Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 68, No 422, December 1850

"Lord, sir! your father be a very rich man compared to him."

Randal continued to gaze, and his mind's eye conjured up the contrast of his slovenly shabby home, with all its neglected appurtenances! No trim garden at Rood Hall, no scent from odorous orange blossoms. Here poverty at least was elegant – there, how squalid! He did not comprehend at how cheap a rate the luxury of the Beautiful can be effected. They now approached the extremity of the Squire's park pales; and Randal, seeing a little gate, bade the farmer stop his gig, and descended. The boy plunged amidst the thick oak groves; the farmer went his way blithely, and his mellow merry whistle came to Randal's moody ear as he glided quick under the shadow of the trees.

He arrived at the Hall, to find that all the family were at church; and, according to the patriarchal custom, the church-going family embraced nearly all the servants. It was therefore an old invalid housemaid who opened the door to him. She was rather deaf, and seemed so stupid that Randal did not ask leave to enter and wait for Frank's return. He therefore said briefly that he would just stroll on the lawn, and call again when church was over.

The old woman stared, and strove to hear him; meanwhile Randal turned round abruptly, and sauntered towards the garden side of the handsome old house.

There was enough to attract any eye in the smooth greensward of the spacious lawn – in the numerous parterres of varying flowers – in the venerable grandeur of the two mighty cedars, which threw their still shadows over the grass – and in the picturesque building, with its projecting mullions and heavy gables; yet I fear that it was with no poet's nor painter's eye that this young old man gazed on the scene before him.

He beheld the evidence of wealth – and the envy of wealth jaundiced his soul.

Folding his arms on his breast, he stood awhile, looking all around him with closed lips and lowering brow; then he walked slowly on, his eyes fixed on the ground, and muttered to himself —

"The heir to this property is little better than a dunce; and they tell me I have talents and learning, and I have taken to my heart the maxim, 'Knowledge is power.' And yet, with all my struggles, will knowledge ever place me on the same level as that on which this dunce is born? I don't wonder that the poor should hate the rich. But of all the poor, who should hate the rich like the pauper gentleman? I suppose Audley Egerton means me to come into Parliament, and be a Tory like himself. What! keep things as they are! No; for me not even Democracy, unless there first come Revolution. I understand the cry of a Marat – 'More blood!' Marat had lived as a poor man, and cultivated science – in the sight of a prince's palace."

He turned sharply round, and glared vindictively on the poor old hall, which, though a very comfortable habitation, was certainly no palace; and with his arms still folded on his breast, he walked backward, as if not to lose the view, nor the chain of ideas it conjured up.

"But," he continued to soliloquise – "but of revolution there is no chance. Yet the same wit and will that would thrive in revolutions should thrive in this commonplace life. Knowledge is power. Well, then, shall I have no power to oust this blockhead? Oust him – what from? His father's halls? Well – but if he were dead, who would be the heir of Hazeldean? Have I not heard my mother say that I am as near in blood to this Squire as any one, if he had no children? Oh, but the boy's life is worth ten of mine! Oust him from what? At least from the thoughts of his uncle Egerton – an uncle who has never even seen him! That, at least, is more feasible. 'Make my way in life,' sayest thou, Audley Egerton. Ay – and to the fortune thou hast robbed from my ancestors. Simulation – simulation. Lord Bacon allows simulation. Lord Bacon practised it – and" —

Here the soliloquy came to a sudden end; for as, rapt in his thoughts, the boy had continued to walk backwards, he had come to the verge where the lawn slided off into the ditch of the ha-ha – and, just as he was fortifying himself by the precept and practice of my Lord Bacon, the ground went from under him, and slap into the ditch went Randal Leslie!

It so happened that the Squire, whose active genius was always at some repair or improvement, had been but a few days before widening and sloping off the ditch just in that part, so that the earth was fresh and damp, and not yet either turfed or flattened down. Thus when Randal, recovering his first surprise and shock, rose to his feet, he found his clothes covered with mud; while the rudeness of the fall was evinced by the fantastic and extraordinary appearance of his hat, which, hollowed here, bulging there, and crushed out of all recognition generally, was as little like the hat of a decorous hard-reading young gentleman —protégé of the dignified Mr Audley Egerton – as any hat picked out of a kennel after some drunken brawl possibly could be.

