H^ THE CICERONIAN AND MODERN SCHOOLS AVING treated of the rise of eloquence, and of its state among the Greeks, we now proceed to consider its progress among the Romans, where we shall find one model, at least of eloquence, in its most splendid and illustrious form. The Romans were long a martial nation, altogether rude, and unskilled in arts of any kind. Arts were of a late introduction among them; they were not known till after the conquest of Greece; and the Romans always acknowledge the Grecians as their masters in every part of learning. Grecia capta ferum victorum cepit, et artes -Hor. Epist. ad Aug. When conquer'd Greece brought in her captive arts, She triumph'd o'er her savage conquerors' hearts; Taught our rough verse its numbers to refine, And our rude style with elegance to shine. As the Romans derived their eloquence, poetry, and learning from the Greeks, so they must be confessed to be far inferior to them in genius for all these accomplishments. They were a more grave and magnificent, but a less acute and sprightly people. They had neither the vivacity nor the sensibility of the Greeks; their passions were not so easily moved, nor their conceptions so lively; in comparison of them, they were a phlegmatic nation. Their language resembled their character; it was regular, firm, and stately, but wanted that simple and expressive naïveté, and, in particular, that flexibility to suit every different mode and species of composition, for which the Greek tongue is distinguished above that of every other country. Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotundo -Hor. Ars. Poet. To her lov'd Greeks the muse indulgent gave, -Francis. And hence, when we compare together the various rival productions of Greece and Rome, we shall always find this distinction obtain, that in the Greek productions there is more native genius; in the Roman, more regularity and art. What the Greeks invented, the Romans polished; the one was the original, rough sometimes, and incorrect; the other, a finished copy. As the Roman government, during the republic, was of the popular kind, there is no doubt but that, in the hands of the leading men, public speaking became early an engine of government, and was employed for gaining distinction and power. But in the rude unpolished times of the state their speaking was hardly of that sort that could be called eloquence. Though Cicero, in his treatise, «De Claris Oratoribus,» endeavors to give some reputation to the elder Cato, and those who were his contemporaries, yet he acknowledges it to have been Asperum et horridum genus dicendi, a rude and harsh strain of speech. It was not till a short time preceding Cicero's age that the Roman orators rose into any note. Crassus and Antonius, two of the speakers in the dialogue "De Oratore,» appear to have been the most eminent, whose different manners Cicero describes with great beauty in that dialogue, and in his other rhetorical works. But as none of their productions are extant, nor any of Hortensius, who was Cicero's contemporary and rival at the bar, it is needless to transcribe from Cicero's writings the account which he gives of those great men, and of the character of their eloquence. The object in this period, most worthy to draw our attention is Cicero himself; whose name alone suggests everything that is splendid in oratory. With the history of his life, and with his character as a man and a politician, we have not at present any direct concern. We consider him only as an eloquent speaker; and in this view, it is our business to remark both his virtues and his defects, if he has any. His virtues are, beyond controversy, eminently great. In all his orations there is high art. He begins generally with a regular exordium; and with much preparation and insinuation prepossesses the hearers, and studies to gain their affections. His method is clear, and his arguments are arranged with great propriety. His method is, indeed, more clear than that of Demosthenes; and this is one advantage which he has over him. We find everything in its proper place; he never attempts to move, till he has endeavored to convince; and in moving, especially the softer passions, he is very successful. No man knew the power and force of words better than Cicero. He rolls them along with the greatest beauty and pomp, and in the structure of his sentences is curious and exact to the highest degree. He is always full and flowing, never abrupt. He is a great amplifier of every subject; magnificent, and in his sentiments highly moral. His manner is, on the whole, diffuse, yet it is often happily varied, and suited to the subject. In his four orations, for instance against Catiline, the tone and style of each of them, particularly the first and last, is very different, and accommodated with a great deal of judgment to the occasion, and the situation in which they were spoken. When a great public object roused his mind, and demanded indignation and force, he departs considerably from that loose and declamatory manner to which he leans at other times, and becomes exceedingly cogent and vehement. This is the case in his orations against Antony, and in those two against Verres and Catiline. Together with those high qualities