WANT OF A PURSUIT.

Such is the complicated constitution of human nature, that a man without a predominant inclination is not likely to be either useful or happy.

He who is every thing is nothing, is as true of our sensitive as of our intellectual nature. He is rather a bundle of little likings, than a compact and energetic individual. A strong desire soon subdues the weaker, and rules us with the united force of all that it subjugates.

Such being the force of human feelings, it must embitter our daily lives if our employments are unsuited to our talents and our wishes; yet how few, alas, are so fortunate as to be gaining either wealth or fame while gratifying an inclination!

In the best of all arts, the art of living, the greatest skill is not to wait; but, as you run along, snatch at every fruit and every flower growing within your reach; for, after all that can be said, youth, the age of hope and admiration, and manhood, the age of business and of influence, are to be preferred to the period of extinguished passions and languid curiosity. At that season, our hopes and wishes must have been too long dropping, leaf by leaf, away. The last scenes of the fifth act are seldom the most interesting, either in a tragedy or a comedy. Yet many compensations arise as our sensibility decays:

Life, without some necessity for exertion (says Mr. Walker^[89]), must ever lack real interest. That state is capable of the greatest enjoyment where necessity urges, but not painfully; where effort is required, but as much as possible without anxiety; where the spring and summer of life are preparatory to the harvest of autumn and the repose of winter. Then is every season sweet, and, in a well-spent life, the last the best—the season of calm enjoyment, the richest in recollections, the brightest in hope. Good training and a fair start constitute a more desirable patrimony than wealth; and those parents who study their children’s welfare rather than the gratification of their own avarice or vanity, would do well to think of this. Is it better to run a successful race, or to begin and end at the goal?

THE ENGLISH CHARACTER.

Four and thirty years since, Sir Humphry Davy wrote:“The English as a nation are preëminently active, and the natives of no other country follow their objects with so much force, fire, and constancy. And as human powers are limited, there are few examples of very distinguished men living in this country to old age: they usually fail, droop, and die, before they have attained the period naturally marked out for the end of human existence. The lives of our statesmen, warriors, poets, and even philosophers, offer abundant proofs of the truth of this opinion: whatever burns, consumes; ashes remain. Before the period of youth is passed, gray hairs usually cover those brows which are adorned with the civic oak or the laurel; and in the luxurious and exciting life of the men of pleasure, their tints are not even preserved by the myrtle wreath or the garland of roses from the premature winter of time.” If these characteristics were applicable to English life a third of a century since, how much has their fitness been strengthened by the rapidity of action, the excitement, and want of repose adding to the wear and tear of existence, since that period.

That the Englishman is one of the most noble species of the genus to which he belongs, seems to be generally conceded. The poet Southey expressed the opinion of more thinkers than himself when he said that the Englishman is the model or pattern man, at least of all the species at present existing. But even those who are most thoroughly convinced of this must admit that he has his peculiarities—foremost among which is his nationality; and one of the most striking peculiarities of that nationality is pride. Another potent element in the English character is its practical worth,—this word “practical” being the shibboleth by which we love to recognise ourselves; as the Greeks delighted to picture themselves as more wise, the French as more polite, than other nations.

Our genius has a most real, concrete, and altogether terrestrial tendency: there seems to be a considerable majority of Sadducees among us, or, as Plato calls them, “uninitiated persons, who believe in nothing but what they can lay hold of with their hands. These men will make railways, telegraphs, and tunnels, and build crystal palaces, and collect mechanical products from the ends of the earth, and exhibit in every possible shape and variety the sublime of what is mechanical and material; but for the supersensual ideas, they will have none of them.”^[90]

Nevertheless, if we look through the history of the world’s genius, we shall find its greatest successes to lie in the practical. Homer begged; Tasso begged in a different way; Galileo was racked; De Witt assassinated,—and all for wishing to improve their species. At the same time, Raffaelle, Michel Angelo, Zeuxis, Apelles, Rubens, Reynolds, Titian, Shakspeare, were rich and happy. Why? because with their genius they combined practical prudence. This is the grand secret of success.

WORTH OF ENERGY.

A man with knowledge but without energy is a home furnished but not inhabited; a man with energy but no knowledge, a house dwelt in but unfurnished.

Mr. Sharp^[91] counsels us: “Prefer a life of energy to a life of inaction. There are always kind friends enough ready to preach up caution and delay, &c. Yet it is impossible to lay down any general rule of a prudential kind. Every one must be judged of after a careful review of all its circumstances; for if one, only one, be overlooked, the decision may be injurious or fatal. Thus, there will ever be many conflicting reasons for and against a spirit of enterprise and a habit of caution.