Randal was dizzy, and stunned, and bruised, and it was some moments before he took heed of his raiment. When he did so, his spleen was greatly aggravated. He was still boy enough not to like the idea of presenting himself to the unknown Squire, and the dandy Frank, in such a trim: he resolved at once to regain the lane and return home, without accomplishing the object of his journey; and seeing the footpath right before him, which led to a gate that he conceived would admit him into the highway sooner than the path by which he had come, he took it at once.

It is surprising how little we human creatures heed the warnings of our good genius. I have no doubt that some benignant Power had precipitated Randal Leslie into the ditch, as a significant hint of the fate of all who choose what is, now-a-days, by no means an uncommon step in the march of intellect – viz., the walking backwards, in order to gratify a vindictive view of one's neighbour's property! I suspect that, before this century is out, many a fine fellow will thus have found his ha-ha, and scrambled out of the ditch with a much shabbier coat than he had on when he fell into it. But Randal did not thank his good genius for giving him a premonitory tumble; – and I never yet knew a man who did!

CHAPTER XI

The Squire was greatly ruffled at breakfast that morning. He was too much of an Englishman to bear insult patiently, and he considered that he had been personally insulted in the outrage offered to his recent donation to the parish. His feelings, too, were hurt as well as his pride. There was something so ungrateful in the whole thing, just after he had taken so much pains, not only in the resuscitation, but the embellishment of the stocks. It was not, however, so rare an occurrence for the Squire to be ruffled, as to create any remark. Riccabocca, indeed, as a stranger, and Mrs Hazeldean, as a wife, had the quick tact to perceive that the host was glum and the husband snappish; but the one was too discreet and the other too sensible, to chafe the new sore, whatever it might be; and shortly after breakfast the Squire retired into his study, and absented himself from morning service.

In his delightful Life of Oliver Goldsmith, Mr Foster takes care to touch our hearts by introducing his hero's excuse for not entering the priesthood. He did not feel himself good enough. Thy Vicar of Wakefield, poor Goldsmith, was an excellent substitute for thee; and Dr Primrose, at least, will be good enough for the world until Miss Jemima's fears are realised. Now, Squire Hazeldean had a tenderness of conscience much less reasonable than Goldsmith's. There were occasionally days in which he did not feel good enough – I don't say for a priest, but even for one of the congregation – "days in which, (said the Squire in his own blunt way,) as I have never in my life met a worse devil than a devil of a temper, I'll not carry mine into the family pew. He shan't be growling out hypocritical responses from my poor grandmother's prayer-book." So the Squire and his demon staid at home. But the demon was generally cast out before the day was over; and, on this occasion, when the bell rang for afternoon service, it may be presumed that the Squire had reasoned or fretted himself into a proper state of mind; for he was then seen sallying forth from the porch of his hall, arm-in-arm with his wife, and at the head of his household. The second service was (as is commonly the case, in rural districts) more numerously attended than the first one; and it was our Parson's wont to devote to this service his most effective discourse.

Parson Dale, though a very fair scholar, had neither the deep theology nor the archæological learning that distinguish the rising generation of the clergy. I much doubt if he could have passed what would now be called a creditable examination in the Fathers; and as for all the nice formalities in the rubric, he would never have been the man to divide a congregation or puzzle a bishop. Neither was Parson Dale very erudite in ecclesiastical architecture. He did not much care whether all the details in the church were purely gothic or not: crockets and finials, round arch and pointed arch, were matters, I fear, on which he had never troubled his head. But one secret Parson Dale did possess, which is perhaps of equal importance with those subtler mysteries – he knew how to fill his church! Even at morning service no pews were empty, and at evening service the church overflowed.

