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

It is surprising, however, how solicitous the human soul is for liberty of expression; how eagerly, if one channel is closed, it seeks out and often finds another. When the power of Government, or the tyranny of the majority, has shut out the natural expression of unfettered opinion in the discussion of the social and political interests of man, it takes refuge in the regions of imagination. Romance becomes the vehicle of independent thought: the stage the arena of unrestrained debate. So delightful is free expression to the human mind, that it proves agreeable even to those whose ascendency may seem to be endangered by its prevalence. It may appear strange, but it is undoubtedly true, that the germ of the doctrines of human perfectibility, the general vices of those in authority, and the expedience of universal freedom alike in trade and employment, emanated from the precincts of the most despotic authority in Europe, and at the period of its highest exaltation. It was in the palace of Versailles, in the court of the Grande Monarque, and when discharging the duties of tutor to the Dauphin, that Fenelon wrote, for the instruction of his royal pupil, Telémaque– perhaps the most thoroughly democratic work, in its principles, that ever emanated from the pen of genius. It was in the boudoir of Madame de Pompadour, and when surrounded by the corruptions of Louis XV., that Quesnay first announced the doctrines of throwing all taxes on the land, and of universal freedom of trade and occupation, which have subsequently had so powerful an influence in producing the Revolution of France, and altering the political system and social conditions of Great Britain.

The extraordinary perfection to which tragedy has been brought in many modern countries where the institutions are of a despotic character, is mainly to be ascribed to this cause. The stage became the outlet of independent thought; it was there alone that unfettered expression could be safely attempted. Put into the mouths of historical or imaginary characters, portraying remote events, for the most part drawn from the classical ages of Greece or Rome, such unrestrained ideas attracted no disquietude in the depositories of authority. They were regarded as an attribute of a primeval world, which had as little relation to the present, and as little bearing on its fortunes, as the skeletons of the Mammoth, or the backbones of the Ichthyosauri, on its material interests. A direct argument in favour of republican institutions would have secured for its author a place in the Bastile, or in the dungeons of the Inquisition; an incitement to the people to take up arms, to dethrone the reigning monarch, would have led to the scaffold; but the most eloquent and impassioned declamations in support of both the one and the other, when couched in verse, put into the mouth of Virginius or Brutus, and repeated on the stage by a popular actor, excited no sort of apprehension. On the contrary, it was only the more admired from its very novelty. Such ideas fell on the mind, amidst the seductions and restrictions of a despotic court, with somewhat of the charm with which the voice of nature, and the picture of her beauties, was in the last days of the French monarchy listened to from the gifted pen of Rousseau, or the vehement and imaginary passions of the Greek Corsairs, as delineated by Byron, were regarded by the worn-out victims of London dissipation.

If we would see in modern literature the most exact counterpart which Europe has been able to present to the oratorical perfection of antiquity, we must look for it, not in the debates of its National Assemblies, or even the effusions of its pulpit eloquence, but in the speeches of its great tragic poets. The best declamations in Corneille, Alfieri, and Schiller, are often nothing but ancient eloquence put into verse. The brevity and force of Shakspeare belong to the same school. These men exhibit the same condensation of ideas, terseness of expression, depth of thought, acquaintance with the secrets of the heart, which have rendered the historians and orators of antiquity immortal. Like them in their highest flights, they present intellect and genius disdaining the attractions of style, the flowers of rhetoric, the amplifications of imagination, and resting solely on condensed reason, cogent argument, and impassioned pathos. They are the bones and muscles of thought, without its ornament or covering. It is this circumstance which rendered their drama so popular, and has given its great masters their colossal reputation; and in their lasting fame may be found the most decisive proof of the undying influence of the highest species of eloquence on cultivated minds. Men and women went to the theatre not to be instructed in the story – it was known to all; not to be dazzled by stage effect – there was none of it: but to hear oratory of the highest, pathos of the most moving, magnanimity of the most exalted kind, repeated with superb effect by the first performers. The utmost vehemence of action, with all the aids of intonation, action, and delivery, was employed to heighten the effect of condensed eloquence, conveying free and lofty sentiments which could nowhere else be heard. This was the secret of the wonderful influence of the stage on the polished society of Paris, during the latter days of the monarchy. The audience in the parterre might be seen repeating every celebrated speech with the actor.

