cess has been in proportion to the perfectiou of this combination of gifts and endowments. Clearly these qualities all met in Demosthenes and in Cicero. They all met in Chatham, Fox and Sheridan, though in very different degrees. They were all combined, though unequally, in Chalmers, Edward Irving, and Robert Hall. The most perfect model of eloquence which our own country has ever produced-Patrick Henry-was distinguished for a happy combination of all these characteristics. But from all the accounts which have come down to us from his contemporaries, it is evident that he was far more indebted to the last two of these characteristics than to the first two. Dr. Alexander, who heard him, at the bar, in a case of life and death, has given us the following testimony: "The power of Henry's eloquence was due, first, to the greatness of his emotion and passion, accompanied with a versatility which enabled him to assume at once any emotion or passion which was suited to his ends. Not less indispensable, secondly, was a matchless perfection of the organs of expression, including the entire apparatus of voice, intonation, pause, gesture, attitude and indescribable play of countenance. In no instance did he ever indulge in an expression that was not instantly recognized as nature itself: yet some of his penetrating and subduing tones were absolutely peculiar, and as inimitable as they were indescribable. These were felt by every hearer in all their force. His mightiest feelings were sometimes indicated and communicated by a long pause, aided by an eloquent aspect, and some significant use of his finger."

Macaulay, who now holds a place amongst the ablest of living orators, is evidently the opposite of Henry, in being mostly distinguished for the eloquence of taste and imagination, and also of the intellect. Again, Whitfield, a perfect master of the elo

quence of sympathy and the passions, of action and delivery not wanting also in taste and imagination, was unquestionably the greatest of pulpit orators while living, but is scarcely known to posterity by his writings, because he was deficient in the eloquence of the intellect.

On the contrary, Edmund Burke, excelled all his contemporaries by his massive intellect, his varied learning, his classic taste and exuberant imagination, and being dead, yet speaketh in his wri ings; whilst as a living orator, because lacking a single characteristic the eloquence of delivery and the voice he was not only eclipsed by inferior men, but left to pronounce his great speeches to empty benches. Still who can deny that Burke was an eloquent man? We might as well deny that there is any such thing as eloquence in the world. It is obvious, then, that there are different orders of eloquence. It is obvious further, that whilst all these characteristics must meet to form a perfect and successful orator, yet they have been exhibited in very different proportions by those entitled to be called eloquent. Sometimes one, and sometimes another has been the prominent characteristic.

We have seen a striking illustration of this difference of gifts, in that remarkable triumvirate, whose eloquence adorned our national senate for a quarter of a century, whose statesmanship filled the world with its fame, and whose loss, so recently and so nearly together, our country has been called to deplore. Webster, Clay and Calhoun are beyond all comparison the three greatest statesmen our country has produced in this nineteenth century, and they take their rightful place also amongst the greatest forensic orators and parliamentary debaters of the world. And so nearly balanced were their abilities that it is almost impossible to decide the point of superiority, and say,

who made the deepest impression on the men of his generation. There can be no question, as to one point-whose influence will be greatest on posterity, because that is determined by their writings. Now each of these eminent men possessed, in some degree, all the essential elements of eloquence. And yet how widely different-how utterly dissimilar were their styles of oratory-how peculiar to each, how inimitable by any other, and how characteristic of the man, was his own mode of speech! They did not differ from their fellow-men, more widely, than they differed from each other. Perhaps of no three men in America, could it be more truly said, than of each of these, that as a man and an orator, he was sui generis-forming an order by himself.

Mr. Calhoun's eloquence was the eloquence of intellect and argument-pure, clear, original thought flowing from one of the acutest of intellects, combined, at the same time, with an energy of will, a depth and earnestness of emotion, a high wrought enthusiasm, and a conviction within, that always seemed bent on carrying its purpose in defiance of all opposition. He was but little aided by the imagination, and almost unindebted to the outward graces of delivery, saving such as necessarily arose from a commanding person, an eye ever burning with the fires of genius, and a voice indicative of the utmost decision and energy. But it was a combination of the first two characteristics-intellectual power and enthusiastic passion-possessed in a preeminent degree, that gave him his influence as an orator and his greatness as a statesman. We may take him as the representative and the type of the eloquence of Intellect and Enthusiasm.

Mr. Webster's was also the eloquence of intellect and argument, as massive and comprehensive as that of his great

compeer, but at the same time aided by a taste as classical as Cicero's and an imagination almost as exuberant as Burke's—an eloquence too, uttered with all the force that an imposing person, a powerful voice, and an energetic delivery could give; but withal so stately, so magnificent, so coldly brilliant, that it did not always touch the heart and move the passions, except on extraordinary occasions, when the circumstances themselves aided the speaker's appeal. He possessed three of the elements of a great orator in high perfection, and the fourth to some extent. His great power lay in his extraordinary combination of argument, taste and imagination. His eloquence is eloquence to be read as well as heard. His intellect was like the clear sky of a winter's night, when all the stars of the firmament are out-and we fancy that every star is a gem of thought—a diamond of the mind. We take him as the exponent of the eloquence of Reason and Imagination.

Mr. Clay's eloquence was preeminently that of the feelings and the passions. Feeling deeply himself, he was a perfect master of all those natural arts of delivery which enabled him, at will, to move and to control the sympathies of his hearers. With an intensity of earnestness, which gave him the aspect of one born to command, and with an enthusiasm which filled and fired his whole soul, he needed not the slow processes of argument, nor the aids of imagination and classic diction to effect his object, but taking the most direct and effective way of reaching the heart —that is, the short cut through the door of its sympathies and passions he carried the citadel, first by stratagem and then by storm. He was not wanting in powers of reasoning, nor in flights of imagination, but he did not depend on these. He had more effective artillery. His great power as an orator lay, not in the eloquence of intellect and argument, nor in that of taste and

imagination, but in the burning eloquence of a soul on fire, giving utterance to itself with those matchless graces of delivery, that charm of a personal presence, that magic of a look, that pointing of a finger, that clarion-like ringing or thunder-tone of the voice, which it is impossible, for any one who heard him, to believe could have been surpassed by Demosthenes. In this last characteristic, he was unlike both his great compeers, and much more resembled Patrick Henry. We take him, then, as the representative of the eloquence of action and delivery, combined with enthusiasm and the passions.

III.-EARLIEST EXAMPLES OF ELOQUENCE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

After this somewhat protracted, though we trust, not uninteresting nor unprofitable illustration of the several orders of eloquence, let us now address ourselves to the main subject before us to a consideration of those examples which so abundantly adorn the annals of scripture history. For let no one suppose that eloquence and oratory are things unknown to the Bible; both the Old Testament and the New, make mention of the professional orator, and give us specimens of almost every kind of eloquence. The prophet Isaiah, in his third chapter, gives the following enumeration of prominent public characters and heads of the people-"The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge and the prophet, and the prudent and the an cient; the captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator." Here the eloquent orator is the climax of the catalogue, which seems to show in what estimation the art of eloquence was held amongst his countrymen at that early day, long before the