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

Some of Mr Grattan's speeches are said to have been the most eloquent ever delivered in the House of Commons. The following burst of indignant patriotism, on the supposed wrongs of Ireland, affords a favourable specimen of his style of oratory: —

"Hereafter, when these things shall be history, your age of thraldom and poverty, your sudden resurrection, commercial redress, and miraculous armament, shall the historian stop to declare, that here the principal men amongst us fell into mimic traces of gratitude: they were awed by a weak ministry, and bribed by an empty treasury; and when liberty was within their grasp, and the temple opened her folding-doors, and the arms of the people clanged, and the zeal of the nation urged and encouraged them on, that they fell down, and were prostituted at the threshold.

"I will not be answered by a public lie in the shape of an amendment: neither, speaking for the subjects' freedom, am I to hear of faction. I wish for nothing but to breathe in this our island, in common with my fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, unless it be the ambition to break your chains, and contemplate your glory. I never will be satisfied as long as the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain clanking in his rags: he may be naked, he shall not be in irons. And I do see the time is at hand, the spirit is gone forth, the declaration is planted: and though great men should apostatise, yet the cause will live: and though the public speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the organ which conveyed it, and the breath of liberty, like the word of the holy man, shall not die with the prophet, but survive him."[19 - Grattan's Speeches, i. 52, 53.]

We shall add only to these copious and interesting quotations two passages from the greatest masters of French eloquence.

Bossuet, in his funeral oration on Henrietta, daughter of France and Queen of England, the consort of Charles I., thus expresses himself: —

"Christians!" says he, in the exordium of his discourse, "it is not surprising that the memory of a great queen – the daughter, the wife, the mother of monarchs – should attract you from all quarters to this melancholy ceremony; it will bring forcibly before your eyes one of those awful examples which demonstrate to the world the vanity of which it is composed. You will see in her single life the extremes of human things: felicity without bounds, miseries without parallel; a long and peaceable enjoyment of one of the most noble crowns in the universe – all that birth and grandeur could confer that was glorious – all that adversity and suffering could accumulate that was disastrous; the good cause attended at first with some success, then involved in the most dreadful disasters. Revolutions unheard of, rebellion long restrained, at length reigning triumphant; no curb there to license, no laws in force. Majesty itself violated by bloody hands – usurpation and tyranny, under the name of liberty – a fugitive queen, who can find no retreat in her three kingdoms, and was forced to seek in her native country a melancholy exile. Nine sea voyages undertaken against her will by a queen, in spite of wintry tempests – a throne unworthily overturned, and miraculously re-established. Behold the lessons which God has given to kings! thus does He manifest to the world the nothingness of its pomps and its grandeur. If our words fail, if language sinks beneath the grandeur of such a subject, the simple narrative is more touching than aught that words can convey. The heart of a great queen, formerly elevated by so long a course of prosperity, then steeped in all the bitterness of affliction, will speak in sufficiently touching language; and if it is not given to a private individual to teach the proper lessons from so mournful a catastrophe, the King of Israel has supplied the words – 'Hear, O ye great of the earth! Take lessons, ye rulers of the world!'"[20 - Bossuet, Oraisons Funèbres.]

A very different man from Bossuet, but who was perhaps his superior in nervous eloquence, Robespierre, thus spoke on the last occasion when he addressed the Convention, then bent on his destruction: —

"They call me a tyrant! If I were so, they would fall at my feet: I should have gorged them with gold, assured them of impunity to their crimes, and they would have worshipped me. Had I been so, the kings whom we have conquered would have been my most cordial supporters. It is by the aid of scoundrels you arrive at tyranny. Whither tend those who combat them? To the tomb and immortality! Who is the tyrant that protects me? What is the faction to which I belong? It is yourselves! What is the party which, since the commencement of the Revolution, has crushed all other factions – has annihilated so many specious traitors? It is yourselves; it is the people; it is the force of principles! This is the party to which I am devoted, and against which crime is everywhere leagued. I am ready to lay down my life without regret. I have seen the past; I foresee the future. What lover of his country would wish to live, when he can no longer succour oppressed innocence? Why should he desire to remain in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs over truth – where justice is deemed an imposture – where the vilest passions, the most ridiculous fears, fill every heart, instead of the sacred interests of humanity? Who can bear the punishment of seeing that horrible succession of traitors, more or less skilful in concealing their hideous vices under the mask of virtue, and who will leave to posterity the difficult task of determining which was the most atrocious? In contemplating the multitude of vices which the Revolution has let loose pell-mell with the civic virtues, I own I sometimes fear that I myself shall be sullied in the eyes of posterity by their calumnies. But I am consoled by the reflection that, if I have seen in history all the defenders of liberty overwhelmed by calumny, I have seen their oppressors die also. The good and the bad disappear alike from the earth; but in very different conditions. No, Chaumette! 'Death is not an eternal sleep!' – Citizens, efface from the tombs that maxim, engraven by sacrilegious hands, which throws a funeral pall over nature, which discourages oppressed innocence: write rather, 'Death is the commencement of immortality!' I leave to the oppressors of the people a terrible legacy, which well becomes the situation in which I am placed: it is the awful truth, 'Thou shalt die!'"[21 - Hist. Parl., xxxiii. 406.]

It must be evident to every impartial person, from these quotations, that the superiority of ancient to modern eloquence, so far as the art itself is concerned, is great and indisputable. The strong opinion of Lord Brougham, on this subject, must command the universal assent of every reasonable mind: —

"It is impossible for any but the most careless observer, to avoid remarking the great differences which distinguish the oratory of ancient from that of modern times. The immeasurable superiority of the former is far from being the only, or even the principal, of these diversities: that proceeds, in part, from the greater power of the languages, especially the Greek – the instrument wielded by the great masters of diction; and in so far the superiority must for ever remain undiminished by any efforts on the part of modern rhetoricians. If, in such varied and perfect excellencies, the most prominent shall be selected, then doubtless is the palm due to that entire and uninterrupted devotion which throws the speaker's whole soul into his subject, and will not even – no, not for an instant – suffer a rival idea to cross its resistless course, without being swiftly swept away and driven out of sight, as the most rapid engine annihilates or shoots off whatever approaches it with a velocity that defies the eye. There is no coming back on the same ground, any more than any lingering over it. All is done at once; but the blow is as effectual as it is single, and leaves not anything to do. All is at each instant moving forward, regardless of every obstacle. The mighty flood of speech rolls on in a channel ever full, but which never overflows. Whether it rushes in a torrent of allusion, or moves along in a majestic exposition of enlarged principles, descends hoarse and headlong in overwhelming invective, or glides melodious in narrative and description, or spreads itself out shining in illustrations, its course is ever onward and ever entire; never scattered, never stagnant, never sluggish. At each point manifest progress has been made, and with all that art can do to charm, strike, and please. No sacrifice, even the smallest, is ever made to effect; nor can the hearer ever stop for an instant to contemplate or admire, or throw away a thought upon the great artist, till all is over, and the pause gives time to recover his breath."[22 - Lord Brougham on the Eloquence of the Ancients. Speeches, iv. 379, 445, 446.]