which Cicero possesses, he is not exempt from certain defects, of which it is necessary to take notice. For the Ciceronian eloquence is a pattern so dazzling by its beauties, that, if not examined with accuracy and judgment, it is apt to betray the unwary into a faulty imitation; and I am of opinion that it has sometimes produced this effect. In most of his orations, especially those composed in the earlier part of his life, there is too much art; even carried the length of ostentation. There is too visible a parade of eloquence. He seems often to aim at obtaining admiration, rather than at operating conviction, by what he says. Hence, on some occasions, he is showy rather than solid; and diffuse where he ought to have been pressing. His sentences are at all timeround and sonorous; they cannot be accused of monotony, for they possess variety of cadence; but, from too great a study of magnificence, he is sometimes deficient in strength. On all occasions, where there is the least room for it, he is full of himself. His great actions, and the real services which he had performed to his country, apologized for this in part; ancient manners, too, imposed fewer restraints from the side of decorum; but, even after these allowances made, Cicero's ostentation of himself cannot be wholly palliated; and his orations, indeed all his works, leave on our minds the impression of a good man, but, withal, of a vain man. In comparing Demosthenes and Cicero, most of the French critics are disposed to give the preference to the latter. P. Rapin, the Jesuit, in the parallels which he has drawn between some of the most eminent Greek and Roman writers, uniformly decides in favor of the Roman. For the preference which he gives to Cicero he assigns and lays stress on one reason of a pretty extraordinary nature, viz., that Demosthenes could not possibly have so complete an insight as Cicero into the manners and passions of men. Why? Because he had not the advantage of perusing Aristotle's treatise of "Rhetoric,” wherein, says our critic, he has fully laid open that mystery; and, to support this weighty argument, he enters into a controversy with A. Gellius in order to prove that Aristotle's "Rhetoric" was not published till after Demosthenes had spoken at least his most considerable orations. Nothing can be more childish. Such orators as Cicero and Demosthenes derived their knowledge of the human passions, and their power of moving them, from higher sources than any treatise of rhetoric. One French critic has indeed departed from the common track; and, after bestowing on Cicero those just praises to which the consent of so many ages shows him to be entitled, concludes, however, with giving the palm to Demosthenes. This is Fénelon, the famous archbishop of Cambrai, and author of "Telemachus »; himself surely no enemy to all the graces and flowers of composition. It is in his "Reflections on Rhetoric and Poetry" that he gives this judgment; a small tract, commonly published along with his dialogues on eloquence. These dialogues and reflections are particularly worthy of perusal as containing, I think, the justest ideas on the subject that are to be met with in any modern critical writer. The reign of eloquence among the Romans was very short. After the age of Cicero it languished, or rather expired; and we have no reason to wonder at this being the case. For not only was liberty entirely extinguished, but arbitrary power felt in its heaviest and most oppressive weight; Providence having, in its wrath, delivered over the Roman Empire to a succession of some of the most execrable tyrants that ever disgraced and scourged the human race. Under their government it was naturally to be expected that taste would be corrupted and genius discouraged. In the decline of the Roman Empire the introduction of Christianity gave rise to a new species of eloquence in the apologies, sermons, and pastoral writings of the Fathers of the Church. Among the Latin Fathers, Lactantius and Minutius Felix are the most remarkable for purity of style; and, in a later age, the famous St. Augustine possesses a considerable share of sprightliness and strength. But none of the Fathers afford any just models of eloquence. Their language, as soon as we descend to the third or fourth century, becomes harsh; and they are, in general, infected with the taste of that age, a love of swollen and strained thoughts, and of the play of words. Among the Greek Fathers the most distinguished by far, for his oratorial merit, is St. Chrysostom. His language is pure; his style highly figured. He is copious, smooth, and sometimes pathetic. But he retains at the same time much of that character which has been always attributed to the Asiatic eloquence, diffuse and redundant to a great degree, and often overwrought and tumid. He may be read, however, with advantage, for the eloquence of the pulpit, as being freer from false ornaments than the Latin Fathers. As there is nothing more that occurs to me deserving particular attention in the Middle Age, I pass now to the state of eloquence in modern times. Here it must be confessed that in no European nation has public speaking been considered so great an object, or been cultivated with so much care, as