Parson Dale, too, may be considered, now-a-days, to hold but a mean idea of the spiritual authority of the Church. He had never been known to dispute on its exact bearing with the State – whether it was incorporated with the State, or above the State – whether it was antecedent to the Papacy, or formed from the Papacy, &c., &c. According to his favourite maxim, Quieta non movere, (not to disturb things that are quiet), I have no doubt that he would have thought that the less discussion is provoked upon such matters, the better for both church and laity. Nor had he ever been known to regret the disuse of the ancient custom of excommunication, nor any other diminution of the powers of the priesthood, whether minatory or militant; yet for all this, Parson Dale had a great notion of the sacred privilege of a minister of the gospel – to advise – to deter – to persuade – to reprove. And it was for the evening service that he prepared those sermons, which may be called, "sermons that preach at you." He preferred the evening for that salutary discipline, not only because the congregation was more numerous, but also because, being a shrewd man in his own innocent way, he knew that people bear better to be preached at after dinner than before; that you arrive more insinuatingly at the heart when the stomach is at peace. There was a genial kindness in Parson Dale's way of preaching at you. It was done in so imperceptible fatherly a manner, that you never felt offended. He did it, too, with so much art that nobody but your own guilty self knew that you were the sinner he was exhorting. Yet he did not spare rich nor poor: he preached at the Squire, and that great fat farmer, Mr Bullock the churchwarden, as boldly as at Hodge the ploughman, and Scrub the hedger. As for Mr Stirn, he had preached at him more often than at any one in the parish; but Stirn, though he had the sense to know it, never had the grace to reform. There was, too, in Parson Dale's sermons, something of that boldness of illustration which would have been scholarly if he had not made it familiar, and which is found in the discourses of our elder divines. Like them, he did not scruple, now and then, to introduce an anecdote from history, or borrow an allusion from some non-scriptural author, in order to enliven the attention of his audience, or render an argument more plain. And the good man had an object in this, a little distinct from, though wholly subordinate to the main purpose of his discourse. He was a friend to knowledge – but to knowledge accompanied by religion; and sometimes his references to sources not within the ordinary reading of his congregation would spirit up some farmer's son, with an evening's leisure on his hands, to ask the Parson for farther explanation, and so be lured on to a little solid or graceful instruction under a safe guide.

Now on the present occasion, the Parson, who had always his eye and heart on his flock, and who had seen with great grief the realisation of his fears at the revival of the stocks; seen that a spirit of discontent was already at work amongst the peasants, and that magisterial and inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural benevolence of the Squire; seen, in short, the signs of a breach between classes, and the precursors of the ever inflammable feud between the rich and the poor, meditated nothing less than a great Political Sermon – a sermon that should extract from the roots of social truths a healing virtue for the wound that lay sore, but latent, in the breast of his parish of Hazeldean:

And thus ran —

The Political Sermon of Parson Dale.

CHAPTER XII

"For every man shall bear his own burden."

    Galatians, c. vi. v. 5.