It is the more remarkable that this great and decisive superiority on the part of ancient oratory should exist, when it is recollected that the information, sphere of ideas, and imagery at the command of public speakers, in modern times, is so widely extended in comparison of what it was in Greece and Rome. As much as the wide circuit of the globe exceeds the limited shores of the Mediterranean Sea, do the knowledge and ideas which the modern orator may make use of outstrip those which were at the disposal of the brightest genius in antiquity. Science has, since the fall of Rome, been infinitely extended, and furnished a great variety of images and allusions – many of them of the most elevated kind – which at once convey a clear idea to any educated audience, and awaken in their minds associations or recollections of a pleasing or ennobling description. The vast additions made to geographical and physical knowledge have rendered the wide surface of the globe, and the boundless wonders of the heavens, the theme alike for the strains of the poet, the meditations of the philosopher, and the eloquence of the orator. Modern poetry has added its treasures to those which antiquity had bequeathed to us, as if to augment the chords which eloquence can touch in the human heart. Chivalry has furnished a host of images, ideas, and associations wholly unknown to ancient times; but which, however at times fantastic or high-flown, are all of an ennobling character, because they tend to elevate humanity above itself, and combat the selfish by the very excess of the generous affections. History has immensely extended the sphere of known events, and not only studded the annals of mankind with the brightest instances of heroism or virtue, but afforded precedents applicable to almost every change that can occur in the varied circumstances of human transaction. Above all, Religion has opened a new fountain in the human heart, and implanted in every bosom, with the exception only of those utterly depraved, associations and recollections at once of the most purifying and moving kind. The awful imagery and touching incidents of the Old Testament, exceeding those in the Iliad itself in sublimity and pathos; the pure ideas and universal charity of the New, as much above the utmost efforts of unassisted humanity, have given the orator, in modern times, a store of images and associations which, of all others, are the most powerful in moving the human heart. If one-half of this magazine of ideas and knowledge had been at the disposal of the orators of antiquity, they would have exceeded those of modern Europe as much in the substance and magnificence of their thoughts, as they already do in the felicity and force of their expression.

A key may be found to the causes of this remarkable superiority in ancient eloquence, notwithstanding the comparatively limited extent of the materials of which they had the disposal, in the very qualities in which the ancient orators stand pre-eminent. It is the exquisite taste and abbreviated force of their expression which renders them unrivalled. In reading their speeches, we are perpetually tempted to shut the book even in the most interesting passages, to reflect on the inimitable brevity and beauty of the language. It is a mistake to say this is owing to the construction of the Greek and Roman languages, to the absence of auxiliary verbs, and the possibility of combining expression, as in modern German, so as to convey a complex idea in a single word. Undoubtedly that is true; but who made the ancient languages at once so copious and condensed? It was the ancients themselves who did this. It was they who moulded their tongues into so brief and expressive a form, and, in the course of their progressive formation through successive centuries, rendered them daily more brief and more comprehensive. It was the men who made the language – not the language the men. It was their burning thoughts which created such energetic expressions, as if to let loose at once the pent-up fires of the soul. Those who assert the reverse fall into the same error as the philosophers who ascribe the character of the Anglo-Saxons to their institutions, when, in truth, their institutions are owing to their character.

The main causes to which the extraordinary perfection of ancient oratory are to be ascribed, are the great pains which were bestowed on the education of the higher classes in this most difficult art, and the practice of preparing nearly all their finest orations before delivery. It will sound strange in modern ears to assign these as the causes of this undoubted superiority, when the practice with them is in both particulars directly the reverse; but a very little consideration must convince every reasonable mind that it is to these that it is to be ascribed.

Great as is the importance and undoubted the influence of eloquence in modern Europe, it is by no means so considerable as it was in the states of antiquity. This arises in part from the different structure of government in ancient and modern times. We hear nothing of eloquence in Persia, Egypt, or the East. Military power, political address, were then, as they have ever since been in that part of the world, the sole passports to greatness. But it was otherwise in the republics which studded the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Universally, in them, supreme power was lodged in the citizens of a single city, or in them jointly with the landowners in the vicinity, who could with ease attend its public assemblies. Every free citizen had a vote in those assemblies, in which every subject, political, social, and judicial, was discussed and determined. Questions of peace and war, of imposing or taking off taxes, of concluding treaties, of domestic laws, of appointing generals and ambassadors, of providing for the public subsistence, of determining private suits, of criminal punishments, of life and death, were all submitted to those assemblies, debated in their presence, and decided by their suffrages. Political power, personal fame, the direction of the state, the command of its armaments, the decision of its dearest public and private interests, were all to be attained by obtaining a sway in these public assemblies, and could seldom be obtained in any other way. Hence it was that, as has been finely observed, in modern times, the soldier is brave, and the lawyer is eloquent; but in ancient, the soldier was eloquent, and the lawyer was brave. Power of any sort could be attained only by acquiring an ascendency in the popular assemblies; whoever acquired that ascendency was liable to be immediately called to command the fleets or armies of the republic. Whatever opinions may be formed of the tendency of such a system of government, to insure either the wise direction of its civil interests or the successful protection of its military enterprises, there can be but one as to its effect in insuring the highest attention to oratory, by which alone the command of either could be obtained.

But, in addition to this, the two great instruments of power which, in modern times, so often outweigh the influence of spoken oratory, were awanting. The press was unknown in antiquity; there was no public religious instruction: there were neither daily newspapers to discuss passing events, nor a stock of printed works to form the principles of the people, or mould their judgments, nor an Established Church, to give them early and creditable impressions. Education, derived entirely from oral instruction or costly manuscripts, was so extremely expensive that it was beyond the reach of all but the most wealthy classes. Three-fourths of the persons who had votes in any public assembly had their principles formed, their information acquired, their taste refined, in the theatres and the forum. The temples were open for sacrifice or ceremonies only; not for instruction in religious principle or moral duty. Immense was the addition which this entire want alike of a public press, and a system of religious instruction, had upon the importance of popular oratory. The tragedian and the orator had the entire moulding of the public mind in their hand, alike in fixed principle, previous prepossessions, and instant decision. No daily, or monthly, or quarterly paper existed to form the subject of study at home; no standard works were in every one's hands, to give principles right or wrong, from which they were very unlikely to swerve: – no religious tuition, to the influence of which, in any momentous crisis, appeal might be made. The eloquence of the forum, the transports of the theatre, were all in all.

It resulted, from this extraordinary and most perilous power of oratory in ancient times, that the attention bestowed throughout life, but especially in youth, on training to excellence in it, was unbounded. In truth, education with them was so much directed to the study and the practice of oratory, that it formed in most of their academies the main object of instruction. Other topics – philosophy, poetry, science, mathematics, history – were not neglected, but they were considered chiefly as subordinate to oratory– rather, they were the preparatory studies, from which a perfect orator was to be formed. Cicero says expressly, that there is no subject of human knowledge of which the orator may not avail himself, in his public address, and which may not serve to enlighten his narrative, strengthen his argument, or adorn his expression.[23 - "Quis enim nescit, maximam vim existere oratoris in hominum mentibus vel ad iram aut ad odium aut dolorem meitandis, vel, ab bisce usdem permotionibus, ad lemtatem misericordiamque revocandis quare, nisi qui naturas hominum, vimque omnem humanitatis, causasque eas quibus mentes aut incitantur aut reflectuntur, penitus perspexerit, dicendo, quod volet, perficere non poterit. Quam ob rem, si quis universam et propriam oratoris vim definire complectique vult, is orator erit, meà sententri, hoc tam gravi dignus nomine, qui, quæcumque res inciderit, quæ sit dictione, explicanda, prudenter, et composite, et ornate, et memoriter dicat, cum quàdam etiam actionis dignitate. Est enim finitimus oratori poeta, numeris adstrictior paulo, verborum antem heentia liberior, multis vero ornandi generibus socius, ac pæne par." —De Oratore, hb 1 cap. 17.] This shows how lofty was the idea which he had formed of this noble art, and the aids which he was fain to obtain for it, from all, even the most dissimilar, branches of human knowledge. The greatest orators and philosophers of antiquity devoted themselves to instruction in its principles, and consideration of the manner of cultivating it with the highest success. Demosthenes taught, as every schoolboy knows, for a talent: a sum above £200, and equal to at least £500 in modern times. Cicero has left several beautiful treatises on oratory; Isocrates owes his fame mainly to his writings on the same subject; Quintilian has bequeathed to us a most elaborate work on its principles, and the mode of its instruction; the treatise of Aristotle on oratory is not the least celebrated of his immortal works. So vast was the number, and so great was the influence of the schools of rhetoric, that they came, in the later days of antiquity, to supersede almost every other subject of study; they attracted the ingenious youth from every part of the world to the groves of the Academy, and singly supported the prosperity and fame of Greece, for centuries after they had sunk under the withering grasp or declining fortunes of the Byzantine empire.

