Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture XXVI — History of Eloquence Continued — Roman Eloquence — Cicero — Modern Eloquence
Having treated of the rise of eloquence, and of its state among the Greeks, we now proceed to consider its progress among the Romans, where we shall find one model, at least, of eloquence, in its most splendid and illustrious form. The Romans were long a martial nation, altogether rude, and unskilled in arts of any kind. Arts were of a late introduction among them; they were not known till after the conquest of Greece; and the Romans always acknowledge the Grecians as their masters in every part of learning.
Grecia capta ferum victorum cepit, et artes
Intulit agresti Latio.* - * Hor. Epist. ad Aug.
As the Romans derived their eloquence, poetry, and learning, from the Greeks, so they must be confessed to be far inferior to them in genius for all these accomplishments. They were a more grave and magnificent, but a less acute and sprightly people. They had neither the vivacity nor the sensibility of the Greeks; their passions were not so easily moved, nor their conceptions so lively; in comparison of them, they were a phlegmatic nation. Their language resembled their character; it was regular, firm, and stately; but wanted that simple and expressive naivete, and, in particular, that flexibility to suit every different mode and species of composition, for which the Greek tongue is distinguished above that of every other country.
* When conquer’d Greece brought in her captive arts,
She triumph’d o’er her savage conquerors’ hearts;
Taught our rough verse its numbers to refine,
And our rude style with elegance to shine. Francis,
Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotundo
Musa loqui.* - - Ars. Poet.
And hence, when we compare together the various rival productions of Greece and Rome, we shall always find this distinction obtain, that in the Greek productions there is more native genius; in the Roman, more regularity and art. What the Greeks invented, the Romans polished; the one was the original, rough sometimes, and incorrect; the other, a finished copy.
As the Roman government, during the republic, was of the popular kind, there is no doubt but that, in the hands of the leading men, public speaking became early an engine of government, and was employed for gaining distinction and power. But in the rude unpolished times of the state, their speaking was hardly of that sort that could be called eloquence. Though Cicero, in his Treatise, ‘De Claris Oratoribus,’ endeavours to give some reputation to the elder Cato, and those who were his contemporaries, yet he acknowledges it to have been ‘Asperum et horridum genus dicendi,’ a rude and harsh strain of speech. It was not till a short time preceding Cicero’s age, that the Roman orators rose into any note. Crassus and Antonius, two of the speakers in the dialogue De Oratore, appear to have been the most eminent, whose different manners Cicero describes with great beauty in that dialogue, and in his other rhetorical works. But as none of their productions are extant, nor any of Hortensius’s, who was Cicero’s contemporary and rival at the bar, it is needless to transcribe from Cicero’s writings the account which he gives of those great men, and of the character of their eloquence.
The object in this period, most worthy to draw our attention, is Cicero himself; whose name alone suggests every thing that is splendid in oratory. With the history of his life, and with his character as a man and a politician, we have not at present any direct concern. We consider him only as an eloquent speaker; and in this view, it is our business to remark both his virtues and his defects, if he has any. His virtues are, beyond controversy, eminently great. In all his orations there is high art. He begins, generally, with a regular exordium; and with much preparation and insinuation prepossesses the hearers, and studies to gain their affections. His method is clear, and his arguments are arranged with great propriety. His method is indeed more clear than that of Demosthenes; and this is one advantage which he has over him. We find every thing in its proper place; he never attempts to move, till he has endeavoured to convince: and in moving, especially the softer passions, he is very successful. No man knew the power and force of words better than Cicero. He rolls them along with the greatest beauty and pomp;
* To her lov’d Greeks the muse indulgent gave,
To her lov’d Greeks with greatness to conceive;
And in sublimer tone their language raise:
Her Greeks were only covetous of praise. Francis.
Such as are desirous of particular information on this head, had better have recourse to the original, by reading Cicero’s three books de Oratore, and his other two treatises, entitled, the one Brutus, Sive de Claris Oratoribus; the other, Orator, ad M. Brutum; which, on several accounts, well deserve perusal and, in the structure of his senten ces, is curious and exact to the highest degree. He is always full and flowing, never abrupt. He is a great amplifier of every subject; magnificent, and in his sentiments highly moral. His manner is on the whole diffuse, yet it is often happily varied, and suited to the subject. In his four orations, for instance, against Catiline, the tone and style of each of them, particularly the first and last, is very different, and accommodated with a great deal of judgment to the occasion, and the situation in which they were spoken. When a great public object roused his mind, and demanded indignation and force, he departs considerably from that loose and declamatory manner to which he leans at other times, and becomes exceedingly cogent and vehement. This is the case in his orations against Anthony, and in those two against Verres and Catiline.