"Brethren, every man has his burden. If God designed our lives to end at the grave, may we not believe that he would have freed an existence so brief from the cares and sorrows to which, since the beginning of the world, mankind has been subjected? Suppose that I am a kind father, and have a child whom I dearly love, but I know by a divine revelation that he will die at the age of eight years, surely I should not vex his infancy by needless preparations for the duties of life. If I am a rich man, I should not send him from the caresses of his mother to the stern discipline of school. If I am a poor man, I should not take him with me to hedge and dig, to scorch in the sun, to freeze in the winter's cold: why inflict hardships on his childhood, for the purpose of fitting him for manhood, when I know that he is doomed not to grow into man? But if, on the other hand, I believe my child is reserved for a more durable existence, then should I not, out of the very love I bear to him, prepare his childhood for the struggle of life, according to that station in which he is born, giving many a toil, many a pain to the infant, in order to rear and strengthen him for his duties as man? So is it with our Father that is in Heaven. Viewing this life as our infancy, and the next as our spiritual maturity, where 'in the ages to come, he may show the exceeding riches of his grace,' it is in his tenderness, as in his wisdom, to permit the toil and the pain which, in tasking the powers and developing the virtues of the soul, prepare it for 'the earnest of our inheritance, the redemption of the purchased possession.' Hence it is that every man has his burden. Brethren, if you believe that God is good, yea, but as tender as a human father, you will know that your troubles in life are a proof that you are reared for an eternity. But each man thinks his own burden the hardest to bear: the poor man groans under his poverty, the rich man under the cares that multiply with wealth. For, so far from wealth freeing us from trouble, all the wise men who have written in all ages, have repeated with one voice the words of the wisest, 'When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?' And this is literally true, my brethren; for, let a man be as rich as was the great King Solomon himself, unless he lock up all his gold in a chest, it must go abroad to be divided amongst others; yea, though, like Solomon, he make him great works – though he build houses and plant vineyards, and make him gardens and orchards – still the gold that he spends feeds but the mouths he employs; and Solomon himself could not eat with a better relish than the poorest mason who builded the house, or the humblest labourer who planted the vineyard. Therefore, 'when goods increase, they are increased that eat them.' And this, my brethren, may teach us toleration and compassion for the rich. We share their riches whether they will or not; we do not share their cares. The profane history of our own country tells us that a princess, destined to be the greatest queen that ever sat on this throne, envied the milk-maid singing; and a profane poet, whose wisdom was only less than that of the inspired writers, represents the man who by force and wit had risen to be a king, sighing for the sleep vouchsafed to the meanest of his subjects – all bearing out the words of the son of David – 'The sleep of the labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.'

"Amongst my brethren now present, there is doubtless some one who has been poor, and by honest industry has made himself comparatively rich. Let his heart answer me while I speak: are not the chief cares that now disturb him to be found in the goods he hath acquired? – has he not both vexations to his spirit and trials to his virtue, which he knew not when he went forth to his labour, and took no heed of the morrow? But it is right, my brethren, that to every station there should be its care – to every man his burden; for if the poor did not sometimes so far feel poverty to be a burden as to desire to better their condition, and (to use the language of the world) 'seek to rise in life,' their most valuable energies would never be aroused; and we should not witness that spectacle, which is so common in the land we live in – namely, the successful struggle of manly labour against adverse fortune – a struggle in which the triumph of one gives hope to thousands. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention; and the social blessings which are now as common to us as air and sunshine, have come from that law of our nature which makes us aspire towards indefinite improvement, enriches each successive generation by the labours of the last, and, in free countries, often lifts the child of the labourer to place amongst the rulers of the land. Nay, if necessity is the mother of invention, poverty is the creator of the arts. If there had been no poverty, and no sense of poverty, where would have been that which we call the wealth of a country? Subtract from civilisation all that has been produced by the poor, and what remains? – the state of the savage. Where you now see labourer and prince, you would see equality indeed – the equality of wild men. No; not even equality there! for there, brute force becomes lordship, and woe to the weak! Where you now see some in frieze, some in purple, you would see nakedness in all. Where stand the palace and the cot, you would behold but mud huts and caves. As far as the peasant excels the king among savages, so far does the society exalted and enriched by the struggles of labour excel the state in which Poverty feels no disparity, and Toil sighs for no ease. On the other hand, if the rich were perfectly contented with their wealth, their hearts would become hardened in the sensual enjoyments it procures. It is that feeling, by Divine Wisdom implanted in the soul, that there is vanity and vexation of spirit in the things of Mammon, which still leaves the rich man sensitive to the instincts of heaven, and teaches him to seek for happiness in those elevated virtues to which wealth invites him – namely, protection to the lowly and beneficence to the distressed.