To illustrate these observations, we shall subjoin a few passages – two from Corneille, one from Shakspeare, one from Alfieri, and two from Schiller, in prose – partly to show how nearly they approach to the style of ancient oratory, and partly from a sense of the hopelessness of any translation conveying more than a prosaic idea of the terseness and vigour of the originals, —

"When the people are the master, tumults become national events. Never is the voice of reason consulted. Honours are sold to the most ambitious, authority yielded to the most seditious. These little sovereigns, made for a year, seeing the term of their power so near expiring, cause the most auspicious designs to miscarry, from the dread that others who follow may obtain the credit of them. As they have little share in the property which they command, they reap without hesitation in the harvest of the public, being well assured that every one will gladly pardon what they themselves hope to do on a future occasion. The worst of states is the popular state."[5 - Cinna, Act ii. s. 1."Quelle prodigieuse supériorité," says Voltaire in his Commentaries on this passage, "de la belle Poésie sur la prose! Tous les écrivains politiques ont délayé ces pensées, aucun n'a approché de la force, de la profondeur, de la netteté, de la précision de ce discours de Cinna. Tous les corps d'état auraient du assister a cette pièce, pour apprendre à penser et à parler." – Voltaire, Commentaires sur Corneille, iii. 308.]

Corneille's celebrated picture of Attila, which he puts into the mouth of Octar, but which was really intended for Louis XIV., exhibits another example of the condensed style of oratory, perhaps still more applicable to a greater man than the Grande Monarque, —

"I have seen him, alike in peace and war, bear everywhere the air of the conqueror of the earth. Often have I beheld the fiercest nations disarm his wrath by their submission. I have seen all the pleasure of his heroic mind savouring of the grand and the magnificent, while his ceaseless foresight in the midst of peace had prepared the triumphs of war; his noble anxiety, which, amidst his very recreations prepared the success of future designs. Too happy the people against whom he does not turn his invincible arms! I have seen him, covered with smoke and dust, give the noblest example to his army – spread terror everywhere by his own danger – overturn walls by a single glance, and heap his own conquests on the broken pride of the haughtiest monarchs."[6 - Corneille, Attila, Act ii. s. 5.]

Napoleon said, if he had lived in his time, he would have made Corneille his first councillor of state. He was right: for his thoughts were more allied to the magnanimity of the hero than the pathos of the tragedian; and his language savoured more of the sonorous periods of the orator than the fire of the poet.

Beside these specimens of French tragic eloquence, we gladly place the well-known speech of Brutus in Julius Cæsar, which proves that Shakspeare was endowed with the very soul of ancient oratory: —

"Romans, countrymen, and lovers! Hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear; believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour that you may believe; censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cæsar's, to him I say that Brutus' love to Cæsar was not less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is my answer: not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather that Cæsar were living and die all slaves, than that Cæsar were dead to live all free men? As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice in it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his valour, and death for his ambition. Who is there so base that would be a bondsman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak, for him have I offended. I have done no more to Cæsar than you should do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory is not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offences enforced for which he suffered death."[7 - Julius Cæsar, Act iii. s. 2.]

This is in the highest style of ancient oratory. Whoever has had the good fortune to hear this noble speech repeated by the lips, and with the impressive manner of Kemble, will have no difficulty in conceiving how it was that eloquence in Greece and Rome acquired so mighty an ascendency. Shakspeare has shown, however, in the speech of Antony, which follows, that he is not less master of that important part of oratory which consists in moving the feelings, and conciliating by pathos an adverse audience. Antiquity never conceived anything more skilful, or evincing a more thorough knowledge of the human heart, than thus turning aside the lofty patriotic and republican ideas awakened by Brutus' speech, first by the exhibition of Cæsar's garments, rent by the daggers of his murderers, and yet wet with his blood, and then unveiling the mangled corpse itself!

