The occasion of the display is sudden, but the collection of power, natu- ral or human, is of slow growth. CHAPTEE VI. TACT. In matters not absolutely scientific, the principles of Method are more arbitrary and dependent upon the circumstances in which a speaker finds himself placed. We may abandon the order of nature and follow that of the understanding, where conviction can be more readily effected. This is the province of Tact. Method is straightforward procedure ; Tact is adapta- tion. Method applies to general occasions ; Tact to special. 66 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. The distinction between Method and Tact is illus- trated in the following practical remarks of Paley : " For the purpose of addressing different understand- ings and different apprehensions, for the purpose of sentiment, for the purpose of exciting admiration of our subject, we diversify our views, we multiply ex- amples. [This is Tact] But for the purpose of strict argument, one clear instance is sufficient ; and not only sufficient, but capable perhaps of generating a firmer assurance than what can arise from a divided attention." [This is Method.] When an opponent urges an objection, one way of replying to it is by endeavoring to prove that the assertion contained in the objection is not true. An- other alternative of which we may sometimes avail ourselves is, that if even the assertion be true, it is no objection to our position. It sometimes happens that the argument advanced against us is really an argument in our favor. Tact discovers and avails itself of these advantages. Method arranges the materials, Tact applies the re- sources, of reasoning. It is the judicious application of means that con- stitutes Tact. In journalism Tact is an indispensable requisite^ The history of Mr. Murray's daily paper, the "Representative," published for six or eight months, about twenty years ago, is abundant proof that unlimited command of capital, first-rate literary abilities in every branch of knowledge, and the highest possible patronage, are all insufficient to establish a London morning paper without that commodity which alone lends practical value to the other three, and which is far more difficult to be procured than the three put together. What the princely fortune of TACT. 67 Mr. Murray, and his intellectual Titans of the " Quar- terly," and all his regal and legal, and ermined and coroneted, and lay and clerical, and civil and military, friends could not obtain, was the simple but inesti- mable gift called Tact.* Hamilton's "Parliamentary Logic" abounds in maxims which that experienced tactician had treas- ured up, observed, or invented during his public life. Many of these advices are utterly unworthy the imitation of an ingenuous man; but a few may be taken as illustrative of tact, good sense, and shrewdness : State what you censure by the soft names of those who would apologize for it. In putting a question to your adversary, let it be the last thing you say. Distinguish real from avowed reasons of a thing. This makes a fine 8nd brilliant fund of argument. Upon every argument consider the misrepre- sentations which your opponent will probably make of it. If your cause is too bad, call in aid the party : if the party is bad, call in aid the cause.f Nothing disgusts a popular assembly more than being apprised of your intentions to speak long. To succeed in a new sphere a man must take tact with him. In nine cases out of ten, method will miss the mark till tact has taught it adaptation. The House of Commons has often illustrated this opinion. So many things have to be taken into account, that * London Correspondent of the "Birmingham Journal." f "If neither is good," adds Hamilton, "wound your opponent," which may be parliamentary, but I do not choose to recommend it. 68 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. nothing but experience can teach their management. Canning used to say,, that speaking in the House of Commons must take conversation for its basis ; that a studious treatment of topics was out of place. The House of Commons is a working body, jealous and suspicious of embellishments in debate, which, if used at all, ought to be spontaneous and unpremeditated.* Method is indispensable. Topics ought to .be clearly distributed and arranged; but this arrangement should be felt in effect, and not betrayed in the man- ner. But above all things, first and last, he main- tained that reasoning was the one essential element. Oratory in the House of Lords was totally different. It was addressed to a different atmosphere — a differ- ent class of intellects — more elevated, more conven- tional. It was necessary to be more ambitious and elaborate there. " Fellows who have been the oracles of coteries from their birth ; who have gone through the regular process of gold medals, senior wranglerships, and double foists, who have nightly sat down amid tu- multuous cheering in debating societies, and can harangue, with an unruffled forehead and an unfalter- ing voice, from one end of the dinner table to the other ; who, on all occasions, have something to say, and can speak with fluency on what they know noth- ing about, no sooner rise in the House than their spells desert them. All their effrontery vanishes. Commonplace ideas are rendered even more uninter- esting by a monotonous delivery ; and, keenly alive, as even boobies are, in those sacred walls, to the miraculous, no one appears more thoroughly aware of his unexpected and astounding deficiencies than * See Note D, page 171. TACT. 69 the orator himself. He regains his seat, hot and hard, sultry and stiff, with a burning cheek and an icy hand ; repressing his breath lest it should give evidence of an existence of which he is ashamed, and clenching his fist, that the pressure may secretly con- vince him he has not as completely annihilated his stupid body as his false reputation."* How admirable a compendium is this of the history of rhetorical blockheads, who think that " in the great arena their little bow-wow " will be taken for " the loftiest war-note the lion can pour," just as if they were in their own small councils, and clubs, and societies! D'Israeli is said to have failed in this manner on the Spottiswoode business in the House of Commons ; but afterward, as the world knows, he achieved brilliant distinction. Tact alone can teach a man to feel his way and measure the men opposed to him ; it dictates judgment and effort, or silence. Eeputation and fortune are often made by Tact alone. The late Sir William Follett is an example. One of his obituary notices said : We do not, by any means, mean to say that at any period of his life he could be compared, as a scientific lawyer, (to scholar- ship he had no pretensions at all,) to Tindal, Maule, Patteson, Campbell ; or, in the equity courts, to Pepys, Pemberton, or Sugden. Thus his professional position was attributable neither to the superiority of his professional knowledge nor to any talent above his cotemporaries. In Parliament he was not to be compared with Plunkett, Brougham, Sir William Grant, or Perceval. He possessed not the strong, eloquent, and condensed power of diction, joined to * "Young Duke," by D'Israeli. 70 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. the closest and severest reasoning, of Plunkett ; he had neither the stores of political, literary, and economical information, the versatility, the power of vigorous invective, nor of sarcasm, of Brougham ; the calm, philosophic spirit of generalization of Grant ; nor had he the dauntless daring and parliamentary pluck of Perceval. It must be admitted that he was neither an orator, nor a man of genius, nor a man of learning, apart from the specialite of his profession. He had neither passion, nor imagination of the fancy or of the heart. In what, then, lay his barristerial superiority ? In his capability to play the artful dodge. His greatest skill consisted in presenting his case in the most harmonious and fair-purposed aspect. If there was anything false or fraudulent, a hitch, or a blot of any kind in his cause, he kept it dexterously out of view, or hurried it trippingly over ; but if the blot was on the other side, he had the eye of the lynx and the scent of the hound to detect and run down his game. He had the greatest skill in reading an affidavit, and could play the " artful dodge " in a style looking so like gentlemanly candor, that you could not find fault. I do not give this example as imitable, only as il- lustrative of Tact. Tact so employed may denote a very good lawyer, but a very indifferent man. Those who had the pleasure of hearing Thorn, the weaver poet, converse, know the Spartan felicity of expression which he commanded. His conversation was often a study in rhetoric. He told a story in the best vein of Scotch shrewdness. He was one day recounting an anecdote of Inverury, or old Aberdeen, to a coterie of listeners. The point of the story rested on a particular word spoken in fitting place. TACT. 71 When he came to it he hesitated as though at a loss for the term. " What is it yon say nnder these cir- cumstances," he asked: "not this, nor that," he re- marked, as he went over three or four terms by way of trial as each was endeavoring to assist him : " Ah," he added, apparently benevolent toward the difficulty into which he had thrown them, " we say ," for want of a better word. This, of course, was the word wanted ; the happiest phrase the language afforded. He gained several things by this finesse; he Ailivened a regular narrative by an exciting disgression, which increased the force and point of the climax. He created a difficulty for his auditors, for who, when suddenly asked, would be able to find a term which seemed denied to his happy resource ? or, finding it, would have the courage to present it to such a fastid- ious epithetist ? and he exalted himself by suggesting what appeared out of their power, and excited an indefinite wonder at his own skill in bringing a story to so felicitous an end, by the employment of a make- shift phrase. What would he have done if he could have found the right one ? was naturally thought. This was tact. It was a case analogous to that given by Dickens in one of his early papers, where the President, at an apparent loss for a word, asks, " What is that you give a man who is deprived of a salary which he has received all his life for doing nothing, or, perhaps worse, for obstructing public im- provement ?" u Compensation !" suggests the vice. The case was the same, except that Thorn was his own vice-president. An instructive lesson in Tact is given in the preface of Thomas Cooper to his " Purgatory of Suicides," Those who know the variety of 72 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. historic incidents which crowded for record in his career, wonder at the discretion with which he con- fines himself to the few which stand at the portal of his majestic poem, to inform you of its origin and design. PABT II. ACQUIRED POWERS CHAPTER VII. OEIGINALITY. Originality is reality. In reference to thought, it is the conception of the truth of nature in opposition to the truth of custom. The material of which Originality is made has been discussed in previous chapters.* Its manifes- tation in literature has been well illustrated by the author of " Time's Magic Lantern,"f in a dialogue between Bacon and Shakspeare ; an extract from which is to this effect : " Bacon. He that can make the multitude laugh and weep as you do, Mr. Shakspeare, need not fear scholars. A head naturally fertile and forgetive is worjh many libraries, inasmuch as a tree is more valuable than a basket of fruit, or a good hawk bet- ter than a bag full of game, or the little purse which a fairy gave to Fortunatus, more inexhaustible than all the coffers in the treasury. More scholarship might have sharpened your judgment, but the par- * Logic of Facts, chaps, iv, v. f A series of papers that appeared in " Blackwood " some years 74 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. ticulars whereof a character is composed are better assembled by force of imagination than of judgment 9 which, although it perceive coherencies, cannot sum- mon up materials, nor melt them into a compound with that felicity which belongs to imagination alone. " Shakspeare. My lord, thus far I know, that the first glimpse and conception of a character in my mind is always engendered by chance and accident. We shall suppose, for instance, that I am sitting in a tap-room, or standing in a tennis-court. The behavior of some one fixes my attention. I note his dress, the sound of his voice, the turn of his countenance, the drinks he calls for, his questions and retorts, the fashion of his person, and in brief, the whole out- goings and in-comings of the man. These grounds of speculation being cherished and revolved in my fancy, it becomes straightway possessed with a swarm of conclusions and beliefs concerning the individual. In walking home, I picture out to myself what would be fitting for him to say or do upon any given occa- sion, and these fantasies being recalled at some after period, when I am writing a play, shape themselves into divers manikins, who are not long of being nursed into life. Thus comes forth Shallow and Slender, and Mercutio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. " Bacon. In truth, Mr. Shakspeare, you have ob- served the world so well, and so widely, that I can scarce believe you ever shut your eyes. I too, al- though much engrossed with other studies, am, in part, an observer of mankind. Their dispositions, and the causes of their good or bad fortune, cannot well be overlooked even by the most devoted ques- tioner of physical nature. But note the difference of habitude. ISTo sooner have I observed and got hold ORIGINALITY. 75 of particulars, than they are taken up by my judg- ment to be commented upon, and resolved into gen- eral laws. Your imagination keeps them to make pictures of. My judgment, if she find them to be comprehended under something already known by her, lets them drop and forgets them ; for which rea- son a certain book of essays, which I am writing, will be small in bulk, but I trust, not light in sub- stance. Thus do men severally follow their inborn dispositions. " Shakspeare. Every word of your lordship's will be an adage to after times. For my part, I know my own place, and aspire not after the abstruser studies : although I can give wisdom a welcome when she comes in my way. But the inborn disposi- tions, as your lordship has said, must not be warped from their natural bent, otherwise nothing but sterility will remain behind. A leg cannot be changed into an arm. Among stage-players, our first object is to exercise a new candidate until we discover where his vein lies." In this mixture of observation and experiment, orig- inal information has its source. But the convention- alisms of society repress its manifestation. Jeffrey, in one of those passages marked by more than his ordinary good sense, has depicted its influence on young men : "In a refined and literary community," says he, " so many critics are to be satisfied, so many rivals to be encountered, and so much derision to be hazarded, that a young man is apt to be deterred from so peril- ous an enterprise, and led to seek distinction in some safer line of exertion. His originality is repressed, till he sinks into a paltry copyist, or aims at distinc- 76 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. tion by extravagance and affectation. In such a state of society he feels that mediocrity has no chance of distinction ; and what beginner can expect to rise at once into excellence? He imagines that mere good sense will attract no attention, and that the manner is of much more importance than the matter, in a can- didate for public admiration. In his attention to the manner, the matter is apt to be neglected ; and in his solicitude to please those who require elegance of dic- tion, brilliancy of wit, or harmony of periods, he is in some danger of forgetting that strength of reason and accuracy of observation by which he first pro- posed to recommend himself. His attention, when extended to so many collateral objects, is no longer vigorous or collected; the stream, divided into so many channels, ceases to flow either deep or strong ; he becomes an unsuccessful pretender to fine writing, and is satisfied with the frivolous praise of elegance or vivacity." The Rev. Sidney Smith left on record his opinion of the influence of conventionality's cold decorum : "The great object of modern sermons is to hazard nothing ;* their characteristic is decent debility, which alike guards their authors from ludicrous errors, and precludes them from striking beauties. Every man of sense, in taking up an English sermon, expects to find it a tedious essay, full of commonplace morality, and if the fulfillment of such expectations be meri- torious, the clergy have certainly the merit of not dis- appointing their readers." Emerson, above all men, has written the philosophy of Originality : " Insist on yourself," says he, " never imitate. Your own gift you can present every mo- * See Note E, page 1*72. HEROISM. 77 ment, with the cumulative force of a whole life's cul- tivation ; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. The way to speak and write what shall not go out of fash- ion, is to speak and write sincerely. Take Sidney's maxim : ' Look in thy heart and write.' He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public." CHAPTER VIII. HEROISM. What has Heroism to do with Rhetoric ? the reader will ask. Much. Courage in one thing, as we are told, does not mean courage in everything. A man who will face a bullet will not therefore face an audience. Heroism is the originality of action. -A cool, easy confidence is the source of daring. "Trust yourself; every heart vibrates to that iron string."* In one of those papers, rare in " Cham- bers's Journal," it is remarked : " There must, at all but extraordinary times, be. a vast amount of latent capability in society. Gray's musings on the Crom- wells and Miltons of the village are a truth, though extremely stated. Men of all conditious do grow and die in obscurity, who, in suitable circumstances, might have attained to the temple which shines afar. The hearts of Roman mothers beat an unnoted lifetime in dim parlors. Souls of fire miss their hour, and lan- guish into ashes. Is not this conformable to what all * Emerson. 78 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. men feel in their own case? "Who is there that has not thought, over and over again, what else he could have done, what else he could have been ? Vanity, indeed, may fool us here, and self-tenderness be too ready to look upon the misspending of years as any thing but our own fault. Let us look then to each other. Does almost any one that we know appear to do or be all that he might ? How far from it ! Re- gard for a moment the manner in which a vast pro- portion of those who, from independency of fortune, and from education, are able to do most good in the world, spend their time, and say if there be not an immense proportion of the capability of mankind undeveloped.* The fact is, the bond of union among men is also the bond of restraint. We are commit- ted not to alarm or distress each other by extraordi- nary displays of intellect or emotion. Many struggle for a while against the repressive influences, but at length yield to the powerful temptations to nonentity. The social despotism presents the fetes with which it seeks to solace and beguile its victims ; and he who began to put on his armor for the righting of many wrongs, is soon content to smile with those who smile. Thus daily do generations rise and fall, life unenjoyed, the great mission unperformed. What a subject for tears in the multitude of young souls who come in the first faith of nature to grapple at the good, the true, the beautiful, but are thrown back, helpless and mute, into the limbo of Commonplace. O Conven- tionality, quiet may be thy fireside hours, smooth thy pillowed thoughts, but at what a sacrifice of the right and the generous, of the best that breathes and pants in our nature, is thy peace purchased !" * See Note F page 173. HEROISM. 79 There is heroism in trusting yourself to events. That sagacity of which greatness is born puts its prow- ess to the test of experiment. In this lies the secret of the hero and the scholar ; they do not guess their abilities, but determine them by enterprise and achieve- ment. They try. My friend Mr. Storer, who was the wag of the Khetoric class of which we were members when students, communicated to me the subjoined par- ody. As the soliloquy of a novice, it expresses with felicity the young speaker's doubts and fears : To spout, or not to spout, that is the question : "Whether 'tis better for a shamefaced fellow, (With voice unmusical and gesture awkward,) To stand a mere spectator in this business, Or have a touch at Ehetoric ! To speak, to spout No more ; and by this effort, to say we end That bashfulness, that nervous trepidation Displayed in maiden speeches ; 'twere a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To read, to speechify Before folks, perhaps to fail; ay, there's the rub; For from that ill success what sneers may rise, Ere we have scrambled through the sad oration, Must give us pause: 'tis this same reason That makes a novice stand in hesitation, And gladly hide his own diminished head Beneath some half-fledged orator's importance, When he himself might his quietus make By a mere recitation. Who could speeches hear, Responded to with hearty acclamation, And yet restrain himself from holding forth — But for the dread of some unlucky failure — Some unforeseen mistake, some frightful blunder, Some vile pronunciation, or inflection, Improper emphasis, or wry-necked period, Which carping critics note, and raise the laugh, Not to our credit, nor so soon forgot ? We muse on this 1 Then starts the pithy question: Had we not best be mute and hide our faults, Than spout to publish them ? 80 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. « Spout and publish them without hesitation. Had Eaphael feared to daub, he had never been Eaphael. Had Canova feared to torture marble, he had never been a sculptor. Had Macready feared to spout, he had never been an actor. If you stammer like De- mosthenes, or stutter like Curran, speak on. He who hesitates to hesitate, will always hesitate. CHAPTEE IX. PROPORTION. Bombast is inflation ; is turgid, dropsical language, great in parade, little in purport. It has its source in exaggeration, in want of proportion. A child catches at its coral and at the moon with the same expectation of clutching it. He has no idea of dis- tance. The boy cuts a stick or trundles his hoop with as much exultation as the man defeats an enemy or wins his wife. The boy has no notion of relative value. As everything seems equally new, so every- thing seems equally important to him. This want of measure, innocent and healthy in youth, is the source of bombast in men. " Man is a strange animal, but that complex ani- mal, a public meeting, is stranger. Its vagaries are surprising, and baffle analysis. It always seems to have more force than sense. Two heads are better than one, but some hundreds of heads appear to be worse than none. Take any number of men, each of whom would listen to reason, be open to conviction, and resolute to see fair play all round; compound PROPORTION. 81 the honest men of sense in a public meeting, and the aggregate is headstrong, headlong, rash, unfair, and foolish. Tell any single man, totidem verbis, that there is nobody in the world like him, nobody so lovely and virtuous as his wife and daughters, and he will laugh in your face or kick you out of doors ; but tell the aggregate man the same of his multitudinous self and family, he will vent an ecstasy of delight in 4 loud cheers.'"* But only the uneducated imitate this delusion. The time will come when meetings no more than men will tolerate the collective nonsense. The notorious defense of Thurtell some years since, which was so applauded for effectiveness by a portion of the press, is one of the most offensive exhibitions of vanity and wind-bag eloquence extant. Bombast is the language of vulgarity and villainy. Thurtell ought to have been condemned for his defense had he escaped from the penalty of his crime. Careless- ness of assertion and wildness of accusation are to the English people extremely distasteful, as marking either a deficiency of intellect or a want of the love of truth. Royalty has always been a patient and often a greedy recipient of egregious adulation. The ora- tory addressed to James I. on his progress through Scotland was of no common cast. Officials who addressed him at the various towns at which he arrived, "put together Augustus, Alexander, Trajan, and Constantine. It was supposed that even the antipodes heard of his courtesy and liberality; the very hills and groves were said to be refreshed with the dew of his aspect ; in his absence the citizens * "Spectator," 6 82 PUBLIC SPEAKING- AND DEBATE. were languishing gyrades, in his presence delighted lizards, for he was the sunshine of their beauty. At Glasgow Master Hay, the commissary, when attempt- ing to speak before him, became like one touched with a torpedo or seen of a wolf; and the principal of the university, comparing his majesty with the sun, observed, to that luminary's disadvantage, that King James had been received with incredible joy and applause; whereas a descent of the sun into Glasgow would in all likelihood be extremely ill taken. Hyperbole was not sufficient; the aid of prodigies was called ; a boy of nine years old harang- ued the king in Hebrew, and the schoolmaster of Linlithgow spoke verses in the form of a lion."* The measure of a man's understanding lies in his language. This he inevitably offers to all observers. Besides just taste being outraged by disproportion, he who is guilty of it loses the power of being im- pressive. "We are told of Dante, whose potent use of words has never been surpassed, that great and various as his power of creating pictures in a few lines unquestionably was, he owed that power to the directness, simplicity, and intensity of his language. In him "the invisible becomes visible," as Leigh Hunt says; "darkness becomes palpable, silence describes a character, a word acts as a flash of light- ning which displays some gloomy neighborhood where a tower is standing, with dreadful faces at the window."f "In good prose (says Frederic Schlegel) every word should be underlined;" that is, every word should be the right word, and then no word would * Progress and Court of King James the First. — "Quarterly Keview." f " Athenaaum," No. 1115. STYLE. 83 be righter than another. It comes to the same thing, where all words are italics one may as well use roman. There are no italics ^n Plato, be- cause there are no unnecessary or unimportant words." * Declamation, which is assertion without proof, is disproportion in this sense, that it is a dogmatic enunciation, out of proportion with what is known by an auditory who reject the propositions announced. Nearly all Oriental eloquence is declamatory. Per- haps the Orientals are quicker to perceive or less exacting than Europeans, but the want of the reasons was felt among us, and Bishop Hooker supplied them sixteen centuries after. Precision must be attained at any cost. If we do not master language, says Mr. Thornton, it will master us. An idle word, says the "Daily News" has con- quered a host of facts. We must keep watch and ward over words. CHAPTEE X. STYLE. Eousseau sways mankind with that delicious might (the power of words) as Jupiter does with his light- nings. This is John Muller's tribute to the style of Rousseau. It has recently been asserted among us that "style is, and always has been, the most vital element of literary immortalities. More than any other quality, it is peculiar to the writer; and no * Guesses n1 Truth. 84 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. one, not time itself, can rob him of it or even dimin- ish its value. Facts may be forgotten, learning grow commonplace^ truths dwindle into mere truisms, but a magnificent or beautiful style can never lose its freshness and its value. For style, even more than for his wonderful erudition, is Gibbon admired ; and the same quality, and that alone, renders Hume the popular historian of England in spite of his imperfect learning, the untrustworthiness of his statements in matters of fact, and the anti-popular caste of his opinions." * This is not greater praise than I should be inclined to award to masterly style, but this eulogy has the fault of making style to appear independent of sense. We value Hume for the grace and perspi- cuity of his narrative, and for those profound reflec- tions which, whether founded on real or fictitious data, are equally full of wisdom. Method, perspi- cuity, brevity, variety, harmony, are indeed separable from sense, but no combination of such qualities will give life to a book without sense. They are but the auxiliaries of meaning, not the substitutes for it. Gilfillan has happily said that " the secret of perfect composition is manly wisdom, uttered in youthful language." Youthful language is simple and clear. These are its properties. We are nothing unless we are critical, and we are nothing unless we are clear. That criticism which destroys the power of pleasing must be blown aside, and so must that finesse of style which cannot be understood. Again, the truth is obvious that sense is the despot of style. The " Dublin University Magazine" lately had this passage : " Eoz has achieved a great thing — he has created a style. Perhaps I am wrong to say created, * "Daily News'-' No. 409. STYLE. 85 a term which implies independence of materials ; whereas the singular circumstance in this case is, that by careful study of previous styles, by imitation of them, by more perhaps than imitation in the first instance, this author has produced out of the hetero- geneous elements a compound essentially differing from all its component parts, and claiming, claiming justly, the high merit of being original. That such a result should follow such a course ought to encour- age writers who aim at true celebrity to adopt this humble and painstaking initiatory system, which, though in other arts it has admittedly led to the grandest results, (in painting, for instance,) in litera- ture has been too much overlooked and despised. Boz now stands alone in his style ; he has had no models, he has no imitators, he will probably have no disciples." I should think Dickens has smiled at this violent attempt to make a literary alchemist of him, as one fusing all sorts of styles in his crucible of composition, and bringing out quite a new mix- ture. Present society has furnished him with mate- rials ; a patient and an accurate observation has gathered them ; feeling, taste, and humor have com- bined them, and an unaffected simplicity has told them. I suspect that a happy nature and good sense have had more to do with Dickens's reputation than any amount of old styles, than Sterne or Sturm. Tindal said of Pitt's first speech, that it was more ornamental than the speeches of Demosthenes, and less diffuse than those of Cicero. That it should have been so often quoted, says Macaulay, "is proof how slovenly most people are content to think. It would be no very flattering compliment to a man's figure to say that he was taller than the Polish Count, (or Tom 86 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. Thumb,) and shorter than Giant O'Brien; fatter than anatomie vivante, and more slender than Daniel Lambert. No speaking can be less ornamental than that of Demosthenes, or more diffuse than that of Cicero." Heldenmair lays it down as a maxim of education that freedom is the all-essential condition of growth and power. There can be no fervor while, in the language of Sam £>lick, " Talk has a pair of stays, and is laced up tight and stiff." ■< It is freedom which is the active element of all fresh and vigorous style. Dr. Gilchrist observes that " what one of the ancient philosophers said of laws may be truly said of rhe- torical rules; they are like cobwebs which entangle the weak, but which the strong break through. The first rule of good composition is, that the composer be free and bold. Before a man can be a good thinker, or a good writer, he most be free and bold; he must be roused to noble daring ; he must feel his whole soul rising in scornful indignation at the thought of having been for a day a blind follower of blind lead- ers, a slave of slaves, a member of the herd of creep- ing, crouching, servile minds. Can servile composers in the harness of rules, dreading the lash of criticism, limping upon quotations, with their eye upon prece- dents and authorities, create a style at once new and striking, yet just and proper ? All real greatness is the offspring of freedom; there may be absurdity, folly, cant, hypocrisy, squeamish delicacy, finical politeness, sickly sentimentality, mawkish affectation in every possible fantastic form of fashion and varie- ty; but there cannot be original, substantial excel- lence without intellectual independence, manly think- ing and feeling." STYLE. 87 As soon as a man understands a subject he is in a condition, so far as material goes, to write or speak about it. If he has also courage to write himself in his word, he may be said to have the materials and the strength to achieve originality. But let him not forget that fullness and freedom are both blind ; and that without the lights of taste and perspicuity and brevity he may offend, bewilder, and tire. Out of all a man may be able to say, taste (by which I chiefly mean a sense of utility) selects the most useful things which pertain to conviction and improvement. An old woman, who showed a house and pictures at Towcester, expressed herself in these words: "This is Sir Richard Farmer; he lived in the coun- try, took care of his estate, built this house and paid for it, managed it well, saved money, and died rich. That is his son ; he was made a lord, took a place at court, spent his estate, and died a beggar !" A very concise, but full and striking account, says Dr. Home. Here clearness and brevity are conspicuous; great qualities to master! As 'tis a greater mystery in the art Of painting to foreshorten any part Than draw it out ; so 'tis in books the chief Of all perfections to be plain and brief. Juniper Hedgehog wrote of the Bishop of Exeter : "What a lawyer was spoiled in that bishop ! What a brain he has for cobwebs! How he drags you along through sentence after sentence — every one a dark passage — until your head swims !"* Character- izing with effect the darkness which prevails where perspicuity is absent. * Jerrold's Shilling Magazine, No. 8. July, 1845. 88 PUBLIC SPEAKING- AND DEBATE. Brevity and precision are oftener manifested among our French neighbors than among ourselves. The speeches made to mobs, the most hurried placards, abound in the felicities of condensation. Europe has for some time been agitated with communism. Few Englishmen could tell you what is meant by it. Yet nearly a century ago Morelly thus expressed it : " It is the solution of this excellent problem : to find a situation in which it shall be nearly impossible for man to be depraved or bad." We have never on this side the channel approached the felicity of this reply. As a model of the old, simple, and manly Saxon tongue, the student may consult the writings of the author of the "Pilgrim's Progress." If all that Mr. Macaulay avers be true, the works of the Bedford tinman deserve special attention. The style of Bun- yan, *says Macaulay, is delightful to every reader, and invaluable as a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over the English language. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression, if we except a few terms in theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed several pages which do not contain a single word of more than two syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly what he wanted to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect, this dialect of plain working-men was suffi- cient. There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpol- luted English language, no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper STYLE. 89 wealth, and how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed. In the first edition of " Practical Grammar," the author fell into this vagueness. If remarks had to be made at the end of the statement, it was directed that they should be neither " too strong nor too tedious." But when he subsequently asked his class at the City Mechanics' Institution, at what point of effectiveness a man might be said to be too strong, it was agreed that there was error somewhere. And the injunction not to be " too tedious," was found to imply that we might»be tedious in some degree, which hardly seemed desirable. Then it was asked, " What is Strength ?" Some answered, " Power." What was Power ? Some said, "Effectiveness." But it was soon felt that these definitions left us like Swift's definition of style, that it was the use of proper words in proper places. What were proper words and proper places, still remained open questions. So if power was strength, and strength effectiveness, what was effect- iveness was still unknown. It was finally agreed that to be strong was to be just, and to avoid being tedious was to be brief. We therefore agreed that " remarks just and brief" were the proper characterization. For what was just could never be too strong, and what was brief could never be too tedious. From which we also learned that the secret of the strength of comment lay in just sentiments, and that tedium was the tiresome progeny of prolixity. 