Together with those high qualities which Cicero possesses, he is not exempt from certain defects, of which it is necessary to take notice. For the Ciceronian eloquence is a pattern so dazzling by its beauties, that, if not examined with accuracy and judgment, it is apt to betray the unwary into a faulty imitation; and I am of opinion, that it has sometimes produced this effect. In most of his orations, especially those composed in the earlier part of his life, there is too much art; even carried the length of ostentation. There is too visible a parade of eloquence. He seems often to aim at obtaining admiration, rather than at operating conviction, by what he says. Hence, on some occasions, he is showy rather than solid; and diffuse, where he ought to have been pressing. His sentences are, at all times, round and sonorous; they cannot be accused of monotony, for they possess variety of cadence; but, from too great a study of magnificence, he is sometimes deficient in strength. On all occasions, where there is the least room for it, he is full of himself. His great actions, and the real services which he had performed to his country, apologized for this in part; ancient manners, too, imposed fewer restraints from the side of decorum; but, even after these allowances made, Cicero’s ostentation of himself cannot be wholly palliated; and his orations, indeed all his works, leave on our minds the impression of a good man, but withal, of a vain man.
The defects which we have now taken notice of in Cicero’s eloquence, were not unobserved by his own contemporaries. This we learn from Quintilian, and from the author of the dialogue ‘de Causis Corruptæ Eloquentiæ.’ Brutus, we are informed, called him, ‘fractum et elumbem,’ broken and enervated. ‘Quorum temporum homines,’ says Quintilian, ‘incessere audebant eum ut tumidiorem et Asianum, et redundantem, et in repetitionibus nimium, et in salibus aliquando frigidum, et in compositione fractum et exsultantem, et pene viro molliorem.’* These censures were undoubtedly carried too
* ‘ His contemporaries ventured to reproach him as swelling, redundant, and Asiatic; too frequent in repetitions; in his attempts towards wit sometimes cold; and in the strain of his composition, feeble, desultory, and more effeminate than became a man.’
far; and savour of malignity and personal enmity. They saw his defects, but they aggravated them; and the source of these aggravations can be traced to the difference which prevailed in Rome, in Cicero’s days, between two great parties, with respect to eloquence, the ‘Attici,’ and the ‘Asiani.’ The former, who called themselves the Attics, were the patrons of what they conceived to be the chaste, simple, and natural style of eloquence; from which they accused Cicero as having departed, and as leaning to the florid Asiatic manner. In several of his rhetorical works, particularly in his ‘Orator ad Brutum,’ Cicero, in his turn, endeavours to expose this sect, as substituting a frigid and jejune manner, in place of the true Attic eloquence; and contends, that his own composition was formed upon the real Attic style. In the 10th chapter of the last book of Quintilian’s Institutions, a full account is given of the disputes between these two parties; and of the Rhodian, or middle manner, between the Attics and the Asiatics. Quintilian himself declares on Cicero’s side; and, whether it be called Attic or Asiatic, prefers the full, the copious, and the amplifying style. He concludes with this very just observation: ‘Plures sunt eloquentiæ facies; sed stultissimum est quærere, ad quam rectus se sit orator; cum omnis species, quae modo recta est, habeat usum. Utetur enim, ut res exiget, omnibus; nec pro causa modo, sed pro partibus causae.’*
On the subject of comparing Cicero and Demosthenes, much
has been said by critical writers. The different manners of these two princes of eloquence, and the distinguishing characters of each, are so strongly marked in their writings, that the comparison is, in many respects, obvious and easy. The character of Demosthenes is vigour and austerity; that of Cicero is gentleness and insinuation. In the one, you find more manliness; in the other, more ornament. The one is more harsh, but more spirited and cogent; the other more agreeable, but withal looser and weaker.