It is evident from these considerations, as well as the intrinsic beauties which the great masters of the art exhibit, that oratory in ancient times was regarded as one of the Fine Arts. It was considered not merely as the means of winning the favour, of convincing the judgment, or securing the suffrages of the judges, but of moving the affections, rousing the feelings, and elevating the mind. Quintilian mentions the various definitions of the art of oratory which had been invented by the rhetorical writers of antiquity, and he inclines to that of Cicero, who held that it was the art of speaking "apte ad persuadendum." This was its end, its aim; and undoubtedly it was so: but the modes of persuasion– the methods of influencing the judgment or moving the affections – were as various as the channels by which the intellect may be determined, the feelings roused, or the heart touched. Not less than poetry, painting, or statuary, they classed oratory among the fine arts; and, indeed, they placed it at the head of them all, because it embraced all their influences, and retouched, as it were, by allusion, all the chords which they had previously caused to vibrate. The surprising force with which they did this, considering the comparatively limited stock of ideas, knowledge, and imagery which was at their disposal, compared to what obtains in modern times, affords the most decisive proof of the great attention they had bestowed on the principles of the art, and the perfection to which they had brought the means of influencing the mind – not only by the force of reason, or the conceptions of genius, but by all the subordinate methods by which their effect in delivery was to be augmented. With them the object of oratory was not merely to persuade the understanding, but

"To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To move the passions, and to melt the heart."

Nor was less attention bestowed, in ancient times, upon training young men, to whatever profession they were destined, in that important and difficult branch of oratory which consists in intonation and delivery. It is well known that this is a branch of the art which is susceptible of the very greatest improvement by education and practice, and that even the brightest natural genius can rarely attain it, without the aid of instruction or the lessons of experience. The surprising improvement which is so often observed in persons trained to different professions or habits, when they have been for some time engaged in public speaking – above all, in emphasis and action – affords daily proof of the vast effects of practice and experience in brightening the delivery of thought. The prodigious influence of accent and intonation in adding to the power of eloquence is equally well known, and may often be perceived in listening to the difference between the same verses when recited by an ordinary reader, and what they appear when illuminated by the genius, or enforced by the feeling, of a Kemble or a Faucit. The ancients, accordingly, were indefatigable in their endeavours to improve themselves in this particular, and availed themselves of means to attain perfection in it to which modern genius would scarcely condescend. Cicero, when advanced in life, and in the meridian of his fame, took lessons from Roscius, the great tragic actor of the day; and the efforts of Demosthenes to overcome the impediments of a defective elocution, by putting pebbles in his mouth, and declaiming on the shores of the ocean, the roar of which resembled the murmurs of the forum, demonstrate that the greatest masters of the art of eloquence were fully alive to the vast influence of a powerful voice and animated delivery, in heightening the effect even of the most perfect efforts of oratory, and disdained no means of adding to their impression. When asked, What is the first requisite of eloquence? the last of these orators answered "Action;" the second? "Action;" the third? "Action." Without going so great a length, and admitting the full influence of the genius of Demosthenes in composing the speeches which he so powerfully delivered, every one must admit the influence of an impassioned delivery in heightening the effect of the highest, and concealing the defects of the most ordinary oratory.

Quintilian opens his second book by a discussion of the question, which he says occupied a prominent place in the schools of antiquity, at what age a boy should be taken from the teachers of grammar, and delivered to the instructors in rhetoric. By the former, they were taught grammar and the elements of composition; by the latter, exercised in themes, compositions in their own language, translations from Greek, extempore debate, and instructed in declamation, intonation, and action. They were not sent out into the world till they had spent several years in the latter preparatory studies and exercises; and in them were trained young men of all sorts, whether intended for the civil or military classes. It was this which gave its statesmen and generals so wonderful a command of the means of moving the human heart, and enabled them, in the most trying situations, and often in the crisis of a battle or the heat of a tumult, to utter those noble and impassioned sentiments which so often determined the fate of the day, or even the fortunes of their country; and which are so perfect that, when recorded in the historians of antiquity, they have the appearance of having been imagined by the genius of the writer. Nor was the attention to these elements of eloquence sensibly diminished in the progress of time, when the establishment of absolute power in the hands of a single person had transferred, as in the days of Napoleon, the discussion of all public or national questions to the council of state, or the private closet of the emperor. On the contrary, it seems to have daily increased, and was never so great as when the military fortunes of the empire were declining, and its external influence yielding to the increasing weight of the northern nations. A false and turgid style of eloquence, indeed, became then generally prevalent, as it always does in the later days of a nation, and in periods of political servitude: but attention to the means of attaining it underwent no diminution. The wisdom or policy of the emperors left various important functions to their municipia, or "little senates," as they were called. The judicial functions, for the most part, were still intrusted to the citizens: they had the management, almost uncontrolled, of their local concerns: and so great was the importance of securing their suffrages that the power of influencing them, by means of oratory, continued to the very last to be the chief object of instruction to the youth.

The instructors of youth in England have practically solved the question which divided the teachers of antiquity, for they deliver the youth at once from the grammar-school to the forum. They teach him the dead languages incessantly, up to the age of eighteen, at school: in the universities, mathematics in one university, and logic in the other, divide his time with the composition of Greek prose or Latin verse. But in those branches of study which have a bearing on eloquence, or are likely to improve the style of composition, the main attention of all is still directed to composition in the dead languages. They think the art of speaking or writing in English is not to be learned by exercise in that language, but by exercise in another. They hold we are likely to become eloquent in this our English isle, not by translating Cicero into English, but by translating Addison into Latin; to become great poets, not by rendering Horace into the tongue of Gray and Campbell, but by rendering the immortal verses of these into the languages of Pindar or Virgil. Cicero and Mr Pitt were of an opposite opinion. They held that, although the study of the masterpieces of antiquity is the great school of oratory, and the best path to rivalling their beauties, yet this is to be done, not by prosecuting the vain endeavour to emulate, in these days, their perfection in their tongue, but by seeking to transfer it to our own. Translations from the Greek into Latin formed a large part of the preparatory studies of Cicero, – from Thucydides and Cicero were the favourite occupation at college of Mr Pitt.[24 - "Postea mihi placuit, eoque sum usus adolescens, ut summorum oratorum Græcas orationes explicarem; quibus lectis, hoc assequebar, ut, cum ea, quæ legerem Græce, Latine redderem, non solum optimis verbis uterer, et tamen usitatis, sed etiam exprimerem quædam verba imitando, quæ nova nostris essent, dummodo essent idonea." —De Oratore, 1. i. 34. "All Mr Pitt's leisure hours at college were devoted to translating the finest passages in the classical authors, especially Thucydides, into English, which he did freely, to the no small annoyance of his tutors." – Tomline's Life of Pitt, i. 23.] It may be that these great masters of ancient and modern eloquence were wrong – that their time would have been better employed in composing Greek and Latin verses, in attaining a thorough knowledge of Greek and Latin prosody, or becoming masters of all the niceties of Greek or Latin prose composition; but we shall not enter on the great debate. We are content to let education for all classes, in our universities, remain what Mr Locke long ago said it was, the education of schoolmasters;[25 - "For the exercise of the student's writing, let him sometimes translate Latin into English. But by all means obtain, if you can, that he be not employed in making Latin themes and declamations, and, least of all, verses of any kind. Latin is a language foreign in this country, and long since dead everywhere – a language in which your son, it is a thousand to one, shall never have occasion once to make a speech as long as he lives, after he comes to be a man; and a language in which the manner of expressing one's-self is so far different from ours, that, to be perfect in that, would very little improve the purity and facility of his English style. I can see no pretence for this sort of exercise in our schools, unless it can be supposed that the making of set Latin speeches should be the way to teach men to speak well in English extempore. Still more is to be said against young men making Latin verses. If any one thinks poetry a desirable quality in his son, and that the study of it would raise his fancy and parts, he must needs yet confess that, to that end, reading the excellent Greek and Roman poets is of more use than making bad verses of his own in a language that is not his own. And he whose design it is to read in English poetry would not, I guess, think the way to it was to make his first essays in Latin verses." – Locke on Education, § 169, 174.] and shall content ourselves with signalising this peculiar system of training as one great cause of the admitted inferiority of modern to ancient eloquence.