"And this, my brethren, leads me to another view of the vast subject opened to us by the words of the apostle – 'Every man shall bear his own burden.' The worldly conditions of life are unequal. Why are they unequal? O my brethren, do you not perceive? Think you that, if it had been better for our spiritual probation that there should be neither great nor lowly, rich nor poor, Providence would not so have ordered the dispensations of the world, and so, by its mysterious but merciful agencies, have influenced the framework and foundations of society? But if, from the remotest period of human annals, and in all the numberless experiments of government which the wit of man has devised, still this inequality is ever found to exist, may we not suspect that there is something in the very principles of our nature to which that inequality is necessary and essential? Ask why this inequality! Why? as well ask why life is the sphere of duty and the nursery of virtues. For if all men were equal, if there were no suffering and no ease, no poverty and no wealth, would you not sweep with one blow the half at least of human virtues from the world? If there were no penury and no pain, what would become of fortitude? – what of patience? – what of resignation? If there were no greatness and no wealth, what would become of benevolence, of charity, of the blessed human pity, of temperance in the midst of luxury, of justice in the exercise of power? Carry the question farther; grant all conditions the same – no reverse, no rise and no fall – nothing to hope for, nothing to fear – what a moral death you would at once inflict upon all the energies of the soul, and what a link between the heart of man and the Providence of God would be snapped asunder! If we could annihilate evil, we should annihilate hope; and hope, my brethren, is the avenue to faith. If there be 'a time to weep, and a time to laugh,' it is that he who mourns may turn to eternity for comfort, and he who rejoices may bless God for the happy hour. Ah! my brethren, were it possible to annihilate the inequalities of human life, it would be the banishment of our worthiest virtues, the torpor of our spiritual nature, the palsy of our mental faculties. The moral world, like the world without us, derives its health and its beauty from diversity, and contrast.

"'Every man shall bear his own burden.' True: but now turn to an earlier verse in the same chapter. – 'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Yes; while Heaven ordains to each his peculiar suffering, it connects the family of man into one household, by that feeling which, more perhaps than any other, distinguish us from the brute creation – I mean the feeling to which we give the name of sympathy– the feeling for each other! The herd of deer shun the stag that is marked by the gunner; the flock heedeth not the sheep that creeps into the shade to die; but man has sorrow and joy not in himself alone, but in the joy and sorrow of those around him. He who feels only for himself abjures his very nature as man; for do we not say of one who has no tenderness for mankind that he is inhuman? and do we not call him who sorrows with the sorrowful, humane?

"Now, brethren, that which especially marked the divine mission of our Lord, is the direct appeal to this sympathy which distinguishes us from the brute. He seizes, not upon some faculty of genius given but to few, but upon that ready impulse of heart which is given to us all; and in saying, 'Love one another,' 'Bear ye one another's burdens,' he elevates the most delightful of our emotions into the most sacred of his laws. The lawyer asks our Lord, 'Who is my neighbour?' Our Lord replies by the parable of the good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite saw the wounded man that fell among the thieves, and passed by on the other side. That priest might have been austere in his doctrine, that Levite might have been learned in the law; but neither to the learning of the Levite, nor to the doctrine of the priest, does our Saviour even deign to allude. He cites but the action of the Samaritan, and saith to the lawyer, 'Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy unto him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.'

"O shallowness of human judgments! It was enough to be born a Samaritan in order to be rejected by the priest, and despised by the Levite. Yet now, what to us the priest and the Levite, of God's chosen race though they were? They passed from the hearts of men when they passed the sufferer by the wayside; while this loathed Samaritan, half thrust from the pale of the Hebrew, becomes of our family, of our kindred; a brother amongst the brotherhood of Love, so long as Mercy and Affliction shall meet in the common thoroughfare of Life!

"'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Think not, O my brethren, that this applies only to almsgiving – to that relief of distress which is commonly called charity – to the obvious duty of devoting, from our superfluities, something that we scarcely miss, to the wants of a starving brother. No. I appeal to the poorest amongst ye, if the worst burdens are those of the body – if the kind word and the tender thought have not often lightened your hearts more than bread bestowed with a grudge, and charity that humbles you by a frown. Sympathy is a beneficence at the command of us all, – yea, of the pauper as of the king; and sympathy is Christ's wealth. Sympathy is brotherhood. The rich are told to have charity for the poor, and the poor are enjoined to respect their superiors. Good: I say not to the contrary. But I say also to the poor, 'In your turn have charity for the rich;' and I say to the rich, 'In your turn respect the poor.'