The eloquence of Alfieri and Schiller, perhaps, of all modern writers, is that which approaches most closely to the brief and condensed style of ancient oratory. The speech of Icilius, in the noble drama of Virginia, by the first of these writers, affords a fair specimen of its power: —

"Listen to my words, O people of Rome! I who heretofore have never been deceitful, who have never either betrayed or sold my honour; who boast an ignoble origin, but a noble heart! hear me. This innocent free maid is daughter of Virginius. At such a name, I see your eyes flash with resplendent fire. Virginius is fighting for you in the field: think on the depravity of the times; meanwhile, exposed to shame, the victim of outrage, his daughter remains in Rome. And who outrages her? Come forward, O Marcus! show yourself. Why tremble you? He is well known to you: the last slave of the tyrant Appius and his first minister – of Appius, the mortal enemy of every virtue – of Appius, the haughty, stern, ferocious oppressor, who his ravished from you your freedom, and, to embitter the robbery, has left you your lives. Virginia is my promised bride: I love her. Who I am, I need not say: some one may perhaps remind you. I was your tribune, your defender; but in vain. You trusted rather the deceitful words of another than my free speech. We now suffer, in common slavery, the pain of your delusion. Why do I say more? The heart, the arm, the boldness of Icilius is known to you not less than the name. From you I demand my free bride. This man does not ask her: he styles her slave – he drags her, he forces her. Icilius or Marcus is a liar: say, Romans, which it is."[8 - Virginia, Act i. s. 3.]

That Schiller was a great dramatic and lyric poet, need be told to none who have the slightest acquaintance with European literature; but his great oratorical powers are not so generally appreciated, for they have been lost in the blaze of his poetic genius. They were, however, of the very highest order, as will at once appear from the following translation (imperfect as it, of course, is) in prose, which we have attempted of the celebrated speeches of Shrewsbury and Burleigh, who discussed before Queen Elizabeth the great question of Queen Mary's execution, in his noble tragedy of Maria Stuart: —

SHREWSBURY

"God, whose wondrous hand has four times protected you, and who to-day gave the feeble arm of gray hairs strength to turn aside the stroke of a madman, should inspire confidence. I will not now speak in the name of justice; this is not the time. In such a tumult you cannot hear her still small voice. Consider this only: you are fearful now of the living Mary; but I say it is not the living you have to fear. Tremble at the dead – the beheaded. She will rise from the grave a fiend of dissension. She will awaken the spirit of revenge in your kingdom, and wean the hearts of your subjects from you. At present she is an object of dread to the British; but when she is no more, they will revenge her. No longer will she then be regarded as the enemy of their faith; her mournful fate will cause her to appear only as the granddaughter of their king, the victim of man's hatred and woman's jealousy. Soon will you see the change appear! Drive through London after the bloody deed has been done; show yourself to the people, who now surround you with joyful acclamations: then will you see another England, another people! No longer will you then walk forth encircled by the radiance of heavenly justice which now binds every heart to you. Dread the frightful name of tyrant which will precede you through shuddering hearts, and resound through every street where you pass. You have done the last irrevocable deed. What head stands fast when this sacred one has fallen?"

BURLEIGH

"Thou sayest, my Queen, thou lovest thy people more than thyself – show it now! Choose not peace for yourself, and leave discord to your people. Think on the Church! Shall the ancient faith be restored with this Stuart? Shall the monk of new lord it here – the legate of Rome return to shut up our churches, dethrone our queen? I demand the souls of all your subjects from you. As you now decide, you are saved or lost. This is no time for womanish pity: the salvation of your people is your highest duty. Has Shrewsbury saved your life to-day? I will deliver England, and that is more." —Maria Stuart, Act iv. s. 7.

Demosthenes could have written nothing more powerful – Cicero imagined nothing more persuasive.