To account for this difference without any prejudice to Cicero, it has been said, that we must look to the nature of their different auditories; that the refined Athenians followed with ease the concise and convincing eloquence of Demosthenes: but that a manner more popular, more flowery and declamatory, was requisite in speaking to the Romans, a people less acute, and less acquainted with the arts of speech. But this is not satisfactory. For we must observe, that the Greek orator spoke much oftener before a mixed multitude, than the Roman. Almost all the public business of Athens was transacted in popular assemblies. The common people were his hearers, and his judges. Whereas, Cicero generally addressed himself to the 4 Patres Conscripti,’ or in criminal trials to the Prætor, and the select judges; and it cannot be imagined, that the persons of highest rank, and best education in Rome, required a
* ‘ Eloquence admits of many different forms: and nothing can be more foolish than to inquire, by which of them an orator is to regulate his composition; since every form, which is in itself just, has its own place and use. The orator, according as circumstances require, will employ them all; suiting them not only to the cause or subject of which he treats, but to the different parts of that subject.’
more diffuse manner of pleading than the common citizens of Athens, in order to make them understand the cause, or relish the speaker. Perhaps we shall come nearer the truth, by observing, that to unite all the qualities, without the least exception, that form a perfect orator, and to excel equally in each of those qualities, is not to be expected from the limited powers of human genius. The highest degree of strength is, I suspect, never found united with the highest degree of smoothness and ornament; equal attention to both are incompatible; and the genius that carries ornament to its utmost length, is not of such a kind as can excel as much in vigour. For there plainly lies the characteristical difference between these two celebrated orators.
It is a disadvantage to Demosthenes, that besides his conciseness, which sometimes produces obscurity, the language in which he writes is less familiar to most of us than the Latin, and that we are less acquainted with the Greek antiquities than we are with the Roman. We read Cicero with more ease, and of course with more pleasure. Independent of this circumstance, too, he is, no doubt, in himself, a more agreeable writer than the other. But notwithstanding this advantage, I am of opinion, that were the state in danger, or some great national interest at stake, which drew the serious attention of the public, an oration in the spirit and strain of Demosthenes would have more weight, and produce greater effects, than one in the Ciceronian manner. Were Demosthenes’ Philippics spoken in a British assembly, in a similar conjuncture of affairs, they would convince and persuade at this day. The rapid style, the vehement reasoning, the disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, which perpetually animate them, would render their success infallible over any modern assembly. I question whether the same can be said of
Cicero’s orations; whose eloquence, however beautiful, and however well suited to the Roman taste, yet borders oftener on declamation, and is more remote from the manner in which we now expect to hear real business and causes of importance treated.*
In comparing Demosthenes and Cicero, most of the French critics are disposed to give the preference to the latter. P. Rapin the lesuit, in the parallels which he has drawn between some of the most eminent Greek and Roman writers, uniformly decides in favour of the Roman. For the preference which he gives to Cicero, he assigns, and lays stress on, one reason of a pretty extraordinary nature; viz. that Demosthenes could not possibly have so complete an insight as Cicero into the manners and passions of men: Why? — -Because he had not the advantage of perusing Aristotle’s Treatise of Rhetoric, wherein, says our critic, he has fully laid open that mystery; and, to support this weighty argument, he enters into a controversy with A. Gellius, in order to prove that Aristotle’s Rhetoric was not published till after Demosthenes had
* In this judgment I concur with Mr. David Hume, in his Essay upon Eloquence. He gives it as his opinion, that of all human productions, the orations of Demosthenes, present to us the models which approach the nearest to perfection. * spoken, at least, his most considerable orations. Nothing can be more childish. Such orators as Cicero and Demosthenes, derived their knowledge of the human passions, and their power of moving them, from higher sources than any treatise of rhetoric. One French critic has indeed departed from the common track; and, after bestowing on Cicero those just praises to which the consent of so many ages shows him to be entitled, concludes, however, with giving the palm to Demosthenes. This is Fenelon, the famous archbishop of Cambray, and author of Telemachus; himself surely no enemy to all the graces and flowers of composition. It is in his Reflections on Rhetoric and Poetry, that he gives this judgment; a small tract, commonly published along with his dialogues on eloquence.'* These dialogues and reflections are particularly worthy of perusal, as containing, I think, the justest ideas on the subject that are to be met with in any modern critical writer.
The reign of eloquence, among the Romans, was very short.