"'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Thou, O poor man, envy not nor grudge thy brother his larger portion of worldly goods. Believe that he hath his sorrows and crosses like thyself, and perhaps, as more delicately nurtured, he feels them more; nay, hath he not temptations so great that our Lord hath exclaimed – 'How hardly they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven?' And what are temptations but trials? – what are trials but perils and sorrows? Think not that you cannot bestow your charity on the rich man, even while you take your sustenance from his hands. A heathen writer, often cited by the earliest preachers of the gospel, hath truly said – 'Wherever there is room for a man, there is place for a benefit.'

"And I ask any rich brother amongst you, when he hath gone forth to survey his barns and his granaries, his gardens and orchards, if suddenly, in the vain pride of his heart, he sees the scowl on the brow of the labourer – if he deems himself hated in the midst of his wealth – if he feels that his least faults are treasured up against him with the hardness of malice, and his plainest benefits received with the ingratitude of envy – I ask, I say, any rich man, whether straightway all pleasure in his worldly possessions does not fade from his heart, and whether he does not feel what a wealth of gladness it is in the power of the poor man to bestow! For all these things of Mammon pass away; but there is in the smile of him whom we have served, a something that we may take with us into heaven. If, then, ye bear one another's burdens, they who are poor will have mercy on the errors, and compassion for the griefs, of the rich. To all men it was said – yes, to the Lazarus as to the Dives – 'Judge not that ye be not judged.' But think not, O rich man, that we preach only to the poor. If it be their duty not to grudge thee thy substance, it is thine to do all that may sweeten their labour. Remember, that when our Lord said 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven,' he replied also to them who asked, 'Who then shall be saved?' 'The things which are impossible with men are possible with God:' that is, man left to his own temptations would fail; but strengthened by God, he shall be saved. If thy riches are the tests of thy trial, so may they also be the instruments of thy virtues. Prove by thy riches that thou art compassionate and tender, temperate and benign; and thy riches themselves may become the evidence at once of thy faith and of thy works.

"We have constantly on our lips the simple precept, 'Do unto others as ye would be done by.' Why do we fail so often in the practice? Because we neglect to cultivate that SYMPATHY which nature implants as an instinct, and the Saviour exalts as a command. If thou wouldst do unto thy neighbour as thou wouldst be done by, ponder well how thy neighbour will regard the action thou art about to do to him. Put thyself into his place. If thou art strong, and he is weak, descend from thy strength, and enter into his weakness; lay aside thy burden for the while, and buckle on his own; let thy sight see as through his eyes – thy heart beat as in his bosom. Do this, and thou wilt often confess that what had seemed just to thy power will seem harsh to his weakness. For 'as a zealous man hath not done his duty, when he calls his brother drunkard and beast,'[2 - Jeremy Taylor —Of Christian Prudence. Part II.] even so an administrator of the law mistakes his object if he writes on the grand column of society, only warnings that irritate the bold, and terrify the timid: and a man will be no more in love with law than with virtue, 'if he be forced to it with rudeness and incivilities.'[3 - Ib.] If, then, ye would bear the burden of the lowly, O ye great – feel not only for them, but with! Watch that your pride does not chafe them – your power does not wantonly gall. Your worldly inferior is of the class from which the apostles were chosen – amidst which the Lord of Creation descended from a throne above the seraphs."

The Parson here paused a moment, and his eye glanced towards the pew near the pulpit, where sat the magnate of Hazeldean. The Squire was leaning his chin thoughtfully on his hand, his brow inclined downwards, and the natural glow of his complexion much heightened.

"But" – resumed the Parson softly, without turning to his book, and rather as if prompted by the suggestion of the moment – "But he who has cultivated sympathy commits not these errors, or, if committing them, hastens to retract. So natural is sympathy to the good man, that he obeys it mechanically when he suffers his heart to be the monitor of his conscience. In this sympathy behold the bond between rich and poor! By this sympathy, whatever our varying worldly lots, they become what they were meant to be – exercises for the virtues more peculiar to each; and thus, if in the body each man bear his own burden, yet in the fellowship of the soul all have common relief in bearing the burdens of each other.