“Those who advise others to withstand the temptations of hope will always appear to be wiser than they really are, for how often can it be made certain that the rejected and untried hazard would have been successful? Besides, those who dissuade us from action have corrupt but powerful allies in our indolence, irresolution, and cowardice. To despond is very easy, but it requires works as well as faith to engage successfully in a difficult undertaking.

“There are, however, few difficulties that hold out against real attacks: they fly, like the visible horizon, before those who advance. A passionate desire and an unwearied will can perform impossibilities, or what seem to be so to the cold and the feeble. If we do but go on, some unseen path will open among the hills.

“We must not allow ourselves to be discouraged by the apparent disproportion between the result of single efforts and the magnitude of the obstacles to be encountered. Nothing great or good is to be obtained without courage and industry; but courage and industry must have sunk in despair, and the world must have remained unornamented and unimproved, if men had nicely compared the effect of a single stroke of the chisel with the pyramid to be raised, or of a single impression of the spade with the mountain to be levelled.

“Efforts, it must not be forgotten, are as indispensable as desires. The globe is not to be circumnavigated by one wind. ‘It is better to wear out than to rust,’ says Bishop Cumberland. ‘There will be time enough for repose in the grave,’ said Nicole to Pascal. In truth, the proper rest for man is change of occupation.

“The toils as well as risks of an active life are commonly overrated, so much may be done by the diligent use of ordinary opportunities; but they must not always be waited for. We must not only strike the iron while it is hot, but strike it till ‘it is made hot.’ Herschel, the great astronomer, declares that 90 or 100 hours, clear enough for observation, cannot be called an unproductive year.

“The lazy, the dissipated, and the fearful, should patiently see the active and the bold pass them in the course. They must bring down their pretensions to the level of their talents. Those who have not energy to work must learn to be humble, and should not vainly hope to unite the incompatible enjoyments of indolence and enterprise, of ambition and self-indulgence.”

These lines of fair encouragement are the advice of a man of the world, but whose feelings had not become blunted by his intercourse with the world: he was one of the most cheerful, amiable, and happy beings it ever fell to our lot to know; his joyous manner was the true index to his large and sound heart.

TEST OF GREATNESS.

The true test of a great man (says Lord Brougham),—that at least which must secure his place among the highest order of great men,—is his having been in advance of his age. This it is which decides whether or not he has carried forward the grand plan of human improvement; has conformed his views and adapted his conduct to the existing circumstances of society, or changed those so as to better its condition; has been one of the lights of the world, or only reflected the borrowed rays of former luminaries, and sat in the same shade with the rest of his generation at the same twilight or the same dawn.

Nature seldom invests great men with any outward signs, from which their greatness may be known or foretold; and yet (says Lord Dudley) I own I share fully in that curiosity of the vulgar, which induces them to follow after and to gaze eagerly upon the mere bodily presence of persons that have raised themselves high above the common level.

Almost all great men who have performed, or who are destined to perform, great things, are sparing of words. Their communing is with themselves rather than with others. They feed upon their own thoughts, and in these inward musings brace those intellectual and active energies, the development of which constitutes the great character. Napoleon became a babbler only when his fate was accomplished, and his fortune was on the decline.

Boyle has this pertinent reflection: “There is such a kind of difference between vertue shaded by a private, and shining forth in a publick life, as there is betwixt a candle carri’d aloft in the open air, and inclosed in a lanthorn; in the former place it gives more light, but in the latter ’tis in less danger to be blown out.”^[92]

The real test of greatness is courage and respect for truth, generally the earliest precept of childhood, yet of comparatively rare observance through life. “Without courage,” says Sir Walter Scott, “there cannot be truth; and without truth there can be no other virtue.” And how nobly did Scott illustrate this in his own life-practice!

Truth was the redeeming virtue of one of the favoured men of our political history. The qualities which raised Fox high as a party leader were not merely his eloquence, his wit, his genius, but also his engaging warmth of heart and kindliness of temper. To these a strong testimony may be found in the memoirs of a great historian by no means blind to his faults, and by no means attached to his principles. On summing up his character, many years afterwards, Gibbon writes of Fox as follows: “Perhaps no human being was ever more perfectly exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or falsehood.”

CHOICE OF A PROFESSION.