We shall now, to justify our assertion that it is in the dramatic poets of modern Europe that a parallel can alone be found to the condensed power of ancient eloquence, proceed to give a few quotations from the most celebrated speeches of antiquity. We have selected, in general, those from the historians, as they are shorter than the orations delivered in the forum, and can be given entire. A fragment from a speech of Demosthenes or Cicero gives no sort of idea of the original, because what goes before is withheld. To scholars we need not plead indulgence for the inadequacy of our translations: they will not expect what they know to be impossible.

Tacitus, in his Life of Agricola, puts into the mouth of Galgacus the following oration, when he was animating the Caledonians to their last battle with the Romans under Agricola.

"As often as I reflect on the origin of the war, and our necessities, I feel a strong conviction that this day, and your will, are about to lay the foundations of British liberty. For we have all known what slavery is, and no place of retreat lies behind us. The sea even is insecure when the Roman fleet hovers around. Thus arms and war, ever coveted by the brave, are now the only refuge of the cowardly. In former actions, in which the Britons fought with various success against the Romans, our valour was a resource to look to, for we, the noblest of all the nation, and on that account placed in its inmost recesses, unused to the spectacle of servitude, had our eyes even inviolate from its hateful sight. We, the last of the earth, and of freedom, unknown to fame, have been hitherto defended by our remoteness; now, the extreme limits of Britain appear, and the unknown is ever regarded as the magnificent. No refuge is behind us; naught but the rocks and the waves, and the deadlier Romans: men whose pride you have in vain sought to deprecate by moderation and subservience. The robbers of the globe, when the land fails they scour the sea. Is the enemy rich, they are avaricious; is he poor, they are ambitious – the East and the West are unable to satiate their desires. Wealth and poverty are alike coveted by their rapacity. To carry off, massacre, seize on false pretences, they call empire; and when they make a desert, they call it peace.

"Nature has made children and relations dearest to all: they are carried off by levies to serve elsewhere: our wives and sisters, if they escape the lust of our enemies, are seduced by these friends and guests. Our goods and fortunes they seize on as tribute, our corn as supplies; our very bodies and hands they wear out amidst strifes and contumely, in fortifying stations in the woods and marshes. Serfs born in servitude are once bought, and ever after fed by their masters; Britain alone daily buys its slavery, daily feeds it. As in families the last slave purchased is often a laughing-stock to the rest, so we, the last whom they have reduced to slavery, are the first to be agonised by their contumely, and reserved for destruction. We have neither fields, nor minerals, nor harbours, in working which we can be employed: the valour and fierceness of the vanquished are obnoxious to the victors: our very distance and obscurity, as they render us the safer, make us the more suspected. Laying aside, therefore, all hope of pardon, assume the courage of men to whom salvation and glory are alike dear. The Trinobantes, under a female leader, had courage to burn a colony and storm castles, and, had not their success rendered them negligent, they would have cast off the yoke. We, untouched and unconquered, nursed in freedom, shall we not show, on the first onset, what men Caledonia has nursed in her bosom?

"Do not believe the Romans have the same prowess in war as lust in peace. They have grown great on our divisions: they know how to turn the vices of men to the glory of their own army. As it has been drawn together by success, so disaster will dissolve it, unless you suppose that the Gauls and the Germans, and, I am ashamed to say, many of the Britons, who now lend their blood to a foreign usurpation, and in their hearts are rather enemies than slaves, can be retained by faith and affection. Fear and terror are but slender bonds of attachment; when you remove them, as fear ceases terror begins. All the incitements of victory are on our side: no wives inflame the Romans; no parents are there, to call shame on their flight; they have no country, or it is elsewhere. Few in number, fearful from ignorance, gazing on unknown woods and seas, the gods have delivered them shut in and bound into your hands. Let not their vain aspect, the glitter of silver and gold, which neither covers nor wounds, alarm you. In the very line of the enemy we shall find our friends: the Britons will recognise their own cause; the Gauls will recollect their former freedom; the other Germans will desert them, as lately the Usipii have done. No objects of terror are behind them; naught but empty castles, age-ridden colonies; dissension between cruel masters and unwilling slaves, sick and discordant cities. Here is a leader, an army; there are tributes, and payments, and the badges of servitude, which to bear for ever, or instantly to avenge, lies in your arms. Go forth then into the field, and think of your ancestors and your descendants."[9 - Agricola, c. 31, 32.]