90 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. CHAPTER XI. SIMILES. Paracelsus announced what Cogan reiterated, that " it is as necessary to know evil as good ; for who can know what is good without knowing what is evil?" This principle of contrast is that upon which truth depends for its development and effect for its power. It is the principle on which similes are founded. To preserve peace and to do good is a very old maxim of morality. Feltham thus enforces it: "When two goats on a narrow bridge met over a deep stream, was not he the wiser that lay down for the other to pass over him, rather than he that would hazard both their lives by contending ? He preserved himself from danger, and made the other become debtor to him for his safety. I will never think my- self disparaged either by preserving peace or doing good." This comparison elevates the sentiment, re- lieves its repetition from triteness, and gives it the freshness of truth. Paine, whom I have heard Ebenezer Elliot describe as a great master of metaphor, said of a certain body in America, that at the very instant that they are ex- claiming against the mammon of this world, they are nevertheless hunting after it with a step as steady as time, and an appetite as keen as death. The immu- table insatiableness sought to be characterized is ren- dered much more evident by these similes. It will be observed that the contrast implied in similes is not absolute ; it is the comparison of a lesser degree with SIMILES. 91 a greater, which marks the idea to be enforced. This is seen in the saying of Dumont to the effect that " Both the Kolands felt convinced that Freedom conld never flourish in France, and spring np a goodly tree, under the shadow of a throne." It is further seen in the remark of Mirabeau, who, when asked to counsel an obstinate friend, answered: "You might as well make an issue in a wooden leg as give him advice." The same principle is observable in the observation of Emerson at the soiree of the Manchester Athe- neum, at which he spoke. Expressing the latent strength of Old England, he said she "had still a pulse like a cannon." The felicity of the simile was perfect. The same person, denoting the freshness of style of Montaigne, said the words, if you cut them, they would bleed. The " Cork Magazine " says that the preface of Thomas Davis to the speeches of Cur- ran is, in some parts, as majestic as the orations which it prefaces; in others, displaying a wild pathos which "strikes upon the ear like the cry of a woman." It does not appear to me to be necessary to enter :nto the usual enumeration of the various figures of speech specially set forth in rhetorics. Under the principle of comparison so wide a range of illustra- tion is included as to be sufficient for the use of the rhetorician. Nothing, we are told, so works on the human mind, barbarous or civilized, as a new sym- bol. Metaphor is the majestic ground of enforce- ment, and its occupation is as extensive as its power. It is by this means the poverty of language is en- riched by the eloquence of the universe, and the whole of inanimate nature admitted into society with man. 92 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. In Eastern lands they talk in flowers, And tell in a garland their loves and cares ; Each blossom that blooms in their garden-bowers On its leaves a mystic language bears. Comparisons are implied by phrases. An instance occurs in Newman's works, where he says : " Heresy did but precipitate the truths before held in solution." The allusion is chemical, but very happy. Symbols expressed or implied were the weapons of Mirabeau. Contempt for the men-millinery of literature was never more forcibly expressed than in these .words of his: "My style readily assumes force, and I have a command of strong expressions; but if I want to be mild, unctuous, and measured, I become insipid, and my flabby style makes me sick." Dumont, a friend of Mirabeau's, recounting his own editorial experi- ence in preserving brevity and a wise directness in his journal, says : " The most diffuse complained of our reducing their dropsical and turgescent expressions." By some comparisons all the power of condensation is realized. Grattan, comparing the Irish Parliament to a departed child, exclaimed: "I have sat by its cradle, and I followed its hearse." There is here all the grandeur of eloquence and grief. In the "Auditor," Lord Viscount Barrington was described as a little squirrel of state, who had been busy all his life in the cage, without turning it round to any human purpose. The clearness attained by this simile needs no explanation. Severity can be con- veyed with equal ease, as instanced in Judge Hali- burton's asseveration, that humility is the dress-coat of pride. It is a trite remark, that men draw their symbols from those departments of science or life with which SIMILES. 93 they are most familiar. The Greeks filled their lan- guage with geometrical allusions. Lieutenant Le- count, the well-known mathematician, having occa- sion to describe a wound, says : " One of the latest cases was a man with a round ulcer, about two and a half inches in diameter, on one side of his leg, and an oval one, five inches by two and a half, on the other side."* When Mr. Mould, the undertaker in "Nicholas Nickleby," speaks of Shakspeare, it is as the theatri- cal poet who was buried at Stratford. But it matters -not whence the similes are drawn, provided they are appropriate. In a sermon preached at Newgate after the escape of Jack Sheppard, the clergyman dis- coursed to this effect: " How dexterously did he pick the padlock of his chain with a crooked nail ; burst his fetters asunder; climb up the chimney; wrench out an iron bar ; break his way through a stone wall ; make the strong door of a dark entry fly before him ; reach the leads of the prison ; fix a blanket to the wall with a spike stolen from the chapel ; descend to the top of the turner's house ; cautiously pass down stairs, and make his escape at the street door. "I shall spiritualize these things. Let me exhort ye, then, to open the locks of your hearts with the nail of repentance ; burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts ; mount the chimney of hope ; take thence the bar of good resolution ; break through the stone wall of despair and all the strongholds in the dark entry of the valley of the shadow of death raise yourselves to the leads of divine meditation fix the blanket of faith with the spike of the Church let yourselves down to the turner's house of resigna * "Midland Observer," March, 1844. 94 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. tion ; descend the stairs of humility. So shall you come to the door of deliverance from the prison of iniquity, and escape from the clutches of that old ex- ecutioner the devil, who goeth," etc., etc.* The child when he first learns to speak will say anything, thinking he accomplishes much in continu- ing to talk. So with the public speaker when he first commences, and so with the early efforts of the young writer. He knows nothing of symbolic beauty or rhetorical proportion; he does not suspect that there are gaudy images and encumbering ornaments. "When he first rises above the level of plain prose, he* never knows when to descend to the earth ; and in- stead of finding an elevation whence he can show his readers a wider landscape and new objects, he thinks he does enough by showing himself. Prodigality of metaphors, like multitudes of super- latives, confound meaning. " It is an idle fancy of some," says Felton, " to run out perpetually upon si- militudes, confounding their subject by the multitude of likenesses, and making it like so many things that it is like nothing at all." The general rule to be observed is obvious. When we intend to elevate a subject, we must choose meta-. phors which are lofty or sublime. If our purpose is to degrade, the similes which sink the subject to contempt or ridicule are proper for employment. These are the two poles of tendency. A member of the In- diana Legislature has said : " Mr. Speaker — The wolf is the most ferocious animal that prowls in our west- ern prairies, or runs at large in the forests of Indiana. He creeps from his lurking-place at the hour of mid- * Volume of Trials of Criminals, printed at Leeds, 1809, for J. Da- vies, by Edward Baines. PLEASANTRY. 95 night when all nature is locked in the silent embraces of Morpheus, and ere the portals of the east are un- barred, or bright Phoebus rises in all his golden maj- esty, whole litters of pigs are destroyed." "Wanting sustainment, these figures end in the ridiculous.* CHAPTER XII. PLEASANTRY. I offer only a few suggestions on this subject. The happiest vein of pleasantry is needed to pen a suita- ble essay upon it. If men of wit and humor would analyze the sources of their inspirations, pleasantry might be taught as an art. And why not ? Recrea- tion is an element of health, a component of human nature, the third estate of life. It ought to have its professors and cultivators. A comedian went to America and remained there two years, leaving his wife dependent on her rela- tives. Mrs. F tt, expatiating in the greenroom on the cruelty of such conduct, the comedian found a warm advocate in a well-known dramatist. "I have heard," says the latter, " that he is the kindest of men, and I know that he writes to his wife every packet." " Yes, he writes," replied Mrs. F., " a parcel of flummery about the agony of absence, but he has never remitted her a shilling. Do you call that kind- ness ?" " Decidedly," replied the author, " unremit- ting kindness." Here the wit turns upon words. tes a converse ins * See Note G, page 113. 96 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. heard of a boy who, being rebuked by a clergyman for neglecting to go to church, replied that he would go if he could be permitted to change his seat. ' But why do you wish to change your seat V said the min- ister. 'You see,' said the boy, 'I sit over the oppo- site side of the meeting-house, and between me and you there's Judy Vicars and Mary Staples, and half a dozen other women, with their mouths wide open, and they get all the best of the sermon, and when it comes to me it's pretty poor stuff.' " " Wit is the philosopher's quality, humor the poet's ; the nature of wit relates to things ; humor to persons. Wit utters brilliant truths, humor delicate deductions from the knowledge of individual character. Roche- foucault is witty, the Yicar of Wakefield the model of humor."* English humor is frank, hearty, and unaffected. Irish light as mercury. It sets propriety at defiance. It is extravagant. Scotch humor is sly, grave, and caustic. Surely .the analysis of Pleasantry is possible, and its cultivation practicable. Many persons never think of pleasantry as an agent of relief in exposition, and of effect in many depart- ments of enforcement. Some worry jokes to death. A man who runs after witticisms is in danger of making himself a buffoon.f Some speakers are so beset with the love of this display that they virtually announce to their audiences that the smallest laugh would be thankfully received. A degree of wit per- tains to all topics. That which lies in our way is that which is relevant. * Bulwer's Student. f See Note H, page 175. ENERGY. 97 CHAPTEK Xin. ENERGY. Energy is the soul of oratory, arftl energy depends on health. Dr. Samuel Johnson, with that strong sense for which he was distinguished, once said, we can be useful no longer than we are well. Of the rhetorician it may as safely be said that he is effective no longer than he is well. A variety of arts may be pursued in indifferent health ; feebleness only pro- longs execution ; in rhetoric it mars the whole work. Even in the matter of efficient thinking health is worth attention. The senses being the great inlets of knowledge, it is necessary that they be kept in health. It will be idle to conceal from ourselves that the physical is the father of the moral man. " Morals depend upon temperaments."* The patience necessary for investigation cannot be preserved with impaired nerves. Long-continued wakefulness is capable of changing the temper and mental disposition of the most mild and gentle, of effecting a complete alteration of their features, and at length of occasioning the most singular whims, the strangest deviations in the power of imagination, and in the end absolute insanity. It may not be necessary, because Carneades took copious doses of hellebore as a preparative to refuting the dogmas of the Stoics, or because Dry den, when he had a grand design, took physic and parted with blood, that the searcher after truth should commence * Edward Johnson — Life, Health, and Disease. 7 98 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. with an aperient ; yet it will be useful that some at- tention be paid to the physiology of the — ■ — — -intellect, whose use Depends so much upon the gastric juice. The public will remember the case of an ex-occu- pant of the woolsack who, after " six days' indisposi- tion," attempted the annihilation of Lord Aberdeen on account of his Scotch Church Bill. The "Times," with some satire, expressed in reference to it much truth. "¥e recognize the deep interest of the public in Lord B.'s medicine chest. We pray him to take care of himself for all our sakes. We entirely enter into the feelings of a man who, after suffering six days under dyspepsia, bile, or otherwise, rushes into the House of Lords to avenge upon some minister the disarrangement of his system. The castigation of a secretary of state is an interesting incident in his disorder, a gratifying palliative of his discomfort, but it is, after all, in Epsom salts or quinine that the true and only effectual remedy must be found. "* Perhaps the lowest quality of the art of oratory, but one on many occasions of the first importance, is a certain robust and radiant physical health ; great volumes of animal heat. In the cold thinness of a morning audience, mere energy and mellowness is inestimable; wisdom and learning would be harsh and unwelcome compared with a substantial man, who is quite a house-warming. I do not rate this animal life very high ; yet, as we must be fed and warmed before we can do any work well, so is this necessary. f It often happens that you cannot come into collision with opinion without coming into col- * " Times," June 29, 1843. f Emerson. ENERGY. 99 lision with persons. What would Danton have been without his cannon voice. When Mirabeau spoke, his voice was like the voice of destiny. He seemed as if moulded to be the orator of nature. The wise orator will as much attend to the exercise which gives him health, as to the exercise which gives him skill. We go to the oratorio to hear sublime sentiments set to the music of art; we go to the orator to hear them enforced by the music of nature. Oratory is the personal ascendancy of opinion. Without physical fascination it descends to mere eloquence of words. Intellect moves the scholar only. Oratory moves the illiterate to noble deeds. When traveling expenses were the only payment I received for my lectures, I used to walk to the place of their delivery. On my walk from Birming- ham to Worcester, a distance of twenty-six miles, it was my custom to recite on the way portions of my intended address. In the early part of my walk my voice was clear, and thoughts ready ; but toward the end I could scarcely articulate, or retain the thread of my discourse. If I lectured the same evening, as sometimes happened, I spoke without connection or force. The reason was that I had exhausted my strength on the way. One Saturday I walked from Sheffield to Huddersfielcl to deliver on the Sunday two anniversary lectures. It was my first appearance there, and I was ambitious to acquit myself well. But in the morning I was utterly unable to do more than talk half inaudibly and quite incoherently. In the evening I was tolerable, but my voice was weak. My annoyance was excessive. I was a paradox to myself. My power seemed to come and go by some eccentric law of its own. I did not find out till years 100 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. after that the utter exhaustion of my strength had exhausted the powers of speech and thought, and that entire repose instead of entire fatigue should have been the preparation for public speaking. CHAPTER XIV. ELOQUENCE. " The histories of old times, and even of not very- distant ones, acquaint us with the wondrous effects of eloquence upon whole multitudes', carried away to far crusades by the oratory of a hermit ; and even upon grave political assemblies and parliaments, which an able speaker could twist, turn, and persuade according to fantasy, so that majorities hung upon his words. There is no such .things now-a-days. Audiences are neither so pliable nor so soft; and eloquence, however mighty, fails in carrying convic- tions by storm. Perhaps this is the reason why so few public men of the present day fall into the mis- take of striving or affecting to be eloquent. "Persuasion, in fact, is now a long-winded and tedious task. The winning of an audience, of a party ; the inculcating an idea, the disseminating it ; the win- ning conviction first, and getting up the enthusiasm after, is now a slow work, almost like the dropping of a seed, and patiently waiting till it grows, in order to foster it, water it, protect its growth, and enjoy its expansion into the stem and the flower ; sncli is the political eloquence of modern times. He who ELOQUENCE. 101 discovered it, and who practices it, is Richard Cob- den."* This is a fair history of modern eloquence ; but it is hardly true that Mr. Cobden " discovered " it.. He has been its greatest illustrator, but it has grown with the growth and commercial character of the na- tion. Long before Cobden's time, # the magic fancy of Burke, the glittering sophistries of Pitt, the thun- dering declamation of Fox, were all alike founded upon the general and lasting truth of things — upon profound views — upon the inexhaustible resources of the understanding. The king of transcendentalists has said that "Eloquence must first be plainest narrative or statement ; afterward it may warm itself until it exhales symbols of every kind, and speaks only through the most poetic forms ; but at first and last it must still be, at bottom, a statement of facts. All audiences soon ask, ' What is he driving at V and if this man does not stand for anything, he will be de- serted, "f This writer has given us the most eloquent version of eloquence extant. The substance of his views is as follows : " First, then, the orator must be a substantial person ; then the first of his special weapons is, doubtless, power of statement; to have the fact and to know how to tell it. Next, is that method or power of arrangement which constitutes the genius and efficacy of all remarkable men. Next to this is the power of imagery. Nothing so works on the human mind, barbarous or civilized, as a new symbol. The power of dealing with facts, of illumin- ating them, of sinking them by ridicule or diversion of mind, rapid generalization, humor, wit, and pathos, all these are keys which the orator holds ; yet these * "Daily News," No. 522. f Emerson. 102 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. foreign gifts are not eloquence, and do often hinder a man from the attainment of it. To come to the heart of the mystery, the truly eloquent is an excited man with power to communicate his excitement. Arm a man with all the talents just enumerated, so potent and so charming, and he has equal power to ensnare and mislead, as to .instruct and guide you. A specta- cle we may go round the world to see, is a man who, in the prosecution of great designs, has absolute com- mand of the means of representing his ideas, keeps the grasp of a lion on his materials, and the eye of a king to dispose them right, never for an instant light minded or insane. But, in the great triumph of the orator, we must have something more ; we must have a certain reinforcing of the man from the events, so as to have the double force of reason and destiny. The eloquent man is not he who has beautiful speech, but he who is inwardly and desperately drunk with a certain belief, agitating and tearing him, perhaps almost bereaving him of the power of articulation. Then it rushes from him, in short abrupt screams, in torrents of meaning. The possession of his mind by the subject is so entire, that it insures an ardor of ex- pressions which is the ardor of nature itself; and so is the ardor of the greatest force, and inimitable by any art. Add to this a certain regnant calmness, which in all the tumult never utters a premature syllable, and keeps the secret of his means and method, and the orator stands before the people as a demoniacal power, to whose miracles they have no key. Youth should lay the foundation of eloquence, not on popular arts, but on character and honesty. Let the sun look on nothing nobler than he, let him speak of the right, let him not borrow the language ELOQUENCE. 103 of idle gentlemen or scholars, much less that of sens- ualists, absorbed in money or appetite ; but let him communicate every secret of strength and good-will communicated to his own heart, to animate men to better hopes ; let him speak for the absent, defend the friendless and defamed, the poor, the slave, the prisoner, and the lost. Let him look upon opposition as opportunity ; he is one who cannot be defeated or put down. Let him feel that it is not the people who are in fault for not being convinced, but he who can- not convince them. He has not only to neutralize their opposition — that were a small thing — but to convert them into apostles and publishers of the same wisdom." The only alteration I would make in this account is this : Instead of making eloquence a thing of de- gree, which confounds eloquence with oratory, I would mark the distinction. Eloquence belongs merely to words, oratory to the passion which fires them. The eloquence of intellect is that of speech, and sense, and symbol; but the oratory which so seldom greets the ears of men is the eloquence of the man. The philosopher only reaches the scholar, the orator reaches the mob. The philosopher talks the rhetoric of the schools, the orator the language of nature ; he speaks heart words — -that language which is wide as the world, which reaches humanity, which all nations understand, which the* deaf and dumb can feel — the language of gratitude, of gesture — that which moves us on canvas, breathes on marble. It is the burning word of passion. It knows no high, no low, no rich, no poor, no citizen, no alien, no for- eigner, no crime, no color. Savage and civilized, learned and illiterate, (the accidents of condition,) 104 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. sink into insignificance when man speaks to man. The orator penetrates to the equality of humanity. It is in the equality of our common nature that a com- mon purpose originates. He alone who penetrates there inspires unanimity. It is when the multitude are of one opinion that the orator's power is revealed; that is the seal that nature stamps upon his genius. It is said that one day when Massillon was preach- ing upon the Passion before Louis XIY. and all the court, he so affected his hearers that everybody was in tears, except a citizen, who appeared as indifferent to what he heard as to what he saw. One of his neighbors, surprised at such insensibility, reproached him for it, and said to him, "How can you refrain from weeping, while we are all bathed in tears?" "That is not astonishing," answered the citizen, "I am not of this parish." The eloquence which I have endeavored to describe would have included this man also in the general weeping. To say that a touch of nature makes the whole world kin, is only another way of .saying, That "man is related to all nature." Eloquence discovers this relation. In the first remark, Shakspeare gives the effect, of which, in the second remark, Emerson has assigned the cause. With respect to passion, to which much importance has been assigned, it will be useful to remark, that though we must admit, with Lord Karnes, that the plainest man animated with passion affects us more than the greatest speaker without it, we must keep in view that the only passion tolerated among us is the passion of conviction.* All the rest is, to Englishmen, rant. The passion of conviction is modest, manly, and earnest. * See Note I, page 116. PREMEDITATION. 105 CHAPTEE XV. PREMEDITATION. There is every reason to believe that the greatest masters of oratory have been most sensible of the value of, and have most practiced premeditation. It is only the young would-be speaker who expects to be great without effort, or whose vanity leads him to impose upon others the belief that he is so, who af- fects to despise the toil of preparation. One of the biographers of Canning tells us that it is remarkable that, with his broad sense of great faculties in others, he was himself fastidious to excess about the slightest turns of expression. He would correct his speeches and amend their verbal graces till he nearly polished out the original spirit. He was not singular in this. Burke, whom he is said to have closely studied, did the same. Sheridan always prepared his speeches; the highly-wrought passages in the speech on Hastings's impeachment were written beforehand and committed to memory ; and the differences were so marked*that the audience could readily distinguish between the extemporaneous passages and those that were pre- meditated. Mr. Canning's alterations were frequently so minute and extensive that the printers found it easier to recompose the matter afresh in type than to correct it. This difficulty of choice in diction some- times springs from Vembarras des richesses, but oftener from poverty of resources, and generally indicates a class of intellect whidi is more occupied with costume than ideas. But here are three instances which set all popular notions of verbal fastidiousness by the 106 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. ears; for certainly Burke, Canning, and Sheridan were men of capacious talents ; and two of them at least present extraordinary samples of imagination and practical judgment, running together neck and neck in the race of life to the very goal. We owe the low state of oratory in this country, to a great extent, to the false contempt for " cut and dried speeches," till it has come to be considered a sign of weakness for a man to think before he speaks. Archbishop Whately has wisely cautioned young preachers against concluding that because the apostles spake well without premeditation, that others will speak so, unless, like the apostles, they are specially inspired* Perhaps, although we use the term, we never have had oratory in England. There is an essential differ- ence between oratory and debating ; oratory seems an accomplishment confined to the ancients, unless the French preachers may put in their claim, and some of the Irish lawyers. Mr. Shiel's speech in Kent was a fine oration ; and the boobies who taunted him with having got it by rote were not aware that in doing so he only wisely followed the example of Perieles, Demosthenes, Lycias, Isocrates, Hortensius, Cicero, Cesar, and every great orator of antiquity.f It has been said by a popular writer that Demos- thenes not only prompts to vigorous measures, but teaches how they are to be carried into execution. His orations are strongly animated, and full of the impetuosity and ardor of public spirit. His composition is not distinguished by ornament and splendor. It is an energy of thought, peculiarly his own, which forms his character and raises him above his species. He appears not to attend to * See Note J, page 11 1. f "Young Duke," by B. D'Israeli. PREMEDITATION. 107 words, but to things. We forget the orator and think of the subject. He has no parade and ostentation, no studied introduction ; but is like a man full of his subject, who, after preparing his audience by a sentence or two for the reception of plain truths, enters directly on business. Blair should have said Demosthenes had no elab- orate exordiums. They were " studied," as is proved by their pertinency and fitness. Demades says that Demosthenes spoke better on some few occasions when he spoke unpremeditatedly.* Probably he spoke well in some of these instances, but it was the result of power acquired by premeditation. As a general rule, he who thinks twice before speaking once will speak twice the better for it. When Macaulay was about to address the House of Commons, his anxious and restless manner betrayed his intention. Still he was regardless of the laugh of the witlings, and continued intent on his effort. This is the real courage that does things well ; the cour- age that is neither laughed nor frowned from its purpose. Macaulay ■ spoke early in the evening, before the jarring of the debate confused him or long attention enfeebled his powers. Only the ignorant despise attention to minute details. When the great Lord Chatham was to appear in public he took much pains about his dress, and latterly he arranged his flannels in graceful folds. It need not then detract from our respect for Erskine, that on all occasions he desired to look smart, and that when he went down into the country on special retainers, he anxiously had recourse to all manner of innocent little artifices to aid his purpose. He examined the court the night before *See Note K, page 179. 108 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. the trial, in order to select the most advantageous place for addressing the jury. On the cause being called, the crowded audience were perhaps kept waiting a few minutes before the celebrated stranger made his appearance ; and when at length he grati- fied their impatient curiosity, a particularly nice wig and a pair of new yellow gloves distinguished and embellished his person beyond the ordinary costume of the barrister of the circuit.* Amid the applause in this chapter bestowed upon premeditation, it would not be just to omit the ridi- cule with which it has been visited by the Rev. Sidney Smith : " It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind can be very powerfully affected. What can be more ludicrous than an orator delivering stale indignation and fervor of a week old? turning over whole pages of violent passions, written out in Ger- man text; reading the tropes and apostrophes into which he is hurried by the ardor of his mind, and so affected at a preconcerted line and page that he is unable to proceed any further ?" True, " it is only by the fresh feelings of the heart that mankind can be very powerfully affected." But nature is always fresh, and he who reproduces nature will always affect. Macready never stabbed his daughter to preserve her honor; yet every man is moved at his Yirginius. As Othello, Macready's "indigna- tion " at Iago is thirty years old, yet we are as much affected by its intensity as on the first day when he displayed it. The speech of Antony over the dead body of Cesar was " written in German text " in the days of Elizabeth ; it was " cut and dried " two hund- red years ago ; yet, whatever our satirical canon may * Campbell's Lives of the Chancelors. KEALITY. 109 say to the contrary, it ceases not to affect us now. A great idea well expressed, or a deep feeling naturally portrayed, is " a thing of beauty and a joy forever." CHAPTEE XVI. EEALITT. It was said by Panchand that Mirabeau was the first man in the world to speak upon a question he knew nothing about. But Mirabeau had the confi- dence which enabled him to abandon himself to the reality of occasions, and he read the lessons they brought with them, while other men went to books ; and, as reality is the most powerful teacher, he was wiser than the encyclopediasts. I believe there are no difficulties in the moral or political world, no problem of events, which do not also bring their solutions with them, were we cool enough to read them ; but we never trust ourselves to events ; we do not believe what we see, or will not see what is before us. We make preconceived opin- ions, predetermined judgment, overrule new facts. We too often act the part of the man who is so much in love with his bark that he never ventures to sail in it. This is the course to be taken : scan the truth, and having learned it, trust to subsequent events to illustrate it. In the premeditation which I have commended I do not mean to exclude extempore application of the faculties. An orator should go to the rostrum to 110 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. announce conclusions, not to form them. In this I persist ; but having laid the scene, I would leave him free to manage it as he pleased. Let him take advantage of the tide of feeling, temper, and excla- mations of the meeting; but unless he is lirm in a previous purpose, these things will take advantage of him and carry him away from his subject, instead of his carrying away the audience. Hie Bhodus; hie salta.* Do not wait for a change of outward circumstances, but take your circum- stances as they are, and make the best of them. This saying, which was meant to shame a braggart, will admit of a very different and profounder application. Goethe has changed the postulate of Archimedes, " Give me a standing-place, and I will move the world," into the precept, " Make good thy standing- place, and move the world." This is what he did throughout his life.f Abandonment to reality is the source of presence of mind, an indispensable element of oratorical great- ness. It is storied that Frederic the Great being in- formed of the death of one of his chaplains, a man of considerable learning and piety, and determining that his successor should not be behind him in these qualifications, he told a candidate about to preach a trial sermon at the Royal Chapel that he would him- self furnish him with a text from which he was to make an extempore sermon. The clergyman accepted the proposition. The whim of such a probationary discourse was spread abroad, and at an early hour the Royal Chapel was crowded to excess. The king ar- rived at the end of the prayers, and, on the candidate * "Here is Rhodes; leap here."— Old Fable. f Guesses at Truth. By two Brothers. REALITY. Ill ascending the pulpit, one of his majesty's aids-de- camp presented him with a sealed paper. The preacher opened it, and found nothing written therein. He did not, however, in so critical a moment, lose his presence of mind ; but turning the paper on both sides, he said : " My brethren, here is nothing, and there is nothing; out of nothing God created all things ;" and he proceeded to deliver an admirable discourse upon the wonders of the creation. This man deserved the appointment. A good converse story is told in Chambers's Scot- tish Jest Book, of a minister who had a custom of writ- ing the heads of his discourse on small slips of paper, which he placed on the Bible before him, to be used in succession. One day, when he was explaining the second head, he got a little warm in the harness, and came down with such a thump upon the Bible with his hand that the ensuing slip fell over the edge of the pulpit, though unperceived hj himself. On reaching the end of his second head he looked down for the third slip ; but, alas ! it was not to be found. "Thirdly," he cried, looking round him with great anxiety. After a little pause, " Thirdly," again he exclaimed ; but still no thirdly appeared. " Thirdly," I say, my brethren," pursued the bewildered clergy- man ; but not another word could he utter. At this point, while the congregation were partly sympathiz- ing in his distress, and partly rejoicing in such a de- cisive instance of the impropriety of using notes in preaching, which has always been an unpopular thing in the Scotch clergy, an old woman rose up and thus addressed the preacher: "If I'm no mista'en, sir, I saw thirdly flee out at the east window a quarter of an hour syne." It is impossible for any but a Scotch- 112 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. man to conceive how much -this account of the loss of thirdly was relished by that part of the congregation which condemned the use of notes. Before writing or speaking, it is of great service to try the matter over by telling it to a critical friend, or explaining it to some one utterly ignorant of it. By these trials of reality objections may be learned, im- pediments to conviction be discovered, and simplicity of enunciation acquired. If you have to speak of topics before thus maturing your power over them, supply a relay of telling points, so that when co- herency fails you, you can have recourse to a striking thought. Few will discover its want of relevance. The majority always mistake brilliancy for eloquence. But remember, this expedient will only save you with the vulgar ; the well-informed are not thus to be im- posed on. The neglect of the study of reality is, perhaps, no- where so apparent as in the construction of contro- versial books. Authors satisfy themselves with invent- ing the arguments of their opponents, when the easi- est and most satisfactory course is to extract the most powerful reasoning the other side has produced. By this course real objectors could be answered instead of imaginary ones. The neglect of this precaution was strikingly manifested in a work published some time ago entitled " Torrington Hall." EFFECTIVENESS. 118 CHAPTEK XYII. EFFECTIVENESS. Effectiveness lies in proportion . Not in the beauty of a pillar or the finish of a frieze, but in the com- mand which the whole building has over the specta- tor^ and not in the brilliance of a passage, but in the coherence of the whole, lies the effectiveness of a speech or a book. Foremost in effectiveness stands purpose. Better say nothing than not to the purpose. Nothing should attract the main attention to itself. The chief merit of any part is its subserviency to the whole design. When parts are praised, a speaker is said to have bril- liance ; when the whole impresses, he is said to have power. " The editor of Shelley's posthumous poems apolo- gizes for the publication of some fragments in a very incomplete state, by remarking how much more than every other poet of the present day every line and word he wrote is instinct with beauty. Let no man sit down to write with the purpose of making every line and word beautiful and peculiar. The only effect of such an endeavor will be to corrupt his judgment and confound his understanding."* A few generalities may be mentioned, attention to which will conduce to effectiveness. Avoid rant, study simplicity, abjure affectation, be natural. The natural voice is heard the farthest, and the natural affects the soonest. " The costly charm of the ancient * Henry Taylor. Preface to Philip Van Artevelde. 8 114 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. tragedy, and, indeed, of all the old literature, is that the persons speak simply, speak as persons who have great good sense without knowing it."