None can be more thoroughly impressed than we are with the vast importance of these noble establishments, or their effect in elevating the tone of the national mind, and improving the taste of the youth who daily issue from their walls. It is just from a sense of these advantages that we are so desirous to enhance and extend the sphere of their usefulness, and, by keeping them abreast of the age, and prepared to meet its wants, secure for the classes they instruct the lead in the national affairs to which they are entitled.

It cannot be disputed that, although English composition, or translation from the classics into English, is not altogether overlooked in the English universities, yet it forms a subordinate object of attention. We are all aware how many eminent men have first become celebrated by their prize poems. But those are the exceptions, not the rule. The classics at one university, the higher mathematics at another, form the great passports to distinction; the highest honours at either are only to be won by attention to one or other, or both, of these branches of knowledge. It is not surprising that, when this is the case, the attention of the young men should be mainly turned to composition in the dead languages, or to the most abstruse parts of mathematics; and that when they come to speak in public, or deliver sermons in their own language, they should, in the great majority of cases, be entire novices, both as concerns the method of composition and the graces of oratory. They are, in truth, called upon for the first time to speak what is to them a foreign language; to discuss topics, to them, for the most part unknown; and practise a difficult art, that of delivery, to which they are entire strangers. If they were to address their audiences in Greek, they might possibly rival Æschines or Demosthenes; if in Latin, outstrip Cicero; and if required to compose verses, equal Horace or Pindar. But since they are called on, when they go out into life, to speak neither in Greek prose nor Latin prose, to compose neither in Greek verse nor Latin verse, but to speak in good English, and not about gods and goddesses, but the prices of corn and beef, the evils of pauperism and the load of taxes, they too often find themselves entirely at a loss, and inwardly lament the precious years, never to be recalled, which have been devoted to pursuits of no practical utility in life.

It is the more extraordinary that so little attention should be paid at our universities to composition, or the art of oratory, in the English tongue, that every day's experience proves that the power of public speaking is not only absolutely essential to the most moderate success in many professions, but is indispensable to the highest grades in all. In the Houses of Lords and Commons, at the Bar, in the Church, it is of course necessary from the very outset, if the very least eminence is to be looked for. But not only in the professions of which oratory is the very foundation, but in every case of life where a certain degree of eminence has been attained, it becomes of equal importance, and the want of it will be equally felt. The landed proprietor will find it impossible to maintain his influence in his county, unless, on the hustings and in political meetings, on the bench of justices, at county and railway meetings, he is prepared to take his part in debate, and can come off with a creditable appearance. The merchant or manufacturer who has become a millionnaire by a life of laborious industry, will find that he cannot keep his place in society unless he call deliver his sentiments with effect at civic dinners, meetings for business, in the magisterial chair, or at the festive board. Even the soldier and sailor, when they rise to eminence in their profession, are called on to speak in public, and grievously suffer if they cannot do so. Many a gallant spirit, which never quailed before an enemy, has been crushed, and his reputation injured, by inability to speak in a public assembly, or to answer appropriately a complimentary speech at a public dinner. Indeed, the influence of public speaking in the country is not only great, but daily increasing, and it confers influence and distinction often far beyond the real merits of the speaker, and, for its want, the most solid or brilliant parts in other respects can make no compensation. The great body of men invariably impute inability to speak well in public to want of ideas; whereas, in reality, it generally arises from want of practice, and often coexists with the greatest acquirements and the most brilliant genius. Strange that the art of English oratory, upon which the experience of all tells them success in the higher stations of life is entirely dependent, should, by common consent, be invariably neglected, and that the art of making Latin verses, which universal experience tells all is of no earthly use in life, except to one in a thousand, should, by common consent, be universally cultivated!

It is constantly said, that the object of the extraordinary attention paid in our schools and colleges to composition in the dead languages, is to enable the students properly to appreciate the beauties of their authors, and that, without an exact knowledge of prosody and writing in them, this appreciation cannot be attained. This is doubtless in some degree true: but the point is, at what cost is this proficiency attained, and to what proportion of the students is it of any practical benefit? Is there one in ten to whom the beauty of poetry will ever be intelligible, one in a hundred who will ever be a poet? If we were to live to the age of Methusalem, it might be worth while to set apart ten years for classical composition, ten more for Italian, and ten for German; but since our life is limited to threescore and ten years, and a seventh of that only can be devoted to education, is it expedient to devote the whole of that time to that one object? If ten years are devoted to the mastering of Greek composition and Latin prosody, what time is left for learning to speak or write in English? What should we say if ten years were devoted by every English young man to the composition of German or Italian verses, because it would better enable him to appreciate the beauties of Schiller or Metastasio, of Korner or Petrarch? Yet is composition in these living languages more practically useful, both for the business of life and for improvement in our own tongue, than in the dead, because it is often of advantage in society, and their tongues are at bottom derived from the same roots, and are similar in construction to our own.

It is the more to be regretted that, in our Universities, translations from English into Greek or Latin should be made so great an object, instead of translations from Greek or Latin into English, because the latter study is perhaps the most beneficial, both to spread a taste for ancient beauties, and to diffuse the means of rivalling them in our own tongue, which the wit of man has ever devised. There is nothing which improves the style like translation from the masterpieces of foreign languages. It is far more beneficial than copying or committing to memory the most perfect specimens of composition in our own tongue, because it both brings us in contact with the most exquisite specimens of human genius, and exercises the mind in the endeavour to transfer them to our own idiom. It varies the thought, it extends the ideas, it suggests new methods of expression. It is the foreign travelling of the soul. It renders foreign or ancient languages tributary to our own; it fills the mind with remote ideas; it not only "elevates us in the scale of thinking beings," but increases our power of communicating our thoughts to the world. What boundless treasures have Milton and Collins, Taylor and Gray, imported into our language from the classical writers: how much was the nerve and form of their expression enhanced by their study of antiquity! Of what value are all their Latin compositions compared to those which, so enriched, they have left in their own tongue?