"This is the law of Christ – fulfil it, O my flock!"

Here the Parson closed his sermon, and the congregation bowed their heads.

ANCIENT AND MODERN ELOQUENCE

Eloquence, in its highest flights, is beyond all question the greatest exertion of the human mind. It requires for its conception a combination of the most exalted faculties; for its execution, a union of the most extraordinary powers. Unite in thought the most varied and dissimilar faculties of the soul – strength of understanding with brilliancy of imagination; fire of conception with solidity of judgment; a retentive memory with an enthusiastic fancy; the warmth of poetry with the coldness of prose; an eye for the beauties of nature with a command of the realities of life; a mind stored with facts and a heart teeming with impressions – and you will form the elements from which the most powerful style of oratory is to be created. But this is not all. Physical powers, if not essential, are at least a great addition to the mental qualities required for its success. The orator must have at once the lengthened thought which is requisite for a prolonged argument, and the ready wit which can turn to the best advantage any incident which may occur in the course of its delivery. More than all is required the fixity of purpose, the energy in effort, the commanding turn, which, as it is the most valuable and important faculty of the mind, so it is the one most rarely to be met with in any walk of life, and least of all in combination with the brilliant and imaginative qualities, which are the very soul of every art which is to subdue or captivate mankind.

It is not surprising that the art of the orator should require, for its highest flights, so rare a combination of qualities, for of all the efforts of the human mind it is the most astonishing in its nature, and the most transcendent in its immediate triumphs. The wisdom of the philosopher, the eloquence of the historian, the sagacity of the statesman, the capacity of the general, may produce more lasting effects upon human affairs; but they are incomparably less rapid in their influence, and less intoxicating from the ascendency they confer. In the solitude of his library the sage meditates on the truths which are to influence the thoughts and direct the conduct of men in future times; amidst the strife of faction the legislator discerns the measures calculated, after a long course of years, to alleviate existing evils or produce happiness yet unborn; during long and wearisome campaigns the commander throws his shield over the fortunes of his country, and prepares in silence and amidst obloquy the means of maintaining its independence. But the triumphs of the orator are immediate; his influence is instantly felt: his, and his alone, it is

"The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read his history in a nation's eyes."

To stand up before a vast assembly composed of men of various passions, habits, and prepossessions; to conciliate their feelings by the art, and carry away their judgment by the eloquence, of the orator; to see every gaze at length turned on his countenance, and every ear intent on the words which drop from his lips; to see indifference turn into excitement, and aversion melt away amidst enthusiasm; to hear thunders of applause at the close of every sentence, and behold the fire of enthusiasm kindled in every eye, as each successive idea is brought forth; and to think that all this is the creation of the moment, and has sprung extempore from the ardour of his conceptions, and the inspiration they have derived from what passes around him, is perhaps the greatest triumph of the human mind, and that in which its divine origin and immortal destiny is most clearly revealed.

It is the magnitude of the combination requisite for its greatest efforts which renders eloquence of the loftiest kind so extremely rare among mankind. It is less frequent than the highest flights in epic or dramatic poetry. Greece produced three great tragedians, but only one Demosthenes; Cicero stands alone to sustain by his single strength the fame of Roman oratory. Antiquity could not boast of more than five or six persons who, by the common consent of their contemporaries, had attained the highest rank in forensic eloquence; it is doubtful if modern times could count as many: as many, we mean, who have attained the very highest place in this noble and difficult art; for, doubtless, in the second class, great numbers of names are to be found; and in the third their name is legion. It is not meant to be asserted that great temporary fame and influence by eloquence may not be, and often has been, acquired by persons who are deficient in many of the qualities above enumerated, as required to form a perfect orator. Without doubt, brilliancy of genius will often, for passing effect, compensate the want of solidity of judgment; and fire of imagination make us for the moment forget a squeaking voice, a diminutive figure, an ungainly countenance. No one, at times, commanded the attention of the House of Commons more entirely than the late Mr Wilberforce, and yet his stature was small, and his voice weak and painfully shrill. But great earnestness of will and brilliancy of fancy are required to compensate such defects; and we are persuaded that none will more readily admit the justice of these observations than those who have laboured under, and, by their powers, in a certain degree surmounted them.