It is scarcely necessary to say that this speech was written by Tacitus: most certainly nothing half so perfect was ever conceived by Caledonian chief or Caledonian orator, from that day to this. But as the great speeches in antiquity were all written, this gives a specimen, doubtless of the most favourable kind, of the style of oratory which prevailed amongst them. No modern historian has either ventured or been able to put anything so nervous and forcible into the mouth of any orator, how great soever. If he did, it would at once be known that it had not been spoken, but was the fruit of the composition of the closet.

Catiline, who, like many other revolutionists, possessed abilities commensurate to his wickedness, thus addressed the conspirators who were associated to overturn the sway of the Roman patricians: —

"Had not your valour and fidelity been well known to me, fruitless would have been the smiles of Fortune: the prospect of as mighty domination would in vain have opened upon us; nor would I have mistaken illusive hopes for realities, uncertain things for certain. But since, on many and great occasions, I have known you to be brave and faithful, I have ventured to engage in the greatest and noblest undertaking; for I well know that good and evil are common to you and me. That friendship at length is secure which is founded on wishing and dreading the same things. You all know what designs I have long revolved in my mind; but my confidence in them daily increases, when I reflect what our fate is likely to be, if we do not vindicate our freedom by our own hands. For, since the republic has fallen under the power and dominion of a few, kings yield their tributes, governorships their profits to them: all the rest, whether strenuous, good, noble or ignoble, are the mere vulgar: without influence, without authority, we are obnoxious to those to whom, if the commonwealth existed, we should be a terror. All honour, favour, power, wealth, is centred in them, or those whom they favour: to us are left dangers, repulses, lawsuits, poverty. How long will you endure them, O ye bravest of men? Is it not better to die bravely, than drag out a miserable and dishonoured life, the sport of pride, the victims of disgrace? But by the faith of gods and men, victory is in our own hands: our strength is unimpaired; our minds energetic: theirs is enfeebled by age, extinguished by riches. All that is required is to begin boldly; the rest follows of course. Where is the man of a manly spirit, who can tolerate that they should overflow with riches, which they squander in ransacking the sea, in levelling mountains, while to us the common necessaries of life are awanting? They have two or more superb palaces each; we not wherein to lay our heads. When they buy pictures, statues, basso-relievos, they destroy the old to make way for the new: in every possible way they squander away their money; but all their desires are unable to exhaust their riches. At home, we have only poverty; abroad, debts; present adversity; worse prospects. What, in fine, is left us, but our woe-stricken souls? What, then, shall we do? That, that which you have ever most desired. Liberty is before your eyes; and it will soon bring riches, renown, glory: Fortune holds out these rewards to the victors. The time, the place, our dangers, our wants, the splendid spoils of war, exhort you more than my words. Make use of me either as a commander or a private soldier. Neither in soul or body will I be absent from your side. These deeds I hope I shall perform as Consul with you, unless my hopes deceive me, and you are prepared rather to obey as slaves, than to command as rulers."[10 - Sallust, Bell. Cat.]

The topics here handled are the same which in every age have been the staple of the conspirator and the revolutionist; but it may be doubted whether they ever were put together with such force and address. The same desperate chief, on the eve of their last conflict with the consular legions: —