* Nothing as- tonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. Earnestness and simplicity carry all before them. On Thiers's first appearance in the French Chamber, he experienced an almost universally un favorable reception, from certain personal peculiari- ties, over the effect of which he soon triumphed. In person Thiers is almost diminutive, with an expres- sion of countenance, though intellectual, reflective, and sarcastic, far from possessing the traits of beauty. The face itself, small in form, as befits the body, is encumbered with a pair of spectacles so large, that when peering over the marble edge of the long nar- row pulpit, called the tribune, whence all speakers address the Chamber, it is described as appearing sus- pended to the two orbs of crystal. "With such an ex- terior, presenting something of the ludicrous, so fatal to the effect, especially in volatile France, M. Thiers, full of the impassioned eloquence of his favorite rev- olutionary orators, essayed to impart those thrilling emotions recorded of Mirabeau. The attempt pro- voked derision, but only for a moment. In his new sphere, as in the others he had passed through, he soon outshone competition. .Subsiding into the oratory nat- ural to him, simple, vigorous, and rapid, he approved himself one of the most formidable of parliamentary champions. Bentham has made a wise remark on prolixity which may teach the student a just use in the meas- ure of words. " Prolixity," says Bentham, " may be where redundancy is not. Prolixity may arise not * Emerson. EFFECTIVENESS. 115 only from the multifarious insertion of unnecessary- articles, but from the conservation of too many neces- sary ones in a sentence ; as a workman may be overladen not only with rubbish, which is of no use for him to carry, but with materials the most useful and neces- sary, when heaped up in loads too heavy for him at once. The point is, therefore, to distribute the mate- rials of the several divisions of the fabric into parcels that may be portable without fatigue. There is a limit to the lifting powers of each man, beyond which all attempts only charge him with a burden to him immovable. There is in like manner a limit to the grasping power of man's apprehension, beyond which if you add article to article, the whole shrinks from under his utmost efforts." "Too much is seldom enough," say the authors of "Guesses at Truth." " Pumping after your bucket is full prevents it keep- ing so." Proportion of time as well as proportion of parts is essential, both for the sake of the speaker's strength, as well as the hearer's patience. Whitefield is re- ported to have said, that a man, with the eloquence of an angel, ought not to exceed forty minutes in the length of a sermon, and it is well known that Wesley sel- dom exceeded thirty. "I have almost always found," says another eminent preacher, " that the last fifteen 'minutes of a sermon an hour in length was worse than lost, both upon the speaker and congregation." There is practical wisdom in these remarks. A man who de- termines to speak but a short time is more likely to command the highest energy for his effort, and to speak with sustained power. Half an hour is time enough for immortality. Mirabeau achieved it by efforts of less duration. 116 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. Here it may be observed that* a man who intends to be brief and comprehensive will seldom need notes to assist him. In eases where time cannot be com- manded to master the subject in the memory, notes are better than the risk of anxiety or forgetful- ness. Generally speaking, a subject deeply felt and fully understood will make itself a place in the memory. The chief quality in the success of the late Sir William Follett consisted in his confining himself to what he understood. This was the basis on which his tact rested. He knew where his strength lay, and kept there. Of the "Lowell Offering," pub- lished by Knight some time since, the "Times" said: "It is the production of factory girls in Lowell, the American Manchester, and we much doubt if all the duchesses in England could write as much and so seldom offend against good taste. The secret of these girls' success in writing arises from their writing only about what they know — common life and their own affairs." He who seeks any kind of effective- ness will do well to remember the incidental lesson conveyed in these words. A frequent cause of fail- ure with young lecturers, is neglecting to find a point of common understanding between themselves and their auditors. They do not comprehend the phi- losophy of exordium. Much rhetorical wisdom may be gathered from the mathematician's example. We know that the geometer would in vain reason with others unless axioms were previously agreed upon for reference. So with an audience. If they do not agree with the speaker as to the premises from which he reasons, the audience have no standard by which they can test his conclusions. Hence, though he EFFECTIVENESS. 117 may # confound them, yet he will never convince them. It is in this sense that those who would improve the public must "write down" to the public. They may, and they ought to elevate the public by their sentiments, but they must found their reasoning on what the populace understand and admit, or they reason in vain. The people must be taken at what they are, and elevated to what they should be. Young men, poetical from ardor and enthusiastic from passion rather than principle, will often rush from libraries crammed with lore, with which nobody else is familiar, and pour out before an audience what the speaker believes to be both sublime and impressive, but which his hearers cannot understand. They grow listless and restless, and he retires over- whelmed with a sense of failure. A. B., a young friend of considerable promise, thus failed in my presence. I endeavored thus to divert his despond- ency. " Failures," I urged, " are with heroic minds the stepping-stones to success." "Why have I not succeeded?" he asked; "I can never hope to say better things of my own than I said to-night of others." "The cause of your non-success is obvious; you commenced by addressing your auditors as men, and you left them as children. " A young preacher who had ascended the pulpit with great confidence, but who broke down in the middle of his sermon, was met by Rowland Hill as he was rushing from the pulpit. ' Young man,' said Rowland, ' had you ascended the pulpit in the spirit in which you descended, you would have descended 118 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. in the spirit in which you ascended.' • Something of this kind will explain your case. In your exordium you should address your auditors as though they were children, state your arguments as though they were learners, and in your peroration only assume them to be men. On the threshold of a new subject men are as children ; during its unfoldment they are learners : only when the subject is mastered are they as men with manhood's power to execute their convictions. Had it struck you that probably no man of your audi- ence was familiar with the habits of society in the days of Spenser's 'Faery Queene,' or with the high and mys- tic imaginings of the solitary Paracelsus, would not the thought have caused you to recast your whole lecture? Take care that you do not render yourself amenable to the sarcasm of Swift, who, when Burnet said, speaking of the Scotch preachers in the time of the civil war, 'The crowds were far beyond the capacity of their churches, or the reach of 'their voices,' Swift added, 'And the preaching beyond the capacity of the crowd. I believe the church had as much capacity as the minister.'" The error of A. B. became evident to him. It is an error that many perpetually commit. In courts of equity the judges first distinguish by their ap- proval those young barristers who unfold a case with simplicity, and make lucid the points at issue. Auditors are the judges in popular assemblies, and their first applause is bestowed on the clear-headed speaker. Another source of failure is, that the young lec- turer is too little impressed with the wide application of the philosophy of controversy. The discipline of debate should enter into every oration. EFFECTIVENESS. 119 It is for this reason that speaking requires to be in some degree verbose. In writing we may be brief, suggestive, and epigrammatic, because each word remains to be pondered over; but that which falls on the ear not being so permanent as that which falls on paper, fullness and many-lighted treatment is indispensable. The "Encyclopedia Metropolitana" has the fol- lowing practical synopsis of the leading character- istics which conduce to Effectiveness : "As regards the style which speakers should use for the public, it is clear that a style too terse is unintelligible to the majority; while the remedy usually adopted, that of using a prolix and amplifying mode of expression, is repugnant to the public, who never fail to desert a speaker who employs it. The better plan is to use brief and terse sentences, and often repeat the same idea, not by a mere substitution of terms, but by a different arrangement of the members, reversing the premises, or conclusion, etc., never forgetting in the repetition always to use terse sentences. Burke is for this an admirable model. " While it is always preferable to use short sen- tences, it must not be supposed that long sentences are always to be avoided. Long sentences, with a proper arrangement of their members, so that the audience may know what is aimed at, and not be compelled to reread, or call back to memory a sen- tence just uttered, are by no means obnoxious. If they induce trouble, by requiring a second reference, they cause ambiguity, because readers and auditors will not willingly give themselves this trouble. It is a common fault with authors to suppose a clause in- telligible because on their reading it appears to suit ■ 120 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. but they forget that when they peruse it they know what is coming, which is more than can be expected of an audience. Hence it frequently happens that the best read and the best informed are frequently the worst expounders of their particular subjects of thought and study. " In laying before the public any exposition, it is absolutely essential to avoid all nice distinctions that please, and indeed are necessary to a discourse in the closet. The oration is similar to a large picture to be viewed at a distance, where nice lines are unseen, or perhaps annoying, while broad, nay, sometimes vulgar strokes are seen, admired, and consequently effective. " In preparing *for the press, as the style was in the former case reversed from the nicety of an essay, it must be again returned to its original propriety. " As regards delivery, it is not advisable to adopt any system of studied action, modulation of voice, or mimicry of others, but merely to thoroughly under- stand the subject; and reading or speaking, ac- cording to sense, allow nature to modulate the voice in her own way, which will inevitably be the best. "In speaking, it has often been a matter of deep and curious consideration that a person will explain his views to a single individual in such terms as to force conviction in many instances, and where he fails the exposition would be just such a one as would please an audience. It is notorious that what will not convince one or two will be most effective on many persons ; yet while he can succeed in the more difficult task with one or two, when he comes before an audience he is totally abashed, and cannot utter MASTERY. 121 two consecutive sentences with propriety, energy, or sense. An analysis proves this bashfulness to be concomitant with other phenomena : 1. The increased liveliness of sympathy with numbers ; 2. The con- stant and free operation of this sympathy thus lively throughout the entire audience. The bashfulness of a speaker may therefore be attributable to intricate action and reaction of these several sympathies. There is, 1. The sympathy of the speaker with the audi- ence ; 2. The fact that the speaker knows how each individual sympathizes with him ; and, 3. The knowl- edge of the speaker of the great sympathy existing between all the members of the audience. " It is therefore necessary that the speaker should endeavor to lose sight of himself in the audience, and be guided and inspired wholly by the subject, having full confidence in his views and in the necessary rela- tions of things, to render an exposition so attempted perfectly successful. This is the reason that vulgar speakers so frequently succeed. Their very eccen- tricities and vulgarities show the honesty and earn- estness of purpose, and it is that that never fails to prosper." CHAPTER XVIII. MASTERY. It is truly held by great teachers that the most useful lesson the young thinker has to master is to learn one thing at a time. Experience tells us that it is also the most difficult. He is initiated into 122 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. the art of thinking (power of consecutiveness is the principal sign of this art) who can think of one thing at a time ; and he is master of the art who can think of any one thing when he pleases. That which dis- tracts and discourages the young student is confound- ing the steps of progress with the results and displays of perfection. He confounds the elements of an art with the refinement of its mastery. Let him observe the gradations between incipient efforts and remote excellence, and the perplexity is cleared up, the diffi- culty surmounted, the discouragement dissipated. When Dr. Black had a class of young men at the Reform Association, he disciplined them in rhetoric by causing each to marshal his discourse on a chosen theme under certain heads. These heads once gone over, he required them to be spoken upon by inver- sion, beginning probably with the peroration, con- tinuing with the argument, taking afterward the statement or other division belonging to the theme, and ending with the exordium. Not until a member could speak equally well on any one head, and in any order, was he deemed master of his subject. Professor de Morgan, who is considered the greatest of our mathematical teachers, remarks, in a paper which he furnished to Dr. Lardner's Geometry, that to number the parts of propositions is the only way of understanding them. Indeed, all great teachers admit that to identify details and grasp the whole are the two indices of proficiency. Margaret Fuller relates how backwoodsmen of America, whom she visited, would sit by their log fire at night and tell " rough pieces out of their lives." This disintegration of events by men strong of will and full of matter, in order to set distinct parts MASTERY. 123 before auditors, is a sign of that power which we call mastery. The ability of the backwoodsman would be natural ability ; but all ability is the same in nature, though different in refinement. Ability is always power under command. A barrister will occasionally state a complex case to the jury before him, beginning with the simplest circumstance, continuing with the more difficult, arranging the facts in such order that the series throws light on the most obscure, that the whole case may be fully understood. When he feels this to be accomplished he returns, recapitulates, extracts those points that are to have most weight and puts them before the attention in the most prominent and forcible manner, and if his brief will afford it, like Fitzroy Kelly, he sheds tears to make his rhetoric pathetic. Without this power of statement, analyza- tion, and enforcement of special facts at will, a man is not master of his subject; his subject is rather master of him. In learning grammar, the parts of speech have first to be distinguished : nouns, verbs, descriptives. When these can be identified instantly, and in any order ; when their signs are evident on cursory inspection, parsing is surmounted. When the inflec- tions of these words are as readily perceived, another stage of progress is insured. When the subject, attribute, and object of a sentence are readily known, a third point is attained. There is a natural order of speech — the order of the understandings the order in which the subject is placed first, the affirmation second, the object last. When these positions can be transposed with ease, and the sense preserved, an additional portion of power is attained. When com- 124 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. pound sentences can be broken up into short ones, and distinct fragments of meaning expressed one by one, the power of perspicuity is acquired. When the different circumstances in any narrative can be taken in at a glance, and the speaker or writer can fix upon those which are most likely to arrest atten- tion and arrange them so as to produce this effect without losing the thread or coherence of truth, the power of impressiveness is reached. After this comes the ability to put short clauses first, longer ones- next, and the lengthiest last, so as to fill the ear without marring the meaning or weakening the force. When this can be done the power of elegance is pos- sessed. When propositions can be stated with per- spicuity, supported by cogent facts, and arranged with transparent method; when the enunciation is distinct, manly, and sonorous, when similitude or imagery can be introduced, illuminating the subject by the light of wit, sinking it by ridicule or elevating it by symbol, thrilling by pathos, or irresistibly im- pressing by rapid condensation ; when a speaker can employ these weapons at pleasure, holding them at command with the grasp of a lion, and disposing them with the absolute will of a king, he has reached the summit of the rhetorical art; and if animated with a sublime purpose may influence, like Demos- thenes or Mirabeau, the destinies of men. Besides these there are other signs of mastery. Whewell thinks that we are never master of anything till we do it both well and unconsciously. But there is no test of proficiency so instructive as that put by George Sand into the mouth of Porpora, in her novel of Consuelo. When Consuelo, on the occasion of a trial performance, manifests some apprehension as to MASTERY. 125 the result, Porpora sternly reminds her, that if there is room in her mind for misgiving as to the judgment of others, it is proof that she is not filled with the true love of art, which would so absorb her whole thoughts as to leave her insensible to the opinions of others ; and that if she distrusted her own powers it was plain they were not yet her powers, else they could not play her false. Porpora suggested the most instructive sign of mastery. The true love of art, like the perfect sense of duty, casteth out fear. And when study and discipline have done their proper work, failure is impossible ; we do not tremble at the result of the trial of our powers ; we are rather anxious for the opportunity and quite confident as to the result. PAET III. APPLIED POWERS CHAPTER XIX. CEITICISM. Assuming that the various principles discussed in this treatise are practical and relevant, the applica- tion of them to the judgment, to literary and oratori- cal efforts, will be jCriticism. For instance, after what has been said under the head of Effectiveness, the assenting reader will be prepared to pronounce that no work, consisting of many pages, should have detached and distinguishable beauties in every one of them. ISTo great work indeed should have many beauties ; if it were perfect, it would have but one, and that but faintly perceptible, except on a view of the whole. After what has been said in reference to the individuality resulting from Method, the reader of the works of the facetious American satirist, Pauld- ing, will be able to decide to what extent he has the fault, in common with some others, of labeling his characters, gay, sedate, or cynical, as the case may be, with descriptive names, as if doubtful of their possessing sufficient individuality to be otherwise dis- tinguished. If a hero cannot make himself known in his action and conversation, he is not worth bringing 128 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. upon the boards. The student who coincides with what has been explained relative to Brevity, will, on reading such a passage as this, " Nicias asked merely for quarter for the miserable remains of his troops who had not perished in the Asinarius, or upon its banks,"* be at no loss in discovering the superfluous information given, that Mcias asked for quarter for those who " had not perished." • ISTo general asks for quarter for those who have. The same writer tells us that " discipline yielded to the pressure of neces- sity. They hurried down the steep in confusion and without order, and trod one another to death in the stream." Necessity is all " pressure," and it is not necessary to specify the essence of a thing as opera- tive. It is needless to tell us that men all " in confu- sion " " were without order." When we discover a number of emphatic words employed, we know the writer or speaker has no consciousness of measure. He either has no strength or he does not know where it lies. " When Kigby," says D'Israeli, " was of opinion he had made a point, you may be sure the hit was in italics, that last re- source of the forcible feebles." To tell your feelings on reading a book is one way of criticising its beauties. This rule was suggested to Gibbon on reading Longinus. The appeal to nature is here, as elsewhere, the purest guide. One can only conceive of Hamlet by tracing out men. Brutus has first to be found in society. He who has never seen the majesty of a noble nature will hardly conceive it well. How can we test the ora- tor's skill, or player's art, but by rules founded by ourselves on observation ? * Mayor's History of Greece, chap. xi. CEITICISM. 129 " It belongs," says Schlegel, " to the general phil- osophical theory of poetry and the other fine arts, to establish the fundamental laws of the beautiful. Ordinarily, men entertain a very erroneous notion of Criticism, and understand by it nothing more than a certain shrewdness in detecting and exposing the faults of a work of art." In the search for the beauti- ful, he continues, " everything must be traced up to the root of human nature. Art cannot exist without nature, and man can give nothing to his fellow men but himself. The groundwork of human nature is everywhere the same ; but in our investigations we may observe, that throughout the whole range of nature there is no elementary power so simple, but that it is capable of dividing and diverging into op- posite directions. The whole play of vital motion hinges on harmony and contrast."'"* It would be treason to truth, an affectation of phi- lanthropy, systematically to conceal primary errors, or gloss over influential faults. It will ever be the province of Criticism to notice such in the spirit of improvement. But at length the principle has been established in literature, that perfection is better ad- vanced by the applause of excellence than by the eternal descantation on defects. Human nature has been analyzed, and it is found that more is to be gained by appealing to the sentiment of the beautiful than by exciting the horror of deformity. This is now Criticism's admitted canon ; demonstrated be- yond the power of prejudice to distort, or of willful- ness to neglect. This principle is not, or should not be, understood as warranting the reviewer in conniv- ing at error, but only as making his chief province * Dramatic Art and Literature, chap. i. 9 130 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. to be the genial recognition of artistic truth. Criti- cism still keeps watch and ward in the towers of Truth, that no enemy from the camps of Error shall steal into its dominions ; but it is ever anxious to welcome and to admit all followers of Progression, even though they may not exactly possess society's ac- credited passport. CHAPTEK XX. DEBATE. Debate is a great advantage, and when you win a sincere and able man to discuss with you, enter upon the exercise with gratitude. Your opponent may be the enemy of your opinions, but he is the friend of your improvement. The more ably he confronts yon, the more he serves you, if you have but the wisdom to profit by it. The gods, it is said, have not given to mortals the privilege of seeing themselves as others see them, but by a happy compensation in human af- fairs it is given to candid friends to supply what fate denies: and though candor does not imply infallibil- ity, it always includes instruction ; it affords that in- dispensable light of contrast which enables you to discover the truth if hidden from you, or to display the truth if you possess it. A good writer, says Godwin, must have that ductil- ity of thought that shall enable him to put himself in the place of his reader, and not suffer him to take it for granted, because he understands himself, that every one who comes to him for information will un- DEBATE. 131 derstand him. He must view his phrases on all sides, and be aware of all the senses of which they are sus- ceptible. But this facility can nowhere be so certainly acquired as in debate, which is evidently a discipline as serviceable to the writer as to the speaker. All investigation should commence without prepos- session and end without dogmatism. Each disputant should be more anxious to explain than to defend his opinion. As an established truth is that which is generally received after it has been generally examined in a fair field of inquiry, it is evident that though truth may be discovered by research, it can only be established by debate. It is a mistake to suppose that it can be taught absolutely by itself. We learn truth by con- trast. It is only when opposed to error that we wit- ness truth's capabilities, and feel its full power. Oral investigation claims especial attention, because to a great extent it insures that its results shall be carried into practice. The pen develops principles, but it is the Jongue that chiefly stimulates to action. Discussion after public addresses would be of great public value. The discipline, to both speaker and hearers, would be greatly salutary. The argument against it, that it would lead to strife and discord, is the very reason why it should be practiced. Men are very childish intellectually while in that state in which debate must be prohibited. If they be chil- dren, train them in the art of debate until they are translated into men. To admit debate after an address, it is said, enables factious individuals to destroy the effect of what has been said. When unanimity of opinion comes, dis- cussion will* fall into disuse ; but till it does come, 132 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. (and debate alone can bring it) discussion must be borne. It is the fault of the lecturer if any one is able to destroy the effect of his lecture. As a general rule, discussions, set and accidental, are good. A twofold reality by their means is brought to bear on the public understanding, more exciting than that of any other intellectual agency. An opinion that is worth holding is worth diffusing, and to be diffused it must be thought about; and when men think on true principles they become adherents ; but only those adherents are worth having who have thought on both sides, and discussion alone makes them do that well. True, men may read on both sides, but it seldom happens that men who are im- pressed by one side care to read the other. In dis- cussions they are obliged to hear both sides. If men do read both sides, unless they read a " Discussion," they do not find all the facts on one side specially considered on the other. In a discussion read, unless read at one sitting, the strength of an impression and the clearness of the argument on one side is partly lost before the opponent's side is perused. But in an oral debate, the adaptation of fact to fact is complete as far as it perhaps can be; the pro and con are heard successively, the light of contrast is full and clear, and both sides are weighed at the same time when the eye is sharply fixed on the balance. It matters not whether the disputants argue for victory or truth. If they are intellectual gladiators so much the better. The stronger they are the mightier the battle and the more instructive the conflict. It is said that people come out of such discussions as they go into them; that the same partisans shout or hiss on the same side all through. This is not always true, DEBATE. 13S and no matter if it is. The work of conviction is often done, though the audience may not show it. They may break ye ur head, and afterward own you were right. Human pride forbids the confession, but change is effected in spite of pride. But if an audience remain the same at night, they will not be the same the next morning. I rather like to contemplate that conviction which is legun in discussion, not ended there. He who hastily changes is to be suspected of weakness or carelessness. Tie steady and deliberate thinker who takes time to consider is the safest convert. If you invite oppvjsition do it with circumspection. Never debate for the sake of debating. It lowers the character of debate. The value of free speech is too great to be trifled with. Seek conflict only with sincere men. Concede to your opponent the first word and the last. Let him appoint the chair- man. Let him speak double time if he desires it. Debate is objected to as an exhibition in which disputants try to surprise, outwit, take advant- age of, and discomfit each other. To obviate this objection explain to your opponent the outline of the course you intend to pursue, acquaint him with the books you shall quote, the authorities you shall cite, the propositions you shall endeavor to prove, and the concessions you shall demand. And do this without expecting the same 1 1 his hands. He will not now be taken by surprise. He will be prewarned and pre- armed. He will huve time to prepare, and if the truth is in him it ought to come out. If you feel that you cannot give all these advant- ages to your opponent, suspect yourself and suspect your side of the question. Every conscientious and decided man believes his views to he true, and if con : 134 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. sistent, lie believes them to be impregnable. Neither in minutes, months, or years are they to be refuted. Then a man so persuaded may despise petty advant- ages, and enable his opponent to arm himself before- hand. In another particular discussions were esteemed unsatisfactory. When statement and reply have been made, then came the reply to the reply, and then the reply to that, till the cavil seemed endless, perplex- ing, and tiresome. Now the object of discussion is not the vexatious chase of an opponent, but the contrastive and current statement of opinion. Therefore endeavor to select leading opinions, to state them strongly and clearly ; and when your opponent replies, be content to leave his arguments side by side with your own for the judgment of the auditors. In no case disparage an opponent, misstate his views, or torture his words, and thus, for the sake of a verbal triumph, produce lasting ill-feelings. Your sole business is with what he says, not how he says it, nor why he says it. Your aim should be that the audience should lose sight of the speakers and be possessed with the subject, and that those who come the partisans of persons shall depart the partisans of principles. The victory in a debate lies not in lowering an opponent, but in rais- ing the subject in public estimation. Controversial wisdom lies not in destroying an opponent, but in destroying his error; not in making him ridiculous so much as in making the audience wise. Debate requires self-possession, a power to think on your legs. But even in debate, the victory is oftener with the foregone than with the impromptu thinker. A man who knows his subject well will be forearmed. DEBATE. 135 He alone can distinctly see the points in dispute, and the nature of the proof or disproof necessary to set- tle the question. At the threshold of controversy it is well to define all leading terms, which should never be used in any other than the settled sense. A common standard of appeal should be agreed upon. The question at issue should be stated so .clearly that it cannot possibly be misunderstood. RTo opponent should be accepted whose sincerity you cannot assume, as it must never be questioned in debate. Find no fault with his grammar, manner, intentions, tone, whatever may be the provocation. Attend only to the matter. Hear all things without impatience and without emotion. Let your opponent fully exhaust his matter. En- courage him to say whatever he thinks relevant. Many persons believe in the magnitude of their posi- tions because they have never been permitted to state them to others : and when they have once delivered themselves of their opinions, they often find for the first time how insignificant they are. There are some persons whom nobody can confute but themselves. When you distinguish such your proper business is to let them do it. Learn to satisfy yourself and to pre- sent a conclusive statement of your opinions, and when you have done so, have the courage to abide by it. If you cannot trust your statement to be canvassed by others ; if you feel anxious to add some additional remark at every step ; if reply from your opponent begets reply from you, suspect your knowledge of your own case and withdraw it for further reflection. Master as completely as you can your opponent's the- ories, and state his case with the greatest fairness, and if possible state it with more force against yourself 136 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. than your opponent can. The observance of this rule will teach you two frhings, your opponent's strength or weakness, and your own also. If you cannot state your opponent's case you do not know it, and if you do not know it you are not in a lit state to argue against it. If you dare not state your opponent's case in its greatest force you feel it to be stronger than your own, and in that case you ought not to argue against it. The course here suggested will be as useful to truth as to the disputant. Great prejudice may often be disarmed by thus daring it. In this manner Gibbon delivered his argument in favor of an hereditary mon- archy. " Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule. Is it possible to relate, without an indignant smile, that on the father's decease, the property of a nation, like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as yet unknown to mankind and to himself, and that the bravest warriors and the wisest statesmen, relinquish- ing their natural right to empire, approach the royal cradle with bended knees and protestations of invio- lable fidelity! Satire and declamation may paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colors, but our serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice that establishes a rule of succession inde- pendent of the passions of mankind '; and we shall cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which deprives the multitude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal power of giving themselves a master." We often hold an opinion from the belief that those who dis- sent from it do not know its full bearings as we do or they would be of our opinion too ; but when, as DEBATE. 