real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and language of another man. In the first sense, sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned to be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language; and though perhaps I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age or modelled by experience. If, however, any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behaviour, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villian; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample on all the forms within which wealth and dignity intrench themselves; nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment-age, which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion that, if I had acted a borrowed part I should have avoided their censure. The heat that offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect them in their villany and whoever may partake of their plunder. And if the honourable gentleman- Here Mr. Pitt was called to order by Mr. Wynnington, who went on to say, 'No diversity of opinion can justify the violation of decency and the use of rude and violent expressions, dictated only by resentment and uttered without regard to- Ere Mr. Wynnington could add the fatal monosyllable truth,' which was already formed on his lips, Pitt was down upon him. Sir,' he said, if this be to preserve order there is no danger of indecency from the most licentious tongues. For what calumny can be more atrocious, what reproach more severe, than that of speaking with regard to anything but truth? Order may sometimes be broken by passion or inadvertency, but will hardly be re-established by a monitor like this, who cannot govern his own passions while he is restraining the impetuosity of others. Happy would it be for mankind if every one knew his own province. We should not then see the same man at once a criminal and a judge; nor would this honourable gentleman assume the right of dictating to others what he has not learned himself.

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That

I may return in some degree the favour he intends me, I will advise him never hereafter to exert himself on the subject of order; but, whenever he feels inclined to speak on such occasions, to remember how he has now succeeded, and condemn in silence what his censures will never amend."

"Chatham interrupted by himself. On November 27, 1754, Mr. Pitt made two speeches ostensibly against Jacobitism, but intended for Murray (suspected of secret Jacobitism), who had just been raised from the office of Solicitor to that of Attorney-General. 'In both speeches,' says Fox, 'every word was Murray, yet so managed that neither he nor any one else could take public notice of it, nor in any way reprehend him. I sat near Murray, who suffered for an hour.' It was perhaps on this occasion,' says Charles Butler, in his Reminiscences, that Pitt used an expression which was once in every mouth. After Murray had suffered ' for some time, Pitt stopped, threw his eyes around, then fixing their whole power on Murray, exclaimed, I must now address a few words to Mr. Attorney; they shall be few, but they shall be daggers.' Murray was agitated the look was continued-the agitation increased: Felix trembles!' exclaimed Pitt, in a tone of thunder. He shall hear me some other day.' He sat down— Murray made no reply, and a languid debate showed the paralysis of the House.'-Goodrich, p. 58."

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"Erskine's first success as a Pleader.-'Erskine's first forensic appearance of any importance was as junior counsel for Captain Baillie, Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital. Baillie had exposed certain flagrant abuses in the management of the hospital, in such a manner as to bring upon himself a prosecution for libel, the real mover in the prosecution, though not the ostensible prosecutor, being Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty. It was supposed that Baillie had no chance against so powerful an opposition; and his senior counsel having done their best on the first day of the trial, it was expected that there would be no further advocacy on that side. On the following day, however (Nov. 23, 1778), Erskine rose in Court, to the surprise of all, and began,— 'My Lord, I am likewise counsel for the author of this supposed libel; and, when a British subject is brought before a court of justice only for having ventured to attack abuses, which owe their continuance to the danger of attacking them, I cannot relinquish the privilege of doing justice to such merit: I will not give up even my share of the honour of repelling and exposing so odious a prosecution.' As Erskine was all but unknown, the curiosity of all present was greatly excited. The curiosity was changed into admiration, and the admiration into a rapture of astonishment as Erskine went on to ask and answer successively with respect to his client the questions-Who is he?' 'What was his duty?" 'What has he written?' To whom has he written?' and 'What motive induced him to write?' Speaking on these heads, one by one, he showed that Baillie, as Lieutenant-Governor of the Hospital, was officially bound to note and observe any abuses in its management; that the abuses which he had alleged to exist actually

did exist, to the full extent of his allegation; that, in exposing the abuses, he had addressed himself to those whose right and duty it was to be fully informed on such points; and that his motive was nothing else than the public good and the advantage of those veterans for whom the institution was intended. Before closing, he shifted his remarks from the accused to the prosecution. 'Indeed,' he said, 'Lord Sandwich has, in my mind' Here Lord Mansfield reminded him that Lord Sandwich was not before the Court. Immediately Erskine resumed, I know he is not formally before the Court; but, for that very reason, I will bring him before the Court. He has placed these men [the nominal prosecutors] in front of the battle in hopes to escape under their shelter; but I will not join in the battle with them. Their vices, though screwed up to the highest pitch of human depravity, are not of dignity enough to vindicate the combat with me. I will drag him to light who is the dark mover behind this scene of iniquity. I assert that the Earl of Sandwich has but one road to escape out of this business without pollution and disgrace, and that is by publicly disavowing the acts of the prosecutors, and restoring Captain Baillie to his command. If he does this, then his offence will be no more than the too common one of having suffered his personal interest to prevail over his public duty, in placing his voters in the Hospital. But if, on the contrary, he continues to protect the prosecutors in spite of the evidence of their guilt, which has excited the abhorrence of the numerous audience that crowds this Court if he keeps this injured man suspended, or dares to turn that suspension into a removal-I shall then not scruple to declare him an accomplice in their guilt, a shameless oppressor, a disgrace to his rank, and a traitor to his trust.' The verdict was for the defendant, and Erskine's fortune was made. His speech on this occasion is pronounced by Lord Campbell, the most wonderful forensic effort which we have in our annals.'