As little is it intended to assert that vast influence may not be acquired, and unbounded celebrity for the time obtained, not merely without the cooperation of such varied and extensive qualities, but by the aid, in many cases, of the very reverse. As temporary influence, not lasting fame, is the immediate and chief end of oratory, its style must be adapted to the prevailing cast of mind, and ruling interests or passions, of the persons to whom it is addressed; and as it will share in elevation of sentiment, if that is their characteristic, so it will be deformed by vulgarity or selfishness when they are vulgar and selfish. It is a common saying, that a speaker must descend to the level of his audience, if he means to command their suffrages or enlist their passions; and we have only to look around us to see how often, in assemblies of an inferior, interested, or impassioned character, the highest celebrity and most unbounded success are attained by persons who not only have exhibited few of the qualities of a refined orator, but who had studiously concealed those which they did possess, and secretly despised in their hearts the arts to which their triumphs had been owing.[4 - This was well known in ancient times. "Corruptas," says Quintilian, "aliquando et vitiosas orationes, quas tamen plerique judiciorum pravitate mirantur, quam multa impropria, obscura, tumida, humilia, sordida, lasciva, effeminata sunt; quæ non laudantur modo a plerisque, sed quod pejus est, propter hoc ipsum, quod sunt prava laudantur." – Inst. Orat. ii. 5.] But this is no more than is the case with all the arts which aim at influencing, or charming mankind. The theatre, the romance, poetry itself, share at times in the same degradation. It would be as unjust to stigmatise oratory as the art of sophists or declaimers, intended to seduce or deceive those who cannot see through its artifices, as it would be to reproach the stage with the vulgarity of the buffoon, or novels with the licentiousness of Aretin, or poetry with the seductions of Ovid. We must not think lightly of an art which has been ennobled by the efforts of Cicero and Burke in the most refined assemblies, because it has also led to the triumphs of O'Connell and Wilkes in the most ignorant.

To the highest triumphs of the art of oratory, that first of blessings, Civil Liberty, is indispensable. More truly of it than of the liberty of the press, it may be said, "It is our vital air: withdraw it, and we perish." Regulated freedom is essential to its success. It is hard to say whether it perishes most rapidly amidst the studied servility of courtly rhetoric, or the coarse adulations of democratic flattery; whether the atmosphere of Constantinople or that of New York is most fatal to its existence. Genius, and that of the very highest kind, may exist in despotic communities; but it is degraded by selfishness and misdirected by servility.

Where there is only one ruling power in the state – be it monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic – this corruption is equally certain, and equally unavoidable. The sonorous periods in which Fontanes celebrated the triumphs of the empire, the impassioned strains in which Robespierre eulogised the incorruptible virtue of the people, the coarse flattery with which O'Connell captivated his ignorant and excitable audiences, equally marked the approach of the period in which oratory, if such a régime continued, must die a natural death. Under such influences it necessarily perished from its own exaggeration: it ceased to be impressive, it became ridiculous. As in all the other arts which are intended to please and instruct mankind, Truth, and a regard to the limits of nature, are essential to its success. Exaggeration and hyperbole not only degrade the character of eloquence, but destroy its influence, because they induce a style of expression with which subsequent times, emancipated from passing influences, cannot sympathise – look upon as contemptible. Then, and then only, will oratory attain its highest perfection, during that period "slow to come, soon to perish," as Tacitus said of balanced freedom, during which no one interest in the state is irresistible; and truth, in assailing the vices or resisting the encroachments of others, can find a fulcrum from whence to direct its efforts. Withdraw the fulcrum – remove the support – and truth, and with it genius, will sink to rise no more.