137 in the case of Gibbon, we are instructed that our op- ponent perfectly understands our case, and states its strongest points, we feel that justice has been done to us, and we are the more disposed to acquiesce in an adverse judgment come to after we have been fully heard. What Dr. Paley has delineated with respect to a written controversy, is not inapplicable to an. oral de- bate. The fair way of conducting a dispute is to ex- hibit one by one the arguments of your opponent, and with each argument the precise and specific an- swer you are able to give it. If this method be not so common, nor found so convenient as might be expected, the reason is because it suits not always with the designs of a writer, which are no more per- haps than to make a hook y to confound some argu- ments, and to keep others out of sight ; to leave what is called an impression upon the reader, without any care to inform him of the proofs or principles by which his opinion should be governed. With such views it may be consistent to dispatch objections, by observing of some " that they are old," and, there- fore, like certain drugs, have lost, we may suppose, their strength ; of others, that u they have long since received an answer;" which implies, to be sure, a confutation ; to attack straggling remarks, and de- cline the main reasoning as " mere declamation ;" to pass by one passage because it is " long-winded," another because the answerer " has neither leisure nor inclination to enter into the discussion of it;" to pro- duce extracts and quotations which, taken alone, im- perfectly, if at all, express their author's meaning ; to dismiss a stubborn difficulty with a " reference," which, ten to one, the reader never looks at ; and, 138 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. lastly, in order to give the whole a certain fashionable air of candor and moderation, to make a concession or two which nobody thanks him for, or yield up a few points which it is no longer any credit to maintain. It will be evident that this minuteness of reply could not be undertaken without reference to the im- portance of the question at issue and the abilities of the opponent. Such elaborate pains belong only to great occasions. It is not necessary always to demonstrate the validity of a given position. To show the impotence of the opposite is often quite sufficient. It is recorded in the historical memoirs of Curran, that his general practice as a lawyer, when engaged for the defense, was rather to rely on the weakness to which he could reduce the case of his opponents than on the strength of his own, except on very pe- cular occasions. Be very careful of generalization ; utter no whole- sale censure. It will nearly always be wrong. Class- ify the partisans of opinions. which you confute. You will reduce your opponents, and gain in justice and force ; for when you confound objectors together, you outrage all and convince few. If you can dis- tinguish classes, address but one class at a time. Upon the general rules proper for conducting a debate it is hardly possible to enter. Even public meetings in this country are conducted on the crudest principles. If men were commonly intelligent, and many were disposed to take part in public meetings, it would be impossible that any business could be transacted under several days. The assumption that every man has a right to be heard, could not be acted LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 139 upon if half who usually attend public meetings were to enforce that " right." When a speech or lecture is debated, each dispu- tant expects to occupy the same time as the speaker, which often prevents more than one being heard in reply. But a short time for several might be fixed, and thus combine discipline with disputation. Brev- ity of time would induce directness and brevity of speech; it is not the work of any one speaker, but the work of many to attack the whole lecture, and each should select a leading point, and ten minutes would afford time for a very effective objection if one could be raised. At public meetings, where many opposing parties often struggle to be heard, confusion, delay, and ill- feeling might be obviated by each party preappoint- ing a representative of ability, in whom confidence could be reposed, to speak on their behalf, and by those calling the meeting being made acquainted with, and consenting to the arrangement, the views of half a dozen parties could be advocated, where the views of one are heard but inadequately and im- patiently now. CHAPTER XXL LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. The first problem that has to be solved by the people is one of fraternization. If we wait till unity of opinion on all points is created before we co- operate together, reforms will be delayed for ages. 140 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. The only mode whereby public success can be achieved in our day is by the union on general points of men differing on infinite particulars. But person- alities constitute a serious danger. The only way to disarm them is to brave them. To court personali- ties is fatal to union ; to shun them, fatal to reputa- tion. The friends of a cause ought to be able to dare all opinions, and all opinions might be dared by those in the right. There can be no quarrel unless two parties engage in it, and it is always in the power of one party to prevent it by refusing to be a party to it. ISTo man can quarrel with another with- out that other's consent. Hence the veto of peace and amity is always in the hands of one of the dispu- tants. It is often a duty to notice individual error. It is often indispensable. But the execution of such a duty would not be so distasteful to the public as it now is, were it not for the unskillful manner in which it is generally done. If, when objections to a public man must be made, they were well selected and singly urged, without ill-will, and when once pre- sented left as a public warning, the practice would be felt to be useful and tolerable. Instead of this course a miscellaneous fire is extended to every im- aginable peccadillo, and conjectures called in when facts are exhausted, until what was, or should be, intended as a public lesson becomes a gratification of private resentment. When retaliation usurps tho desire to improve another the contest sinks into per- sonalities. I have often sent pupils out together in pairs to talk with all deliberation and caution, and to note how many expletives they employ, how many errors they commit, how insequential are their thoughts, LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 141 and how inexact their language. Indeed, how few men have disciplined themselves in these respects ! How few read j, florid writers or speakers are pre- cise! How few men have the power of being coher- ent ! How much is said which is never meant, even "by those who are most careful ! How few ever acquire the habit of thinking before they speak ! Passing from common life, let the experience of the bar and the closet be heard. Does not the shrewd lawyer, whose whole life is one long, laborious study of accuracy, perpetually find the Act of Parliament upon which many have labored open to three or four interpretations? And does not the philosopher daily regret the vagueness of human language? Then on what principle of good sense can we, without most patient deliberation, hurl at each other obnoxious epithets? What eloquence is more touching than that of a simple tale of actual wrong! The very absence of passion gives it force. The dispassionateness of its relation infuses the air of truth. The presence of passion leads us to suspect the partisan, and invec- tive is felt to be the twin brother of exaggeration. Strength is always calm in battle. Truth imparts repose ; the suffrage of mankind is always on the side of dignity. Disputants instinctively bear out the truth of all this. When a man feels that he has a strong case, we have therefore no excitement, no self-returned verdict. A man who thinks he has a clear case always feels he may safely leave it to the judgment of others. No barrister makes a long speech to the jury when the evidence is all on his side. Pitzroy Kelly never sheds tears except when he has a Tawell to defend. 142 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. All which should be done for the adjustment of a difference is, that a man should quietly understate his case, that he should make no material assertion unaccompanied by the proof, that he should make the fairest allowance for his rival's excitement, put the best possible construction on his words and acts, and leave the matter there. All whose suffrages are worth having will make the proper award on his side without further trouble on his part. The reason of so many departures from this rule is the want of courage or the want of sense. It is a common opin- ion, that if a man does not bluster and retort, he is deficient in spirit. It is this apprehension which betrays weak men into violence, and to prove them- selves independent they become rude and insolent, and mistake the part of the bravo for that of the hero. But a man of disciplined intelligence knows that courage always pursues its own resolute way without noise or ostentation, firmly preserves its independ- ence, stands immovable in frankness and kindness corrects misrepresentation, repairs any injury it may have done, silences slander with the truth, and goes on its way. No wise man answers a fool according to his folly. He shows that it is folly, and abandons it to die by its own hands. A few years ago a couple of Dutchmen, Yon Yampt and Yan Bones, lived on friendly terms on the high hills of Limestone. At last they fell out over a dog. Yon Yampt killed Yan Bones's canine companion. Bones, choosing to assume the killing to have been intentional, sued Yampt for damages. They were called in due time into court, when the defendant in the case was asked by the judge whether lie killed the dog. " Pe sure I kilt him," said Yampt, LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 143 "but let Bones prove it." This being quite satisfac- tory, the plaintiff in the action was called on to answer a few questions, and among others he was asked by the judge at what amount he estimated the damages. He did not well understand the question, and so, to be a little plainer, the judge inquired what he thought the <3og to be worth-? " Pe sure," replied Bones, "the dog was worth nothing; but since he was so mean as to kill him, he shall pay de full value of him." How many suits have occupied the attention of courts, how " many contests have engaged the time of the public, and have been waged with virulence and invective, having no more worthy difference than that of Yon Vampt and Yan Bones !" At every step, however, we are admonished how conscientiously a man can be in the wrong. Many enter the quagmire of recrimination as a matter of duty rather than taste. The question is commonly put, " Ought we not to state all we know to be true?" I answer, no ; unless it can be shown to be useful. Every man knows a thousand things which are true, but which it would profit nobody to hear. When we essay to speak the rule is imperative that we speak the truth, absolutely and truly the truth, if one may write so paradoxically; but of what truth we will communicate, good sense must be the judge, utility the measure. If all truth must be published without regard to propriety, William Eufus, who drew a tooth per day from a rich Jew's head to induce him to tell where his treasures were con- cealed, was a great moral philosopher. " Well, but what a man believes to be true and useful may he not state?" will be inquired of me. I answer, no; 144 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. unless he can prove it. If every man stated his sus- picions, no character would be safe from aspersion ; society would be a universal school for scandal. Suspicion is the food of slander. What public man is at this hour safe from it? There is already more actual evil in existence than the virtuous are likely soon to correct ; and little necessity exists for suspi- cion to supply hypothetical cases. "But to bring the question to the point," observes the reader, " if two disputants have respectively l proved' the fitness of the epithets they have mutually applied, are they not justified in having used them?" I answer, avoid it as often as possible. It is the complainant usurp- ing the province of the jury and the judge. It is the vice of controversy that each disputant will unite the offices of witness, jury, and judge, give his own evidence, return, his own verdict, and pronounce the sentence in his own favor. A function which no man would tolerate in a court of justice every con- troversialist exercises with an inflexible will. It is this which has been the real " disgrace" of religious, political, and literary discussions. That precaution which the wisdom of the lawyer has taken against human frailty is not lightly to be set aside. Law- yers are the philosophers of disputes, and have wisely taken out of the hands of interest, petulance, and passion the power of deciding upon their own case. Yet disputants will do that unhesitatingly, with re- gard to each other, which in a court of justice would long engage the anxious and earnest attention of twelve disinterested, dispassionate, and patient men. The first principle which should actuate all human intercourse, public or private, is that of aiming at the improvement of each other. This neither passion LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 145 nor interest should obscure. Yet how often do men come into the field, not as true friends who have differences to adjust, but as adversaries bent on each other's destruction ? Those who would decry a duel in the usual way, will yet fight a duel on paper. We have nothing to do with our neighbor as his evil genius ; we ought, like Kudolph, to be the providence of our friends. ' The people boast how far they are in advance of the government, but in respect of etiquette they are far behind. Even despotic states admit, in theory, that the punishment of criminals is in itself indefensible malignity; that only so far as the brute ignorance of others renders it necessary as an exam- ple, ought it ever to be attempted. The improve- ment and not the mortification in person or character is that at which jurisprudence and well understood justice now aim. Disagreement is a contingency of human nature, from which it will never be freed until men are cast in one monotonous mould. Differences are in themselves as natural and as innocent as varia- tion in form, color, or strength. It is the manner in which those who differ seek to adjust their differences that constitutes any disgrace there may be in any case. Unless we have boasted of philosophy in vain, we ought never to take up arms against an enemy without at the same time keeping his welfare in View, as well as our own defense. Before the genius of this aphorism the prosaic commonplaces of life dis- solve ; man rises to nobility. To consult the welfare of friends is kind, obliging, amiable ; but the publi- cans do even the same. To promote the welfare of enemies, to do good to those who hate us, is generous. Higher than Brutus, we walk the platform with Coriolanus. Our true business is not with good and 10 146 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. bad men, but with fair or unfair, right or wrong conduct. We ought never to disparage, never to impute evil intentions, and in the strongest cases leave the way open for explanation and reconcilia- tion. We may be firm, and yet fraternal ; manly, and yet kind ! Locke called his opponents "irrational," Addison "miscreants," Dr. Clarke "crazy," Paley "insane," and Sir Walter Scott makes Sir Everard Waverly class " rakes, gamblers, and whigs " together. These are the mere expletives of polemical and political partisanship, the commonplace effervescences of pas- sion, old as ignorance, universal as vulgarity. They have no novelty, no originality. The elegant con- trast of controversy lies in contrast of argument ; this is ever fresh and instructive. All recrimination being common to both disputants will in time, like the common quantities in an algebraic equation, be- struck out of disputes as only making more difficult the finding of the true result. If any epithets are retained in use they will be confined to error rather than showered on the erring, and the limit of their application will exclude personal disparagement. Our reformers disagree not about reforms, but modes of advocacy. I tnink it can be shown that our government seldom if ever pass laws against purpose, but against extravagance of language, in which passion, or hate, or unskillfulness express that purpose. Passion and hate may be founded in sin- cerity, but not in wisdom ; and were men rhetorically wiser they might aim at more and accomplish more than they now can. It admits of demonstration that the progress of reform is mainly hindered among us by a few meta- LAWS OF PEKSONALITIES. 147 physical mistakes. The diatribes respectively hurled by rich and poor against each other arise in an error of generalization. Both mean the truth, but they express more than the truth, and out of this error come division and ill-will. Generalizations in science have to be stated cir- cumspectly and with qualification. A generalization finds a resemblance in perhaps one point only, and that resemblance probably in only the majority of a class. If you accuse in exact language a class of stones possessing a certain property which is not pos- sessed by all, the exceptional stones will not be scan- dalized as the same number of men would whom you happened to include in a carelessly-worded, disparag- ing general assertion. It is of no use that you say to the person whom you have wrongly accused : "0 1 did not mean you ; I meant to allow that there were exceptions." Men naturally suspect that he who is incapable of speaking with accuracy is incapable of thinking with accuracy, and if they acquit you of incapacity they convict you of carelessness. Facts make up accusative propriety ; and if the facts are not absolutely universal — and with grades of human character they never are — the application of accusation must always be special. It is a wise maxim in jurisprudence, that ten guilty men had better escape than that one innocent man should suffer. So with rhetorical and public judg- ments. The one innocent man condemned will do both judge and justice more harm than the ten guilty who escape. Men live on good opinion to a great extent. "When therefore you take away a man's good name you take away that which is in many cases the basis 148 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. of self-respect. In the advocacy of a good cause, then, let us beware how we proceed with personali- ties, lest we undo in one direction what we seek to do in another. A. de Morgan, in his reply to Sir W. Hamilton, in their recent discussion on the origination of Formal Logic, makes these useful remarks: "In the day of swords it was one of the objects of public policy to prevent people from sticking them into each other's bodies on trivial grounds. We now wear pens ; and it is as great a point to hinder ourselves from sticking them into each other's characters without serious and well-considered reasons. To this end I have always considered it as one of the first and most special rules that conviction of the truth of a charge is no sufficient' reason for its promulgation. I assert that no one is justified in accusing another until he has his proof ready ; and that in the interval, if indeed it be right that there should be any interval between the charge and the attempt at substantiation, all the leisure and energies of the accuser are the property of the accused." Thomas Cooper, D.D., Bishop of Winchester, in 1589 issued a pamphlet with this title: "An Admo- nition to the People of England : wherein are answer- ed not onely the slaunderous vntruethes, reproachfully vttered by Martin the Libeller, but also many other Crimes by some of his broode, objected generally against all Bishops, and the chiefe of the Cleargie, purposely to deface and discredite the present state of the Church." Even the Bishop of Exeter would not now, in 1849, think of inditing such a title-page against his most decided opponents. It is not that truth and false- LAWS OF PERSONALITIES. 149 hood or right and wrong have changed, but that good taste and private justice are in the ascendant. "We no longer (in good society) attack the motives, > but the principles of men. Let us apply the rule we have been illustrating to Parliamentary controversies. If every member were to say what is true or what he believes to be true of another, our legislative assemblies would soon come to resemble those of the United States, in one of which, not long ago, a member in audience being tired in listening to the member in possession of the house, got up and said : " Mr. Speaker, I should like to know how long that 'ar blackguard is to go on tir- ing me to death in this manner?'' The Irish House of Commons, before the Union, furnishes a specimen of what must happen if sentiments are to be expressed without rule : " I will not call him villain, because he is chancelor of the exchequer ; I will not call him liar, because he is a privy counselor ; but I will say of him that he is one who has taken advantage of the privilege of this house to utter language to which, in any other place, my answer would have been a blow." Such were the expressions used by Mr. Grattan toward Air. Corrie, and a duel was the imme- diate result. We endeavor to keep clear of this blackguardism ; not because it is unimportant whether a man lies or not, but because we have learned the good sense of not impugning integrity upon suspi- cion ; and when we can impugn it on fact we need no harsh words ; the fact is the severest judgment. De Morgan, whom I have just quoted, relates that the late Professor Yince was once arguing at Cam- bridge against dueling, and some one said, " Well, but professor, what could you do if any one called 150 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. you a liar ?" " Sir," said the fine old fellow in his peculiar brogue, " I should tell him to pruv it ; and if he did pruv it, I should be ashamed of myself ; and if he didn't, he ought to be ashamed of himself." The obvious laws we should impress on all who controvert, seem to be these : 1. To consult in all cases the improvement of those whom we oppose, and to this end argue not for our gratification, or pride, or vanity, but for their en- lightenment. 2. To invert the vulgar mode of judgment, and not, when we guess at motives, guess the worst, but adopt the best construction the case admits. 3. To distinguish between the personalities which impugn the j udgment, and those that criminate char- acter, and never to advance accusations of either kind without distinct and indisputable proof; never to assail character on suspicion, probability, belief, or likelihood. 4. To keep distinct the two kinds of personalities, never mixing up those which pertain to character with those which pertain to judgment. 5. To never meddle with either, unless some public good is to come out of it. It is not enough that a charge is true ; it must be useful to prefer it, before a wise publicist will meddle with it. 6. To dare all personalities ourselves ; to brave all attacks ; to defy the judgment of mankind, and when we are assailed, unfailingly to respect ourselves, and keep in view the betterance of him whom we oppose, rather than our own personal gratification.* * For an enlarged consideration of this question see articles (Nos.. 20 and 24 of the "People's Press") entitled the "Philosophy of Personalities," where I have treated of their introduction into public parties. LAWS OF PEESONALITIES. 151 "Were the errors discussed in this chapter confined to the vulgar, we might confide in the spread of ordi- nary intelligence to dissipate them. But it is other- wise. Who would have expected to have found the " sweetest and most genuine poetess of the age," C. B., writing in the AthecBnum a letter of anger, re- proach, and condemnation of Mr. Howitt, for having written something which she confesses she had "never read." Literary etiquette seems to have received no improvement with time. Hazlitt, Byron, Southey, and other luminaries of literature, sink to the level of the meanest of mankind when they are found engaged in the adjustment of their differences. When turning over the periodicals of their times, one is amazed at the flood of vituperation, the envy, jealousy, and miser- able disparagement of each other. Yet if all this littleness exists, better that it be expressed, that one may see what our gods are made of. Rudeness is healthier than hypocrisy, and therefore the policy which conceals rankling malignity is more pernicious than the display of it. Let it be avowed until men are convinced that it is unreasonable. Leigh Hunt has the credit of having prophesied long ago that the old philosophic conviction would revive among us as a popular one, that recrimination, denouncements, and threats should be put an end to, and the percep- tion prevail that the errors of mankind arise rather from the want of knowledge than the defect of good- ness. But what is the history of modern parties ? Has not recriminative error broken up the best of them into miserable sections? "Stupidity" can be informed, " ignorance " can be enlightened ; but the " collision of interest and passion, and the perversities of self-will and self-opinion " destroy all before them. 152 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. What hope is there of the improvement of the unedu- cated, while those who should know better perpetuate the infectious example ? Men whose names it is need- less to cite, and whom, prior to experience, I could not have believed to be unconscious of the fact, I have found unaware that simplicity in the expression of passion is the lesson of nature and of genius, and the greatest discovery of rhetorical experience. It is, however, clear that there is no hope for the efficient progress of the order of industry while their natural leaders and exemplars depart from that propriety which alone is strength. The necessity of enforcing this most practical part of rhetoric, (the rhetoric of dispute,) which is taught in no Mechanics' or Literary Institution, is evidenced in the discouraging fact that an impartial, impersonal, and dispassionate tone is almost fatal in newspaper and periodical literature. We address a populace to whom nothing that is just seems spirited. We must be offensively personal or we are pronounced tame. Unless we are rancorous we are not relished. The reason is that most men, when stung by a sense of injury, are naturally precipitated from extreme to extreme. Their opinions, when sincere, " are not produced by the ordinary law of intellectual births, by induction or inference, but are equivocally gen- erated" by the heat of fervid emotion, wrought upon by some sense of unbearable oppression. So it ever is with the intellectually undisciplined, of whatever class ; they believe all strength manifests itself in spasms, that truth is a descendant from the furies, that no man can be brave who does not bluster, nor have enthusiasm if he do not write in hysterics. But I quit this subject, repeating the fine language QUESTIONING. 153 of one whom I have several times quoted : " Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. ... A beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form : it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pic- tures. It is the finest of the fine arts. . . . The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved, love measure. . . . Coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate fine qualities. A gentleman makes no noise : a lady is serene. . . . Let us leave hurry to slaves. The com- 'pliments and ceremonies of our breeding should sig- nify, however remotely, the grandeur of our destiny." CHAPTER XXII. QUESTIONING. The Socratic method of disputation or artful question- ing, (of which Zeno, the Eleatic, was the author,) by which an opponent is entrapped into concessions, and thus confuted, is rather fit for wranglers and sophists than reasoners. There is too much reason to believed that Socrates condescended to this course often at the expense of ingenuousness. It is said in his defense that he did it not as the sophists, for the sake of confounding virtue, but for the purer purpose of confounding dexterous vice. It is, however, be- neath the dignity of a reasoner to betray his opponent into the truth. Questioning, however, is an essential instrument. A high authority, Dr. Arnold, has put this in a useful 154 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. light : " An inquiring spirit is not a presumptuous one, but the very contrary. He whose whole re- corded life was intended to be our perfect example, is described as gaining instruction in the temple by hearing and asking questions ; the one is almost use- less without the other. We should ask questions of our books and of ourselves, what is its purpose, by what means it proceeds to effect that purpose, whether we fully understand the one, whether we go along with the other. Do .the arguments satisfy us ? do the descriptions convey lively and distinct images to us ? do we understand all the allusions to persons or* things ? In short, does our mind act over again from the writer's guidance what his acted before ? do We reason as he reasoned, conceive as he conceived, think and feel as he thought and felt % or if not, can we discern where and how far we do not, and can we tell why we do not ? Questioning has also a place in rhetoric as well as in research. Frankly conducted, it is a mode of conviction without offense. To whatever an oppo- nent urges, with which we do not agree, of course we have some objection. Put this objection incidentally, and ask it as a question, what answer can be given to it? This is a good conversational mode of debate, where the improvement of an opponent, rather than a triumph over him, is the object. It is not showy, but it is searching. In a similar way confidence may be acquired by diffident speakers. A novitiate conversationalist is shy of taking part in debating a topic lest he should not be able to sustain himself. To such I have said : Put your argument in the form of an objection which some would urge, and beg some one of the company EEPETITION. 155 to tell you what he would say in reply. If to this answer you have an objection further, put that also in the querist form ; for a- man will be able to ask a question who would never be able to make a speech. By this easy means the most diffident may get into conversation; and when once excited will speak freely enough, perhaps too freely. A coward will fight when he grows warm in strife. This method has another advantage : by this means a novice learns the best answers which the company can give to his own argument, and thus, without risk of exposure, he learns their weakness or finds out their strength. He has also taken the guage of his opponents' powers, and can, if he sees, well, match himself against them. CHAPTEE XXIII. KEPETITIOJ5T. The reformer who comprehends his mission attempts the discipline of the people in nobler views. Only great natures are heroic by instinct. But it is not more true that all men are eloquent sometimes than that all men are noble sometimes ; but few continue so, for want of the influence of suitable circumstances to nourish and sustain the feeling. Every man is great when he lays down Pluturch, but the feeling dies away in the contact with the lower life of cities, To remedy this the reformer has recourse to reiter- ation. 156 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. In introducing a new topic to an auditory a wise speaker repeats the same sentiment and argument in many different forms of expression, each in itself brief, but all together affording such an expansion of the sense to be conveyed, and detaining the mind upon it, as the case may require. Care must be taken that the repetition may not be too glaringly apparent ; the variations must not consist in the mere use of other synonymous words, but what has been expressed in appropriate terms may be repeated in metaphorical; the antecedent or consequent of any argument or the parts of an antithesis may be trans- posed, or several different points that have been enumerated presented in a varied order. It is given to reiteration to accomplish that which is denied to power. The reputation of Robespierre, now breaking a little through clouds of calumny denser and darker than ever before obscured human name, is a striking illustration of the omnipotence of repetition. The most eloquent of its vindicators has thus sketched his triumph : " Still deeper in the shade, and behind the chief of the National Assembly, a man almost unknown be- gan to move, agitated by uneasy thoughts, which seemed to forbid him to be silent and unmoved ; he spoke on all occasions, and attacked all speakers indif- ferently, including Mirabeau himself. Driven from the tribune, he ascended it next day ; overwhelmed with sarcasm, coughed down, disowned by all parties, lost among the eminent champions who fixed public attention, he was incessantly beaten, but never dispir- ited. It might have been said that an inward and prophetic genius revealed to him the vanity of all talent and the omnipotence of a firm will and un- POETRY. 157 wearied patience, and that an inward voice said to him : ' These men who despise thee are thine ; all the changes of this revolution, which now will not deign to look upon thee, will eventually terminate in thee, for thou hast placed tlryself in the way like the inevitable excess, in which all impulse ends.' " CHAPTEK XXIY. POETRY. . Such proverbs as " poets are born and not made," have encouraged the notion that inspiration does everything for the poet and art nothing ; whereas inspiration gives him the idea, and art enables him to express it. It is very probable that " creative " capacity is an element in the poetic nature which art does not make, but educates only. Yet experience teaches us that decided poetic power sometimes sinks into the commonplace, and that that which has been pronounced mediocre has been cultured into excel- lence. We therefore ought to pause before treating so disdainfully, as is the fashion, the humble versifiers who from time to time solicit the world's notice. Certainly Byron's " Hours of Idleness " were as weak a specimen of the poetic as patrician or plebeian fancy ever concocted. It gave no sign of that fierce power which was afterward evoked from the same pen. Both Burns and Elliott have been greatly indebted, perhaps as much indebted, to art as to their ideas for the distinction w T hich attaches to their names. Many 158 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. a name of note now might be cited whose infantile genius was rocked in the cradle of doggerel. Between rhyme and poetry there is a great gulf, which patient study alone may bridge over. Some of the intermediate steps may be indicated. The gradations may be explained, which, though all may not be able to pass through, all may be able to under- stand and determine their own position in reference to them. A Sunderland candidate for Parnassian laurels lately presented the public with the following very A-B-C effort : Two gentlemen dined at my house, For breakfast they had some ham ; Says I, "Are you going to Hartlepool?" "0 yes," says they, "we am." Even the rudest kind of verse should have some qualities not found in prose. What poetry is it is not easy to define 'satisfactorily. But this is agreed upon, that whatever is called poetry ought to contain an idea or ideas above the level of prose, and such as cannot be so well expressed in prose. Now ordinary prose, if tolerable, is grammatical, but the verse above quoted has not this quality. In verse the cor- responding terminations of lines should rhyme ; this rule is also neglected. Corresponding lines should have the same number of syllables in them ; that is, should have the same measure, the same quantity of accented and unaccented sounds. The versifier we have cited seems innocent of any such requirement. Indeed, the majority of those who publish rhymes never have paid the least attention to these essential elements of verse. Many, indeed, have never heard that there POETRY. 159 are such elements. Most of the rejected " poetry " sent to periodicals and newspapers is of this class ; for persons who understand the mechanical part of poetry frequently know what they are about, know their own powers, and do not send out productions which have not some stamp of excellence upon them. A young mind of any force or emulation commonly takes to the experiment of verse. The exercise should always be encouraged and criticised. In this way the new thinker may learn the power of words agree- ably, and the nature of elevated ideas. He will con- sult dictionaries of synonyms. So much the better. The habit will increase his knowledge. He will keep what he acquires, because he will get it when he wants it. Turn his ambition to useful account. If you cannot make him a poet, you may make him a grammarian, a linguist, and a thinker, and save him from making himself ridiculous by teaching him the difference between prose, rhyme, verse, and poe- try. Let it be understood that " all persons may rhyme, but that it is given only to few to compose thoughts ; the first requisites of which are, that they be new, striking, and beautiful, and for the ex- pression of which it is further necessary that there be gifts and acquirements of language infinitely above those required for common purposes."* We may usefully trace the distinctions suggested a little further. Mere rhyme often assists the memory, ?md if nervous, it may better strike the understanding than prose. Of this quality are some old lines on Feasting and Fasting, beginning thus : * " Chambers' Journal," No. 21, 1844. 160 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. Accustom early in your youth To lay embargo on your mouth ; And let no rarities invite To pall and glut your appetite ; But check it always, and give o'er "With a desire to eating more ; For where one dies by inanition, A thousand perish by repletion,* Old Dr. Johnson had not a fine ear, and he judged the artistic quality of poetry chiefly by the calcula- tion of syllables. He was a poet himself, but was chiefly distinguished for his power of making verse. His knowledge of literary art and his manly sense have given an elevation to his productions which have won for them distinction, and which show how good sense will command respect where imagina- tion is wanting. I quote his Prologue spoken by Garrick at the opening of the Theater Royal, Drury Lane, because, as well as illustrating his powers, it illustrates the topics of this book : When learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes First reared the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose. Each change of many-colored life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new : Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toiled after him in vain. His powerful strokes presiding truth impressed, And unresisted passion stormed the breast. Then Jonson came, instructed from the school, To please in method, and invent by rule ; His studious patience and laborious art By regular approach essayed the heart. Cold approbation gave the lingering bays, For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise ; A mortal born, he met the general doom, But left, like Egypt's kings, a lasting tomb. * [<]. Hoynard, M. D., 1750, POETRY. 161 The wits of Charles found easier ways to fame, Nor wished for Jonson's art, nor Shakspeare's flame. Themselves they studied — as they felt, they writ — Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit. Vice always found a sympathetic friend ; They pleased their age, and did not aim to mend ; Yet bards like these aspired to lasting praise, And proudly hoped to pimp in future days. Their cause was general, their supports were strong, Their slaves were willing, and their reign was long; Till shame regained the post that sense betrayed, And virtue called oblivion to her aid. Then, crushed by rules, and weakened as refined, For years the power of tragedy declined ; From bard to bard the frigid caution crept, Till declamation roared while passion slept ; Yet still did virtue deign the stage to tread, Philosophy remained though nature fled ; But forced, at length, her ancient reign to quit, She saw great Faustus lay the ghost of wit ; Exulting folly hailed the joyous day, And pantomime and song confirmed her sway. Hard is his lot that here by fortune placed, Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste ; With every meteor of caprice must play, And chase the new-blown bubbles of the day. Ah ! let not censure term our fate our choice, The stage but echoes back the public voice ; The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, For we that live to please, must please to live. Then prompt no more the follies you decry, As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die ; 'Tis yours this night to bid the reign commence Of rescued nature and reviving sense ; To chase the charms of sound, the pomp of show, For useful mirth and salutary woe ; Bid scenic virtue form the rising age, And truth diffuse her radiance from the stage. This prologue has wit, energy, and striking sense ; but Johnson's want of fancy is more evident in his 11 162 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. " Death of Charles the Twelfth," which has his per- fect force, but at the close only rises into the poetical. The last two lines have the true genius of poetical inspiration : On what foundation stands the warrior's pride, How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide ; A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, No dangers fright him, and no labors tire ; O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain ; No joys to him pacific scepters yield, War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field. Behold surrounding kings their power combine, And one capitulate, and one resign. Peace courts his hand, but spends her charm in vain. "Think nothing gained," he cries, "till naught remain, On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly, And all be mine beneath the polar sky." The march begins in military state, And nations on his eye suspended wait. Stern famine guards the solitary coast, And winter barricades the realm of frost : He comes — not want and cold his course delay — Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day ! The vanquished hero leaves Ins broken bands, And shows his misery in distant lands ; Condemned a needy suppliant to wait, While ladies interpose and slaves debate. But did not chance at length her error mend ? Did no subverted empire mark his end ? Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound ? Did hostile millions press him to the grounds ? His fall was destined to a barren strand, A petty fortress and a dubious hand. He left a name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale. Johnson was a mechanical poet. Allan Cunning- ham, speaking of Chevy Chase, a genuine poem, which Sir Philip Sidney said fell on his ears like the POETRY. 163 sound of a trumpet, suggests to us the highest ele- ments of poetry. " ' Chevy Chase' and ' Sir Andrew- Barton ' are history and truth : but history excited, elevated, and inspired : truth all life, spirit, and heroism." " Poetry," says Gilfillan, is " thought on fire." It is in its impassioned truth that we feel its presence ; it is for the beauty of ideas, distinct from the beauty of things, that we admire it. Personification is the soul of poetry. In few of our modern writers is this quality more remarkable than in Douglas Jerrold, whose writings are charac- ' terized by the omnipresence of personification. Bul- wer presents more of the appearance of personifica- tion in his writings, but Jerrold more of the reality. Bulwer's personifications seem often to be artificial, and suggested by capital letters, while Jerrold's are presented in deep-set, finished pictures. Many are the attributes of poetry, but its grandest power is personification. It peoples the world of fancy and thought with new forms ; it individualizes senti- ments; it adds to our intellectual acquaintances. How dim and indefinite are our impressions of the past ! but in the hands of Bryant what a majestic entity it becomes in that poem beginning : Thou unrelenting Past ! Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, And fetters sure and fast Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. What a splendid ideality is in this poem realized ! What multitudinous forms are bodied forth! It is like the revelation of eternity, and the mind trembles and thrills as on the verge of a new world. 164 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. Poetry is found in various states, sometimes in the invocation of historic names, in allusions, in illustra- tions, in similes, sometimes in intensity of language, and sometimes in intensity of feeling. Poetry is often found independent of the verse it forms, as gems are found unset. " We would define poetry to be that mode of expression by which in- tensity of feeling on any subject is conveyed from one mind to another. Of course the more just, the more striking the mode of expression, the more com- plete and rapid will be the communication ; hence, and still more because many persons have not courage to dive beneath a rough surface, it is desir- able that the poet should be able to clothe his thoughts in mellifluous language. • But words are not poetry. Witness the beautiful idea of Professor Heeren : " Persepolis rising above the deluge of years." This, being a translated passage, is not de- pendent upon phraseology for its beauty. But who does not feel its exquisiteness, picturing at once the almost miraculous stability of those thread-like columns which the intemperate policy of Alexander failed to overthrow, and the vague, shapeless uncer- tainty which clouds the period to which their erec- tion is attributed ? The whole passage forms a most poetically drawn picture. " Again : ' Time sadly overcometh all things, and is now dominant, and sitteth upon a sphinx, and looketh unto Memphis and old Thebes; while his sister, Oblivion, reclineth semi-somnous on a pyramid, gloriously triumphing, making puzzles of Titanian erections, and turning old glories into dreams. His- tory sinketh beneath her cloud. The traveler, as he paceth amazedly through those deserts, asketh of her, POETRY. 165 Who builded them? and she mumbleth something, but what it is he knoweth not.' "Is not this poetry? and yet how quaint, almost inharmonious is its structure. Compare it with the famous simile in Pope's Homer, beginning, Thus, when the moon, refulgent lamp of night. "Will this passage, replete with the most gorgeous epithets, and clothed in the most harmonious verse, bear a comparison with the strangely appareled poetry of Sir Thomas Browne? It is not our ear which prompts the verdict ; it is our innate feeling of truth and beauty. If thus poetic genius can exist independent and despite of phraseology, may we not suppose it to be given (we do not say in a high de- gree) to multitudes of those whom the world would never accuse of being poets ? Our daily experience confirms this. We have heard a servant describe scenery with a beauty of feeling and an imagery which was true poetry ; and we hear a child talk poetry to her doll. Facility of illustration is an at- tribute of poetic genius we have met with in a laborer."* An instance of the highest form of poetry is Blanco White's great Sonnet to Night, which is perhaps the distinctest addition *to human speculation which the genius of the thinker has ever made. It happens, also, to be one of the most accomplished efforts of Elocution to deliver it well. It requires great and varied power, and the last line is remarkable for the distinctness of enunciation required : * "Sharpe's Magazine," No. 25, 1846, 166 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. Mysterious Night ! when our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue ? Yet, 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo ! creation widened in man's view. "Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed "Within thy beams, Sun? or who could find, "While fruit, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ? Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife ? If Light conceals so much, wherefore not Life ? The previous discovery of Truth is implied by Rhetoric, which is the art of communicating Truth; and of all the forms of the enforcement of Truth, Poetry is the highest. All the powers of language, all the graces of literature, all the resources of genius, and nature, and feeling are employed to illustrate that splendor of expression, that harmony of thought, which, wedded to harmony of time and sound, men call Poesy. NOTES. A.— See page 27. Our author is quite liable to be misunderstood in this allusion to the ""theater." Judging from many passages of his book, and indeed from its whole tenor, nothing could have been further from his inten- tion than to present our modern theater as a model for pulpit speak- ing. At the present day the pulpit, in comparison with the theater, will suffer only in one particular, in its ease or naturalness. Though we can hadly be said to have any modern theater where anything like true eloquence is found, yet its highest excellence is its adapta- tion of utterance to the thought or sentiment. This quality of speaking, wherever it is acquired, on the stage, at the bar, or in the pulpit, effectually establishes entire freedom from monotone and tone. In this respect we have no doubt the speaking of the stage excels both that of the bar and pulpit. This, too, is doubtless its solitary redeeming quality, as well as the secret of its attraction and power. Nature loves herself, and delights to be portrayed in her own undis- guised simplicity, but turns away in disgust whenever she is carica- tured. This, it may be, is an important point at whicn the pulpit fails ; it is prosy, monotonous, and is rendered thereby not unfrequent- ly repulsive. To deviate in the least from the beaten track in into- nation, accent or emphasis, is thought unclerical, and hence most carefully avoided. Thus our Gospel minister plods on, content with an exact cold logic, reposing in a dead orthodoxy. Here lies the fatal plague-spot on sacred eloquence, the tones of which are sepulchral, and the touch of which is paralyzing to the warm and gushing heart of humanity. These clergymen "are solid men," but emotionless as a frozen ocean ! This, doubtless, is what was in our author's mind, though left unamplified. "We cannot suppose he would have introduc- ed into the pulpit anything akin to the low buffoonery of mounte- banks, which at the present day chiefly gives character to the theater. For it is ahead}' noticeable, that with a few who are aiming to be 168 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. " star preachers," we have a disgusting imitation of the tragedian style in grotesque action and intonations, but so entirely destitute of its naturalness as to make it superlatively ridiculous. Such is the usual result of attempts at copying or adopting the style of others — the defects only will appear. Copyists will invariably fall below the original, which should lead a public speaker to avoid the practice as he would the open grave of his success. Clergymen are supposed to be men of sufficient sense and good taste to discover in the world of literature around them, what is and what is not adapted to their profession. Why not appropriate, then, the former and exclude the latter ? B— See page 34. Hamlet says to his players : "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it to you, trippingly on the tongue ; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently ; for in the very torrent tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise ; I would have such a fellow whipt for o'erdoing Termagant ; it out-herods Herod : Pray you, avoid it. " First PWtyer. I warrant your honor. " Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, can- not but make the judicious grieve ; the censure of which one must, m your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theater of others. there be players that I have seen play — and heard others praise and that high- ly — not to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of Chris- tians nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted and NOTES. 169 bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. " First Player. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us. "Ham. reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns, speak no more then is set down for them, for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary ques- tion of the play be then to be considered ; that's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready. " Aye, so, God be wi' you. — Now I am alone, what a rogue and peasant slave am I ! Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit, That from her working all his visage wanned ; Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit ? And all for nothing ! For Hecuba ! "What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba That he should weep for her ? What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have ? He would drown the stage with tears, And cleave the general ear with horrid speech ; Make mad the guilty, and appal the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull and muddy -mettled rascal, peak Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my. cause, And can say nothing ; no, not for a king, Upon whose property and most dear life A vile defeat was made , Humph ! I have heard That guilty creatures, sitting at a play, Have, by the very cunning of the scene, Been struck so to the soul, that presently They have proclaimed their malefactions ; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players Play something like the murder of my father 1-70 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. Before mine uncle. I'll observe his looks: I'll cut him to the quick ; if he do blench I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be a devil ; and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, (As he is very potent with such spirits,) Abuses me to damn me : I'll have grounds More relative than this. The play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." C— See page 38. "We cannot indorse the writer's view in this passage. The reasons assigned are invalid. If it were true that "religious sentiment" would not be universally received in a "mixed meeting," does that show that such sentiments should not be used in such a place ? We might ask, What other persuasion would influence all % If we should refuse to employ arguments or persuasions which would not have uni- versally the desired effect, we should use none at all. But he over- looks the obvious fact, that man is universally a being of " religious sentiment," with a profound inherent sense of right and wrong deep seated in his moral nature. However defective his standard of judg- ment may be, man everywhere is found with a strong admiration of what he judges to be right, and detestation of what is wrong ; the operations of a universal conscience. Hence, all men worship, how- ever erroneously, and no depths of ignorance or degradation are so great as to prevent it. It may indeed be doubted whether any other argument or persuasion is so universal in its adaptation and success as a religious one. This principle in man is as strong as general, and as safe as it is strong. The honest religious convictions of men are the last they yield. Even life itself will be sacrificed be- fore these. This is the primary and ultimate principle of our being, to which earth and heaven make their final appeal, touching man's highest interests, and we aver that all eloquence culminates around this glowing truth. When the orator has shorn himself of this mighty impulse of the human heart, he has lost his leverage to move the world. What is it that imparts to the inspired penmen their superhu- man eloquence, but their religious themes and their application to man's spiritual nature. Without emotion it is idle to talk of eloquence. The Christian orator, in the fact that he is a Christian, is moved by a deeper, purer, and stronger class of emotions than any other. Hence it NOTES. 171 has become notorious that pagan orators have fallen very far below when compared with the Christian. "Whoever is constituted by na- ture or culture for high attainments in oratory, has a soul of the purest and most lofty conceptions and exquisite sensibilities ; and such a soul kindles into a glowing eloquence on no subject as it does on moral truth and beauty, God's attributes and man's immortality. D— See page 68. What is here said of the House of Commons should be applied with a slight modification to the pulpit. Embellishment seems out of place in a G-ospel sermon, except under strong excitement, and of the most thoroughly chastened and refined character. Dazzling, gorgeous, or flippant imagery attached to the solemn and weighty truths of God is an incongruity, obscuring those truths or diverting attention from them. Thoughtful people feel that their common sense is trifled with while the preacher seeks to amuse rather than instruct and save them, by which he shows he has no deep and abiding sense or truth- ful appreciation of what he utters. Pulpit declamation produces a similar result. With many noble ex- ceptions the training of modern scholars in our first institutions of learn- ing tends directly to establish an empty, heartless, and declamatory style of speaking. Let almost any student for six or nine years repeat in public every two weeks the composition of others, compo- sition which does not excite a single emotion of his own soul ; let him also put on all the airs of some eloquent man, when he will appear like David in Saul's armor, and nothing but a miracle will prevent him from falling into this style of speaking. Habit contracted during all these forming years will never be coun- teracted. A close observer will perceive that the most prominent fea- ture in modern pulpit speaking is. declamation, and it is not strange it produces no more effect. Cicero said : " We must never separate philos- ophy from eloquence." We see no possible remedy for this lamentable state of pulpit orato- ry, except what our author here recommends, namely, that the basis of all delivery should be a conversational tone. What was true with the House of Commons is true with all informed and thoughtful hearers, either there, in the Senate, or in the house of the Lord. When public speaking varies from a conversational tone, under strong excitement of the speaker, producing a corresponding emotiou of the hearers, they will move on together without repulsion. But when a speaker attempts 172 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. to seize and carry by storm his auditors, while he is as cold and un- moved as they are, he commits a blunder by which he loses his power over all enlightened mind. Such hearers feel at once that they are not reasoned with as rational beings, but that an attempt is made to sweep them away as by a whirlwind, they know not where. Alas ! for our modern eloquence, how much of it is of this kind ? E— See page 76. This is a terrible sarcasm. "With a large class of English and American clergymen we are certain it is not true ; but we are not sure but it applies to a minority, at least, in our own country. The fear of advancing an idea never before put forth ; the fear of using an illustra- tion never before used ; the fear of making a gesture not named in the books, cripples the originality and naturalness of a minister. Hence the apparent constraint and stiff mechanical style so common in pulpit manner. Dullness and deadness among the hearers follow, while the clergy, like a becalmed sea, fall to a stupid level of a harmless mediocrity. Because there are a few cardinal points of revealed truth which it is admitted should be often repeated and insisted upon, keeping them prominently before the public mind, many, seem to suppose nothing else should be preached! This is called "loyalty to old Christianity," "abiding in the old paths." "Whatsoever is new in Christianity," it is said, "is false." This may be true of religion when spoken of as having been exhaustively studied, and the last truth and its application found out. But if everything in Christianity is false beyond what many clergymen know of it, there is very little in it either true or false. This is a fine subterfuge for forceless and unstudious men to hide behind : the orthodoxy of a few fundament- al doctrines as an apology for non-progress in Biblical learning. The truth is, there is more in the book of God than has ever yet been taught or found out. Those ministers of Christ who study his word as closely and severely as they do their classics and philosophies, are able to bring forth things both new and old. Much of the sterility of pulpit themes and mannerisms grows out of a too close confinement to a few theological points, to the general exclusion of those subjects ly- ing in the rich and comparatively unexhausted fields of Christian mo- rality, or the application of Christian principles to practical life. This neglect has proved exceedingly detrimental to the Christian Church, not only as it affects the interest and vivacity of pulpit style, but also the intelligent and exemplar character of Christian life. NOTES. 173 F — See page 78. If what talent, learning, and piety there is in the pulpit were used to the greatest possible advantage, we believe the good accomplished thereby would be immensely increased. There are several facts con- fronting us at once, as we come to pass judgment on the talents and success of clergymen. Success not unfrequently bears no proportion to ability, but often seems to be the inverse ratio of it. Men acknowledged to be powerful in thought and literary accomplishments, make but a small impression as speakers. Why is this? Their power is latent, " unde- veloped." What has caused this ? It is not a lack of effort ; for usually these men are laborious and faithful. It is because the development has been obstructed. Trace it back and it will be found to lie in their wrong manner. If the style is monotonous, dull, and without emphasis ; if the voice is harsh and unsuited to the utterances ; if the logic is cold and unsympathizing ; if the language and illustrations have not vivacity and pertinency, no matter what the strength, the populace will leave that speaker. Were all hearers, scholars, and logical think- ers it would be otherwise. But we see, again, some inferior man in all these respects, who draws after him the crowd, and is powerfully effective. How is this ? It is his manner, nothing more nor less. Who believes that a Spurgeon bears any comparison in intellectual strength to a Butler, Paley, or Watson ? Yet it is no hyperbole to say that, as a speaker, he influences his thousands where they did their hundreds. Every one knows there is something repulsive and deadening in a certain kind of speaking, while a different mode of utterance is attracting and moving. Two things, however, trouble us greatly in contemplating this aspect of the subject ; we can hardly discover what it is that constitutes this differ- ence, and to which of the two classes we ourselves belong. Here we need very much the kind offices of some intelligent and thoroughly faithful friend, more faithful doubtless than we are with others, or we shall live and die in a perplexing ignorance of the causes of our ineffi- ciency, but greatly wondering that we are not better appreciated G.— See page 95. One will see from this instance alone how very dangerous, and fatal even, to dignified and solemn discourse is a careless and distasteful use of comparison. Let all accustomed to use it study well the effect thus produced. But when selected with good literary taste and refinement 174 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. of feeling, figurative language adds much to the clearness, force, and beauty of public speaking. And the same may be said of anecdote or incident ; though the latter should be used far less frequently, and, if possible, with more severe discrimination. Excess of anecdote is a great blemish on much of our modern pulpit production ; and not only too much of it, but too carelessly selected, and too much prolonged. Few clergymen have an easy, solemn, and impressive style of relating anecdote. Sad and awkward is the attempt by all others. That a laugh or shout is created by some sharp incident or repartee by no means shows its success, but possibly the reverse of it. So with figures or comparisons. Some coarse, but apt simile may convulse an audience with laughter, and at the same time drive every serious thought and devotional feeling from all minds. Mournful result for him whose whole object is to create what he really dispels ! The various figures of speech when found only in the composition of accomplished speakers are of immense value to them and to their cause. Dry and stale subjects, to most hearers, may thus be clothed with new beauty, which will arrest the attention and engage the feel- ings of all. Nothing low, frivolous, or dissipating will be used in dignified dis- course, and no other has any place in the pulpit. Good judgment, good literary taste, and good skill in the use of language are necessary in order to a successful use of rhetorical figures. A speaker's culture, mental and social, will appear nowhere more palpably than in these selections. There are some subjects so dignified and sublime that they admit of no comparison, and are only lowered by any attempts at illustration. Therefore, when to use them, and when not to use them, and how to adapt them properly to the nature of the subjects, requires much critical knowledge and skill. If one were to say, " Curses, like chickens, come home to roost," we should be struck, if not pleased, with the unexpected resemblance, but disgusted with the lack of taste displayed in the selection of the illustration. But bow differently we are affected by the following metaphor of Byron : " Man ! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear." This fills the mind with beauty and sublimity. So bold, so chaste, so beautiful, and so condensed. "What exquisite taste and skill is here displayed in the use of language ! None but a master is equal to it. What an immense amount of practice in literary criticism must have been had to acquire such enviable power ! Suppose some novice had attempted to communicate this same thought through this metaphor, he doubtless would have extended it into a formal comparison by saying, NOTES. 175 <; Man is just like a pendulum of a clock, swung back and forth between joy and sorrow." what a fall I How flat and dead is this com- pared with the former. "We see how much depends, not altogether on what is said, but how it is said. The marshalling of a few little words around the same idea in one case sends all the noble feelings of the heart upward, and in the other benumbs and stupefies them. Nothing furnishes this enviable power so much as a happy use of the metaphor, or surpressed comparison. Public speakers should frequently recur to that part of rhetoric which treats of comparison, metaphor, metonomy, synecdoche, hyper- bole, hypocatastasis, apostrophe, personification, allegory, or parable. These all have their laws or rules of use, and one whose chief busi- ness is public speaking, should know and use them properly if he would excel. These are all used in the Scriptures, and especially in the prophecies and our Saviour's teachings ; and he is but a poor and uncertain expounder who is not more or less familiar with them. H— See page 96. A public speaker who has a ready command of pleasantry, united with good sense, has a great element of power. It will impart variety and vivacity to his style, creating attention and interest with his hear- ers. This is as true of the minister of Christ as of any other speaker. Yet we consider it one of the most dangerous talents ever introduced into the pulpit. Yery few can use it at all without destroying the gravity with which sacred subjects should be treated. When used im- properly it distracts attention, dissipates the mind of the hearers, lowers the dignity and influence of the speaker, throwing an air of levity over the subject and all its surroundings. All this is terribly destructive of the great end of preaching. Fewer still can use pleasantry or wit in the pulpit with perfect refinement of taste, with- out which it is most sadly out of place. Indeed, no class of public speakers requires so little wit, or can use it so seldom without detri- ment, as the minister of the Gospel. His chief object is to enlighten the mind and move the affections ; while wit, so far from contributing to this object, has the opposite tendency, to destroy affection. "Wit may serve to break the force of an opponent's unjust assault, or relieve one from a momentary embarrassment in debate — never required in pulpit discourse ; but it can never reach and move the moral forces of our being. Hence its effect in the pnlpit is usually worse than useless — it is damaging. No sight is more melancholy than to see the sacred and sublime 176 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. realities of God, the soul, and eternity, treated in a style bordering even upon the frivolous. Low witticisms, vulgar jokes, and coarse anecdotes may perhaps serve some purpose of third-rate lawyers and buffoons, but they ill become the embassador of Christ. The spright- ly and flippant young clergyman is in great danger here. The sense- less grin and unmeaning titter of an audience often mislead him into the opinion that his strength lies in wit and repartee ; and thus incited he is led on blindly, till his habits are remedilessly fixed, which not un- frequently ruin his usefulness forever. I.— See page 104. Here lies the grand secret of all eloquence — nature, nature in earnest Nature tortured is the common spoiler of good speaking. The trilling of the r, prolonging of certain vowel sounds, emphasizing certain words, not according to their importance, but according to their smooth and rolling sound, studying gesticulation according to rules only, thus putting an end to all eloquence. Extemporaneous speakers, especially, have not unfrequently a, habit of holding on to, and drawing out many words when the nest word does not readily occur, throwing in many connectives not necessary, simply as a sort of bridge over these chasms in language. A late author, Bautain, says: "You must not grope for your words while speaking, under penalty of braying like a donkey, which is the death of a discourse." The same disastrous results fol- low an effort to imitate some favorite speaker. Then the thoughts must be on that speaker, and the heart can be nowhere else. Mimic eloquence, if we could conceive such a thing, would be like a mimic volcano ! Genuine eloquence cannot be counterfeited. It has its seat in the heart. Pure and benevolent intentions, with earnestness and artlessness, always result in eloquence, provided there are no impedi- ments in the way of its utterance. Such impediments exist sometimes in the pathway of an eloquent nature. These are the cases where long and tedious training and practice are required, aside from a knowledge of the science, in order to success. A speaker with a feeling and enthu- siastic heart, and soul of fire, may have a short breath, a stammering tongue, an indistinct enunciation, or a harsh voice. Then a critical drill is his only hope. "While another speaker, with none of these im- pediments in his way, might be utterly ruined by that same process, as it might displace his naturally good qualities. Many young speakers, with the best natural abilities for oratory, without any of these great hinderances, have entered upon the most NOTES. 177 elaborate and mechanical training, tampering with nature, spoiling its artless simplicity, and leaving upon it so many marks of the chisel, that in the end they have become less attractive and efficient than at first. Let nature alone, unless you or your friends can detect faults in her; but if so, remove them, however long the time it requires and whatever the cost. Speakers are slow and unskillful in detecting their own faults; friends are slow, equally slow in pointing out these faults to the faulty parties, unless invited and urged to do so. Two men of the same abilities, acquirements, and tastes, will each detect in the other ten faults as a speaker to one in himself. He is a wise man who continu- ally invites the closest criticism of his most intelligent and faithful friends. Nothing could possibly so much improve the pulpit oratory of this day as a resort to this means if well applied. J.— See page 106. While the modern clergy, with singular agreement, adopt this senti- ment of that distinguished divine and author, Archbishop Whately, they differ as widely on the question of written or unwritten prepara- tion. Here, surely, they do not exhibit their usual liberality and breadth of views, but show strangely the power -of prejudice and habit influencing the judgment to their own detriment. They will generally be found arranged into two extreme classes, one depending wholly on manuscript preparation, the other making little or no use of it, each confident in their own methods, abilities, and success, often ludi- crously so. We may be thought presumptuous when we say neither of these parties are safe teachers or guides, nor will they ordinarily be found model speakers. True eloquence will be found, we judge, to have embodied all the advantages of both these theories and cast aside the lumber of eadli. Few men have been found who can deliver eloquently, speaking closely from manuscript. They not only must have the attention occu- pied with the notes, which will interfere with an uninterrupted flow of the feelings, but that very attention to the notes indicates that the feelings have not been brought into that close contact with the sub- ject, without which the emotional part of our nature cannot be deeply stirred, and without this there can be little true eloquence. Then, too, there is this apparent and formidable difficulty, to read with perfect naturalness, or as much so as Ave converse or talk. Who of the 12 178 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. thousands of readers have succeeded in this ? Most of them imagine they have ; but ask their most intelligent hearers. But, on the other hand, we judge it is equally true, as a general thing, that those ministers who ignore wholly, and are so severe on "note preaching," are anything but eloquent men or good extempo- rizers. They have little or nothing to do with the pen, but rely upon their strong, rotund, and sonorous voices, which fill all the place where they are assembled and all ears within respectable distance. They are not apparently so anxious to say anything new and important as to say it with that same fine voice, very loud, probably, and with the same emphasis and cadence they would say a thousand other things more or less important. The results are, they are monotonous in style and uninstructive in thought, dull speakers, though they often suppose themselves quite eloquent, and are surprised that they are no better appreciated and more sought for. They are as little distin- guished for extensive and critical reading as for close thinking, but rely mostly upon their uncultivated vocal powers. Neither of these two classes of ministers embrace many of our elo- quent men, though large numbers of our worthy men. They write and read well ; but good writers and readers are not usually emotional speakers. They are more generally elegant than eloquent. Their extreme devotion to notes has wrought badly for their speaking powers, while in other respects it has immensely improved them. There is an accuracy and finish in their productions which many an eloquent man sighs in vain for. As writers and authors they would leave their eloquent competitors far in the rear, out not as speakers. These criticisms lie also with about the same force against the practice of preaching memoriter. The continual tax and strain upon the memory checks the free flow of feeling and absorbs attention nearly as much as notes, so obviously that the most casual observer can hardly fail to detect the speaker who has fallen into this unfortu- nate habit. Generally the most successful ministers will be found among those who have carefully and largely practiced themselves in writing what they have preached, by which they have created for themselves a neat and elegant style of composition without redundancy or poverty, and then speaking not so much with exact conformity to what they have written as with a neat, ready, and chaste style, of which they have made themselves masters, and in which they can trust them- selves with entire confidence. This is the product of much study, great practice, and critical observation ; and it is the fatal blunder of novices to suppose themselves ready made in this accomplishment. This successful class of speakers, presupposed to be pious and NOTES. 179 scholarly, when they speak, whether they have papers about them or not, neither read nor declaim, but talk fluently and eloquently. No man can sustain a claim to oratory, except of a mushroom and stump- orator sort, who is not a practiced and critical writer ; and such as set up that unfounded claim would probably blush to see their own oratory on paper, unless too destitute of scholarship to discover its inelegancies, repetitions, and redundancies. A young man, with some brilliant parts, while he has the freshness and vivacity of youth, with a good voice and good personal appear- ance, may win from an unlearned and unthinking audience praise for oratory without this solid foundation for it ; but, alas ! it will be like the morning cloud and early dew, and he will soon sink to his real level, which is that of the thoughtless and senseless crowd about him, and the sun of his fame and prospects will set at noon. Such is the short and sad record of many a young orator of hot-house growth, whose natural talents, with proper training and patient practice, would have carried him high in the list of'fame. K.