We know of no more fertile source of crime than Idleness. It is the want of a due impression of the importance and legitimate employment of time, which is one of the main occasions of the luxury and profligacy of one order of society; and it is the same cause which vitiates and defiles the manners of another, and a subordinate rank, in the scale. It is inquired by an ancient poet, who was a keen and accurate observer of human character, why Ægisthus so grievously and wantonly deviated from the path of virtue? and he immediately rejoins the reply, “The cause is obvious,—he was idle!” And it is a circumstance worthy of remark, that when Hogarth wished to give a portrait of a veteran criminal, he made him commence his career as a boy lolling on the tombstones of the churchyard on a Sunday.

Mr. Ruskin has written these beautiful words of encouragement: “God appoints to every one of His creatures a separate mission; and if they discharge it honourably—if they quit themselves like men, and faithfully follow that light which is in them, withdrawing from it all cold and quenching influence—there will assuredly come of it such burning as, in its appointed mode and measure, shall shine before men, and be of service, constant and holy. Degrees infinite of lustre there must always be; but the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race for ever.”

‘Know thyself’ is an old precept; yet it is surprising how few are sufficiently acquainted with themselves to see distinctly what their own motives actually are. It is a rare thing, as well as a great advantage, for a man to know his own mind.

Were but a tithe of the time and the thought usually spent in learning the commonest accomplishments bestowed upon regulating our lives, how many evils would be avoided or lessened; how many pleasures would be created or increased!

In one of Steele’s papers, No. 173 of the Tatler, are some admirable remarks upon the time lost by boys in learning that which, in after-life, is of little service to them. “The truth of it is,” says Steele, “the first rudiments of education are given very indiscreetly by most parents. Whatever children are designed for, and whatever prospects the fortune or interest of their parents may give them in their future lives, they are all promiscuously instructed in the same way; and Horace and Virgil must be thumbed by a boy as well before he goes to an apprenticeship as to the university.... This is the natural effect of a certain vanity in the minds of parents, who are wonderfully delighted with the thought of breeding their children to accomplishments, which they believe nothing but the want of the same care in their own fathers prevented them being masters of. Thus it is that the part of life most fit for improvement is generally employed against the bent of nature; and a lad of such parts as are fit for an occupation where there can be no calls out of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time wholly taken up in knowing how well Ovid’s mistress became such a dress, &c.... However, still the humour goes on from one generation to another; and the pastrycook here in the lane, the other night, told me ‘he would not take away his son from his learning; but has resolved, as soon as he has had a little smattering in the Greek, to put him apprentice to a soap-boiler.’ These wrong beginnings determine our success in the world; and when our thoughts are originally falsely biassed, their agility and force do but carry us the farther out of our way, in proportion to our speed. But we are half-way on our journey when we have got into the right road. If all our ways were usefully employed, and we did not set out impertinently, we should not have so many grotesque professors in all the arts of life; but every man would be in a proper and becoming method of distinguishing or entertaining himself, suitably to what nature designed him. As they go on now, our parents do not only force upon us what is against our talents, but our teachers are also as injudicious in what they put us to learn.”

The practice of the irresolute in deliberating without deciding is another parlous error. “What I cannot resolve upon in half an hour,” said the Duc de Guise, “I cannot resolve upon at all.”

Bacon has well described this irresolution in his complaint, “that some men object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home.”

The strongest incentive to decision is self-dependence. Mr. Sharp writes to a young friend at college:

I have confidence in your capacity. However, my favourable anticipations arise chiefly from your being aware that your station in society must depend entirely on your own exertions. Luckily, you have not to overcome the disadvantage of expecting to inherit from your father an income equal to your reasonable desires; for, though it may have the air of a paradox, yet it is truly a serious disadvantage when a young man going to the bar is sufficiently provided for.

says Martial, but not wisely; and no young man should believe him.

The necessity for instant decision in life renders it often prudent to take the chance of being right or wrong, without waiting to balance reasons very nicely. In such cases, and sometimes even in speculation, this kind of credulity is more philosophical than scepticism; though authority in abstruse investigations should usually do little more than excite attention, while in practice it must guide our conduct.

It is unfortunate when a man’s intellectual and his moral character are not suited to each other. The horses in a carriage should go the same pace and draw in the same direction, or the motion will be neither pleasant nor safe.

Bonaparte has remarked of one of his marshals, that “he had a military genius, but had not intrepidity enough in the field to execute his own plans;” and of another he said, “he is as brave as his sword, but he wants judgment and resources: neither,” he added, “is to be trusted with a great command.”