"I well know, fellow-soldiers, that words add nothing to the valour of the brave; and that an army will not be made from slothful, strenuous – from timid, courageous, by any speech from its commander. Whatever boldness nature or training has implanted in any one, that appears in war. It is vain to exhort those whom neither dangers nor glory excite. Terror shuts their ears. But I have called you together to mention a few things, and to make you sharers of my councils. You know, soldiers, what a calamity has been brought upon us by the cowardice of Lentulus; and how, when I awaited succours from the city, I was unable to set out for Gaul. Now, however, I will candidly tell you how our affairs stand. Two armies, one issuing from Rome, one from Gaul, beset us: want of provisions obliges us quickly to change our quarters, even if we inclined to remain where we are. Wherever we determine to go, we must open a way with our swords. Therefore it is that I admonish you that you have now need of stern and determined minds: and when you engage in battle, recollect that riches, honour, glory, in addition to liberty, are to be won by your own right hands. If we conquer, everything awaits us: provisions will be abundant, colonies ready, cities open. If we yield from fear, circumstances are equally adverse: neither solitude nor friend shields him whom his arms cannot protect. Besides, soldiers, the same necessity does not impel them as us. We fight for our country, our liberty, our lives; they for the domination of a few. On that account, mindful of your pristine valour, advance to the attack. You might have, with disgrace, lingered out a miserable life in exile: a few, bereft of their possessions, might have remained, fed by charity, at Rome: but as such a fate seemed intolerable to freemen, you have attended me here. If you would shun these evils, now is the moment to do so. None ever exchanged war for peace, save by victory. To hope for safety in flight, and, at the same time, rescue from the enemy the arms by which the body is covered, is the height of madness. Ever in battle they run the greatest danger who are most timid: boldness is the only real rampart. When I reflect on you and your deeds, O soldiers, I have great hopes of victory. Your spirit, your age, your bravery, encourage me: besides necessity, which makes heroes even of cowards. The straits of the ground secure you from being outflanked by the enemy. Should Fortune fail to second your valour, beware lest you perish unavenged. Rather fall, fighting like men, and leave a mournful and bloody triumph to your enemies, than be butchered like sheep when captured by their arms."[11 - Sallust, Bell. Cat.]

With what exquisite judgment and taste is the stern and mournful style of this speech suited to the circumstances, all but desperate, in which Catiline's army was then placed!

No one supposes that these were the identical words delivered by Catiline on this occasion. Unquestionably, Sallust shines through in every line. But they were probably his ideas; and, unquestionably, they were in the true style of ancient oratory. And that what was spoken fully equalled what has come down to us written, is proved by innumerable passages in speeches which undoubtedly were spoken; among which, we select the graphic picture of Antony in his revels – spoken by Cœlius, and preserved by Quintilian: —

"They found him (Antony) oppressed with a half-drunken sleep, snoring aloud, lying across the most beautiful concubines, while others were reposing around. The latter, when they perceived the approach of an enemy, strove to awaken Antony, but in vain. They called on him by name, they raised him by the neck: one whispered softly in his ear, one struck him sharply; but to no purpose. When he was so far roused as to recognise the voice or touch of the nearest, he put his arms round her neck, unable alike to sleep and to rise up; but, half in a stupor, he was tossed about between the hands of the centurions and the harlots."[12 - Quintilian, lib. iv. 2.]

What a picture of the triumvir and rival of Brutus, as well as of the corrupted manners of Rome!

Demosthenes, in his celebrated speech against Æschines, burst into the following strain of indignant invective: —

"You taught writing, I learned it: you were an instructor, I was the instructed: you danced at the games, I presided over them: you wrote as a clerk, I pleaded as an advocate: you were an actor in the theatres, I a spectator: you broke down, I hissed: you ever took counsel for our enemies, I for our country. In fine, now on this day the point at issue is – Am I, yet unstained in character, worthy of a crown? while to you is reserved the lot of a calumniator, and you are in danger of being silenced by not having obtained the fifth part of the votes.

"I have not fortified the city with stone, nor adorned it with tiles, neither do I take any credit for such things. But if you would behold my works aright, you will find arms, and cities, and stations, and harbours, and ships, and horses, and those who are to make use of them in our defence. This is the rampart I have raised for Attica, as much as human wisdom could effect: with these I fortified the whole country, not the Piræus only and the city. I never sank before the arms or cunning of Philip. No! it was by the supineness of your own generals and allies that he triumphed."[13 - De Coronâ, Orat. Græc. i. 315, 325.]