— See page 107. On the preparation and delivery of an extemporaneous sermon, we are allowed by the generous publisher, Charles Scribner, 124 Grand- street, New York, to make the following brief extracts from a late publication of his : " Art of Extempore Speaking. Hints for the Pulpit, the Senate, and the Bar ;" a work which we most cordially recommend to all our readers. "In every discourse, if it have life, there is a parent idea or fertile germ, and all the parts of the discourse are like the principal organs and the members of an animated body. The propositions, expressions, and words resemble those secondary organs which connect the prin- cipal, as the nerves, muscles, vessels, and tissues attaching them to one another, and rendering them copartners in life and death. Then amid this animate and organic mass there is the spirit of life, which is in the blood, and is everywhere diffused with the blood from the heart, life's center, to the epidermis. So in eloquence, there is the spirit of the words, the soul of the orator, inspired by the subject, his intelli- gence illumined with mental light, which circulates through the whole body of the discourse, and pours therein brightness, heat, and life. A discourse without a parent idea is a stream without a fountain, a plant without a root, a body without a soul ; empty phrases, sounds which beat the air, or a tinkling cymbal 180 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. " He who wishes to speak in public must, above all, see clearly on what he has to speak, and rightly conceive what he has to say. The precise determination of the subject, and the idea of the discourse, these are the two first stages of the preparation. "It is not so easy as it seems to know upon what one is to speak; many orators, at least, seem to be ignorant of it, or to forget it in the course of their address ; for it is sometimes their ease to speak of all things except those which would best relate to the occasion. This exact determination of the subject is still more needful in extemporization ; for there many more chances of discursiveness exist. The address not being sustained by the memory or notes, the mind is more exposed to the influences of the moment; and nothing is required but the failure or inexactitude of the word, the suggestion of a new thought, a little inattention, to lure it from the subject, and throw it into some crossroad which takes it far away. Add the necessity of continuing when once a speech is begun, because to stop is embarrassing, to withdraw a disgrace Therefore, in order to lead and sustain the progress of a discourse, one must clearly know whence one starts, and whither one goes, and never lose sight of either the point of departure or the des- tination. But to effect this the road must be measured beforehand, and the principal distance marks must have been placed. There is a risk also of losing one's way, and then, either one arrives at no end, even after much fatigue, productive of interminable discourses leading to nothing ; or if one at last reaches the destination, it is after an in- finity of turns and circuits, which have wearied the hearer as well as the speaker, without profit or pleasure for anybody. A question well stated is half solved. '"It is necessary that the orator before speaking should be collected; he should be wholly absorbed in his ideas, and proof against the in- terruptions and impressions which surround him. The slightest distraction to which he yields may break the chain of his thoughts, mar his plan, and even sponge out of his mind the very remembrance of his subject itself. This appears incredible, and I would not believe it myself had I not experienced it. " All who extemporize have had the misfortune some time or other, to fall into digressions, prolixities, and appendages, which cause the main object to be lost to view, and wear out or render languid the attention of the audience. In the warmth of exposition a man is not always master of his own words, and when new thoughts arise, they may lead a long way from the subject, to which there is sometimes a difficulty in returninrr. Xf Iip does not hold with a firm hai NOTES. 181 thread of his thoughts he will never come to speak in an endurable manner; and though-by his fine passages he may surprise, amuse, and dazzle the hearer, he will not suggest one idea to his mind, nor instill a single, feeling into his ear, because there will be neither order nor unity, and therefore no life in his discourse. " Most orators spoil their speeches by lengthiness, and prolixity is the principal disadvantage of extemporaneous speaking. In it, more than in any other, one wants time to be brief, and there is a per- petual risk of being carried away by the movement of the thoughts or the expressions. "It sometimes happens, unfortunately, that you are barely into your subject when you should end ; and then, with a confused feeling of all that you have omitted, and a sense of what you might still say. you are anxious to recover lost ground in some degree, and you begin some new development when you ought to be concluding. This tardy and unseasonable, yet crude aftergrowth has the very worst effect up- on the audience, which, already fatigued, becomes impatient and listens no longer. The speaker loses his words and his trouble, and every- thing which he adds by way of elucidating or corroborating what he has said, spoils what has gone before, destroying the impression of it. He repeats himself unconsciously, and those who still listen follow him with uneasiness, as men watch from shore a bark which seeks to make port and cannot. It is a less evil to turn short round and finish abruptly than thus to tack incessantly without advancing; for the greatest of a speaker's misfortunes is that he should bore. " They who have not learned first to write, generally speak badly and with difficulty, unless indeed they have that fatal facility, a thou- sand times worse than hesitation or than silence, which drowns thought in floods of words or in a torrent of copiousness, sweeping away good earth and leaving behind sand and stones alone. Heaven keep us from those interminable talkers, such as are often to be found in Southern countries, who deluge you relatively to anything and to nothing with a shower of dissertation, and a down-pouring of their eloquence ! During nine tenths of the time there is not one rational thought in the whole of this twaddle, carrying along in its course every kind of rubbish and platitude. The class of speakers who pro- duce a speech so easily, and who are ready at the shortest moment to extemporize a speech, a dissertation, or a homily, know not how to compose a tolerable sentence ; and I repeat, that, with such exceptions as defy all rule, he who has not learned how to write, will never know how to speak. " Nor must he rely on the notes which he may carry in his hand to 182 PUBLIC SPEAKING AND DEBATE. help him in the exposition and save him from breaking down. Doubtless they may have their utility, especially in business-speaking, as at the bar, at the council board, or in a deliberative assembly. They are the material part, the baggage of'the orator, of which he should disencumber himself to the utmost of his power. They are the most utterly worthless when they seem the most necessary. In the most fervid moments of extemporaneous speaking, when light teems, and the sacred fire burns, when the mind is hurried along upon the tide of thought, everything should proceed from within. Then -nothing so thoroughly freezes the oratorical flow as to consult these wretched notes." SACRED ELOQUENCE : THE BRITISH PULPIT. About fifteen years ago our readers were presented with a critique on "French Sermons," concluding with an intimation that at some future period the subject would be resumed, with a special reference to the British pulpit.f In that article surprise was expressed that there should be so small a proportion of sermons destined to live ; that out of the million and upward preached annually throughout the empire there should be so very few that are remembered three whole days after they are delivered; fewer still that are committed to the press ; scarcely one that is not in a few years absolutely forgotten. " If any one," it was added, " were for the first time informed what preach- ing was; if, for example, one of the ancient critics had been told that the time would come when vast multitudes of persons should assemble regularly to be addressed, in the midst of their devotions, upon the most sacred truths of a religion sublime beyond all the speculations of philosophers, yet in all its most important points simple and of the easiest apprehen- * Edinburgh Review, October, 1840. — Sermons to a Country Congre- gation. By Augustus William Hare, late Fellow of New College, and Rector of Alton Barnes. 2 vols., 8vo. ; London, 1839. f No. LXXXIX, pp. 147, 148. 184 SACKED eloquence: sion ; that with those truths were to be mingled dis- cussions of the whole circle of human duties, accord- ing to a system of morality singularly* pure and attractive ; that the more dignified and the more interesting parts of national affairs were not to be excluded from the discourse ; that, in short, the most elevating, the most touching, and the most interesting of all topics were to be the subject-matter of the address, directed to persons sufficiently versed in them, and assembled only from the desire they felt to hear them handled, surely the conclusion would at once have been drawn that such occasions must train up a race of the most consummate orators, and that the effusions to which they gave birth must needs cast all other rhetorical compositions into the shade. . . . How then comes it to pass that instances are so rare of eminent eloquence in the pulpit ?" Though we are willing to believe that some im- provement in this branch of eloquence is gradually taking place, we are still of opinion that the above question is as pertinent as ever. It seems proper, there- fore, to investigate the causes of so singular a phenom- enon, and to urge upon those who are intrusted with so powerful an instrument of instruction as the pulpit, the duty of endeavoring to turn it to better account. To this important subject we propose to devote the present essay, premising that it is not at all our inten- tion to discuss any doctrinal questions, or to examine how much of truth or error there may be in any given system of religious belief; we consider only the general conditions on which all religious instruc- tion (presupposing it to be sound) should be con- veyed, and especially the style and the manner THE BRITISH PULPIT. 185 peculiarly appropriated to this department of public speaking. Without departing from the above resolution we may, however, be allowed to make one obvious remark, even in relation to what ought to be the substance of that eloquence of which we propose more particularly to consider only the form. It is this : that, whatever diversities of opinion and of doctrine it may present, it is of course implied that there are limits to these diversities. We cannot expect that any system will produce its proper effects, however eloquent and forcible the form in which it is profess- edly exhibited, unless its essential peculiarities be preserved. A Mollah must not preach the doctrines of a Brahmin if he wishes to see what are the genuine results of Islamism, nor a Pundit interpret his sacred books by the Koran of the prophet. In the same manner, if the Christian preacher (as was too often the case in times that are past) be nothing more than what Bishop Horsley calls " an ape of Epictetus," a bad personation of Seneca tricked out in a gown and cassock, or a doctor of metaphysics, who, by some strange blunder, has mistaken the church for the lecture-room, we cannot rationally expect that Chris- tianity should produce its genuine results. What are the precise limits within which the essentials of Christian doctrine may be exhibited in their integ- rity it is not for us to determine; to do so would be to venture within that province which we have formally renounced. But that the essence of the doctrines and precepts of this peculiar system may be fully exhibited, notwithstanding considerable diversity of opinions on subordinate points, no man of candor will deny. The names of eminent men of 186 SACKED ELOQUENCE: very different parties will instantly suggest themselves to the memory of the reader, to whom, we are con- vinced, not one individual of the Christian community would deny the title of " preachers of righteousness." But supposing the requisite purity of doctrine secured — of which we must leave men to form their own opinion — the mode in which that doctrine is exhibited and enforced is only second in importance. And the proof is found in this, that, if we appeal to an individual of any denomination, he will tell you that he knows preachers whom he cannot but account equally worthy and excellent, and equally in pos- session of the truth, (that is, who think exactly with himself, for that is the infallible standard by which each man measures the aberrations of his neighbor,) who yet shall produce the most opposite effects on him. The one shall send him to sleep in spite of himself, and the other shall not permit him to sleep even if he would. Yet the substance of their com- munications, he himself being the judge, is in each case precisely the same. We have long been convinced that the inefficiency that so generally distinguishes pulpit discourses is in a great degree owing to the two following causes: First, that preachers do not sufficiently cultivate, as part of their professional education, a systematic acquaintance with the principles upon which all effective eloquence must be founded, with the limita- tions under which their topics must be chosen, and the mode in which they must be exhibited in order to secure popular impression; and, secondly, that they do not, after they have assumed their sacred functions, give sufficient time or labor to the prepa- ration of their discourses. THE BRITISH PULPIT. 187 Many and splendid, exceptions to these statements no doubt there are. "We only fear that some for whom the consolation of this saving clause was not intended will, nevertheless, complacently take the benefit of it. We shall offer some observations on both the causes of failure above specified at the close of the present article. The appropriateness of any composition, whether written or spoken, is easily deduced from its object. If that object be to instruct, convince, or persuade, or all these at the same time, we naturally expect that it should be throughout of a direct and earnest character, indicating a mind absorbed in the avowed object, and solicitous only about what may subserve it. We expect that this singleness of purpose should be seen in the topics discussed, in the arguments selected to enforce them, in the modes of illustration, and even in the peculiarities of style and expression. We expect that nothing shall be introduced merely for the purpose of inspiring an interest, either in the thoughts or in the language, apart from their perti- nency to the object ; or of exciting an emotion of delight for its own sake, as in poetry, although it is quite true that the most vivid pleasure will necessa- rily result from perceiving an exact adaptation of the means to the end. We cannot readily pardon mere beauties or elegances, striking thoughts or graceful imagery, if they are marked by this irrelevancy, since they serve only to impede the vehement current of argument or feeling. In a word, we expect nothing but what, under the circumstances of the speaker, is prompted by nature; nature, not as opposed to a deliberate effort to adapt the means to the ends, and ito do what is to be done as well as possible, for this, 188 SACKED ELOQUENCE : though in one sense art, is also the truest nature ; but nature, as opposed to whatever is inconsistent with the idea that the man is under the dominion of gen- uine feeling, and bent upon taking the directest path to the accomplishment of his object. True eloquence is not like some painted window, which both trans- mits the light of day variegated and tinged with a thousand hues, and diverts the attention from its proper use to the pomp and splendor of the artist's doing; it is a perfectly transparent medium, trans- mitting light, without suggesting a thought about the medium itself. Adaptation to the one single object is everything. These maxims have been universally recognized in deliberative and forensic eloquence. Those who have most severely exemplified them have ever been regarded as the truest models ; while those who have partially violated them, though still considered in a qualified sense very eloquent, have failed to obtain the highest place. Nor, it may be safely said, would the irrelevant discussions, the florid declamation, the imaginative finery, the tawdry ornament which too often disgrace the pulpit, which too often are heard in it, not only without astonishment, but with admi- ration, be tolerated for a moment in the senate or at the bar. Much of this is no doubt to be attributed to the deplorable fact that the great themes of religion are viewed (not by preachers alone, but by all mankind) with emotions so sadly disproportioned to their in- trinsic importance. Hence the difficulty of finding the man who is as thoroughly interested in the sub- jects of religion as thousands are in discussions relat- ing to the timber or sugar duties, to a grant of pub- THE BRITISH PULPIT. 189 lie money, or a vote of supply. Even a trial at the Old Bailey for stealing a couple of pocket handker- chiefs too often stirs deeper emotion, both in speakers and hearers, than the most momentous realities con- nected with the future and unseen world. This, however, is only a partial solution of the difficulty; since the maxims we have above adverted to are often and grievously violated by multitudes of preachers, the consistency of whose lives, and whose diligent discharge of the ordinary duties of their office, bespeak them to be under the dominion of religious principle. Their failings, therefore, as public speakers, can be fairly accounted for only by their having adopted an erroneous idea of what the most effective style of speaking is ; or, which is more frequent, from their never having attained any dis- tinct idea of it at all. . We have long felt convinced that the eloquence of the pulpit, in its general character, has never been assimilated so far as it might have been, and ought to have been, to that which has produced the great- est effect elsewhere ; and which is shown to be of the right kind both by the success which has attended it, and by the analysis of the qualities by which it has been distinguished. If we were compelled to give a brief definition of the principal characteristics of this truest style of eloquence, we should say it was '"'prac- tical reasoning, animated by strong emotion ;" or if we might be indulged in what is rather a descrip- tion than a definition of it, we should say that it con- sisted in reasoning on topics calculated to inspire a common interest, expressed in the language of ordi- nary life, and in that brief, rapid, familiar style which natural emotion ever assumes. The former half of 190 SACKED ELOQUENCE: this description would condemn no small portion of the compositions called " Sermons," and the latter half a still larger portion. We would not be misunderstood. It is far, very far, from our intention to speak in terms of the slightest depreciation of the immense treasures of learning, of acute disquisition, of profound speculation, of power- ful controversy, which the literature of the English pulpit contains. In these points it cannot be sur- passed. In vigor and originality of thought, in argu- mentative power, in extensive and varied erudition, it as far transcends all other literature of the same kind as it is deficient in the qualities which are fitted to produce popular impression. We merely assert that the greater part of " Sermons " are not at all entitled to the name, if by it be meant discourses specially adapted to the object of instructing, convincing, or persuading the common mind. We are well aware that the very nature of pulpit eloquence forbids anything more than a partial assimilation to that of the senate or the bar; that certain modifications will be instantly suggested by the topics with which it deals and the objects which it has in view. It must often be to a far greater ex- tent simply didactic than eloquence of any other kind ; though the practical purpose to which all matter of this sort is to be immediately applied, will still secure an earnestness and animation in the style in very observable contrast with the even tone and measured periods of literary disquisition. It never can appeal to those tumultuous passions, nor rouse those vehement feelings which may be gladly aban- doned to the arena of politics ; while those sublime realities, connected with the future and the invisible, THE BRITISH PULPIT. 191 which form its great and inspiring themes, must necessarily demand more minute and ample descrip- tion, in order vividly to impress the imagination, than would \>e readily tolerated either in deliberative or forensic eloquence. Still this is only saying that, as a peculiar species of eloquence, it has something peculiar; as a species of the genus it ought still to possess the generic qualities. The degree in which it can exhibit and embody those qualities is another question ; and though it may be a point of some dif- ficulty to ascertain how far this object may be at- tained, it is not difficult to show either that it might have been attained more completely than it has been, or that in many instances it has been neglected alto- gether. ' We have said, for example, that the principal characteristic of all effective eloquence consists in reasoning on topics calculated to inspire a common interest in the mass of a common audience. Who can take even the most hasty inspection of our pulpit literature without perceiving how generally this obvi- ous attribute has been neglected, especially till within a comparatively recent period ? What can be more hopeless than the attempt to engage the atten- tion, or interest the feelings of a common audience in metaphysical subtleties ? And yet abstruse specula- tions on the " origin of evil," on " moral necessity," on the " self-determining power," on the " ultimate principles of ethics," on the "immortality of the soul," as proved from its indiscerptibility and we know not what, on the " eternal fitness of things," on the " moral sense," with other still more recondite speculations on themes which it is almost impious and perfectly useless to touch, were of common oc- 192 SACRED ELOQUENCE: eurrence in our older pulpit literature ; and they are not infrequent, though not pursued to the same ex- tent, even now. For our own parts we believe that the discussion of such subjects is about as profitable in a popular assembly as would be that of the well- known questions, as to whether angels can pass from one point of space to another without passing through the intermediate points, and whether they can visually discern objects in the dark. Dr. Donne has proposed a series of questions for over-refined speculators in which he keenly satirizes all such superfluous sub- tilty. It is only to be lamented that he did not more effectually learn his own lesson in the composition of his own sermons, in some of which he has touched upon subjects more fit for Thomas Aquinas than the Christian preacher. We would not do even Thomas Aquinas injustice, however; we verily believe that the great schoolman would have stood aghast at the idea of dragging such questions out of the obscurity of the schools into common daylight, and making them the themes of popular declamation. We gladly admit that the modern pulpit is fast outgrowing these extravagances ; that such discus- sions are both less frequent, and pursued to a much more limited extent, than they used to be. Yet it is no uncommon thing to find the young preacher, fresh from his metaphysics or his philosophy, touching upon them just to a sufficient extent to exhaust and dissipate the attention of his audience before he comes to more important and more welcome matter ; or indulging in allusions, and employing phraseology, with reference to them, wholly unintelligible to the in ass. Others, and they form a much larger class, are fond of subjects which are only one degree less THE BEITISH PULPIT. 193 \13eful, and which, though they ought not to be ex- cluded from the pulpit, need to be very rarely entered upon. We allude to the discussions connected with " Natural Theology," and the first " Principles of Morals." Such preachers are continually proving that there is a God, to those who readily admit there is a divine revelation ; that the marks of design in the universe prove that there is an intelligent cause, to those who never had a single doubt upon the sub- ject; that death is not an eternal slSep, to those who find no difficulty in admitting that there is a heaven and a hell ; that man is a moral agent, to those who cannot even conceive that he can be otherwise ; and that those first principles of ethics are certainly true, which even savages themselves would be ashamed to disavow. We say not that such topics should be ex- cluded from the pulpit, but only that they should form a very inferior element in its ordinary prelec- tions. The atheist and deist, though rarely found in Christian congregations, should not be entirely neglected ; and those who are neither the one nor the other should certainly be in possession of arguments which may serve to confute both, and to give an in- telligent reason " of the hope that is in them." But it may safely be taken for granted, in ordinary cases, that the great bulk of those who attend any Christian place of worship already believe all these things ; in a word, admit the truth of that revelation, the expo- sition and enforcement of which are the preacher's proper object. What should we say to a member of Parliament who should treat the House of Commons (characteristically impatient of whatever does not bear on practical objects) to formal disquisitions on points on which all the members are agreed : on the 13 194 SACKED ELOQUENCE: first principles of law and government, for example ; or on any of those abstract questions which were discussed properly enough by Filmer and Locke. Allusions to such matters, so far as they bear on the mattef in hand, and brief references to general prin- ciples which embrace the particular instances under discussion, are all that would be tolerated. Even where the topics are not such as are fairly open to censure^a large class of preachers, especially among the young, grievously err by investing them with the technicalities of science and philosophy ; either because they foolishly suppose they thereby give their compositions a more philosophical air, or because they disdain the homely and the vulgar. We remember hearing of a worthy man of this class, who, having occasion to tell his audience the simple truth, that there was not one Gospel for the rich and another for the poor, informed them that, " if they would not be saved on * general principles 5 they could not be saved at all !" With such men it is not sufficient to say, that such and such a thing must be, but there is always a " moral or physical necessity " for it. The will is too old-fashioned a thing to be mentioned, and everything is done by " volition ;" duty is expanded into " moral obligation," men not only ought to do this, that, Or the other, it is always by " some principle of their moral nature ;" they not only like to do so and so, but they are " impelled by some natural propensity;" men not only think and do, but they are never represented as thinking and doing without some parade of their " intellectual processes and active powers." Such discourses are full of " moral beauty," and " necessary relations," and " philosophical demonstrations," and "laws of na- THE BRITISH PULPIT. 195 ture," and " a priori and a posteriori arguments." If some simple fact of physical science is referred to in the way of argument or illustration, it cannot be presented in common language, but must be exhib- ited in the pomp of the most approved scientific technicalities. If there be a common and scientific name for the same object, ten to one that the latter is adopted. Heat straightway becomes "caloric," lightning, the " electric fluid ;" instead of plants and animals, we are surrounded by " organized substan- ces ;" life is nothing half so good as the " vital prin- ciple ;" " phenomena " of all kinds are very plenti- ful ; these phenomena are " developed," and " com- bined," and " analyzed," and in short, done every- thing with, except being made intelligible. Not only is such language as this obscurely understood, or not understood at all, but even if perfectly understood, must necessarily be far less effective than those sim- ple terms of common life which for the most part may be substituted for them. The sermons of Augus- tus William Hare, referred to at the commencement of this essay, may serve to show how the abstract terms of philosophy may be advantageously transla- ted into simple and racy English.* * The following extract from Dr. Campbell's " Lectures on Pulpit Eloquence " is worth notice : " There is indeed a sort of literary dic- tion, which sometimes the inexperienced are ready to fall into insensi- bly, from their having been much more accustomed to the school and to the closet, to the works of some particular schemer in philosophy, than to the scenes of real life and conversation. This fault, though akin to the former, is not so bad ; as it may be without affectation, and when there is no special design of catching applause. It is, in- deed, most commonly the consequence of an immoderate attachment to some one or other of the various systems of ethics or theology that have in modern times been published, and obtained a vogue among their respective partisans. Thus the zealous disciple of Shaf'tes- 196 SACKED ELOQUENCE: Equally at variance with common sense are the topics which some few preachers, much addicted to Biblical criticism, but strangely ignorant of its prac- tical uses, and the limits within which alone it can be properly applied, sometimes think proper to intro- duce into sermons. Their talk is much of " colla- tions of manuscripts," of " various readings," of the " Vulgate," of " Coptic and Syriac versions," of " interpolations," of the " original languages," of " Hebrew points," etc., etc.,. etc. They totally for- get, if they ever knew, that all these things are the mere instruments with which they work ; and that the results, expressed in simple language, and with- out any ostentatious technicalities, are all with which the people have to do. If such a man were building a house, he would doubtless suffer the scaffolding to stand about it as a notable embellishment ; or if he were emploj^ed to lay down a carpet, he would leave the hammer and nails upon the floor as memorials of his labor and ingenuity. The selection of inappropriate topics is the more bury, Akenside, and Hutcheson is no sooner licensed to preach the Gospel, than with the best intentions in the world, he harangues the people from the pulpit on the moral sense and universal benevolence ; he sets them to inquire whether there be a perfect conformity in their affections to the supreme symmetry established in the universe ; he is full of the sublime and beautiful in things, the moral objects of right and wrong, and the proportional affection of a rational creature toward them. He speaks much of the inward music of the mind, the harmony and the dissonance of the passions ; and seems, by his way of talking, to imagine, that if a man have this same moral sense, which he con- siders as the mental ear, in due perfection, he may tune his soul with as much ease as a musician tunes his musical instrument. The disciple of Dr. Clarke, on the contrary, talks to us in somewhat of a soberer strain and less pompous phrase, but not a jot more edifying, about unalter- able reason and the eternal fitness of things, about the conformity of our actions to their immutable relations aud essential differennes.'' THE BRITISH PULPIT. 197 inexcusable, when we consider the large provision of subjects of enduring and universal interest which is made in the very book which the preacher professes to interpret. He may freely expatiate over the ample circle of its doctrines and precepts, in all their applications to the endless diversities of life, and the endless peculiarities of individual character ; he may find an equally legitimate province in the interpreta- tion of difficult passages, or the reconciliation of ap- parent discrepancies ; in the illustration of manners, customs, and antiquities ; and in the elucidation of those ever- varied and deeply interesting narratives in which, for the profoundest reasons, the doctrines of Scripture are everywhere imbedded, as if for the very purpose both of securing the requisite variety in pul- pit discourses, and preventing the truths of religion from assuming the form of naked abstractions. "Well would it be if in this respect, as well as in others, the preacher would make the Bible the object of his sed- ulous imitation. It is everywhere a practical book ; it contains no over-curious speculations, no superflu- ous subtleties. On the contrary, as often remarked, there is a singular silence maintained in that volume on all that tends merely to gratify our curiosity. The very mysteries it discloses it discloses only so far as is necessary for some practical purpose ; while it every- where views man just as in common life man views himself and his fellows, recognizing at once, without discussion, all those facts connected with our intellec- tual and moral constitution, the true theory of which has occasioned such endless differences and inquiries in the schools. If the topics selected by the preacher have often been very little calculated to inspire interest in the 198 SACKED ELOQUENCE: mass of a common audience, it is equally true that, where they are liable to no such objection, the mode of treating them has as often been anything but popular. The argumentation is often too subtle or too comprehensive ; or a too solicitously logical form is given to its expression. Unity of subject, indeed, there ought to be, and must be ; that is, where the discourse is a "sermon," and not an " exposition." But it is one thing to exhibit that one subject by rapidly and powerfully touching those points which the common mind can seize and appreciate, and quite another to exhibit it after the manner of Euclid or Dr. Clarke. Unity of subject is a characteristic of Demosthenes ; but continuous or subtle ratiocination never is. He reasons, indeed, perpetually, for reason- ing, as already said, is the staple of all effective elo- quence ; but never was a truer criticism than that of Lord Brougham — " that his reasonings are not of the nature of continuous demonstration, and by no means resemble a chain of mathematical or metaphysical arguments." The following observations are well worthy the attention of every speaker : " If by this [the assertion that Demosthenes is chiefly character- ized by reasoning] is only meant that he never wanders from the subject, that each remark tells upon the matter in hand, that all his illustrations are brought to bear upon the point, and that he.is never found making any step in any direction which does not advance his main object, and lead toward the conclusion to which he is striving to bring his hearers, the observation is perfectly just ; for this is a distinguishing feature in the character of his elo- quence. It is not, indeed, his grand excellence, be- cause everything depends upon the manner in which THE BRITISH PULPIT. 199 he pursues this course, the course itself being one quite as open to the humblest mediocrity as to the highest genius. But if it is meant to be said that those Attic orators, and especially their great chief, made speeches in which long chains of elaborated reasoning are to be found, nothing can be less like the truth. A variety of topics are handled in suc- cession, all calculated to strike the audience." We admit, however, that it is impossible to lay down any universal rule on this point. Different men will treat their subjects with more or less of logical severity, according to the structure of their own understandings ; and, what is more, will form to themselves audiences who will appreciate their methods. A general caution against the extremes adverted to is all that can be given. But in order more effectually to guard against the faults in ques- tion, we are inclined to believe that it would be well if the ancient system of " Homilies," or expositions of considerable passages, were more frequently re- sorted to. If well executed, especially when the subjects are historical, we are disposed to think they would both be more fruitful of instruction, and secure, by variety of topics, a stronger hold upon the atten - tion of a common audience. We are aware, indeed, that to present such subjects judiciously, to make the transitions easy and natural, and to secure something like unity of plan, notwithstanding the great variety of the materials, would require quite as much labor as the construction of a sermon on some single topic, probably more. And for this very reason we do not think it would be at all fair to judge of the effects of such expositions by what commonly pass under that name, in which a large portion of text is often 200 sacked eloquence: taken in order to seme trouble ; the preacher erro- neously supposing that, where he has so much to talk about he cannot fail to have enough to say, and that he may therefore dispense wi.th a diligent prepara- tion. He forgets that, if the field be very wide, there may be the greater danger, unless he take due care of losing himself in it. We have heard of a preacher of this stamp, who alleged, as a reason for resorting to the expository method, that when he was " perse- cuted in one text he could flee unto another." Chrysostom, in his very belt moods, admirably ex- emplifies the homiletic style here contended for.* * Whitefield's sermons very often consist of little more than a familiar and lively exposition of a parable, or some short portion of narrative ; and to this we have no doubt they owed no slight degree of their popularity. The sermons of Whitefield have come down to us in a very imperfect form. They are, for the most part, mere notes of what he said. It has often been remarked that his sermons are strangely destitute of vigorous or original thought. Though it is cer- tain they have greatly suffered from the mutilated form in which they have reached us, we must confess it does not appear to us that the sermons are very deficient in those qualities of thought or expression which we have represented as so essential to popular eloquence. It is true they often want method and arrangement, are disfigured by repetitions, extravagances, and frequent and gross violations of taste. These are to be attributed partly to the cause above specified, that is, the imperfect manner in which his sermons have been preserved, partly to the character of his own mind, and partly to the age. If, indeed, any one look for profound speculation, or continuous and subtle reasoning in these sermons, he will be disappointed ; but so far from wondering on that account that they could have produced such an effect, he will feel, if he know anything of the philosophy of popular eloquence, that they could not have produced such an effect if they had been characterized by these qualities. It is certain they could not have been destitute of the principal qualities, whether of thought or of style, which constitute popular eloquence; and we think that even now, amid great deformities, those qualities may be not obscurely traced in them. Preaching of which the fastidious Hume said, that THE BRITISH PULPIT. 