This want of harmony between the talents and the temperament is often found in private life; and, wherever found, is the fruitful source of faults and sufferings. Perhaps there are few less happy than those who are ambitious without industry; who pant for the prize, but will not run the race; who thirst for truth, but are too slothful to draw it up from the well.

Now this defect, whether arising from indolence or from timidity, is far from being incurable. It may, at least in part, be remedied by frequently reflecting on the endless encouragements to exertion held out by our own experience and by example:

It is not every calamity that is a curse, and early adversity especially is often a blessing. Perhaps Madame de Maintenon would never have mounted a throne had not her cradle been rocked in a prison. Surmounted obstacles not only teach, but hearten us in our future struggles; for virtue must be learnt, though unfortunately some of the vices come, as it were, by inspiration. The austerities of our northern climate are thought to be the cause of our abundant comforts; as our wintry nights and our stormy seas have given us a race of seamen perhaps unequalled, and certainly not surpassed, by any in the world.

“Mother,” said a Spartan lad going to battle, “my sword is too short.” “Add a step to it,” she replied; but it must be owned that this advice was to be given only to a Spartan boy. They should not be thrown into the water who cannot swim: I know your buoyancy, and I have no fears of your being drowned.

The grand scramble for place was thus vividly painted by Mr. Sharp some eighty years since: “The young people of this country, in every rank, from a peer’s son to a street-sweeper’s, are drawn aside from a praiseworthy exertion in honest callings, by having their eyes directed towards the public treasury. The rewards of persevering industry are too slow for them, too small, and too insipid. They fondly trust to the great lottery, although the wheel contains so many blanks and so few prizes; hoping that their ticket may be drawn a place, a pension, or a contract; a living, or a stall; a ship, or a regiment; a seat on the bench, or the great seal.

“It is, indeed, most humiliating to witness the indecent scramble that is always going on for these prizes, the highest born and best educated rolling in the dirt to pick them up, just as the lowest of the mob do for the shillings or the pence thrown among them by a successful candidate at a contested election.”

In this rush there must always be a host of genius and talent neglected or overlooked; and this from various causes, some of which have been thus sketched by a living novelist, accustomed to see far beyond most of his literary brethren:

In all men who have devoted themselves to any study, or any art, with sufficient pains to attain a certain degree of excellence, there must be a fund of energy immeasurably above that of the ordinary herd. Usually, this energy is concentred on the objects of their professional ambition, and leaves them, therefore, apathetic to the other pursuits of men. But where those objects are denied, where the stream has not its legitimate vent, the energy, irritated and aroused, possesses the whole being; and if not wasted on desultory schemes, or if not purified by conscience and principle, becomes a dangerous and destructive element in the social system, through which it wanders in riot and disorder. Hence, in all wise monarchies—nay, in all well-constituted states—the peculiar care with which channels are opened for every art and every science; hence the honour paid to their cultivators by subtle and thoughtful statesmen, who, perhaps, for themselves, see nothing in a picture but coloured canvas—nothing in a problem but an ingenious puzzle. No state is ever more in danger than when the talent which should be consecrated to peace has no occupation but political intrigue or personal advancement. Talent unhonoured is talent at war with men.^[93]

Reliance upon family influence with persons in high stations is but a poor dependence.^[94] We happen to know a large family of sons unprovided for, who have been calculating for years upon the influence of a maid-of-honour with her relative, the Premier. But ministers who have the good things to give away are often so pressed by their political supporters, that their own connexions are made to yield. The late Lord Melbourne was proverbially a good-natured man; but in a case of the above kind he acted with a sense of duty more stringent than might have been expected. It appears that Lord John Russell had applied to Lord Melbourne for some provision for one of the sons of the poet Moore; and here is the Premier’s reply:

“My dear John,—I return you Moore’s letter. I shall be ready to do what you like about it when we have the means. I think whatever is done should be done for Moore himself. This is more distinct, direct, and intelligible. Making a small provision for young men is hardly justifiable; and it is of all things the most prejudicial to themselves. They think what they have much larger than it really is; and they make no exertion. The young should never hear any language but this: ‘You have your own way to make, and it depends upon your own exertions whether you starve or not.’—Believe me, &c.      Melbourne.”^[95]