The next circumstance which has contributed to stamp its peculiar style, and hitherto unequalled perfection, on ancient oratory, is the circumstance that it was all, or nearly all, WRITTEN and committed to memory. This at least was certainly the case with all the orations which have come down to our times; for, if not written, how have they been preserved? There were no short-hand writers in those days. The art of stenography was unknown. No reporters from the Times were in attendance, to catch, with almost magical rapidity, every word which fell from the speaker's lips, and render it with exact fidelity in its ample columns the following morning. What was written came, and could only come, from the author himself. It is well known that several of the most celebrated speeches of Cicero never were delivered at all: the frequent repetition of the same ideas, in the same identical words, in the orations of Demosthenes, affords conclusive evidence that they were not merely carefully prepared, but actually written out. Indeed, to any one who considers the style of the speeches, not only of these great masters, but of all the orators of antiquity, it must be sufficiently evident that nearly all that has come down to us had been written. Some part, without doubt, was caught from the inspiration of the moment: a happy retort was sometimes the result of an interruption, a felicitous reply of an antagonist's attack. But these were the exceptions, not the rule. These extempore bursts were interwoven with the framework of the piece, and committed to paper next day, when the author corrected his speech for permanent preservation. In the dexterous interweaving consisted no small part of the skill of the orator. But the greater part of every speech was, beyond all doubt, written and committed to memory. The style everywhere proves this. It is as impossible for any man, how bright soever his genius or copious his language, to speak extempore in the condensed and emphatic style of the ancient orators, as it would be to compose, as an Improvisatore, the verses of Pope or Campbell.

This circumstance sounds strange in those times, and especially to an Englishman, because it is well known that the grand requisite, the one thing needful to a modern orator, is to speak extempore. Power in reply is considered as the highest quality; and it is to it, par excellence, that the much coveted phrase "effective" is applied. We all know what would be the fate of a speaker in the House of Commons who should commit his speeches to memory, and take lessons from Macready or Kean in their delivery. Beyond all doubt, derision would take the place of admiration; the laughs would be much more frequent than the cheers. Yet this is precisely what Cicero and Demosthenes did; it was thus that Pericles ruled the Athenian Democracy, and Æschines all but overturned the giant strength of his immortal adversary. We are not to imagine that these men, whose works have stood the test of twenty centuries, were wrong in their system; it is not to be supposed that every subsequent nation of the earth has misdirected its admiration. It is more probable that some circumstances have occurred to turn oratory, in modern times, aside from its highest flights, and induced a style in public speaking which has now become habitual, and will alone be tolerated, but which is inconsistent with the most perfect style of oratory. Nor is it difficult, if we consider the composition of modern senates, and the objects for which they are assembled, to see what these circumstances are.

As freedom and popular institutions are indispensable to eloquence, it is in England and France, since the Revolution, that oratory of a high description can alone be looked for. But the Anglo-Saxons are essentially a practical race; and the stamp in this respect which nature has affixed to their character, appears, in every age, not less in their deeds than their accomplishments. Imagination has shone forth most brilliantly in many individuals of the race – but, generally speaking, we are not an imaginative people. The Fine Arts have never struck their roots in the open air amongst us; they are the delicate plants of southern realms, which require the shelter and warmth of our conservatories. It is in the highly educated classes alone that a taste for them is general. The romantic, not the classical drama, alone has ever been popular with the mass of our people; the attractions and fashion of the opera are required to make even the beauties of Metastasio tolerable to the very highest ranks. In matters of business, the same disposition is apparent. What is required, what commands success, is neither the flowers of oratory nor brilliancy of imagination nor elegance of diction, but argument to the point. It is thus that the suffrages of jurymen are to be obtained; it is thus that a majority in the House of Commons is to be secured. As the assemblies to whom modern oratory is addressed are much less numerous than those of antiquity – as they are representatives, not citizens; juries, not Areopagites – a different style of speaking has become established from that which was universally felt to be essential in the assemblies of antiquity. When the crowds of a theatre were no longer to be addressed, the theatrical style of oratory fell into disuse.

As argument to the point, accurate acquaintance with the subject, and the power of communicating something of value to the interests with which senates in modern times are intrusted, are the great requisites which are now looked for, set and prepared speeches have been abandoned. It was soon discovered that they would seldom meet the exigencies of a debate, and still less furnish the materials of a reply. They were felt to be of little value, because they did not meet what the audience wished. They were as much out of place as a set speech would be to a jury, after evidence had been led in a case. It will always be so in situations where real business is to be done, and the persons by whom it is to be done are not numerous assemblies, little acquainted with the subjects of discussion – and therefore liable to be swayed by the eloquence of the orator – but a limited number of persons, most of whom are somewhat acquainted with it, and desire to have their information extended, rather than their feelings touched. It has accordingly been often observed, that the style of speaking in the House of Commons has sensibly declined in beauty, though it has increased in knowledge of the subject, since the Reform Bill introduced the representatives of the commercial towns, and business men have found a place in such numbers in the House of Commons. It may be anticipated that, as their numbers and influence increase, the same change will become still more conspicuous.

But although these considerations sufficiently explain how it has happened that the style of speaking, in our national assemblies, has become more business-like and less ornate than in the republics of antiquity, and extempore speaking has grown into a universal practice with all public men who aspire to the honours of "effective" oratory – or such as would acquire a practical sway in the assemblies to which it is addressed – it by no means follows from this, that this system is not a deviation from the method by which alone a perfect style of eloquence is to be attained, or a step in descent in that noble art. Because a thing is useful and necessary, or even unavoidable, with a view to attain certain ends, it is not to be concluded, that it is by attending exclusively to it that the highest and most perfect style in it is to be attained. The simple style of singing best suits private performers, and often appears in the highest degree charming, when flowing from the lips of taste and beauty; but no one would compare art, in these its early stages, to what it appears in the hands of Grisi or Mademoiselle Lind. The style of speaking adopted by our leaders at the Chancery bar, or on the North Circuit, is probably the best that could be devised to attain the object to which the gentlemen of the long robe aspire – that of influencing the judges or juries of those courts; but every one must see that that object is a much inferior one to that which was aimed at by Cicero, Demosthenes, or Bossuet. Their business is with oratory as an art; but, in addition to this, eloquence is a fine art. Great eminence in the latter department can never be attained but by sedulous preparation, and the committing to memory of written compositions; and unless this is done, the fame of no orator, how much soever he may be celebrated during his career, can possibly be durable, or exceed the lifetime of the contemporaries to whom his extempore effusions were addressed.

Nothing is more common than to hear it said, after a powerful speech in the House of Lords or Commons has been delivered, that it rivalled the most finished pieces of ancient eloquence; nay, it is sometimes added that it was "above all Greek, above all Roman fame." In no instance, however, has it been found that this reputation has been lasting, or even long survived the actual appearance of the orator before the Houses of Parliament. The ample columns of Hansard's Parliamentary Debates are often searched to discover inconsistencies in the delivered opinions of public men; sometimes to bring to light facts on statistics which subsequent time has caused to be forgotten; but rarely, if ever, to cull out specimens of elevated thought, condensed argument, or felicitous expression. None of these speeches will take their place beside those of Cicero and Demosthenes, or the Oraisons Funèbres of Bossuet, all of which were written compositions. When the historian comes to record the arguments used on the opposite sides, on great public questions, he cannot refer to a more valuable and faithful record than the Parliamentary Debates; for they tell at once what was advanced in the legislature, and said in the nation, on every subject that came under discussion: but he cannot turn to one which it will be less safe to transfer unaltered to his pages. If he means to render the arguments interesting, or even intelligible, to the great body of readers, he must distil them into a twentieth part of their original bulk: he must dismiss all the repetitions and circumlocutions; he must say in words what he finds delivered in sentences; he must abridge a hundred pages into four or five; he must, in short, do ex post facto, and to convey an impression of the argument to future times, what the ancient orators did ab ante, and in order to secure the suffrages of the present. It is surprising, when this is carefully done, how effectually a lengthened argument can be condensed into a few pages; and how powerful the bone and muscle appears when delivered from the oppression of the superincumbent flesh.