After the age of Cicero, it languished, or rather expired; and we have no reason to wonder at this being the case. For not only was liberty entirely extinguished, but arbitrary power felt in its heaviest and most oppressive weight; Providence having, in its wrath, delivered over the Roman empire to a succession of some of the most execrable tyrants that ever disgraced and scourged the human race. Under their government it was naturally to be expected that taste would be corrupted, and genius discouraged. Some of the ornamental arts, less intimately connected with liberty, continued, for a while, to prevail; but for that masculine eloquence, which had exercised itself in the senate, and in the public affairs, there was no longer any place. The change that was produced on eloquence, by the nature of the government, and the state of the public manners, is beautifully described in the Dialogue de Causis corruptæEloquentiae, which is attributed by some to Tacitus, by others, to Quintilian. Luxury, effeminacy, and flattery, overwhelmed all. The forum, where so many great affairs had been transacted, was now become a desert. Private causes were still pleaded; but the public was no longer interested; nor any general attention drawn to what passed there: ‘ Unus inter haec, et alter,
* As his expressions are remarkably happy and beautiful, the passage here referred to deserves to be inserted. ‘Je ne crains pas de dire, que Démosthène me paroit supérieur à Cicéron. Je proteste que personne n’admire plus Ciehron que je ne f'ais. 11 embellit tout ce qu’il touche. 11 fait honneur a la parole. 11 fait des mots cc qu’un autre n’en sauroit faire. II a je ne sais combien de sortes d’esprits. II est meme court, et v6h6ment, toutes les fois qu’il vent, l’etre; contr.e Catiline, centre Verres, contre Antoine. Mais on remarque quelque parure dans sons discours. L’art y est merveilleux; mais on l’entrevoit. L’orateur en pensarit au salut de la republique, ne s’oublie pas, et ne se latsse pas oublier. Demosthena paroit sortir de soi, et ne voir que la patrie. 11 ne cherche point le beau; il It fait sans y penser. II est au-dessus de l’admiration I! se sert de >a parole, comme un homme modeste de son habit, pour se couvrir. II tonne; il foudroye. O’ est un torrent qui entraine tout. On ne peut le critiquer, parcequ’on est fiaisi. On pense aux clioses qu’il. (lit, et non a sea paroles. On le perd de vue. On n’est occupe que de Phillippe qui envahit tout. .Je suis charm 6 de ces deux ^orateurs; mais j’avoue que je suis moins touche de l’art infini, et de ia magnifique Éloquence de Cicéron que de la rapide simplicité de Démosthène.’
LECT. xxvi.] DfcCAY OF ROM AN ELOQUENCE. 279 dicenti, assistit; et res velut in solitudine agitur. Oratori autern clamore plausuque opus est, et velut quodam theatro, qualia quotidie antiquis oratoribus contingebant; cum tot ac tam nobiles forum coarctarent: cum clientelse, et tribus, et municipiorum lega tiones, periclitantibus assisterent; cum in plerisque judiciis ere deret populus Romanus sua interesse quid judicaretur.’*
In the schools of the declaimers, the corruption of eloquence was completed. Imaginary and fantastic subjects, such as had no reference to real life, or business, were made the themes of declamation; and all manner of false and affected ornaments were brought into vogue: ‘ Pace vestra liceat dixisse/ says Petronius Arbiter, to the declaimers of his time, ‘ primi omnem eloquentiam perdidistis. Levibus enim ac inanibus sonis ludibria quaedam excitando, effecistis ut corpus ora-! ionis enervaretur atque caderet. Et ideo ego existimo adolescentulos in scholis stultissimos fieri, quia nihil ex iis, quse in usu habemus, aut audiunt, aut vident; sed piratas cum catenis in littore stantes; et tyrannos edicta scribentes quibus imperent filiis utpatrum suorunreapita prsecidant; sedresponsa, inpestilentia data, ut virgines tres aut plures immolentur; sed mellitos verborum globulos, et omnia quasi papa-vere, et sesamo sparsa. Qui inter haec nutriuntur, non magis sapere possunt, quam bene olere qui in culina habitant.7! In the hands of the Greek rhetoricians, the manly and sensible eloquence of their first noted speakers, degenerated, as I formerly showed, into subtilty and sophistry; in the hands of the Roman declaimers, it passed into the quaint and affected; into point and antithesis. This corrupt manner begins to appear in the writings of Seneca: and shows itself also in the famous panegyric of Pliny the Younger on Trajan, which may be considered as the last effort of Roman oratory. Though the author was a man of genius, yet it is deficient in nature and ease, W e see throughout the whole, a perpetual attempt\to depart from the ordinary way of thinking, and to support a forced elevation.