The foundation of the Sidmouth Peerage is traceable to one of those fortunate turns which have much to do with worldly success. It is related that while Lord Chatham was residing at Hayes, in Kent, his first coachman being taken ill, the postillion was sent for the family doctor; but not finding him, the messenger returned, bringing with him Mr. Addington, then a practitioner in the place, who, by permission of Lord Chatham, saw the coachman, and reported his ailment. His lordship was so pleased with Mr. Addington, that he employed him as apothecary for the servants, and then for himself; and, Lady Hester Stanhope tells us, “finding he spoke good sense on medicine, and then on politics, he at last made him his physician.” Dr. Addington subsequently practised in the metropolis, then retired to Reading, and there married; and in 1757 was born his eldest son, Henry Addington, who was educated at Winchester and Oxford, and called to the Bar in 1784. Through his father’s connexion with the family of Lord Chatham, an intimacy had grown up between young Addington and William Pitt when they were boys. Pitt was now First Minister of the Crown, and through his influence Addington entered upon his long political career, and became in very few years Prime Minister of England: his administration was brief; but he was raised to the Peerage in 1805, and held various offices until 1824, when he retired. Lord Sidmouth was an unpopular minister, and not a man of striking talent; but his aptitude for official business was great. He survived until 1844, when he was succeeded by his eldest son, the present Viscount, in holy orders.

The origin of Lord Liverpool is scarcely less striking. The father of this statesman was Mr. Robert Jenkinson, a man of no patrimony, but who, by his application and aptitude for State affairs, gave lustre to his name. In 1778 he succeeded Lord Barrington as Secretary-at-War: he rose at last to be Earl of Liverpool; and his son, the second Earl, to be fifteen years First Lord of the Treasury.

Another instance of successful integrity in Official Life is presented by the Right Hon. George Rose, one of the most valuable public servants which this country has known,—“an able, clear-headed, straightforward man of business, whose steady industry, devoted for years to the service of the State, won for him, and most deservedly, not only political importance, but the personal regard of his sovereign, and indeed of all who knew him.”^[96] He was, in early life, purser of a ship-of-war, where his abilities became known to the Earl of Sandwich, by whom he was recommended to Lord North, who gave him an appointment in the Treasury: he was a man of frugal habits, and often ate his mutton-chop at the Cat and Bagpipes tavern, at the corner of Downing-street; pari passu, he was one of the early encouragers of Savings-Banks. He was the sincere and devoted friend of Pitt, whose personal character and administrative zeal are nobly vindicated by the recent publication of Mr. Rose’s Diaries and Correspondence. In 1777 he superintended the publication of the Journals of the House of Lords, in thirty-one folio volumes, from which time he rarely failed to be employed in a public capacity by successive administrations. In the intervals of his heavy official duties, he was enabled to write several works upon political and administrative questions of importance.

John Barrow, born in a lowly cottage at Dragley Beck, in Lancashire, rose, by his own earnest industry, to the responsible post of a Secretary to the Admiralty, for forty years, under thirteen administrations. When sixteen years old, he made a voyage in a whaler to Greenland; he next taught mathematics in a school at Greenwich. He attended Lord Macartney in his celebrated embassy to China, and took charge of the philosophical instruments carried out as presents to the Emperor of China; of this journey Barrow subsequently published an account in a quarto volume. He was next appointed Secretary to Lord Macartney, Governor of the Cape of Good Hope; and during his leisure Mr. Barrow, in various journeys, collected materials for a volume of Travels in South Africa, which he published on his return to England. Throughout his Admiralty secretaryship he was indefatigable in promoting the progress of geographical or scientific knowledge, especially in recommending to the governments under which he served various voyages to the Arctic Regions. He was a man of untiring industry, and devoted his leisure to literature and scientific pursuits: he published various works; contributed 195 articles to the Quarterly Review; and at the age of eighty-three (one year before his death) wrote his Autobiography. His public services had been rewarded by a baronetcy in 1835; and shortly after his death, in 1848, upon the lofty Hill of Hoad, near to the humble cottage in which Sir John Barrow was born, there was erected, by public subscription, to his memory, a sea-mark tower, as a record of what noble distinction may be earned in this happy country by well-directed energy and strictly moral worth.

OFFICIAL QUALIFICATIONS.

Swift’s happy illustration of a frequent cause of failure, drawn in the reign of Queen Anne,—whose administrators were principally eminent scholars,—is scarcely so applicable in our time. Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. This Swift once said to Lord Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe that the clerk in his office used a sort of ivory knife with a blunt edge to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only requiring a steady hand; whereas, if they should make use of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease, and disfigure the paper.