It is not to be wondered at that it should be so. The reason for it is permanent, and will remain the same to the end of the world. In the heat and animation of a debate, a happy idea may occasionally be struck out, a felicitous retort may be suggested by an interruption. The Parliamentary speeches contain many instances of such ready talent; and it need hardly be said that the effect of it, at the moment of delivery, is in general prodigious. But it is altogether impossible to keep up a speech extempore in that style. Preparation and previous study are the parents of brief and emphatic expression: without their meeting, the offspring need not be looked for. The reason is, that it is while one thought is in the course of delivery that the mind is arranging those which are to succeed it. The conception of a ready extempore speaker must always be two or three sentences ahead of his elocution. Thence the necessity for circumlocution and repetition. It is to gain time for thought – to mould future ideas. If it were not so, he would come to a dead stop, and break down at the end of the first sentence. The faculty of doing this – of speaking of one thing and thinking of another; of composing words in one sentence, and arranging ideas for another, without pause or hesitation – and doing this often in the midst of applause or interruption, is one of the most wonderful efforts of the human mind; and it is its extreme difficulty which renders elegant extempore speaking so very rare, and makes it, when it does appear, the object of such general admiration. But we are persuaded that the greatest master of extempore speaking will admit, that it is wholly impossible to keep up eloquent and condensed expression, for any length of time, without previous preparation. Whenever you hear an orator bringing out condensed and elegant expression for any length of time together, it may be concluded, with absolute certainty, that he is speaking from preparation.

Nor is such preparation inconsistent with occasional allusion to previous argument or retort against interruption; on the contrary, it is by such extempore effusions or sallies, interwoven in the text of a prepared oration, that the highest perfection in the art of oratory is to be attained. If it is wholly prepared, it will appear lifeless and methodical – it will wear the aspect of a spoken essay. If it is wholly extempore, it will be diffuse and cumbrous – crowded with repetitions, and destitute of emphasis. It is by the combination of general careful composition with occasional felicitous reply that the highest perfection in this noble art is to be attained; for the first will give it general power, the last the appearance of extempore conception. By no other method is it possible to combine the two grand requisites of the highest species of oratory – emphatic and condensed language – with those occasional allusions and sudden replies which add so much to its immediate effect, and give it all the air of being produced at the moment. It is true, this is a dangerous style to adopt, and many are the speakers who have broken down under it; for nothing is so apt to induce confusion in the mind, and forgetfulness of what should follow, as new introductions into a prepared composition. But where is there anything great or magnificent achieved in life without difficulty and danger? and the examples of the ancient orators, by whom both were overcome, is sufficient to demonstrate that it is not beyond the reach of genius and perseverance.

Still less is it to be supposed that such a style of speaking is inconsistent with the most vehement and powerful action, and all the aids which oratory can derive from intonation, gesture, and animation in delivery. On the contrary, it is in delivering such speeches that these may be brought to bear with the happiest effect, – as we daily see on the stage, where known speeches, every word of which is got by heart by the actor, and often is familiar to the audience, are every day repeated with the utmost possible effect, and the most impassioned action. It is the want of such animation in delivery which is the great cause of the failure of many able speakers, and nowhere more than in the pulpit. The common opinion that discourses there must be delivered in a cold inanimate manner, suitable to the gravity of the subject and the solemnity of the place, is an entire mistake, and has contributed, perhaps, more than any other cause, to the vast numbers whom the Dissenters have succeeded, both in England and Scotland, in enticing away from the Established Church. It is this animation which generally follows the delivery of thought extempore, compared with the cold monotonous style in which written discourses are usually delivered, – which is one great cause of the signal success which has attended the efforts of the Methodists and Low Churchmen in England, and the Free Church clergy in Scotland. The common opinion among the peasants of Scotland, that the inspiration of Heaven only descends upon extempore speakers, arises from the same cause. They think the extempore preacher is inspired because he is animated; they are sure he who reads his discourse is not so, because he is monotonous. But many examples prove that it is quite possible to combine the most finished and elaborate written composition with such intensity of feeling, and vehemence of action, as will give it the appearance of extempore and uncontrollable bursts of eloquence. The great effect of Dr Chalmers's sermons in Scotland, and Mr Irving's in England, were not required to show that it is by this combination that the highest triumphs in pulpit oratory are to be attained.

Contrast this with the tame and monotonous way in which too many learned and unexceptionable sermons were delivered in the days of Addison, and which, it is to be feared, has not become obsolete since his time: —

"Our preachers stand stock-still in the pulpit, and will not so much as move a finger to set off the best sermons in the world. We meet with the same speaking statues at our bars, and in all our public places of debate. Our words flow from us in a smooth continued stream, without those strainings of the voice, motions of the body, and majesty of the head, which are so much celebrated in the orators of Greece and Rome. We can talk of life and death in cold blood, and keep our temper in a discourse which turns upon everything that is dear to us. Though our zeal breaks out in the finest tropes and figures, it is not able to stir a limb about us. It was just the reverse in antiquity. We are told that the great Latin orator very much impaired his health by this laterum contentio, this vehemence of action, with which he used to deliver himself. The Greek orator was likewise so very famous for this particular in rhetoric that one of his antagonists, whom he had banished from Athens, reading over the oration which had procured his banishment, and hearing his friends admire it, could not forbear asking them, if they were so much affected by the bare reading of it, how much more they would have been charmed had they heard him actually throwing out such a storm of eloquence. How cold and dead a figure, in comparison of these two great men, does our orator often make at the British bar or in the senate! A deaf man would think he was cheapening a beaver, when, perhaps, he is talking of the fate of the British nation. It is certain that proper gestures, and vehement exertions of the voice, cannot be too much studied by a public orator. They keep the audience awake, and fix their attention on what is delivered to them, at the same time that they show that the speaker is in earnest, and affected himself with what he so passionately recommends to others. In England, we often see people lulled asleep with cold and elaborate discourses of piety, who would be transported out of themselves by the bellowings of enthusiasm."[26 - Spectator, No. 407; Addison's Works, iv. 327.]

It is no answer to our observations to say, that our greatest orators have been bred at the universities, and that the system cannot be very faulty which has produced Pitt and Fox, Chatham and Burke, Peel and Stanley. Supposing that all these orators had devoted themselves, at college, to classical verses, instead of compositions in their own tongue – which was by no means the case – still, that would by no means prove that the system of education in which they were bred was not eminently defective. They became great speakers, not from having been proficients in "longs and shorts" at Oxford, or in the differential calculus at Cambridge, but in spite of these acquirements. They learned the art of speaking in the forum, as Wellington's soldiers learned the art of war in the field, by practice, in presence of the enemy. Doubtless a great deal may be done, by able and energetic men, in this way; but does it follow from this that education is to go for nothing, and that the old system of sending out officers to begin a campaign and besiege towns without knowing a ravelin from a bastion, was advisable, or likely to insure success in the military art? If you have two or three thousand young men, comprising the élite of the nation, at certain seminaries, you cannot help finding your leading statesmen and orators there, whatever they learn at them. They would be found there, though they were taught at them nothing but riding, music, and dancing. The whole rulers of Persia were found at its schools, though they learned nothing at them but to ride, to shoot with the bow, and speak the truth. But it would be rather dangerous to hold that this proves that seminaries, where nothing else was taught, were the ones best suited to secure the first place in society for their scholars, or the blessings of good government to the state.