In the decline of the Roman empire, the introduction of Christianity gave rise to a new species of eloquence, in the apologies, sermons, and pastoral writings of the Fathers of the Church. Among
* * The courts of judicature are, at present, so unfrequented, that the orator seems to stand alone, and to talk to bare walls. But eloquence rejoices in the bursts of loud applause, and exults in a full audience; such as used to press round the an cient orators, when the forum stood crowded with nobles; when a numerous retinue of clients, when foreign ambassadors, when tribes, and whole cities, assisted at the debate; and when, in many trials, the Roman people understood themselves to be concerned in the event.’
f ‘With your permission, I must b% allowed to say, that you have been the first destroyers of all true eloquence. For, by those mock subjects, on which you employ ycur empty and unmeaning compositions, you have enervated and overthrown all that is manly and substantial in oratory I cannot but conclude, that the youth whom you educate, must be totally perverted in your schools, by hearing and seeing nothing which has any affinity to real life, or human affairs; but stories of pirates standing on the shore, provided with chains for loading their captives, and of tyrants issuing their edicts, by which children are commanded to cut off the heads of their parents; but responses given by oracles in the time of pestilence, that several virgins must he sacrificed; but glittering ornaments of phrase and a style highly spiced, if we may say so, with affected conceits. They who ai*3 educated in the midst of such studies, can no more acquire a good taste, than they cay smell sweet who dwell perpetually in a kitchen.’
the Latin Fathers, Lactantius and Minutius Felix, are the most remarkable for purity of style; and, in a later age, the famous St. Augustine possesses a considerable share of sprightliness and strength But none of the Fathers afford any just models of eloquence. Their language, as soon as we descend to the third or fourth centu ry, becomes harsh; and they are, in general, infected with the taste of that age, a love of swoln and strained thoughts, and of the play of words. Among the Greek Fathers, the most distinguished, by far, for his oratorial merit, is St. Chrysostom. His language is pure; his style highly figured. He is copious, smooth, and sometimes pathetic. But he retains, at the same time, much of that character which has been always attributed to the Asiatic eloquence, diffuse and redundant to a great degree, and often overwrought and tumid. He may be read, however, with advantage, for the eloquence of the pulpit, as being freer from false ornaments than the Latin Fathers.
As there is nothing more that occurs to me, deserving particular attention in the middle age, I pass now to the state of eloquence in modern times. Here it must be confessed, that, in no European nation, has public speaking been considered so great an object, or been cultivated with so much care, as in Greece or Rome. Its reputation has never been so high; its effects have never been so considerable; nor has that high and sublime kind of it, which prevailed in those ancient states, been so much as aimed at: notwithstanding too, that a new profession has been established, which gives peculiar advantages to oratory, and affords it the noblest field; I mean that of the church. The genius of the world seems, in this respect, to have undergone some alteration. The two countries where we might expect to find most of the spirit of eloquence, are France and Great Britain: France, on account of the distinguished turn of the nation towards all the liberal arts, and of the encouragement which, for this century past, these arts have received from the public; Great Britain, on account both of the public capacity and genius, and of the free government which it enjoys. Yet so it is, that, in neither of those countries, has the talent of public speaking risen near to the degree of its ancient splendour; while in other productions of genius, both in prose and in poetry, they have contended for the prize with Greece and Rome; nay, in some compositions, theymaybe thought to have surpassed them. The names of Demosthenes and Cicero stand, at this day, unrivalled in fame; and it would be held presumptuous and absurd to pretend to place any modern whatever in the same, or £Ven in a nearly equal rank.