A model Court-letter has been preserved by singular accident. When Swift was looking out for the prebend and sinecure of Dr. South, who was then very infirm, he received the following letter from Lord Halifax, to whom Addison had communicated Swift’s expectations:

“Sir,—Our friend Mr. Addison telling me that he was to write to you to-night, I could not let his packet go away without letting you know how much I am concerned to find them returned without you. I am quite ashamed, for myself and my friends, to see you left in a place so incapable of testing you; and to see so much merit, and so great qualities, unrewarded by those who are sensible of them. Mr. Addison and I are entered into a new confederacy, never to give over the pursuit, nor to cease reminding those who can serve you, till your worth is placed in that light it ought to shine in. Dr. South holds out still, but he cannot be immortal. The situation of his prebend would make me doubly concerned in serving you; and upon all occasions that shall offer, I will be your constant solicitor, your sincere admirer, and your unalterable friend.—I am your most humble and obedient servant,

Sir W. Scott notes: “This letter from Lord Halifax, the celebrated and almost professed patron of learning, is a curiosity in its way, being a perfect model of a courtier’s correspondence with a man of letters—condescending, obliging, and probably utterly unmeaning. Dr. Swift wrote thus on the back of the letter: ‘I kept this letter as a true original of courtiers and court promises;’ and, on the first leaf of a small printed book, entitled Poésies Chrétiennes de Mons. Jollivet, he wrote these words: ‘Given me by my Lord Halifax, May 3, 1709. I begged it of him, and desired him to remember it was the only favour I ever received from him or his party.’” Dr. South, it should be added, survived until 1716, and then died, aged 83.

Diplomatic Handwriting has been a point of some moment with ministers, but has been tested in some strange varieties. Lord Palmerston, who was so long Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was very particular as to hand-writing, and the style in use in the Foreign-office is attributable chiefly to him, but partly to Mr. Canning, who laid down the rule that not more than ten lines should be put into a page of foolscap. The handwriting of the Foreign-office is peculiar: the letters are to be formed in a particular way, the writing to be large and upright, and the words well apart, so as to be easily legible; it is not what a writing-master would teach as a good hand, and a clerk has to acquire it in the Office. The Foreign-office has been able to boast of the best handwriting in the public service; but it is not so good as it was formerly, owing to the great pressure for quick writing in order to prepare papers that come down in the afternoon to go abroad the same evening. A question put by Mr. Layard implied that he had heard of despatches received from some of our ministers abroad so ill-written that the originals could not be sent to her Majesty, and copies had to be made for the purpose. Mr. Hammond, of the Foreign office, states that this could certainly not have occurred of late years; but he has known two ambassadors of ours whose handwriting was the most difficult to read that it is possible to conceive.

PUBLIC SPEAKING.

The art of speaking well is unquestionably one of the showiest qualifications for public life; although the drawback of unsoundness may be as common now as when it was classically expressed: Satis eloquentiæ, sapientiæ parum. Little or no attention has been bestowed in modern times on oratory as a separate branch of study; and eloquence has come to be more admired as one of the rare gifts of nature, than sought after as one of the fruits of art. The diffusion of opinions and arguments by means of the press has perhaps contributed in some degree to the present neglect of oratory; for a speaker is mainly known to the public through the press, and it is often more important to him to be read than to be heard: the eloquence of the newspaper—that is, the accomplishment of reporting—is the best oratory of our times; but the following experiences may be useful.

First, of one of the greatest orators of antiquity—Demosthenes. Those who expect to find in his style of oratory the fervid and impassioned language of a man carried away by his feelings to the prejudice of his judgment, will be disappointed. He is said not to have been a ready speaker, and to have required preparation. All his orations bear the marks of an effort to convince the understanding rather than to work on the passions of his hearers. And this is the highest praise. Men may be persuaded by splendid imagery, well-chosen words, and appeals to their passions; but to convince by a calm and clear address, when the speaker has no unfair advantage of person or of manner, and calls to his aid none of the tricks of rhetoric,—this is what Cicero calls the Oratory of Demosthenes, the ideal model of true eloquence.^[97]

Demosthenes laboured under great physical disadvantages: he was naturally of a weak constitution, had a feeble voice, an indistinct articulation, and a shortness of breath. To remedy these defects, he climbed up hills with pebbles in his mouth, he declaimed on the sea-shore, or with a sword hung so as to strike his shoulders when he made an uncouth gesture. He is also said to have shut himself up at times in a cave underground for study’s sake, and this for months together.