Nor let it be said that there is no room, as society is now constituted, for the triumphs of the higher species of eloquence; that it cannot be attempted at the bar, and would be hooted down in the House of Commons, where business men now form a large majority, and business speeches, not the flowers of rhetoric, will alone be listened to. There is much truth in these observations, although it will probably be found that, even in courts of justice and in the Reformed House of Commons, a study of the condensed and cogent style of ancient eloquence is not the worst passport to success, and is almost indispensable to the highest triumphs. But supposing the bar and the senate set aside, as places in which business will alone be tolerated, are these the only places in which oratory may be practised, in which opinion may be moulded, and influence by eloquence obtained? Are there no public meetings held amongst us for the purposes of political change, social improvement, religious extension, moral amelioration, charity, or festivity, in which large numbers of the people, and often of all ranks and both sexes, are brought together, in which there is ample room for the display of all the graces of oratory, and in which the most eloquent and impassioned speaker is sure to carry away the palm? Are not these meetings the "primary assemblies," as it were, in which the ideas are elaborated, or the principles formed, which afterwards make their way into the press and the Legislature, and so determine the course of national policy, or the fate of national fortunes? Every day, with the increasing popularising of our institutions, is adding to the influence of eloquence, and multiplying the situations in which its highest style may be poured forth with the greatest effect. Above all, is not the pulpit to be found in every parish, where every week an opportunity is afforded for the most earnest appeals to the consciences of men – where the highest temporal and eternal interests are constantly the subject of discussion – where the most earnest appeals to the feelings are not only allowed, but commendable – and where a mixed and willing audience is always to be met with, of both sexes, who receive, not only with patience, but with gratitude and admiration, the most powerful and moving strains of eloquence which can be addressed to them? Rely upon it, opportunities for oratory in its very highest style are not awanting. What is awanting is due attention early in life to that noble art, the lofty spirit which arises at great objects, and the energetic will, the resolute perseverance, which deem the labour of a lifetime a light price to pay for their attainment.

LAING'S OBSERVATIONS ON EUROPE

It is not the least merit of Mr Laing's writings that they embrace much matter within a manageable compass. The objects claiming our attention are multiplying so fast upon us – the path of the inquirer is strewn with so many important topics, that he who would keep pace with the march of knowledge, must be content to throw aside all but what is really useful for the journey. The volume before us, forming a sequel to the Notes of a Traveller published by Mr Laing in 1842, fulfils this condition, and comprises within the limits of a moderate octavo a vast variety of subjects, social and political, domestic and foreign – population, the division of land, emigration, militia, university education, Continental railroads, taxes, theatres, fresco-painting, and a multitude of other topics. Among so many subjects, there are of course some on which we are unable to concur in the opinions expressed by the author; and some of his views we can hardly reconcile with the acute good sense that characterises most of his observations. But even on matters where we are forced to differ from him, his remarks are always instructive, original, and suggestive; and he generally presents both sides of a disputed question with remarkable impartiality, leaving the reader to form the conclusion for himself.

There is one circumstance which, in our opinion, greatly enhances the value of Mr Laing's observations on the social condition of our own and other countries. The very worst of all travellers is a political economist – that is, a dogmatist in the science. Whether his Magnus Apollo be Smith, or Say, or Ricardo, he sees all things through the spectacles of his favourite theories. Any inquiries he makes are directed, not to elicit the truth, but to support his pre-formed opinions; and, of course, no one who goes forth on this errand ever fails of finding what he seeks. And thus it happens that a Cobden may traverse Europe from end to end; and at the very time when the thunderclouds of social convulsion were about to burst in the most awful storm that has ever shaken civilised nations, he not only discerns no symptom of the impending hurricane, but beholds nothing but the smiling prospect of contented industry – the budding spring-time of universal peace and reciprocity. But, on the other hand, the observer who is either unacquainted with the doctrines of political economy, or who affects to consider them only as objects of speculative curiosity, is, in the opposite way, just as unfit as the pedant in the science to form correct and comprehensive views of the social condition of foreign states. He wants the proper rule to direct his observations, and can hardly attain any but confused and superficial ideas of the meaning of what he sees around him. He alone is qualified to observe wisely, and to write instructively, about the institutions and customs of other nations, who, having worked out for himself the leading principles of the science, and ascertained their true limits, possesses at the same time sufficient common sense and independence of judgment to apply them. Mr Laing seems to us to be gifted in an eminent degree with these requisites for making good practical use of his theoretical knowledge of political economy. He appears to be fully aware of the vast amount of dangerous error that has resulted from a blind and indiscriminate application of the same abstract laws to all cases, without fully ascertaining their true character, or making allowance for those disturbing causes which often render the law wholly irrelevant. Political economy, like other sciences, has its two parts – the theory and the application; and it too often happens that a man who is well read in the first is totally incapable of giving an opinion on the second, and infinitely the more difficult branch. The platform orator or newspaper writer thinks that if he can but refer to an abstract formula borrowed from Ricardo or M'Culloch, it is sufficient to settle any question of social interests that may come before him – not considering that these formula and maxims are abstract: and that their applicability to the affairs of everyday life may be affected by so many causes that it is scarcely possible to find any actual example to which they can be applied rigorously, and to their full extent. And hence the nonsense that is talked and written, under the name of political economy; hence the absurdities that are enacted under the idea, that nations can be governed by the square and plummet of its rules.

"The truth has been missed," says Mr Jones, in the preface to his work on the Distribution of Wealth, "not because a steady and comprehensive study of the story and condition of mankind would not yield truth, but because those who have been most prominent in circulating error have really turned aside from the task of going through such an examination at all; have confined the observations on which they have founded their reasonings to the small portion of the earth's surface by which they were immediately surrounded; and have then proceeded at once to erect a superstructure of doctrines and opinions, either wholly false, or, if partially true, as limited in their application as the field from which the materials for them were collected."

Mr Laing supplies us[27 - Observations, p. 158.] with an apt illustration of the fallacious use that is very commonly made of general laws, by neglecting to attend to the special circumstances of each case. It has been laid down as a maxim by economists, that a government should not attempt to direct, restrict, or interfere with the employment of capital and industry; but that every man should be left free to use the portion of them he possesses, how, where, and when he pleases. Now this maxim may be true enough in the abstract, and where there are no conditions to limit its application; but it is not equally true in all political states, nor in the same state at different times. The social condition of Great Britain, at the present day, may admit its application more fully than that of most other nations. But we have only to cross the German Ocean to find a circumstance easily overlooked – namely, that of climate, which upsets its relevancy altogether.