"Dr. Chalmers interrupted. In one of his great speeches before the General Assembly of the Scottish Church, during the Non-Intrusion controversy, Dr. Chalmers was describing in very strong language the state of indifferentism in all matters of religion which had prevailed in Scotland during the ecclesiastical ascendancy of the so-called 'Moderate' party, i.e., towards the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the present century. The language was so strong, and seemed to imply such a wholesale insult to the ancestral memories, that one half of the House, or nearly so, started up in a clamour of Noes' and Orders.' The other side backed their champion with a cheer, and a burst of assenting Yeses;' again there was the burst of denial, again that of assent, peal contending against peal, while the white-haired old chieftain was seen large and rampant in the midst. I stet a his

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toracal fact,' were the only words that came from him; but they came in his highest key, splitting the double uproar like an ascending shriek. Confusion worse confounded! At length up rises a a respected baronet on the other side, of very bland exterior and considerable powers of elocution. He obtained the hearing of the House. Really, they could excuse much,' he said, 'from the Reverend Doctor, considering the state of excitement in which he was; but,' &c. &c. The orator, who, in the mean time, had seemed suddenly to calm himself, and had sat down patient and smiling, now rose. 'Excited, Sir!' he said, addressing the Moderator in the most good-humoured way imaginable,-Excited, Sir! Just look at me. Why, I'm as cool as an algebraic formula!' There was no resisting this: order was restored; and the orator proceeded." Now in all these cases it may be said that it was firmness, courage, force of character, presence of mind, or the like, that came to the rescue of the orator. There is no harm in saying so. Only it has to be remembered that this firmness, presence of mind, or what not, is oratorical firmness or presence of mind; and that the firmest and most self-possesed men in the world, not orators, would not have been capable of the same behaviour. The orator it is whose firmness, or courage, or presence of mind, or whatever other quality or faculty he wants, comes to him when he is on his legs, and the chairman is adverse or the audience howling. It is even possible that he might be rather timid in other circumstances, and as bold as a lion then. It is in his nature to be most shrewd and cool when seemingly most excited.

A second variety of oratory, differing but little from the preceding, is when the speaker has an outline or skeleton of his intended discourse previously prepared, and trusts to the occasion for the filling-up. Perhaps in our own day, this 'speaking from notes' is the most common form of oratory. The notes' may not be written on a slip of paper; but rarely does a speaker rise without having determined with himself the nature and order of the topics on which he is to speak, and so provided himself with a series of mental notes. To all intents and purposes, however, this speaking from a mental programme, or even from a few written notes, may be regarded as indentical with extempore speaking. The difficulties are the same, and there is the same triumph in overcoming them. Only in those cases where the preparation is on a rather extensive scale, where not only the heads of the matter but even the main expressions and the precise forms of the exposition and argument are arranged beforehand, is there much need for a distinction. But even here the orator exhibits his peculiarity. So far as he does extemporize, he is of course in the predicament of the extempore speaker. But as regards that which he prepares and brings with him, he is faithful to the law of the oratorical constitution.

He

must have acquired the habit of preparing what will suit when publicly spoken-in other words, the habit of cogitating, away from the audience, as if he were already in the presence of the audience. His imagination or preconception of the audience must be so vivid and exact, that his mind already feels the oratorical glow and perturbation, and cogitates accordingly. This is an art which has to be acquired, and which the born orator acquires soonest and most easily. Let a man who is not a speaker prepare an argument or a discourse for some casual occasion on which he is obliged to speak, and the probability is that he will find it, on the trial, to be altogether the wrong thing. Matter intended to be spoken before an audience must be cogitated according to those processes of mental association which the circumstantials of public speaking call into action. The common fault of unpractised speakers in their preparations is to prepare too much. They bring such a quantity of fuel that none of it can be kindled. The difference between a good speech and an essay consists precisely in this, that, though the propositions in the speech may be of the best possible kind and suitable for any essay, they must not be too numerous to be all thoroughly consumed. How many propositions an orator can thus burn up in a speech, so as to leave only their ashes on the platform after having dispersed the bulk of them in the form of exhilarating gas through the brains and being of his audience, depends on the quantity of fire which the orator carries about with him. The most powerful orations we have ever heard, however, have always consisted of a few ideas or principles in a state of intense combustion. Even practised speakers, it is known, err sometimes in preparing too much. Then, in the moment of delivery, the oratorical instinct shows itself in teaching them what to reject. They do so remorselessly, omitting two-thirds perhaps of what they intended to say, and substituting what occurs to them there and then. A novice, on the other hand, behaves differently. He cannot part with his fine passages;' he remembers that there is a splendid image or a crushing sarcasm just a little in advance of him; he hurries on to get to it; and, when he does get to it, he is in the position of the poor tailor who, having won an elephant at a raffle, could neither leave the brute nor get anybody to take it off his hands. Sometimes a real orator makes a mistake of this kind. Every one knows the story of Burke's taking the carvingknife from under his coat and dashing it down on the floor of the House, to give effect to an appeal. The act was, doubtless, sublime in the rehearsal; but in the performance it did not do at all.

Another variety of oratory is when a discourse is committed to memory and delivered as it was learnt. This was the general practice of the ancient Greek and Roman orators, including Demosthenes and Cicero; and in ancient treatises on oratory,