We add only an extract from the noble speech of Pericles, on those who had died in the service of their country, which is the more valuable that Thucydides, who has recorded it in his history, says that the version he has given of that masterpiece of oratory is nearly the same as he heard from Pericles himself.

"Wherefore I will congratulate rather than bewail the parents of those who have fallen that are present. They know that they were born to suffering. But the lot of those is most to be envied who have come to such an end, that it is hard to say whether their life or their death is most honourable. I know it is difficult to persuade you of this, who had often rejoiced in the good fortune of others; and it is not when we are deprived of goods not yet attained that we feel grief, but when we are bereaved of what we have already enjoyed. To some the hope of other children, who may emulate those who have gone before, may be a source of consolation. Future offspring may awaken fresh interests in place of the dead; and will doubly benefit the city by peopling its desert places, and providing for its defence. We cannot expect that those who have no children whom they may place in peril for their country, can be considered on a level with such as have made the sacrifices which those have made. To such of you as time has denied this hope, I would say, 'Rejoice in the honour which your children have won, and let that console the few years that still remain to you – for the love of glory alone knows no age; and in the decline of life it is not the acquisition of gain, as some say, which confers pleasure, but the consciousness of being honoured.

"To the children and brothers of those we mourn, who are here present, I foresee a noble contest. Every one praises the dead. You should endeavour, I will not say to equal those we have lost, but to be only a little inferior to them. Envy often divides the living; but the grave extinguishes jealousy, for it terminates rivalry. I must speak of the virtue of the women who have shared in our bereavement; but I shall do so in a few words. Great will be your renown, if you do not yield to the weakness of your sex; and place as little difference as possible between yourselves and the virtue of men. I propose that the children of those who have fallen should be maintained, till puberty, at the public expense – a reward at once to the virtue of the dead, and an incitement to the emulation of the living: for among those to whom the highest rewards of virtue are opened, the most worthy citizens are found. And now, having honoured the dead by your mourning, depart every one to his home."[14 - Thucydides, ii. § 32, 33.]

Enough – and some may, perhaps, think more than enough – has been done to convey an idea of that far-famed oratory, of which Milton has said —

"Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancients, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democracy,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne."[15 - Paradise Regained, iv. 268.]

For comparison with these splendid passages, we gladly lay before our readers the famous peroration of Mr Burke's oration against Mr Hastings, long esteemed the masterpiece of British eloquence.

"My Lords, at this awful close, in the name of the Commons, and surrounded by them, I attest the retiring, I attest the advancing generations, between which, as a link in the great chain of eternal order, we stand. We call this nation, we call the world to witness, that the Commons have shrunk from no labour; that we have been guilty of no prevarication; that we have made no compromise with crime; that we have not feared any odium whatsoever, in the long warfare which we have carried on with the crimes – with the vices – with the exorbitant wealth – with the enormous and overpowering influence of Eastern corruption. This war, my Lords, we have waged for twenty-two years, and the conflict has been fought, at your Lordships' bar, for the last seven years. My Lords, twenty-two years is a great space in the scale of the life of man; it is no inconsiderable space in the history of a great nation. A business which has so long occupied the councils and the tribunals of Great Britain cannot possibly be huddled over in the course of vulgar, trite, and transitory events. Nothing but some of those great revolutions, that break the traditionary chain of human memory, and alter the very face of nature itself, can possibly obscure it. My Lords, we are all elevated to a degree of importance by it; the meanest of us will, by means of it, more or less, become the concern of posterity – if we are yet to hope for such a thing, in the present state of the world, as a recording, retrospective, civilised posterity: but this is in the hand of the great Disposer of events; it is not ours to settle how it shall be. My Lords, your House yet stands; it stands as a great edifice; but let me say, that it stands in the midst of ruins – in the midst of the ruins that have been made by the greatest moral earthquake that ever convulsed and shattered this globe of ours. My Lords, it has pleased Providence to place us in such a state, that we appear every moment to be upon the verge of some great mutations. There is one thing, and one thing only, which defies all mutation, that which existed before the world, and will survive the fabric of the world itself – I mean justice; that justice which, emanating from the Divinity, has a place in the breast of every one of us, given us for our guide with regard to ourselves and with regard to others, and which will stand, after this globe is burned to ashes, our advocate or our accuser before the great Judge, when He comes to call upon us for the tenor of a well-spent life.