201 As we have said that we wish preach ere would let the Scriptures determine for them to what classes of subjects they should limit themselves, so we wish that they would imitate the same book in their gen- eral mode of treating the topics it supplies. There, assuredly, as Lord Brougham says of Demosthenes, the reasonings are not " chains of continuous ratio- cination." The book is constructed with far too pro- found a knowledge of human nature for that. To use the expressive language already quoted, "a variety of topics are handled in succession, all calcu- lated to strike the common mind." This is the very characteristic of the discourses of our Lord ; and in this, as well as in all other respects, they are worthy of the profound study of the Christian preacher. A few philosophers would, no doubt, prefer a very dif- ferent method, and have often very unphilosophically complained of Scripture because its method is not their method. But we are not speaking of what philosophers would best like, but what is most calcu- lated to impress the common mind. We shall now proceed to offer a few observations on those properties of style which peculiarly belong to the most effective eloquence. It was remarked that it is characterized by that brief, rapid, familiar, and natural manner which a mind in earnest ever assumes. It is best illustrated by the style of a man engaged in conversation on some serious subject — intent, for example, on convincing his neighbor of some important truth, or persuading him to some it was "worth going twenty miles to hear it," which interested the infidel Bolingbroke, and warmed even the cool and cautious Franklin for once into enthusiasm, must have possessed great merit, indepen- dently of the charms of voice, gesture, and manner. 202 SACRED eloquence: course of conduct. The public speaker will often manifest, it is true, greater dignity or vehemence, (the natural result of speaking on a more important theme, and to a larger audience,) but there will be the same general characteristics still ; the same collo- quial, but never vulgar diction; the same homely illustrations ; the same brevity of expression ; in a word, all those peculiarities which mark a man ab- sorbed in his subject, and simply anxious to give the most forcible expression to his thoughts and feelings. It is not very easy to give an analysis of this peculiar style by an enumeration of its qualities ; but it is instantly recognized wherever it is found, whether addressed to the eye or to the ear.* The chief characteristics of this peculiar style are abhorrence of the ornate and the glittering, of the pompous and the florid ; jealousy of epithets, a highly idiomatic and homely diction, a love of brevity and condensation, a freedom from stateliness and formal- ity ; rapid changes of construction, frequent recur- rence to the interrogative — not to mention numberless other indications of vivacity and animation, marked in speech by the most rapid and varied changes of voice and gesture. Of all its characteristics, the most striking and the most universal is the moderate use of the imagination. ISTow as lively emotion always stimulates the imagination, it may at first sight appear paradoxical that this should be a char- acteristic at all. But a little reflection will explain this ; for every one must recollect that if a speaker is * No writer on rhetoric (if we except Aristotle) has been so uni- formly alive to the peculiarities of this style, or has so happily illus- trated them, as Dr. Whately. It must also be admitted that his own writings furnish many admirable exemplifications of his own maxims. It is well when precept is enforced by exg THE BRITISH PULPIT. 203 in earnest lie never employs his imagination as the poet does, merely to delight us, nor indeed to delight us at all, except as appropriate imagery, though used for another object, necessarily imparts pleasure. For this reason illustrations are selected always with ref- erence to their force rather than their beauty, and are very generally marked more by their homely propriety than by their grace and elegance. For the same reason, wherever it is possible, they are thrown into the brief form of a metaphor ; and here Aristotle, with his usual sagacity, observes that the metaphor is the only trope in which the orator may freely indulge. Everything marks the man intent upon serious business, whose sole anxiety is to convey his meaning with as much precision and energy as possi- ble to the minds of his auditors. But with the poet, whose very object is to delight us, gr even with the prose- writer, in those species of prose which have the same object, the case is widely different. He may employ two or more images, if they are but appro- priate and elegant, where the orator would employ but one, and that perhaps the simplest and homeliest ; he may throw in an epithet merely to suggest some picturesque circumstance, or to give greater minute- ness and vivacity to description ; he may sometimes indulge in a more flowing and graceful expression than the orator would venture upon ; that is, when- ever harmony will better answer his object than energy. What does it matter to him who is walking for walking's sake how long he lingers amid the beautiful, or how often he pauses to drink in at leisure the melody and the fragrance of nature? But the man who is pressing on to his journey's end cannot afford time for such luxurious loitering. The utmost 204 SACRED ELOQUENCE: he can do is to snatch here and there a homely floweret from the dusty hedge-row, and eagerly pur- sue his way. So delicate is the perception attained by a highly cultivated taste, of the proprieties of all grave and earnest composition, that it not only feels at enmity with the meretricious or viciously ornate, but immediately perceives that the greatest beauties of certain species of prose composition would become little better than downright bombast if transplanted into any composition the object of which was serious. We may illustrate this by referring to a passage of acknowledged beauty, the description, in the "Anti- quary," of the sunset preceding the storm there so grandly delineated : " The sun was now resting his huge disc upon the edge of the level ocean, and gilded the accumulation of towering clouds through which he had traveled the livelong day, and which now. assembled on all sides, like misfortunes and disasters around a sinking empire and falling monarch. Still, however, his dying splendor gave a somber magnifi- cence to the massive congregation of vapors, forming out of their unsubstantial gloom the show of pyramids and towers, some touched with gold, some with pur- ple, some with a hue of deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched beneath this varied and gorgeous canopy, lay almost portentously still, reflecting back the dazzling and level beams of the descending lumin- ary and the splendid coloring of the clouds amid which he was setting." ~No one in reading this pas- sage can help admiring its graphic beauty. The numerous epithets, considering the purpose for which they are employed — that of detaining the mind upon every picturesque circumstance and giving vividness and fidelity to the whole picture — appear no more THE BRITISH PULPIT. 205 frequent than they ought to be. But suppose some naval historian, who has occasion to narrate the movements of two hostile fleets, (separated on the eve of battle by a storm,) should suddenly pause to introduce a similar description ; would not the effect be so ridiculous that no one could read to the end of the passage without bursting into laughter ? It is against such a style that the young preacher, especially if he has or thinks he has a brilliant imag- ination, is called to be jealously on his guard ; and the more so as the very themes on which he is often called to speak really require a certain fullness of description to bring them with sufficient fidelity and vividness before the mind of the hearer. But let him beware how he throws in epithets and employs ima- ages merely because he thinks them beautiful or picturesque. As regards real impression, there is no style which has so little practical effect, even when there is real genius in it. In general that style is characterized by anything but genius. There are some examples of it, however, to which this remark would not apply ; it certainly would not to some of the sermons of Jeremy Taylor. That this style is often extravagantly admired is quite true ; nay, even the downright florid is not without its admirers ; but it is not the less ineffective for all that. This very admiration, as it is too often the subtle motive which has beguiled the speaker into such a vicious mode of treating his subject, so it at once affords a solution of the seeming paradox, for it shows that the minds of the auditors are fixed rather upon the man than upon the subject, less upon the truths inculcated than upon the genius which has embellished them. The speaker has been ambitious to attract the eye to ^05 SACRED ELOQUENCE: himself and his doings, and it must be admitted that he too often succeeds; but it is at the expense of what is his avowed, and ought to be his real object. If we cannot endure this style in the public speaker, even where there is intrinsic beauty in it, simply because we do not think it natural that a man in earnest should indulge in all this wanton dalliance with imagination, how much more repulsive is that far more frequent style which is but a mockery of it, in which there is a constant effort to be fine ; where there is not only excess of ornament, but all of a bad kind ! The former style may be natural to the man, as in the case of Jeremy Taylor, however unnatural in relation to the subject and the occasion ; the latter is alike unnatural in relation to both. As the severe style for which we contend is best illustrated by examples, we shall mention two or three of those who have strikingly exemplified it. And as we are speaking simply of style, the authors to whom we shall refer are selected without relation to the systems of doctrine which they preached, and without implying either approbation or censure in that point of view. If the whole of those who have illustrated the principles here expounded were given, the catalogue would not be very long. It is true that this style is more frequently cultivated than it was ; and if it were not invidious to refer to living preach- ers, we might mention not a few, both in the Estab- lishment and out of it, who have attained it in a very high degree ; some few in whom it is found nearly in perfection. But if we search the printed literature of the pulpit, it is not one sermon in a thousand that possesses any traces of it. The style is often that of stately or elegant disquisition, often of loose and florid THE BKITISH PULPIT. 207 declamation, but rarely indeed do we recognize the qualities of what Aristotle has happily and aptly called the " agonistical " or "wrestling" style; that style by which a speaker earnestly strives to make a present audience see and feel what he wishes them to see and feel. A large portion of our sermons differ not at all in style from that of a theological treatise or a philosophical essay ; and they may be read by the indi- vidual in the closet without the slightest suspicion, were it not for the assurance on the title-page, that they were discourses delivered to a public audience. "We would fain believe that the printed sermons of many of our preachers have in this respect done injustice to their ordinary discourses, and that they have been greatly altered previous to publication. In one case, and that a striking one, we know that this belief is well founded. We allude to perhaps the greatest of modern English preachers, the late Robert Hall. The few discourses which he so elab- orately prepared for the press are full of exquisite thoughts, expressed in most exquisite language ; but the style is almost everywhere that of disquisition, and in no sensible degree different from what he has adopted in his "Apology for the Freedom of the Press," or his work on "Terms of Communion." Now it is well known that his ordinary discourses were distinguished by a much higher degree of those qualities of style for which we have been so earnestly contending ; and there can be little difficulty in affirming that, in this one point of view, many of the sermons which were imperfectly taken down in short- hand from his own lips, are superior to the most polished of those compositions which he slowly elab- orated for the press. 208 SACRED eloquence: But though it is difficult to point out many speci- mens of the style in question, such specimens are to be found. Of all the English preachers, probably those who have been most strongly marked by the peculiarities of the true genius for public speaking, are Latimer, South, and Baxter; and, notwithstanding some defects, and those not inconsiderable, they are also probably the preachers in whom specimens of the style we are speaking of will be found the most frequent and perfect. The first of these certainly possessed talents for the most effective eloquence in a high degree. Indeed, it may be said of many of the preachers of the Ref- ormation, that, though their uncouthness, quaintness, ridiculous or trivial allusions, wearisome tautologies and digressions, incessant violations of taste and dis- regard of method, render it difficult to read them, they are in many important points very superior to the more erudite and profound preachers of the next century. The subjects they selected were such as more generally interested the common mind. These subjects are briefly touched and rapidly varied. Though the structure of the sentence is often most uncouth, (as might be expected from the state of the language,) the diction is more idiomatic and purely English ; while the general manner is decidedly more that of downright earnestness, more direct and pun- gent. This effect is in a great measure to be attrib- uted to the circumstances in which they were placed. In that great controversy to which they consecrated their lives, they appealed to the people, and were naturally led both to adapt their subjects to the pop- ular mind, and to express themselves in the pop- ular language. The preachers of the next century THE BRITISH PULPIT. 209 were men who lived in seclusion, far from common life, buried among books, and incessantly reading and often writing in a foreign tongue. To all this it is owing that their subjects and their style are too often as little adapted to produce popular impression as those of Thomas Aquinas himself. Of all the English preachers, South seems to us to furnish, in point of style, the truest specimens of the most effective species of pulpit eloquence. We are speaking, it must be remembered, simply of his style ; we offer no opinion on the degree of truth $r error in the system of doctrines he embraced, and for his unchristian bitterness and often unseemly wit would be the last to offer any apology. But his robust in- tellect, his shrewd common sense, his vehement feel- ings, and a fancy always more distinguished by force than by elegance, admirably qualified him for a powerful public speaker. His style is accordingly marked by all the characteristics which might natu- rally be expected from the possession of such quali- ties. It is everywhere direct, condensed, pungent. His sermons are well worthy of frequent and diligent perusal by every young preacher. He has himself taught, both by precept and example, the chief pe- culiarities of that style for which we are pleading in a discourse on Luke xxi, 15: " For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay or resist." In one passage of this sermon he takes occasion to expose the folly of that florid declamation to which his manly intellect and taste were so little likely to extend indulgence. In doing this he introduces some brief specimens of the style which he condemns. Though he mentions no names, and though we might be unable to refer the 14 210 SACKED ELOQUENCE; expressions to any particular author, any one might be sure, from the expressions themselves, that he intended his admonitions for the special benefit of his illustrious cotemporary, Jeremy Taylor. More bold than courteous, he has been at no pains to in- vent expressions for his purpose, but has actually selected them out of Taylor's own writings. There is certainly some malice in the passage ; but it is itself so impressive an example of the style he is recommending, that we cannot refrain from extract- ing it :* " ' I speak the words of soberness,' said St. Paul, and I preach the Gospel not with the 'enticing words of man's wisdom.' This was the way of the apostle's discoursing of things sacred. Nothing here 'of the fringes of the north star;' nothing 'of nature's becoming unnatural f nothing of the ' down of angels' wings, or the beautiful locks of cherubim;' no starched similitudes introduced with a ' Thus have I seen a cloud rolling in its airy mansion,' and the like. No; these were sublimities above the rise of the apostolic spirit. For the apostles, poor mortals, were content to take lower steps, and to tell the world in plain terms, that he who believed should be saved, and that he who believed not should be damned. And this was the dialect which pierced the con- science, and made the hearers cry out, Men and brethren, what shall we do ? It tickled not the ear, but sunk into the heart; and when men came from such sermons they never commended the preacher for his taking voice or gesture; for the fineness.of such a simile, or the quaintness of such a sentence ; but they spoke like men conquered with the overpowering force and evidence of the most concerning truths, much in the words of the two THE BRITISH PULPIT. 211 disciples going to Emmaus : Did not our hearts hum within us while he opened to us the Scriptures ? " In a word, the apostles' preaching was therefore mighty and successful, because plain, natural, and familiar, and by no means above the capacity of their hearers; nothing being more preposterous than for those who were professedly aiming at men's hearts to miss the mark by shooting over their heads."* We are tempted to give another short extract from this great preacher; we might select some which would still better illustrate our present subject, but they would be too long. The following is from his sermon entitled "Good Inclinations no Excuse for Bad Actions :" " The third instance, in which men use to plead the will instead of the deed, shall be on duties of cost and expense. Let a business of expens- ive charity be proposed ; and then, as I showed be- fore that in matters of labor the lazy person could find no hands wherewith to work, so neither in this case can the religious miser find any hand wherewith to give. It is wonderful to consider how a command or call to be liberal, either upon a civil or religious account, all of a sudden impoverishes the rich, breaks the merchant, shuts up every private man's ex- chequer, and makes those men in a minute have nothing at all to give, 4 who, at the very same in- stant, want nothing to spend. So that instead of relieving the poor, such a command strangely in- creases their number, and transforms rich men into beggars presently. For, let the danger of their prince and country knock at their purses, and call upon them to contribute against a public enemy or calam- ity, then immediately they have nothing, and their ♦South's "Sermons," voL iv, pp. 152, 153. 212 SACRED eloquence: riches (as Solomon expresses it) never fail to make themselves wings and to fly away."* Of the preachers of the seventeenth century, Bax- ter possessed as largely as any those endowments which are essential to the best kind of popular elo- quence. He presents the same combination of vigorous intellect and vehement feeling which dis- tinguished South ; but he conjoined with these a de- votion far more pure and ethereal, and a benevolence most ardent and sincere. It is a pity that the slovenly manner in which he threw oif his works, and which was too commonly the fault of the age in which he lived, has deformed so large a portion of them by repetitions and redundances. Continuous excellence is not to be looked for, indeed, in any of the writers of that period. There are single passages of great power occurring here and there, but imbedded in a mass of deformities — gems of marvelous value and splendor incrusted in their native earth. Numerous as Baxter's defects in point of style are, he often pre- sents us with passages which are genuine examples of the most effective pulpit eloquence, and, if our space would permit, we should be glad to insert some of them. Baxter was almost equally distinguished by those talents which go to form a great public speaker, (hence his constant desire to make a direct and practical use of all his knowledge,) and by that excursiveness and subtilty of intellect which impels to a thorough investigation of every subject, however worthless. It is not a little ludicrous sometimes to see these two propensities of his intellect struggling for the mastery. At one time he forms a magnani- mous resolution to forego speculations which are *South's " Sermons," vol. i, pp. 278, 279. THE BRITISH PULPIT. 213 curiously useless, and the next is found deep in the discussion of therm Thus, in his "Dying Thoughts," after telling us of the futility of the greater part of those questions which relate to the modes of existence in a future world, he proceeds very deliberately to expend about threescore pages in the examination of some of them ! Even in Jeremy Taylor, the exuberance of whose imagination too often betrayed him into puerilities and extravagances which are utterly inconsistent with true eloquence, and whose cumbrous erudition perpetually suggested allusions and phraseology equally inconsistent with it, passages which in a con- siderable degree illustrate the style in question are not seldom to be found. Take the following from his sermon entitled, " Christ's Advent to Judgment:" "And because very many sins are sins of society and confederation, it is a hard and a weighty considera- tion what shall become of any one of us who have tempted our brother or sister to sin and death; for though God hath spared our life, and they are dead, and their debt-books are sealed up till the day of account, yet the mischief of our sin has gone before us, and it is like a murder, but more execrable ; the soul is dead in trespasses and sins, and sealed up to an eternal sorrow; and thou shalt see at doomsday what damnable uncharitableness thou hast done. That soul that cries to those rocks to cover her, if it had not been for thy perpetual temptations, might have followed the Lamb in a white robe ; and that poor man that is clothed with shame and flames of lire, would have shined in glory, but that thou didst force him to be partner of thy baseness. And who shall pay for this loss ? a soul is lost by thy means ; 214 SACKED eloquence: thou hast defeated the holy purposes of the Lord's bitter passion by thy impurities; aqd what shall happen to thee by whom thy brother dies eternally?" Of recent writers there is none with whom we are acquainted who, in point of diction, so well deserves to be a model as the late Augustus William Hare, to whom reference has been already made. We by no means assert that (as was the case with Latimer, South, or Baxter) the general structure of his intel- lect was that which plainly predestines a man to be a great public speaker. Of many of the qualifica- tions of one he was certainly possessed; and it is equally certain that his early death, and the humble sphere to which his talents were restricted, render it impossible to say what he might have become. He possessed in an eminent degree the art of making difficult things plain ; of setting obvious truths in novel lights ; of illustrating them by familiar images ; and of expressing them in a style habitually ani- mated, and now and then singularly vivacious. His sermons to a " Country Congregation" will probably disappoint, by their very simplicity, the highly culti- vated and intelligent, for whom, indeed, they were never intended ; although we cannot conceal our opinion that the extreme simplicity of the language would often deceive even such readers as to the value and importance of the thoughts it expresses. But for an illiterate audience, an audience of rustics, they appear to us, in point of diction, perfect models of what discourses ought to be. Their author was a man of powerful intellect, and of the most varied accomplishments, and affords a striking example of the success with which high en- dowments may be made subservient to a very humble THE BRITISH PULPIT. 215 object whenever a man is honestly bent upon so em- ploying them. His great knowledge, instead of being employed for ostentation's sake, only taught him more precisely what was to be done, and how he ought to set about it. To the most extensive ac- quaintance with ancient and modern literature, he added no inconsiderable knowledge of Anglo-Saxon, and consequently possessed (what no public speaker should be without) an acquaintance with the capa- bilities and resources of his mother tongue, with the vocabulary and idioms of the people. When he left Cambridge to undertake the charge of a congregation in a remote rural district, he resolved so to express himself that all should understand him; and his eminent success shows what may be done by one who forms a definite notion of the style he ought to adopt, and deliberately bends his best energies to attain it. The above-mentioned sermons to a " Country Congre- gation," we consider, a greater triumph of his genius than all the splendid acquisitions he had made ; and if Dr. Johnson's sentiment be true, that a " volun- tary descent from the dignity of science is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach," the tri- umph of his humility was still greater than that of his genius. We are well aware of the many difficulties which beset the man who honestly resolves to speak only in the style we have recommended ; difficulties some- times arising from the intellectual pursuits to which he has been necessarily addicted ; sometimes from the peculiarity of his own mental character. Nursed in the lap of learning, and familiar with the language of science and literature; necessitated in the very course of those preparatory studies which form an 216 SACRED ELOQUENCE: essential part of his professional education, to read much in foreign tongues, and to prosecute profound or abstruse inquiries, he will be apt, insensibly, to select subjects, or adopt a style utterly inconsistent with pulpit eloquence. He may still more frequently be betrayed into such conduct by affectation and vanity. The very peculiarities of his own mental constitution may expose him more fatally to the danger, and require continual efforts to counteract them. If he be a philosopher he will be tempted to indulge too much in abstruse speculation, or to treat those subjects on which he may rightfully expatiate in a philosophic manner — in language too abstract and remote from common life. If he have a brilliant imagination he will often be tempted to employ it inopportunely or to excess, and will find it hard to restrain it within the moderate limits in which alone it can be useful. In order to counteract the acciden- tal evils arising from the necessary prosecution of various branches of study, which, in relation to pub- lic speaking, may injuriously affect the habits of thought or of expression, it is proper that every one who is destined for such engagements should cultivate acquaintance with the most idiomatic writers, under- stand the genius and resources of his own language, the modes of thought and expression prevalent among the common people, and, above all, be diligent in the perusal of the best models of that severe and manly eloquence of which we have said so much. The success of Mr. Hare may serve to show how much may be done by honesty and diligence. Nor can it fail to encourage the young preacher to know that if he gets but a clear idea of the task which he has to per- form, and honestly resolves to perform it, thereisnotone THE BRITISH PULPIT. 217 of those things which we have mentioned as possible im- pediments that may not be made to facilitate his object. All that is requisite is a determination, that, as he has a practical object in view, everything shall be strictly subordinated to it. Philosophy, for example, may be made useful ; but it must be principally by teaching him to understand the mechanism and movements of that mind on which he is to operate. The audience must not perceive or suspect that the speaker is following the suggestions of any such in- visible guide ; or, if it be employed directly at all, it still must be unsuspected by the common people to be philosophy : it must be employed merely to insure greater accuracy and comprehensiveness in the views propounded ; and to determine the circumspect limits within which every subject must be treated ; that is, so far, and so far only, as it may be made conducive to a practical end. In a word, it must be philosophy without the forms of it ; philosophy in its working dress ; philosophy that has learned one of its hardest lessons, that it is often the truest philosophy not to appear such. In like manner, the speaker may have a knowledge of logic ; but it must be seen only in the greater perspicuity of his statements, and the greater close- ness of his reasoning. He must never trouble the people with the mysteries of mood and figure, or be- wilder them with a single unintelligible technicality. He may possess a knowledge of rhetoric ; but he is not to confound his audience with the distinctions of trope and metaphor, with the uses of synecdoches or metonymies, with those principles of the human mind which give them energy, or the rules by which, at the very time he is speaking, he is regulating his own taste in the employment of them. Here is a 218 SACRED eloquence: " hard lesson ! who can hear it ?" To be employing profound and extensive knowledge without suffering those you address to know any thing of the matter ! To be contented to produce results which seem cheap and common, without once lifting the curtain to be- wilder and dazzle the multitude with a sight of the imposing and complicated machinery which is re- volving behind it ! It is happily unnecessary to caution the modern preacher against many of the abuses which pervade our older pulpit literature, especially that of the seventeenth century; a period, notwithstanding, in which many of our most eminent preachers flourished. We allude more particularly to the abuse of learning. Most of the sermons of that age are full of quotations, absolutely unintelligible to the common people. Numberless passages of Jeremy Taylor^ in particular, are little better than a curious tessellation of En- glish, Greek, and Latin. The people, however strange the fact may appear, came at last not merely to like these displays, but to be sometimes discontented if they did not hear a great deal which they could not understand ! It is recorded of the profoundly learned Pococke, that when he successfully studied to divest his pulpit style of the traces of erudition, and, with a magnanimity and good sense very unusual in that age, made it a point to say nothing but what the peo- ple could understand, his congregation absolutely despised his simplicity, and said that " Master Po- cocke, though a very good man, was no Labi/ner" And South tells us, "that the grossest, the most ignorant and illiterate country people, were of all men the fondest of high-flown metaphors and allego- ries, attended and set off with scraps of Greek and % THE BRITISH PULPIT. 219 Latin, though not able even to read so much of the latter as might save their necks upon occasion." Equally unnecessary is it to caution the preacher against those complicated divisions and subdivisions into which our forefathers thought proper to chop up their discourses, to the entire frustration of the very object they had in view, and the utter discomfiture of the most retentive memory. In one discourse of Bishop Hall's, we have counted no less than eighty heads, principal and subordinate ; in one of Baxter's, not less than one hundred and twenty, besides a for- midable array of " improvements." But the most amusing examples of this abuse are those recorded in Robinson's notes to Claude's Essay " On the Com- position of a Sermon :" " But allowing the necessity of a natural and easy division, it does by no means follow that these are to multiply into whole armies. A hundred years ago most sermons had thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty particulars. There is a sermon of Mr. Lye's on 1 Cor. vi, IT, the terms of which, says he, I shall endeavor, by God's assistance, clearly to ex- plain. This he does in thirty particulars, for the fix- ing of it on a right basis, and then adds fifty-six more to explain the subject, in all eighty-six. And what makes it the more astonishing is his introduction to all these, which is this : Having thus beaten up and leveled our way to the text, I shall not stand to shred the words into any unnecessary parts, but shall extract out of them such an observation as I conceive strikes a full eighth to the mind of the Spirit of God. " If Mr. Lye is too prolific, what shall we say to Mr. Drake, whose sermon has (if I reckon rightly) above a hundred and seventy parts, besides queries and solutions; and yet the good man says he passed 220 SACKED ELOQUENCE: sundry useful points, pitching only on that which comprehended the marrow and substance." Equally superfluous would it be to caution the modern preacher against the quaintnesses, the quirks and quibbles, the fantastic imagery, the alliterations, and other curious devices of composition in which many of our older writers so much delighted. In truth, the tendency is all the other way. In the laudable effort to avoid the vulgar, there is not un- frequently a danger of sinking down into tame pro- priety. Our old writers, in their free and reckless resort to every mode of stimulating attention, were often, it is true, betrayed into gross violations of taste ; but the very same audacity of genius also often pro- duced great felicities, both of imagery and diction. The -too frequent characteristic of modern discourses is what the Germans would denominate " Wasserig- keit," " waterishness :" there is little to strike either the one way or the other ; all is blameless common- place, accurate insipidity. We now proceed, conformably with the intention mentioned at the commencement of this essay, to offer a few remarks on what we conceive to be the two chief causes of the mediocrity of the generality of sermons. One of them in our opinion is, that too little time is given to the preparation of public dis- courses. Far be it from us to involve in indiscrimi- nate censure the thousands of preachers whom we have never heard, or to pronounce absolutely on the indolence or the industry even of those to whom we hsv* 'istened. We only think that the failing in a is not a very partial one, from the internal b supplied by the sermons of no inconsiderable THE BRITISH PULPIT. 221 number of the different preachers whom we have heard. "We are also willing to admit, that the duties of the pulpit are not the only duties which claim the attention of the Christian minister ; and that his other engagements, in an age like this, are neither few nor small. But we must also contend, that as his princi- pal office is that of public instructor, the duties of that office must ever be his chief business ; and that, to whatever extent he may undertake other engage- ments, he should sacredly reserve sufficient time for the due discharge of his proper functions. The con- struction of a discourse which shall be adapted in matter, arrangement, and style, to produce a strong impression upon a popular audience, seems a task which requires much more time and labor than, as we conceive, are generally bestowed upon it. But we are convinced that this task, difficult as it is, might be performed much better than it generally is. We are well aware, of course, that there must always be an immense interval between the productions of a man of genius and those of a man who has no genius at all, between those of a fertile intellect and those of a barren one ; but there are few men possessed of that measure of vigor and elasticity of mind, without which they have no business out of the rank of handicraftsmen, who could not, with diligence, com- pose a discourse which might be generally useful and interesting, at least much more so than discourses are often found to be. Prolonged study and medita- tion are never without their reward. Either some new materials are collected, or they strike by a new arrangement, or some new truth is elicited, or some old truth is exhibited under a new aspect, or illustra- ted in a manner which gives it an importance never 222 SACRED ELOQUENCE: felt before, and extends its influence from the under- standing to the imagination, and thence to the affec- tions. Such sources of interest as these are sure to reveal themselves, sooner or later, to the mind that honestly and diligently sets itself to seek them with the conviction that they are to be had, and that they must be obtained.* * How much force is imparted to the most familiar and obvious truths in the following passages, merely by the novel mode of exhibit- ing them? " ' Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' If an inhabitant of some distant part of the uni- verse, some angel who had never visited the earth, had been told that there was a world in which such an invitation had been neglected and despised, they would surely say : The inhabitants of that world must be a very happy people ; there can be few among them that ' labor and are heavy laden.' No doubt they must be strangers to poverty, sorrow, and misfortune ; the pestilence cannot come nigh their dwell- ing, neither does death ever knock at their doors, and of course they must be unconnected with sin, and ah the miseries that are its ever- lasting attendants." — Wolfe's Remains. " Though the arguments which the Christian hath for his faith may not be the strongest, yet a tree but weakly rooted often brings forth good fruit ; and if it doth, will never be hewn down and cast into the fire." — Seeker's Sermons, vol. i, p. 20. The following is a passage from Hare's sermon on the text, "And forgive us our sins ; for we also forgive every one who is indebted to us:" "Conceive a revengeful, unforgiving man repeating this prayer, which you all, I hope, repeat daily. Conceive a man with a heart full of wrath against his neighbor, with a memory which treasures up the little wrongs, and insults, and provocations he fancies himself to have received from that neighbor. Conceive such a man praying to God Most High to forgive him his trespasses as he forgives the man who has trespassed against him. What, in the mouth of such a man, do these words mean ? They mean — but, that you may more fully under- stand their meaning, I will turn them into a prayer, which we will call the prayer of the unforgiving man : ' God, I have sinned against thee many times from my youth up until now. I have often been for- getful of thy goodness ; I have not daily thanked thee for thy mercies ; THE BRITISH PULPIT. 