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Part II.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF PUBLIC
SPEAKING.

Chapter I.

ELOQUENCE OF POPULAR ASSEMBLIES.

The ancients divided all orations into three grand classes, the Demonstrative, the Deliberative, and the Judicial. The scope of the Demonstrative, was to praise or blame: that of the Deliberative, to advise or dissuade; that of the Judicial, to accuse or defend. The chief subject of Demonstrative Eloquence, were Panegyrics, Invectives, Gratulatory and Funeral Orations. The Deliberative was employed in matters of public concern agitated in the Senate, or before the assemblies of the people. The Judicial, is the same with the eloquence of the Bar, employed in addressing Judges, who have powers to absolve or condemn. I have in the following selections, preferred that train which Modern speaking points out, rather than the above division laid down. by the ancient Rhetoricians. Modern Eloquence is divided into three kinds, the Eloquence of popular Assemblies, of the Bar and of the Pulpit; each of which has a distinct character, which particularly suits it. This division though in some respects different, yet in others corresponds with the ancient one.. eloquence of the Bar is precisely the same with what the Ancient Rhetoricians called the Judicial. The Eloquence of Popular Assemblies, though mostly

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of that kind which they term the Deliberative, yet admits also of the Demonstrative. The Eloquence of the pulpit is altogether of a distinct nature; and as the ancient Rhetoricians had no such kind of Oratory, it cannot be reduced under any of their divisions.

Section I.

THE EULOGIUM OF THE PERFECT
SPEAKER.

Imagine to yourselves a Demosthenes addressing the most illustrious assembly in the world, upon a point whereon the fate of the most illustrious of nations depended. How awful such a meeting! How vast the subject! Is man possessed of talents adequate to the great occasion? Adequate-yes, superior. By the power of his eloquence, the augustness of the assembly is lost in the dignity of the subject, for a while, superceded, by the admiration of his talents. With what strength of argument, with what powers of the fancy, with what emotions of the heart does he assault and subjugate the whole man, and at once captivate his reason, his imagination, and his passions! To effect this must be the utmost effort of the most improved state of human nature ! Not a faculty that he possesses, is here unemployed; not a faculty that he possesses, but is here exerted to the highest pitch. All his internal powers are at work; all his external, testify their energies. Within, the memory, the fancy, the judgment, the passions, all are busy without, every muscle, every nerve, is exerted; not a feature, not a limb, but speaks. The organs of the body, attuned to the exertions of the mind, through the kindred organs of the hearers, instantaneously, and as it were with an electric spirit, vibrate those energies from soul to soul. Notwithstanding the diversity of minds in such a multitude, by the lightning

of eloquence, they are melted into one mass-the whole assembly actuated in one and the same way, become, as it were, but one man, and have but one voice. The universal cry is-Let us march against Philip-let us fight for our liberties-let us conquer, or die !

Section II.

EULOGIUM OF ANTOINETTE, THE LATE QUEEN OF FRANCE.

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just began to move in, glittering like the morning star; full of life, and splendour, and joy.

Oh what a resolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate, without emotion, that elevation and that fall.

Little did I dream that, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her in a nation of gallant men-in a nation of men of honour and of cav. aliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult-But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyality to rank and sex, that proud submission,-that dignified obedience,

that subordination of the heart, which keeps alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone,-that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound,-which inspired courage, while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched; and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

Section III.

PANEGYRIC ON THE BRITISH CONSTI TUTION.

By a constitutional policy working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government, and our privileges, in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the. gifts of providence, are handed down to us and from us, in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts ;-wherein, by the disposition of stupenduous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle aged, or young; but in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve we are never wholly new ; in what we retain we are never wholly obsolete. By adhering in this manner and on these principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of

antiquaries, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy. In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation ih blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable, and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our healths, our sepulchres, and our altars.

Section IV.

MR. SHERIDAN'S INVECTIVE AGAINST MR. HASTINGS.

Had a stranger, at this time, gone into the province of Oude, ignorant of what had happened since the death of Sujah Dowla, that man, who, with a savage heart, had still great lines of character, and who, with all his ferocity in war, had still, with a cultivating hand, preserved to his country the riches which it derived from benignant skies and a prolific soilif this stranger, ignorant of all that had happened in the short interval, and observing the wide and general devastation, and all the horrors of the scene of plains unclothed and brown-of vegetables burnt up and extinguished-of villages depopulated and in ruin-of temples unroofed and perishing-of reservoirs broken down and dry,-he would naturally enquire what war had thus laid waste the fertile fields of this once beautiful and opulent country--what civil dissentions have happened, thus to tear asunder and separate the happy societies that once possessed those villages-what disputed succession-what religious rage has, with unholy violence demolished those temples, and disturbed fervent, but unobtruding piety, in the exercise of its duties?-What merciless enemy has thus spread the horrors of fire

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