A still more striking exemplification of the same fallacy presents itself too obviously, in the opening of the corn trade in our own country. "There should be no artificial restrictions on the food of the people" – that is the abstract axiom on which our legislators grounded the abolition of all customs on imported grain. Does any one question the truth of it as a general axiom? Certainly not: and if we were setting out on a new social system – if the field on which we had to work was a tabula rasa, and we were free in all other respects, as well as this, to devise a scheme of government for a nascent community – that maxim would no doubt be kept in view in the construction of our code. But we have to legislate for a state of society in which everything else is artificial – in which restrictions meet us wherever we turn. Our task is not to rear a new edifice, in the plan of which we could give free scope to our taste and skill; but to repair, and if possible improve, an ancient fabric, the work of many different ages, and abounding in all manner of quaint angles and irregularities. We have to deal with the case of a country burdened with an enormous weight of general and local taxation, arbitrarily and unequally distributed, – where the employment of the people, and the application of their capital and industry, is founded on the faith of old laws and a settled commercial principle, – above all, a country where the business of exchange has to be conducted through the most anomalous medium – the medium of a fettered currency. One and all of these peculiarities in our condition are so many limitations of the general maxim; and the attempt to carry it out in its full extent, in defiance of these limitations, can only end in confusion and disappointment. Political economy is a safe guide in the hands of a practical legislator, only when he has fully apprehended the truth that there is not one of its principles, from beginning to end, that may not be limited by the special condition of each individual state; and unless he can carry with him this master-principle, so necessary to a right use of the theory of the science, it is far better and safer for those whose interests he directs that he should be wholly ignorant of it, and should trust altogether to common-sense and experience.

There is a very manifest disposition at present, to extend the jurisdiction of political economy to all public questions – to take it for granted that, when a case has once been argued and decided according to its laws, there is no more to be said on the subject. We are apt to forget that there is in all cases an appeal to another court, where the inquiry is not as to what is most favourable to the production of exchangeable Wealth, but what most conduces to the Happiness of the people; and that, still beyond, there is the last supreme tribunal on earth of all human actions, where there is but one law – the universal law of Morality. Are these three jurisdictions identical? Or are the decrees that issue from them necessarily in harmony with each other? So, at least, we are told by those who take the strongest view of the importance of political economy. Their doctrine is, that whatever promotes one of these objects promotes the others; and that wealth, happiness, and virtue, though distinguishable in thought, are mutually and reciprocally united in the history and experience of nations. To buy cheap and sell dear is the way for a man to get rich; but the riches of individuals in the aggregate form national wealth, national wealth produces civilisation, civilisation promotes happiness and contentment, and happiness and contentment promote virtue – such is the sorites on which is founded the creed of a very large section of the present school of economists. That country in which the means of production are most developed is the soil where the higher qualities of man's nature will be found flourishing in greatest perfection. Wealth, then, is the principal thing in the guidance of private conduct, as well as in the government of nations; and with all our getting, the chief concern is to get capital. It is this disposition to submit everything to the test of productiveness that Sismondi has so aptly designated by the title of chrematism. The views of that great and philosophic writer, as to the inevitable tendencies of the doctrine, have been already fully explained in our pages.[28 - See Blackwood's Magazine, vol. lvii. p. 529.] We allude to them now only to observe how remarkable a confirmation of his opinions is furnished by the history of the great Continental states since that review of his doctrines was written.

Is there, then, no way of reconciling the apparent antagonism between the development of man's industrial powers, and his higher interests as a rational and accountable being? Are we to conclude that the roads that lead to wealth, to happiness, and to virtue, are necessarily divergent? and that national advancement in any one of these paths implies a departure from the others? No; not necessarily so. Such is not the doctrine taught by Sismondi, and by those who, with him, impugn the title of political economy to be considered as the great paramount rule of social existence. All that they maintain is, that there is no necessary agreement between these three great springs of human action; that though the law of morality may, and obviously often does, concur with the maxims of happiness, and those again with the rules of political economy, there are nevertheless many questions on which we are at a loss to reconcile them. The learned Archbishop of Dublin has an elaborate argument in his Introductory Lectures, to show, on a priori grounds, that the condition most favourable to the exercise of man's productive energies must also be favourable, not only to the highest development of his intellectual faculties, but also to his advancement in moral purity. Now, we venture to think that no such argument, however ingeniously conducted, can be satisfactory, simply because IT IS a priori. Reason and experience are at variance; and no a priori deduction will help us out of the practical difficulty. We, no doubt, all naturally desire and hope – nay, believe – that at some future time, and in some way at present unknown, the perplexing contradiction will be explained. Reason affirms unhesitatingly, that the same Providence which placed so bounteous a store of the physical materials of wealth at our disposal, can never have designed that their cultivation should embitter the lives of those who labour, still less that it should endanger their moral wellbeing; and we look forward, therefore, with firm faith to a period when these paths, which to our present sight seem to lead in directions so opposite, shall all be seen to reunite and terminate in one common end. But, in the present state of our powers, that insight is yet far from being attained, and the great problem yet remains to be solved. – What do we see around us? In this country – whose physical character and the spirit of whose people seem to destine her for the very home and centre of production – are there no discordant elements in our condition? While wealth has increased among us with a rapidity unexampled in the history of the world, and the struggling energies of all men have been strained to the uttermost in the race of industry – while, under the sway of commercial Ministries, legislation has been specially, almost exclusively, directed to stimulating manufactures in every way, and removing every obstacle that could be supposed, however indirectly, to hinder their extension – can we venture to assert that the condition of the great mass of the people has improved in proportion to our riches? Are the relations of employers and the employed on so satisfactory a footing as to give no grounds for anxiety? Has the labourer, by whose toil all those vast accumulations of capital are created, enjoyed an equitable share of them? Have his means of domestic comfort increased in the same ratio as the wealth of his master? Is not the rate of his remuneration diminishing with every step in our progress? Has not crime, during the last half century, increased fully ten times as fast as the numbers of our population? Who can look at these, and a hundred other similar indications that readily suggest themselves, and say that all is well; that, as far as the experience of Britain goes, the road to national wealth has also conducted us to greater happiness and moral wellbeing? Alas! the evidence is but too convincing that, if there be any way of reconciling these ends, we at least have not yet found it. But we repeat that the contrariety between them is not a necessary or universal one. The conditions of great advancement in commerce and the industrial arts, are not all or invariably unfavourable to the innocent enjoyments of life among the labouring people, or hostile to their higher interests. It is not asserted that wealth is necessarily, or in itself, injurious; but only the means which we have hitherto discovered of acquiring it. The Archbishop imputes the converse of this doctrine to those who venture to deny the supreme importance of the objects of political economy, and then proceeds to demolish it by reducing it to absurd consequences. If, says he, it be true that the riches and civilisation of a community always lead to their moral degradation, if you really consider national wealth to be an evil, why do you not set about diminishing it; and, following out the counsels of Mandeville, burn your fleets, destroy your manufactories, and betake yourselves to a life of frugal and rustic simplicity? Such a challenge, we presume to think, has no bearing on the position we have been supporting; and it would be just as fair an argument on our side of the question, if we were to turn round and insist that his Grace should testify to the truth and consistency of the opinions he maintains by turning our churches into cotton factories, and the University of Dublin into a Mechanics' Institute. We go no further than to affirm that, in the experience of our own and the other most civilised nations of Europe, the rapid augmentation of wealth has not been attended with a corresponding increase of rational enjoyment, or of moral improvement, in the mass of the community. Further, we hold that a legislator must recognise these three objects not only as distinct, but as subordinate, one to the other: that is to say, the government of a country is not justified in fostering the interests of the capitalist in such a way as to trench upon the enjoyments of the common people, nor in promoting these to the neglect of their moral and religious instruction. He is not, for example, justified in allowing the employer to demand from his operatives the utmost amount of daily toil that he can extract from them, so as to leave them no time for bodily rest or intellectual culture. All policy that overlooks or contemns this natural subordination in the ends of human existence, must terminate in disaster and misery.

We have been partly led into these reflections through the consideration of a subject which occupies a prominent place in Mr Laing's Observations, and seems, in some respects, to illustrate —

"How wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and a happy land."