It seems particularly surprising, thadGreat Britain should nothave made a more conspicuous figure in eloquence than it has hitherto attained; when we consider the enlightened, and, at the same time, the free and bold genius of the country, which seems not a little to favour oratory; and when we consider that, of all the polite nations, it alone possesses a popular government, or admits into the legislature, such numerous assemblies as can be supposed to lie under the dominion of eloquence.* Notwithstanding this advantage, it must
* Mr. Hume, in his Essay on Eloquence, makes this observation, and illustrates be confessed, that in most parts of eloquence, we are undoubtedly
inferior, not only to the Greeks and Romans by many degree? but also in some respects to the French. We have philosophers, emxent and conspicuous, perhaps, beyond any nation, in every branch oi science. W e have both taste and erudition, in a high degree. W e have historians, we have poets of the greatest name; but of orators, or public speakers, how little have we to boast? And where are the. monuments of their genius to be found? In every period we have had some who made a figure, by managing the debates in parliament; but that figure was commonly owing to their wisdom or theii experience in business, more than to their talent for Oratory; and unless in some few instances, wherein the power of oratory has aj> peared, indeed, 'with much lustre, the art of parliamentary speaking rather obtained to several a temporary applause, than conferred upon any a lasting renown. At the bar, though questionless we have many able pleaders, yet few or none of their pleadings have been thought worthy to be transmitted to posterity, or have commanded attention, any longer than the cause which was the subject of them interested the public: while in France, the pleadings of Patru, in the former age, and those of Cochin and
D’Aguesseau, in later times, are read with pleasure, and are often quoted as examples of eloquence by the French critics. In the same manner, in the pulpit, Ahe British divines have distinguished themselves by the most accurate and rational compositions which, perhaps, any nation can boast of. Many printed sermons we have, full of good sense, and of sound divinity and morality; but the eloquence to be found in them, the power of persuasion, of interesting and engaging the heart, which is, or ought to be, the great object of the pulpit, is far from bearing a suitable proportion to the excellence of the matter. There are few arts, in my opinion, farther from perfection, than that of preaching is among us; the reasons of which, I shall afterwards have occasion to discuss: in proof of the fact, it is sufficient to observe, that an English sermon, instead of being a persuasive animated oration, seldom rises beyond the strain of correct and dry reasoning. Whereas, in the sermons of Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue, and Flechier, among the French, we see a much higher species of eloquence aimed at, and in a great measure attained, than the British preachers have in view.
In general, the characteristical difference between the state ol eloquence in France and in Great Britain is, that the French have adopted higher ideas both of pleasing and persuading by means ol oratory, though, sometimes, in the execution, they fail. In Great. Britain, we have taken up eloquence on a lower key; but in our it with his usual elegance. He, indeed, supposes, that no satisfactory reasons can be given to account for the inferiority of modern to ancient eloquence. In this, (differ from him, and shall endeavour, before the conclusion of this lecture, tc point out some causes to which, I think, it may in a great measure be ascribed in the three great scenes of public speaking.
execution, as was naturally to be expected, have been more cor* reck In France, the style of their orators is ornamented with ijokler figures; and their discourse carried on with more amplification, more warmth and elevation. The composition is often very beautiful; but sometimes, also, too diffuse, and deficient in that strength and cogency which renders eloquence powerful: a defect owing, perhaps, in part, to the genius of the people, which leads them to attend fully as much to ornament as to substance; and, in part, to the nature of their government, which, by excluding public speaking from having much influence on the conduct of public affairs, deprives eloquence of its best opportunity for acquiring nerves and strength. Hence the pulpit is the principal field which is left for their eloquence. The members, too, of the French aca demy, give harangues at their admission, in which genius often ap pears; but, labouring under the misfortune of having no subject to discourse upon, they run commonly into flattery and panegyric, the most barren and insipid of all topics.
I observed before, that the Greeks and Romans aspired to a more sublime species of eloquence, than is aimed at by the moderns. Theirs was of the vehement and passionate kind, by which they endeavoured to inflame the minds of their hearers, and hurry their imagination away: and, suitable to this vehemence of thought, was their vehemence of gesture and actio^i; the ‘supplosio pedis’* the
•'percussio frontis et femoris,’* were, as we learn from Cicero’s writings, usual gestures among them at the bar; though now they would be reckoned extravagant any where, except upon the stage. Modern eloquence is much more cool and temperate; and in Great Britain especially, has confined itself almost wholly to the argumentative and rational. It is much of that species which the ancient critics called the £ Tenuis,’ or c Subtilis;’ which aims at convincing and instructing, rather than affecting the passions, and assumes a tone not much higher than common argument and discourse.