Next, of a great master of eloquence in our own times—Charles James Fox, whom Lord Ossory describes as “one of the most extraordinary men that ever existed.” He was very young when his father, Henry, Lord Holland, finished his political career; but hearing from his childhood a constant conversation upon political subjects and the occurrences in the House of Commons, he was, both by nature and education, formed for a statesman. “His father delighted to cultivate his talents by argumentation and reasoning with him upon all subjects. He took his seat in the House of Commons before he was twenty-one, and very shortly began to show the dawn of those prodigious talents which he has since displayed. He was much caressed by the then Ministry, and appointed a Lord of the Admiralty, and soon promoted to the Treasury. Lord North (which he must ever since have repented) was inclined to turn him out upon some trivial occasion or difference; and soon afterwards the fatal quarrel with America commenced, Mr. Fox constantly opposing the absurd measures of administration, and rising by degrees to be the first man the House of Commons ever saw. His opposition continued from 1773 to 1782, when the Administration was fairly overturned by his powers; for even the great weight of ability, property, and influence that composed the Opposition, could never have effected that great work, if he had not acquired the absolute possession and influence of the House of Commons. He certainly deserved their confidence; for his political conduct had been fair, open, honest, and decided, against the system so fatally adopted by the Court. He resisted every temptation to be brought over by that system, however flattering to his ambition; for he must soon have been at the head of every thing. But I do not know whether his abilities were not the least extraordinary part about him. Perhaps that is saying too much; but he was full of good nature, good temper, and facility of disposition, disinterestedness with regard to himself, at the same time that his mind was fraught with the most noble sentiments and ideas upon all possible subjects. His understanding had the greatest scope I can form an idea of, his memory the most wonderful, his judgment the most true, his reasoning the most profound and acute, his eloquence the most rapid and persuasive.”

Scarcely any person has ever become a great debater without long practice and many failures. It was by slow degrees, as Burke said, that Fox became the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever lived. Fox himself attributed his own success to the resolution which he formed when very young, of speaking, well or ill, at least once every night. “During five whole sessions,” he used to say, “I spoke every night but one; and I regret only that I did not speak that night too.”

The model of a debate is that given by Milton in the opening of the second book of Paradise Lost.

Mr. Sharp tells of the first meetings of a society at a public school, in which two or three evenings were consumed in debating whether the floor should be covered with a sail-cloth or a carpet; and better practice was gained in these unimportant discussions than in those that soon followed,—on liberty, slavery, passive obedience, and tyrannicide. It has been truly said, that nothing is so unlike a battle as a review.

Sir E. Bulwer Lytton has well illustrated a defect even in great orators, namely, nervousness; he says: “I doubt whether there has been any public speaker of the highest order of eloquence who has not felt an anxiety or apprehension, more or less actually painful, before rising to address an audience upon any very important subject on which he has meditated beforehand. This nervousness will, indeed, probably be proportioned to the amount of previous preparation, even though the necessities of reply, or the changeful temperament which characterises public assemblies, may compel the orator to modify, alter, perhaps wholly reject, what, in previous preparation, he had designed to say. The fact of preparation itself had impressed him with the dignity of the subject—with the responsibilities that devolve on an advocate from whom much is expected, on whose individual utterance results affecting the interests of many may depend. His imagination had been roused and warmed, and there is no imagination where there is no sensibility. Thus the orator had mentally surveyed, as it were, at a distance, the loftiest height of his argument; and now, when he is about to ascend to it, the awe of the altitude is felt.”

The late Marquis of Lansdowne one day remarked to Thomas Moore, that he hardly ever spoke in the House of Lords without feeling the approaches of some loss of self-possession, and found that the only way to surmount it was to talk on at all hazards. He added, what appears highly probable, that those commonplaces which most men accustomed to public speaking have ready cut and dry, to bring in on all occasions, were, he thought, in general used by them as a mode of getting out of those blank intervals, when they do not know what to say next, but, in the mean time, must say something.

Mr. John Scott Russell, the eminent engineer, gives the following practical hints: “In a large room, nearly square, the best place to speak from is near one corner, with the voice directed diagonally to the opposite corner. In all rooms of common forms, the lowest pitch of voice that will reach across the room will be most audible. In all such rooms, it is better to speak along the length of the room than across it; and a low ceiling will, cæteris paribus, convey the sound better than a high one. It is better, generally, to speak from pretty near a wall or pillar, than far away from it. It is desirable that the speaker should speak in the key-note of the room, and evenly, but not loud.”