"My Lords, the Commons will share in every fate with your Lordships; there is nothing sinister which can happen to you, in which we shall not all be involved; and if it should so happen that we shall be subjected to some of those frightful changes which we have seen – if it should happen that your Lordships, stripped of all the decorous distinctions of human society, should, by hands at once base and cruel, be led to those scaffolds and machines of murder upon which great kings and glorious queens have shed their blood, amidst the prelates, amidst the nobles, amidst the magistrates, who supported their thrones, may you in those moments feel that consolation which I am persuaded they felt in the critical moments of their dreadful agony!.. My Lords, if you must fall, may you so fall! but, if you stand – and stand I trust you will – together with the fortune of this ancient monarchy – together with the ancient laws and liberties of this great and illustrious kingdom – may you stand as unimpeached in honour as in power; may you stand, not as a substitute for virtue, but as an ornament of virtue, as a security for virtue; may you stand long, and long stand the terror of tyrants; may you stand the refuge of afflicted nations; may you stand a sacred temple, for the perpetual residence of an inviolable justice."[16 - Burke's Works, vol. xvi. pages 415, 416, 417, 418, 420.]

The peroration of Lord Brougham's speech in favour of Queen Caroline, which was carefully studied, and, it is said, written over several times, is not unworthy to be placed beside this splendid burst.

"Such, my Lords, is the case before you! such is the evidence in support of this measure – evidence inadequate to prove a debt, impotent to deprive of a civil right, ridiculous to convict of the lowest offence, scandalous, if brought forward to support a charge of the highest nature which the law knows, monstrous to ruin the honour and blast the name of an English Queen! What shall I say, then, if this is the proof by which an act of judicial legislation, a parliamentary sentence, an ex post facto law, is sought to be passed against a defenceless woman? My Lords, I pray you to pause: I do earnestly beseech you to take heed. You are standing upon the brink of a precipice – then beware! It will go forth as your judgment, if sentence shall pass against the Queen. But it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced which, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back upon those who give it. Save the country, my Lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe – save yourselves from this peril. Revere that country of which you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no longer, when severed from the people, than the blossom when cut off from the roots and stem of the tree. Save that country, that you may continue to adorn it; save the crown, which is in jeopardy, the aristocracy, which is shaken; save the altar, which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred throne! You have said, my Lords, you have willed, the church to the Queen have willed that she should be deprived of its solemn service. She has instead of that solemnity the heartfelt prayers of the people. She wants no prayers of mine. But I do here pour forth my humble supplication to the Throne of mercy, that that mercy may be poured down upon the people, in a larger measure than the merits of its rulers may deserve, and that your hearts may be turned to justice."[17 - Brougham's Speeches, i. 227, 228.]

On the trial of Mr John Stockdale, Lord Erskine thus spoke: —

"I have been speaking of man and his nature, and of human dominion, from what I have seen of them myself among nations reluctant of our authority. I know what they feel, and how such feelings can alone be repressed. I have heard them in my youth from a naked savage, in the indignant character of a prince, surrounded by his subjects, addressing the governor of a British colony, holding a bundle of sticks in his hand, as the notes of his unlettered eloquence. 'Who is it,' said the jealous ruler of the desert, encroached upon by the restless foot of English adventure – 'who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again in summer? Who is it that causes this river to rise in the high mountains, and to empty itself into the ocean? Who is it that rears up the shade of these lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick lightning at his pleasure? The same Being who gave to you a country on the other side of the waters, and gave ours to us; and by this title we will defend it,' said the warrior, throwing his tomahawk upon the ground, and raising the war-sound of his nation. These are the feelings of subjugated man all round the globe; and, depend upon it, nothing but fear will control where it is vain to look for affection."[18 - Erskine's Speeches, ii. 263.]