Several reasons may be given, why modern eloquence has been so limited and humble in its efforts. In the first place, I am ot opinion, that this change must, in part, be ascribed to that correct turn of thinking, which has been so much studied in modem timeSv It can hardly be doubted, that, in many efforts of mere genius* the ancient Greeks and Romans excelled us; but, on the other hand, that, in accuracy and closeness of reasoning on many subjects, we have some advantage over them, ought, I think, to be admitted also. In proportion as the world has advanced, philosophy has made greater progress. • A certain strictness of good sense has, in this island particularly, been cultivated, and introduced inlo every subject. Hence we are more on our guard against the flowers of elocution; we are now on the watch; we are jealous of being deceived by oratory. Our public speakers are obliged to be more reserved than the ancients, in their attempts to elevate the
* Vide, De Clar. Orator.
imagination, and warm the passions; and by the influence of prevailing taste, their own genius is sobered and chastened, perhaps, in too great a degree. It is likely too, I confess, that what we fondly ascribe to our correctness and good sense, is owing, in a great measure, to our phlegm and natural coldness. For the vivacity and sensibility of the Greeks and Romans, more especially of the former, seems to have been much greater than ours, and to have given them a higher relish of all the beauties of oratory.
Besides these national considerations, we must, in the next place, attend to peculiar circumstances in the three great scenes of public speaking, which have proved disadvantageous to the growth of eloquence among us. Though the parliament of Great Britain be the noblest field which Europe, at this day, affords to a public speaker, yet eloquence has never been so powerful an instrument there, as it was in the popular assemblies of Greece and Rome. Under some former reigns, the high hand of arbitrary power bore a violent sway; and in latter times, ministerial influence has generally prevailed. The power of speaking, though always considerable, yet has been often found too feeble to counterbalance either of these: and, of course, has not been studied with so much zeal and fervour, as where its effect on business was irresistible and certain.
At the bar, our disadvantage, in comparison with the ancients, is great. Among them, the judges were generally numerous; the laws were few and simple; the decision of causes was left, in a great measure, to equity and the sense of mankind. Here was an ample field for what they termed judicial eloquence. But among the moderns, the case is quite altered. The system of law is become much more complicated. The knowledge of it is thereby rendered so laborious an attainment, as to be the chief object of a lawyer’s education, and in a manner, the study of his life. The art of speaking is but a secondary accomplishment, to which he can afford to devote much less of his time and labour. The bounds of eloquence, besides, are now much circumscribed at the bar; and, except in a few cases, reduced to arguing from strict law, statute, or precedent, by which means knowledge, much more than oratory, is become the principal requisite.
With regard to the pulpit, it has certainly been a great disadvantage, that the practice of reading sermons, instead of repeating them from memory, has prevailed in England. This may indeed have introduced accuracy; but it has done great prejudice to eloquence; for a discourse read is far inferior to an oration spoken. It leads to a different sort of composition, as well as of delivery; and can never have an equal effect upon any audience. Another circumstance, too, has been unforthnate. The sectaries and fanatics, before the Restoration, adopted a warm, zealous, and popular manner of preaching; and those who adhered to them, in aftertimes, continued to distinguish themselves by somewhat of the same manner. The odium of these sects drove the established church from that warmth which they were judged to have carried too far into the opposite extreme of a studied coolness, and composure of manner Hence, from the art of persuasion, which preaching ought always to be, it has passed, in England, into mere reasoning and instruction; which not only has brought down the eloquence of the pulpit to a lower tone than it might justly assume; but has produced this farther effect, that by accustoming the public ear to such cool and dispassionate discourses, it has tended to fashion other kinds of public speaking upon the same model.
Thus I have given some view of the state of eloquence in modern times, and endeavoured to account for it. It has, as we have seen, fallen below that splendour which it maintained in ancient ages; and from being sublime and vehement, has come down to be temperate and cool. Yet, still, in that region which it occupies, it admits great scope; and, to the defect of zeal and application, more than the want of capacity and genius, we may ascribe its not having hitherto attained higher distinction. It is a field where there is much honour yet to be reaped; it is an instrument which may be employed for purposes of the highest importance. The ancient models may still, with much advantage, be set before us for imitation: though, in that imitation, we must doubtless have some regard to what modern taste and modern manners will bear; of which I shall afterwards have occasion to say more.
Having treated of the rise of eloquence, and of its state among the Greeks, to what do we now proceed;