To be well acquainted with the subject is of prime importance. Malone relates an amusing instance of failure in this respect in one of our greatest orators. Lord Chatham, when Mr. Pitt, on some occasion made a very long and able speech in the Privy Council relative to some naval matter. Every one present was struck by the force of his eloquence. Lord Anson, who was by no means eloquent, being then at the head of the Admiralty, and differing entirely in opinion from Mr. Pitt, got up, and only said these words: “My Lords, Mr. Secretary is very eloquent, and has stated his own opinion very plausibly. I am no orator; and all I shall say is, that he knows nothing at all of what he has been talking about.”

Mr. Flood, the Irish orator, being told that he seemed to argue with somewhat less of his usual vigour when engaged on the wrong side of the question, happily replied that he “could not escape from the force of his own understanding.” This must be the origin of the shrewd observation, that some clever persons are “educated beyond their own understanding.”

Mr. Brougham, writing to the father of Thomas Babington Macaulay when the latter was at Cambridge University, urged the following, with a view to the great promise for public speaking which Macaulay then possessed, and of which Lord Grey had spoken in terms of the highest praise. “He takes his accounts from his son,” says Mr. Brougham; “but from all I know, and have learnt in other quarters, I doubt not that his judgment is well formed. Now, of course, you destine him for the Bar; and, assuming that this, and the public objects incidental to it, are in his views, I would fain impress upon you (and through you, upon him) a truth or two which experience has made me aware of, and which I would have given a great deal to have been acquainted with earlier in life from the experience of others.

“1. The beginning of the art is to acquire a habit of easy speaking; and in whatever way this can be had (which individual inclination or accident will generally direct, and may safely be allowed to do so), it must be had. Now, I differ from all other doctors of rhetoric in this: I say, let him first of all learn to speak safely and fluently; as well and as sensibly as he can, no doubt, but at any rate let him learn to speak. This is to eloquence or good speaking what the being able to talk in a child is to correct grammatical speech. It is the requisite foundation, and on it you must build. Moreover, it can only be acquired young: therefore, let it by all means, and at any sacrifice, be gotten hold of forthwith. But in acquiring it, every sort of slovenly error will also be acquired. It must be got by a habit of easy writing—which, as Wyndham said, proved hard reading; by a custom of talking much in company; by debating in speaking societies, with little attention to rule, and more love of saying something at any rate, than of saying any thing well. I can even suppose that more attention is paid to the matter in such discussions than to the manner of saying it; yet still to say it easily, ad libitum, to say what you choose, and what you have to say, this is the first requisite; to acquire which every thing else must for the present be sacrificed.

“2. The next step is the grand one: to convert this style of easy speaking into chaste eloquence. And here there is but one rule. I do earnestly entreat your son to set daily and nightly before him the Greek models. First of all, he may look to the best modern speeches (as probably he has already); but he must by no means stop here; if he would be a great orator, he must go at once to the fountain-head, and be familiar with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes. I take for granted that he knows those of Cicero by heart; they are very beautiful, but not very useful, except, perhaps, the Milo, pro Ligario, and one or two more: but the Greek must positively be the model; and merely reading it, as boys do, won’t do at all; he must enter into the spirit of each speech, thoroughly know the positions of the parties, follow each turn of the argument, and make the absolutely perfect and most chaste and severe composition familiar in his mind. His taste will improve every time he reads and repeats to himself (for he should have the fine passages by heart); and he will learn how much may be done by the skilful use of a few words, and a vigorous rejection of all superfluities. In this view I hold a familiar knowledge of Dante as being next to Demosthenes. It is in vain to say that imitation of these models won’t do for our times. First, I do not counsel any imitation, but only an imbibing of the same spirit. Secondly, I know from experience that nothing is half so successful in these times (bad though they be) as what had been formed on the Greek models. I use a very poor instance in giving my own experience; but I do assure you, that both in courts of law and Parliament, and even in mobs, I have never made so much play (to use a very modern phrase) as when I was almost translating from the Greek. I composed the peroration of my speech for the Queen in the Lords, after reading and repeating Demosthenes for three or four weeks, and I composed it over twenty times at least; and it certainly succeeded in a very extraordinary degree, and far above any merits of its own. This leads me to remark, that though speaking with writing beforehand is very well until the habit of any speech is acquired, yet, after that, he can never write too much: this is quite clear. It is laborious, no doubt, and it is more difficult beyond comparison than speaking offhand; but it is necessary to perfect oratory, and at any rate it is necessary to acquire the habit of correct diction. But I go further, and say, even to the end of a man’s life, he must prepare word for word most of his fine passages. Now, would he be a great orator or no? In other words, would he have almost absolute power of doing good to mankind in a free country or no? So he wills this, he must follow these rules.—Believe me truly yours,