GENERAL INTRODUCTION

A

THE ESSENTIALS OF ORATORY

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N oration is successful or the reverse, according to the effect it produces. A poem, an essay, possibly even a novel, may be great and yet never do anything but please one reader. A successful oration, however, must so stir a public body that something will be done: an Eschines must be worsted and driven into exile, a Catiline must be made to flee from Rome, an obstinate and riotous audience. compelled to listen with respect. Sometimes, it is true, the cause of the orator does not literally triumph; but at any rate his words shake a nation till it trembles like a leaf.

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Oratory," says Macaulay, "is to be estimated on principles different from those which are applied to other productions. Truth is the object even of those works which are called works of fiction, but which, in fact, bear the same relation to history which algebra bears to arithmetic. The merit of poetry, in its wildest forms, still consists in its truth, truth conveyed to the understanding, not directly by the words, but circuitously by

means of imaginative associations, which serve as its conductors. The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion. The admiration of the multitude does not make Moore a greater poet than Coleridge, or Beattie a greater philosopher than Berkeley. But the criterion of eloquence is different. A speaker who exhausts the whole philosophy of a question, who displays every grace of style, yet produces no effect on his audience, may be a great essayist, a great statesman, a great master of composition, but he is not an orator. If he miss the mark it makes no difference whether he have taken aim too high or too low."

There are two great types of oratory, which are fortunately represented in their perfection by the first two great names in the history of oratory, Demosthenes and Cicero. Both are deserving of the most careful study, and it is to be regretted that we have to read them in very imperfect translations. Often as these two great writers have been rendered into English, and sometimes even by so eminent orators and men of letters as Lord Brougham, they have never been given an English setting to be compared either with the perfection of the original, or with the best efforts of really inferior English orators. For style, therefore, we must look to other models; but for construction and manner and method of appeal, we can nowhere find anything nearly as useful.

Demosthenes is usually acknowledged to be the

He

world's greatest orator; yet he is by no means the model most followed by English speakers. He is eminently plain and unadorned. His strength lies in his earnest sincerity and sterling character, coupled with a remarkable sympathy for his audience, and great skill in appealing to the prejudices and passions as well as the reason of that audience. He was also one of the most energetic and fiery speakers the world has ever produced, fiery, yet absolutely self-controlled. Cicero, on the other hand, was less of a statesman, and more of a polished man of letters. dazzles us with the brilliancy of his rhetoric. His words roll out in perfect oratorical rhythm, his periods are nicely balanced, his figures of speech and his choice of words beautifully artistic, singing through the mind like music and enchanting the ear. He is what we would call a "brilliant orator." His style is the declamatory, so popular with schoolboys and ambitious young orators. And indeed he has been the model for most of the great English and American speakers. Few of them, however, have had his really broad and vital culture.

Both these great models of oratory demand our careful study. The style of Demosthenes is the best in speaking to a jury; that of Cicero in speaking to a popular assembly. It would be useless to employ the manner of Demosthenes in delivering a Fourth-of-July or after-dinner oration, for example; and, on the other hand, lawyers

often waste their energies in wild declamation before a jury that is to be impressed and convinced. The ideal orator is the one who might be able to use both styles on the proper occasions, and use both well.

For the convenience of our study, let us arrange the orators studied in this volume in two groups, with a word of characterization about each.

Demosthenian

SAVONAROLA: simple and plain, and also fiery, but not

Ciceronian

BOSSUET: a true disciple

so artful as Demosthenes in of Cicero, as a preacher, but his appeal to the audience; adding the element of sentiMIRABEAU: the best mod-ment;

ern type of Demosthenian

oratory, less fiery and more philosophic;

BURKE in style and rich

CHATHAM: Possessed of ness of language decidedly the earnestness and sincerity superior to Cicero, but lackof Demosthenes, and also of ing constructive reasoning and his fiery and energetic man- persuasion;

ner; but lacking his skill in

artful appeal to his audience;

GRATTAN : modelled on

Fox rhythmical and bril

Chatham, and inclined to the liant in style, with unusual style of Cicero, but winning powers of persuading an auby his energy and close appeal dience;

to his audience;

CURRAN eminently Demosthenian in his appeal to

SHERIDAN: similar to Fox,

his audience, though lacking but more gentle, witty, and the high earnestness and tech-good-humoured, though much nical perfection and polish of less powerful;

the Greek;

Demosthenian

ERSKINE: a successful

Ciceronian

PATRICK HENRY: a natu

jury-pleader like Curran, but more stately and polished, - ral Ciceronian orator, who in short, much more Cicero- studied Cicero and modelled nian in manner, though not in his eloquence on that of the his plan of appeal; Roman;

LINCOLN: though hardly a developed orator, his great speeches are perfect examples

DANIEL WEBSTER: a pure

of the Demosthenian style at type and acknowledged disciits best; ple of the Ciceronian, affording BEECHER in his speech splendid school declamations, on raising the flag at Fort but capable of using all the Sumter, Beecher was purely methods of Demosthenes; Ciceronian, and that was his

natural tendency; but in the

speech at Liverpool he was INGERSOLL one of the forced by circumstances to most polished and successful be purely Demosthenian in masters of rhetoric, who could manner in order to hold his entrance any audience.

audience.

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Gladstone can hardly be classified in this way. It will be observed that all the short selections at the end of this volume are those eloquent passages," often quoted, which stand in the popular mind as the essence of oratory. They are bits of brilliant declamation in its most concentrated form.

The first step to a just appreciation of great oratory is to disabuse the mind of the idea that the power to deliver these rhetorical and brilliant. passages is the great end toward which the student must strive. It is not. Such an idea leads invariably to failure.