223 "Without intending to implicate Christian ministers generally in the charge now made, it will not be denied that the internal evidence of many a discourse justifies us in saying that it is widely applicable. In the first place, it can hardly be affirmed that those give time enough to their sermons who give none at all ; who, if they are ever eloquent, are eloquent at other people's expense ; who are contented to be wholesale plagiarists, and to shine Sunday after Sun- day in borrowed finery, "And cheat the eyes Of gallery critics with a thousand arts." We well know all the arguments by which this com- bination of vanity and indolence usually supports itself. I have neglected thy service ; I have broken thy laws ; I have done many things utterly wrong against thee. All this I know, and besides this, doubtless, I have committed many secret sins which, in my blind- ness, I have failed to notice. Such is my guiltiness, Lord, in thy sight. Deal with me, I beseech thee, even as I deal with my neigh- bor. He has not offended me one tenth, one hundredth part as much as I have offended thee ; but he has offended me very grievously, and I cannot forgive him. Deal with me, I beseech thee, Lord, as I deal with him. He has been very ungrateful to me, though not a tenth, not a hundredth part as ungrateful as I have been to thee ; yet I can- not overlook such base and shameful ingratitude. Deal with me, 1 beseech thee, Lord, as I deal with him. I remember and treasure up every little trifle which shows how ill he has behaved to me. Deal with me, I beseech thee, Lord, as I deal with him. I am determined to take the very first opportunity of doing him an ill turn. Deal with me, I beseech thee, Lord, as I deal with him.' Can anything be more shocking and horrible than such a prayer? Is not the very sound of it enough to make one's blood run cold ? Tet this is just the prayer which the unforgiving man offers up every time he repeats the Lord's prayer ; for he prays to God to forgive him in the same manner in which he forgives his neighbor. But he does not forgive his neigh- bor, so he prays to God not to forgive him. God grant that his prayer may not be heard, for he is praying a curse on his own head!" — Hare's Sermons, vol. ii, pp. 297-299. 224 SACRED eloquence: The principal is, that a man of little talent can buy or borrow a much better sermon than he can make. We freely acknowledge it, and should not make so great an objection to the practice if the preacher would avow the fact. This we think common honesty requires ; but if it be felt, as every one must feel, that such an avowal would put the speaker to shame, or, if he were past that, would make his audience ashamed for him, it is a tacit admission of the impro- priety of the practice. But we think the argument altogether fallacious. Supposing the preacher not to be destitute of that measure of talent without which he has no business to assume the office of a public instructor at all, we deny in toto that a borrowed discourse, whatever its merit, can be so impressive as one, even though in- trinsically inferior, which has been made his own by conscientious study. The latter is the fruit of dili- gent effort ; prolonged meditation will insure famili- arity with the subject, and both together insure, what nothing else can, adequate emotion. It will, accordingly, be delivered with an earnestness and glow of natural feeling of which the reading of a borrowed discourse is altogether destitute. The treasures of theological literature, whatever is valua- ble in other men's thoughts, are freely open to the preacher; but he should ever seek to make them his own by new combinations, arrangement, and expres- sion. The matter he borrows should be made his by chemical affinities with his own thoughts, not by mere mechanical appropriation. As to those discourses which are commonly called extemporaneous, we mean extemporaneous with re- gard to the expression, for the bulk of the thoughts THE BKITISH PULPIT. Tlo ought never to be extemporaneous, it is our firm be- lief that no inconsiderable portion to which the Christian communities of this country are treated are hastily huddled up on the evening preceding their delivery. But we believe that not a few are quite as extemporaneous in relation to the thought, as they are in relation to the expression. "When this is the case, the fact usually proclaims itself with sufficient clearness ; the painful process by which the mind is endeavoring to manufacture the material as the dis- course proceeds is abundantly visible both in face and manner. The frequent hesitation, the curiously bewildered look, the endless repetitions of common- place, the wire-drawing of obvious truths, all une- quivocally proclaim the speaker's unenviable confu- sion and embarrassment, his utter bankruptcy of intellect. The wonder is, that any man who has felt the misery of such an exhibition, or subjected his congregation to the pain of witnessing it, should ever again allow himself to be found in so painful a situation. Even of discourses where the thoughts are not properly extemporaneous, (and if the subject has been duly pondered, the matter properly distributed, and the principal illustrations selected, we cannot but think this the most effective, as it is certainly the most natural mode of preaching,) very few, compara- tively speaking, are prepared with the requisite de- gree of deliberation and care. Owing to the hasty manner in which they are got up, the subjects are rarely sufficiently digested; the several parts of the dis- course do not present themselves to the mind with sufficient distinctness; and, what is as bad, the great task of selection is not adequately performed after 15 226 sacked eloquence: the materials have been got together. Knowing that he most have a sufficient mass of matter of some kind or other, conscious that there is not much time to collect it, and grievously fearing lest he should not have enough, the preacher takes everything that offers, relevant or irrelevant, simply because it can- not be dispensed with. The process too often adopt- ed in the manufacture of these extemporaneous dis- courses we take to' be this. A text is selected ; critics and commentators hastily consulted ; and as it is felt that everything must be used, all that is collected about the text, whether relevant or not, whether calculated to instruct and edify, or quite unlikely to do either the one or the other, goes into the notes, simply because it cannot be spared. It is owing to this that we have sometimes heard preach- ers occupy a quarter of an hour, or twenty minutes, (exhausting the patience and dissipating the atten- tion of their flocks,) in disposing of some whimsical, far-fetched, and palpably untrue interpretation of the text, benevolently assuring them, at the same time, that such interpretations are utterly worthless, never dreamt of except by the solitary author who originated them, and perfectly inconsistent with common sense ! There are not a few fallacies by which some preachers impose upon themselves the belief that less preparation is necessary than is really indispensa- ble. They think that the topics on which they have to insist are so familiar and obvious that it is easy to discourse about them to any extent. It is clear that this argument ought to tell just the other way ; it is precisely because the topics on which the Christian minister has to expatiate are so familiar and obvious that the more diligence is requisite to set them in THE BRITISH PULPIT. 22 t new lights ; to devise new modes of illustration, and to secure the requisite variety by changing the form where we cannot change the substance. In this way only can exhausted attention be stimulated and renewed; but in this way it can. As the instances recently adduced will show, even the most obvious and threadbare truths may be made striking and forcible by a new setting. Sometimes men will tell us that they prefer a natu- ral and artless eloquence, and that very diligent preparation is inconsistent with such qualities. We verily believe that this fallacy, though it lurks under an almost transparent ambiguity, is of most prejudicial consequence. Nature and art, so far from being always opposed, are often the very same thing. Thus, to adduce a familiar example, and closely related to the present subject, it is natural for a man who feels that he has not given adequate ex- pression to a thought, though he may have used the first words suggested, to attempt it again and again. He, each time, approximates nearer to the mark, and at length desists, satisfied either that he has done what he wishes, or that he cannot perfectly do it, as the case may be. A writer, with this end, is con- tinually transposing clauses, reconstructing sentences, striking out one word and putting in another. All this may be said to be art, or the deliberate applica- tion of means to ends; but is it art inconsistent with nature ? It is just such art as this that we ask of the preacher, and no other ; simply that he shall take diligent heed to do what he has to do as well as he can. Let him depend upon it that no such art as this will ever make him appear the less natural. A similar fallacy lurks' under the unmeaning 228 SACRED ELOQUENCE: praises which are often bestowed upon a simple style of address. We love a true simplicity as much as any of its eulogists can do; but we should probably dif- fer about the meaning of the word. "While some men talk as if to speak naturally were to speak like a natural, others talk as if to speak with simplicity meant to speak like a simpleton. True simplicity does not consist in what is trite, bald, or common- place. So far as regards the thought it means, not what is already obvious to every body, but what, though not obvious, is immediately recognized, as soon as propounded, to be true and striking. As it regards the expression it means, that thoughts worth hearing are expressed in language that every one can understand. In the first point of view it is opposed to what is abstruse; in the second to what is ob- scure. It is not what some men take it to mean, threadbare, commonplace, expressed in insipid lan- guage. It can be owing only to a fallacy of this kind that we so often hear discourses, consisting of little else than meager truisms, expanded and diluted till every mortal ear aches that listens. We have heard preachers commence with the tritest of truths, a all men are mortal," and proceed to illustrate it with as much prolixity as though they were announc- ing it as a new proposition to a company of immor- tals in some distant planet, skeptical as to the reality of a fact so portentous, and so unauthenticated by their own experience. True simplicity is the last and most excellent grace which can belong to a speaker, and is certainly not to be attained without much effort. Those who have attentively read the present article will not suspect us of demanding more deliberate preparation on the" THE BRITISH PULPIT. 229 part of the preacher, that he may offer what is pro- found, recondite, or abstruse ; but that he may say only what he ought to say, and that what he does say may be better said. When the topics are such only as ought to be insisted on, and the language such as is readily understood, the preacher may depend upon it that no pains he may take will be lost; that his audience, however homely, will be sure to appreciate them, and that the better a discourse is the better they will like it. We have stated as the other great cause of the failure of preachers, that they are not sufficiently instructed in the principles of pulpit eloquence. We are far from contending that a systematic exposition of the laws in conformity with which all effective discourses to the people must be constructed, should be made a part of general education, or that it ought to be imparted even to him who is destined to be a public speaker, till his general training, and that a very ample one, is far advanced. But that such knowledge shall be acquired by every one designed for such an office, and that all universities and col- leges should furnish the means of communicating it, we have no manner of doubt. It is sometimes said, indeed, that all systematic instruction of this sort tends to spoil nature, prevent simplicity, and encour- age vanity ; in short, that it is sure to produce one or other of the forms of spurious or artificial eloquence. We ask : Does the objector mean any such system as approves of such things, or one that condemns them? If the former, we know of no such system; if the latter, then he must defend the paradox that such systems have, somehow or other, a tendency to produce the very faults which they expose and 230 SACRED eloquence: denounce, and to prevent the attainment of those very excellences which they describe as the only ones worth seeking ! ISTow is it possible for any sane mind to conceive that the ridicule which Campbell and Whately, for example, pour upon such faults, can foster in any youth a perverse passion for them? or that the severity, simplicity, earnest, businesslike style which these writers everywhere enjoin as essen- tial to all effective eloquence should provoke any man to the imitation of the opposite vices? The supposition is an absurdity. So far as such writers produce any effect at all, it must be to prevent the follies which they so unsparingly condemn. Those who attribute vicious eloquence to sound criticism have been guilty merely of the common blunder of assigning effects to wrong causes ; only it must be confessed that in the present case they show singular ingenuity in referring them to the only causes which could not by possibility produce them. The simple truth is that the bent of the young mind is so strong toward various forms of this spurious eloquence that it resists the most powerful counteraction ; and time and experience alone will avail, and not always even these, to give precepts their due weight and their just practical influence. To charge such effects upon such causes is about as wise as it would be to say of some spot which had been but partially cultivated, and from which the weeds which nature had so prodigally sown had not been completely eradicated, tk This comes of gardening and artificial culture !" Youthful vanity and inexperience alone sufficiently account for the greater part of the deviations from propriety, simplicity, and common sense now adverted to. Those who laud nature in opposition to art are . THE BRITISH PULPIT. 231 too apt to forget that this very vanity forms a part of it. It is natural for a youth, whether with or without cultivation, to fall into these errors; and all experience loudly proclaims that on such a point nature alone is no safe guide. Who that has arrived at maturity in intellect, taste, and. feeling, does not recollect how hard it was in early life to put the extinguisher upon a flaunting metaphor or daz- zling expression, to reject tinsel, however worthless, if it did but glitter, and epithets, however super- fluous, if they but sounded grand ? How hard it was to forget one's self and to become sincerely intent upon the best, simplest, strongest, briefest mode of communicating what we deemed important truth to the minds of others! Surely then it is not a little ridiculous, when so obvious a solution offers itself, to charge the faults of young speakers upon the very precepts which condemn them. It is sufficient to vindicate the utility of such precepts if they tend only in some measure to correct the errors they cannot entirely suppress, and to abridge the duration of follies which it is impossible wholly to prevent. But it is further said that, somehow or other, any such system of instruction does injury, by laying upon the intellect a sort of constraint, and substituting a stiff, mechanical movement for the flexibility and freedom of nature. The reply is, that if the system of instruction be too minute, or if the pupil be told to employ it mechanically, it may easily be conceived that such effects will follow, but not otherwise. We plead for no system of minute technical rules ; still less for the formal application of any system whatever. But to imbue the mind with great general principles, leaving 232 SACRED ELOQUENCE: i them to operate imperceptibly upon the formation of habit, and to suggest, without distinct consciousness of their presence, the lesson which each occasion demands, is a very different thing, and is all we con- tend for. One would think, to hear some men talk, that it \^as proposed to instruct a youth to adjust beforehand the number of sentences of which each paragraph should consist, and the lengths into which the sentences should be cut ; to determine how many should be perfect periods and how many should not ; what average allowance of antitheses, interrogatives, and notes of admiration shall be given to each page ; where he shall stick on a metonymy or a metaphor, and how many niches he shall reserve for gilded ornaments. Who is pleading for any such nonsense as this? All that is contended for is that no public speaker should be destitute of a clear perception of those principles of man's nature on which conviction and persuasion depend, and of those proprieties of style which ought to characterize all discourses which are designed to effect these objects. General as all this knowledge must be, we cannot help thinking that it would be most advantageous. One great good it would undoubtedly in many cases effect: it would prevent men from setting out wrong, or at least abridge the amount or duration of their errors. In other words, prevent the formation of vicious habits, or tend to correct them when formed. Nothing is more common than for a speaker to set out with false notions as to the style which effective public speaking requires, to suppose it something very remote from what is simple and natural. Still more are led into similar errors by their vanity. The young especially are apt to despise the true style for what are its chief THE BRITISH PULPIT. 233 excellences, its simplicity and severity. Let them once be taught its great superiority to every other, and they will at least be protected from involuntary errors, and be less likely to yield to. the seductions of vanity. Such a knowledge would also (perhaps the most important benefit of all) involve a knowledge of the best models, and secure timely appreciation of them. But it is frequently urged that, after all, the prac- tical value of all the great lessons of criticism must be learned from experience, and that mere instruction can do little. Be it so. is this any reason why that little should be withheld ? Besides, is it nothing to put a youth in the right way ? to abridge the lessons of experience? to facilitate the formation of good habits, and to prevent the growth of bad ones? to di- minish the probabilities of failure, and to increase those of success ? Is there any reason why we should suf- fer the young speaker to grope out his way by the use of the lead-line alone, when we could give him the aid of a chart and compass ; or to find his way to truth at last by a series of painful blunders, when any part of the trouble or the shame might be spared him ? Can any one doubt that a great speaker may be able to give a novice in the art many profitable hints, which would save him both much time and many errors, and make the lessons of experience not only a great deal shorter, but vastly less troublesome ? If this be so, we cannot see how it should be affirmed that instructions founded on an accurate analysis of eloquence, and compiled and digested by critics like Campbell and Whately, w T ill altogether fail of pro- ducing similar benefits. Lastly, it is urged that such instructions are of very 234 SACKED ELOQUENCE. little benefit, because, do what we will, we cannot make great speakers ; that nature has the exclusive patent for the manufacture ; that, like the true poet, the true orator is " born, not made," facts which we fully admit, but deny to be relevant. The argument contains a twofold fallacy. First, it is not true that even those to whom nature has imparted this heaven- born genius can do themselves justice without assid- uous cultivation, or afford to dispense with early in- struction. Certain it is, that none of them have ever thought it wise to venture upon such a display of in- dependence. Secondly, if it were ever so true that such men could do without instruction, the cases are so few that they would in no wise affect the general question. The highest oratorical genius is of the very rarest occurrence ; it is as rare as the epic or dramatic, if not more so, there being but two or three tolerably perfect specimens to be found in the whole* cabinet of history. The great question is, how to improve to the utmost the talents of those who must be public speakers, but who yet have no pretensions to the in- spiration of genius ; on whom, in truth, no one ever suspects that the mantle either of Demosthenes or of Cicero has descended. Nor should it ever be forgot- ten, (for it powerfully confirms the correctness of the views now insisted upon,) that, though the constitu- tion of mind which is necessary for the highest elo- quence is very seldom to be met with, there is no faculty whatever which admits of such indefinite growth and development, or in which perseverance and diligence will do so much, as that of public speaking. THE END. BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 200 Mulberry-street, New York. Compendium of Methodism. A Compendium of Methodism : embracing the History and Pres ent Condition of its various Branches in all Countries ; with t Defense of its Doctrinal, Governmental, and Prudential Pecu liarities. By Be v. James Porter, D.D. Revised edition. 12mo., pp. 501. This work has received universal favor. The facts that our bishops have put it in the course of study for local preachers, and that it has been translated into the German and Scandinavian languages, commend it to the confidence of all Methodists. It« peculiar advantages are, 1. That it gives a connected history o! Methodism from the beginning in all countries, and in all its denominations. 2. That it shows our doctrinal agreements and disagreements with other sects. 3. That it exhibits the different systems of church government in the world, and the relative merits of each. 4. That it explains and defends all our prudential means of grace and other peculiarities as no. other book does. It is a whole library in one volume, and is a Zaoor-saving as well as a money-saving pro- duction. Its importance to preachers and others is indicated by the following testimonials : It is, in fact, a digest of Methodism. The arrangement and execution of the several parts are admirable. The style is a model of perspicuity, ease, and vigor; and in point of condensation, the volume is literally crowded with important matter. "We have hardly seen as great compactness without confusion, or aD equal number of pages from which so few could be eliminated without detriment. But what is far more important than the mode of composition is the spirit which pervades the work. The author writes with that candid discrimination so essen- tial to the proper discussion of the topics which he handles. — Ed. of North. Adv. This work is a valuable acquisition to our Church literature. It embodies much important information, arranged in a natural and convenient form, and affords a good general outline of Methodism. It is a work of much merit. I do cheerfully commend it, as a whole, to the favorable consideration of our friends and the public generally. — T. Morris, Bishop of M. E. Church. I like the book much. It will do good. Our people and friends ought to read and study it thoroughly. It furnishes a satisfactory answer to the petty objec- tions urged against the Methodists by a set of ecclesiastical croakers with which we are everywhere beset. One gentleman, whom I let have a copy, after reading it carefully, remarked, "It is the book needed ; I would not take twenty dollars for my copy if I could not obtain another." — Rev. Justin Spatjlding. I have just finished the reading of this book, and I wish to express my decided Approbation of it. It should be a family book, a Sunday-school book, and I would udd especially, a text-book for all candidates for the ministry. — J. T. Peck, D.D. The work throughout is not a criticism on Methodist usages, but a statement and defense of them. As such, we trust it will meet with the wide circulation it deserves, both in and out of the Church. — Methodist Quarterly Review. We have examined the book, and most cordially recommend our friends, one and all, to procure it immediately. No Methodist can study it without profit, and gratitude to the great Head of the Church for the wisdom imparted to those who have been the instruments employed in constructing the rules and regula- tions under which the operations of this most successful branch of the Church are conducted. — Editor of the Christian Guardian, Toronto. It is precisely the volume needed to instruct our people in the peculiarities of our system. The special character of Methodism is here developed in such a manner as to show that it is specially excellent, and worthy of special zeal and special sacrifices. It is very systematically arranged, and therefore convenient for reference on any given point. To the Methodist, especially the " official " Methodist, this book is fitted to be a complete manual ; and to all others who would understand what Methodism precisely is, as a whole, or in any specific respect, we commend Dr. Porters work as an acknowledged authority — A.. Stevens, LL.D. BOOKS PUBLISHED BY OABLTON & POETEB, 300 Mulberry-street, New York. Elements of Logic. Adapted to the Capacity of younger Students, and designed for Academies and the Higher Classes of Common Schools. Ke- vised edition. By Kev. C. K. Tktte, D.D. We are glad to see that this excellent hand-book, is being introduced into many schools and seminaries. If onr friends connected with school committees through the country wil take a little pains they may introduce it into thousands of schools with advantage to all concerned. We believe that, with a treatise as simple as Dr. True's, all college students might understand logic, and the higher classes of our academies and grammar schools be emboldened to study it; while the study of the treatises in ordinary use is now almost wholly confined to colleges, and the understanding of them to a small percentage of each class. We give the book, therefore, our cordial commendation. It is short and simple, not because it is shallow and superficial, but because the author has the mastery of his science, knows how it ought to be taught, perceives the utility of its study to all persons of intelligence and culture, and has adapted his presentation of it to this so desirable end.— North American Review. This is a thorough popular treatise on the Elements of Logic, the best undoubt- edly in the market for schools and colleges. Those who have not had the advant- ages of schools would do well to give it a thorough study. — Eton's Herald. Clergyman's Pocket Diary and Visiting Book. Arranged by James Poetee, D.D. Here we have an admirable memorandum book, the want of which has been felt, we venture to say, very generally by our ministerial brethren. It contains the fol lowing departments : Funerals attended, sermons preached, alphabetical list of mem- bers, alphabetical list of probationers, alphabetical list of friends not members, record of baptisms, record of marriages, subscribers for periodicals, cash accounts, general accounts, general memorandum, etc. — Canada Christian Advocate. Parkerism : Three Discourses delivered on the occasion of the Death of Theodoee Paeeiee. By W. F. Waeeen, Fales H. Newhall, and Gilbeet Ha yen". 12mo. The discourses before us are worthy of being preserved in a permanent form. They were elicited in consequence of the death of a man who had acquired a world- wide reputation. In this volume we have truthful delineations, clear conceptions, and weighty arguments, and throughout there is a remarkable exemplification of Mr. Parker's own words, namely, " I am no flatterer nor public liar general ; when such a one is wanted he is easily found, and may be had cheap ; and I cannot treat great men like great babies. So, when I preached on Mr. Adams, who had done the cause of freedom such great service, on General Taylor and Mr. Webster, I aimed to paint them exactly as they were, that their virtues might teach us and their vices warn " —Canada Christian Advocate. BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CAELTON & POETEE, 200 Mulberry-street, New York. The Christian Maiden. Memorials of Eliza Hessel. By Joshua Peiestlet. Slightly abridged from the second London edition. With a Portrait and Vignette. 12mo. Much of the religious biography of the day is both commonplace and insipid. There are, however, many choice exceptions, and among such we class the interesting memoir before us. Miss Hessel was a young lady who cultivated her mind to the utmost, and diffused a cheering influence in the circle in which she moved. Hex biography is replete with illustrations of her deep Christian experience, and varied and extensive reading. We cordially commend this little book to Christian young women, as well calculated to improve the understanding and purify the heart. — Christian Guardian. The Pioneer Bishop; Or, the Life and Times of Feancis Asbtjey. By W. P. Steiok- land, D.D. 12mo. One of the most fascinating volumes of biography ever issued from our press.— Quarterly Review. This is at once a charming volume and a marvelous record. — New York Com- mercial Advertiser. This book will be read, and will exert a beneficial influence wherever read. — Zion's Herald. The author has performed his duty well, and with a catholicity of spirit worthy of honor.— New York Intelligencer. No one can have a just view of the rise and settlement of the Methodist Epis- copal Church in the United States without carefully perusing this book— Dr. Durbin. We are glad to find the history of the father of American Methodism from the pen of one so competent and fitted for the task.— Northern Advocate. Early Methodism Within the Bounds of the Old Genesee Conference, from 1788 to 1828 ; or, the first Forty Years of Wesleyan Evangelism in Northern Pennsylvania, Central and Western New York, and Canada ; containing Sketches of Interesting Localities, Excit- ing Scenes, and Prominent Actors. By Geoege Peok, D.D. 12mo. Many valuable lessons are to be learned from tbe study of those heroic men wno followed the sound of the woodman's ax with the "joyful sound" of salvation. Their faith, self-denial, undaunted courage, and glorious success will never cease to call forth our sincerest admiration, and may still, we trust, stimulate their successors to deeds of noble daring. — Christian Guardian. It is a well- wrought production, and while important information is communicated to the reader, he is attracted forward from page to page, and chapter to chapter, by pleasant sketches, stirring scenes, and conspicuous actors.— ReligiovA Herald. BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, SOO Mulberry-street, JVew York. Whedon's Commentary. A Commentary of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Intended for Popular Use. By D. D. Whedon, D.D. 12mo. Tbe first volume of this work has been on sale for the past year and a large nurn ber of volumes have been sold. It is a 12mo. of 422 closely printed pages, embrac- ing a fine map of Palestine, and other valuable illustrations. It is the cheapest book for the price that we have issued in many years. The two volumes which are to follow will be announced in due time. All the notices we have seen, as well as the remarks we have heard, go to the effect that this book is a timely, able, and valua- ble addition to our literature. Dr. Whedon has furnished the people with the results of critical study, modern travels and Christian reflection, in brief and pithy comments on the difficult or ob 6cure words and phrases in the first two evangelists, enlarging on occasional passages of importance. — Congregational Herald. It gives the results of patient study and the careful examination of the works of those who have preceded him in the same field, in few words well chosen. — Olirist. Observer, Phila. Dr. Whedon is one of tbe clearest, strongest, and boldest writers in America. He addresses the intellect, not the passions ; reason, not the feelings. The principal value of this commentary is found in exposition, while its real spiritual utility will depend much on the piety of the reader, and hence a boundless field is before him. Religious truths are presented in vivid distinctness; the popular mind is instructed. —Richmond Christ Acfa. So far as we have had opportunity to examine its expositions, we regard the work as well executed, and commend it to the Bible student.— Advocate and Guardian. Pronouncing Bible. Large 8vo. We have lately issued the best Bible in print, a Peonounoing Bible, having these advantages : 1. The proper names are divided and accented, so that a child can pronounce them correctly. 2. Each book has a short introduction, showing just what every reader ought to know about it. 3. It has a much improved class of ref- erences. 4. It contains a map of Old Canaan and its surroundings, and one of Pal- estine, according to the latest discoveries. The method is more simple and easy than any other we have seen. The pronun- ciation marks are very judiciously confined to the proper names, leaving the re- mainder of the text unencumbered. The multitudes of Bible readers who stumble at the hard names of people and places may find a very satisfactory relief by using this edition. For family worship, or private devotional reading, «fchis edition has strong recommendations. — Presbyterian. In this Bible the proper names are divided into syllables and accented, so that it is hardly possible to mispronounce them. The "Introductions" are brief, but con- tain a large amount of useful and necessary information. The "references," as far as we have had time to test them, are decidedly the most accurate we have met with. It is one of the most beautiful and complete Bibles in the world, and it will be an acquisition to the study, the family, the Bible class and the pulpit— Evan- gelical Witness. BOOKS PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 200 Mulberry-Street, New York. Harmony of Divine Dispensations. Harmony of the Divine Dispensations. Being a Series of Dis- courses on Select Portions of Holy Scripture, designed to show the Spirituality, Efficacy, and Harmony of the Divine Revelations made to Mankind from the Beginning. With Notes, Critical; Historical, and Explanatory. By George Smith, F. A. 3., Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, of the Royal Society of Literature, Fellow of the Genealogical and Historical Society, etc., etc. 8vo., pp. 319. This is a new "work, being reprinted from the London edition to corre- spond with the "Patriarchal Age," "Hebrew People," and "Gentile Nations," by the same distinguished author. It will be sold in connection with the others, or separately. It is a profound work, and will have » large sale. Lady Huntingdon Portrayed. Including Brief Sketches of some of her Friends and Co-laborers. By the Author of " The Missionary Teacher," " Sketches of Mis- sion Life," etc. Large 16mo., pp. 319. Hibbard on the Psalms. The Psalms Chronologically Arranged, with Historical Intro- ductions, and a General Introduction to the whole Book. By F. G. Hibbard. 8vo., pp. 589. This book occupies an important place in Biblical interpretation, and is a valuable contribution to Biblical literature. The Object of Life: A Narrative Illustrating the Insufficiency of the World, and tb.8 Sufficiency of Christ. With four Illustrations. Large 16mo. The Living Way; Or, Suggestions and Counsels concerning some of the Privileges and Duties of the Christian Life. By Kev. John Atkinson. 16mo., pp. 139. NEW BOOKS JUST PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, JJOO Mulberry-street, New York. A NEwlPEoimj^OI^ BffiLE^"' In which all the proper names are divided and accented as they should be pronounced, and a copious and original selection of Eeferences and numerous Marginal Eeadings are given, to- gether with Introductions to each Book, and numerous Tables and Maps. Royal octavo. This is the only one in print of the kind, embracing new and im- proved maps, new eeferences, and much instruction necessary to a right understanding of the Scriptures— proper names divided and accented as they are to be pronounced. SKETCHES OF NEW ENGLAND DIVINES. By Eev. D. Sherman. 12mo. Giving true and interesting biographical sketches of the following distinguished divines : John Cotton, Richard Mather, Roger Williams, Increase Mather, Cotton Mather, Eleazer Mather, John Warham, .Jesse Lee, Jonathan Edwards, Elijah Hedding, Timothy Dwight, Wilbur Fisk, Ezra Stiles, Lemuel Haynes, Billy Hibbard, Timothy Merritt, Jonathan D. Bridge, Nathaniel Emmons, Joshua Crowell, George Pickering, Stephen Olin. THE CHRISTIAN" LAWYER: Being a Portraiture of the Life and Character of William George Baker. 12mo. This is a well written memoir, and deserves to he generally read. A good holiday gift-book for our legal friends. LIFE OE DR. ADAM OLARKeT By Eev. J. W. Etheridge, M.A. With a Portrait. 12mo. The volume contains about five hundred pages, and is ornamented with an excellent likeness of its distinguished subject. No one can understand fully the great commentator and the secret of his greatness without read- ing this book. It should be bought and read through the whole Church, and through the whole community. The book should be in every li- brary, public and private. The doctor belonged to the whole world. THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL And the Final Condition of the Wicked carefully considered. By Eev. Eobert W. Landis. 12mo. "As a whole, it is worthy of hi&h praise."— JV. T. Evangelist. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Q 027 249 846 5