in Greece or Rome. Its reputation has never been so high; its effects have never been so considerable; nor has that high and sublime kind of it, which prevailed in those ancient states, been so much as aimed at: notwithstanding, too, that a new profession has been established, which gives peculiar advantages to oratory and affords it the noblest field; I mean that of the Church. The genius of the world seems, in this respect, to have under gone some alteration. The two countries where we might expect to find most of the spirit of eloquence are France and Great Britain: France, on account of the distinguished turn of the nation towards all the liberal arts, and of the encouragement which, for this century past, these arts have received from the public; Great Britain on account both of the public capacity and genius, and of the free government which it enjoys. Yet so it is, that in neither of those countries has the talent of public speaking risen near to the degree of its ancient splendor; while in other productions of genius, both in prose and in poetry, they have contended for the prize with Greece and Rome; nay, in some compositions they may be thought to have surpassed them. The names of Demosthenes and Cicero stand, at this day, unrivaled in fame; and it would be held presumptuous and absurd to pretend to place any Modern whatever in the same, or even in a nearly equal rank. It seems particularly surprising that Great Britain should not have made a more conspicuous figure in eloquence than it has hitherto attained; when we consider the enlightened, and, at the same time, the free and bold genius of the country, which seems not a little to favor oratory; and when we consider that, of all the polite nations, it alone possesses a popular government, or admits into the legislature, such numerous assemblies as can be supposed to lie under the dominion of eloquence. Notwithstanding this advantage, it must be confessed, that in most parts of eloquence, we are undoubtedly inferior, not only to the Greeks and Romans by many degrees, but also in some respects to the French. We have philosophers, eminent and conspicuous, perhaps, beyond any nation, in every branch of science. We have both taste and erudition, in a high degree. We have historians, we have poets of the greatest name; but of orators, or public speakers, how little have we to boast? And where are the monuments of their genius to be found? In every period we have had some who made a figure, by managing the debates in Parliament; but that figure was commonly owing to their wisdom or their experience in business, more than to their talent for oratory; and unless in some few instances, wherein the power of oratory has appeared, indeed, with much lustre, the art of parliamentary speaking rather obtained for several a temporary applause, than conferred upon any a lasting renown. At the bar, though questionless we have many able pleaders, yet few or none of their pleadings have been thought worthy to be transmitted to posterity, or have commanded attention any longer than the cause which was the subject of them interested the public; while in France, the pleadings of Patru, in the former age, and those of Cochin and D'Aguesseau, in later times, are read with pleasure, and are often quoted as examples of eloquence by the French critics. In the same manner, in the pulpit, the British divines have distinguished themselves by the most accurate and rational compositions which, perhaps, any nation can boast of. Many printed sermons we have, full of good sense, and of sound divinity and morality; but the eloquence to be found in them, the power of persuasion, of interesting and engaging the heart, which is, or ought to be, the great object of the pulpit, is far from bearing a suitable proportion to the excellence of the matter. There are few arts, in my opinion, further from perfection than that of preaching is among us; the reasons of which, I shall afterwards have occasion to discuss; in proof of the fact, it is sufficient to observe, that an English sermon, instead of being a persuasive, animated oration, seldom rises beyond the strain of correct and dry reasoning. Whereas, in the sermons of Bossuet, Massillon, Bourdaloue, and Fléchier, among the French, we see a much higher species of eloquence aimed at, and in a great measure attained, than the British preachers have in view. In general, the characteristical difference between the state of eloquence in France and in Great Britain is, that the French have adopted higher ideas both of pleasing and persuading by means of oratory, though, sometimes, in the execution, they fail. In Great Britain, we have taken up eloquence on a lower key; but in our execution, as was naturally to be expected, have been more correct. In France, the style of their orators is ornamented with bolder figures; and their discourse carried on with more amplification, more warmth, and elevation. The composition is often very beautiful; but sometimes, also, too diffuse, and deficient in that strength and cogency which renders eloquence powerful; a defect owing, perhaps, in part, to the genius of the people, which leads them to attend fully as much to ornament as to substance; and, in part, to the nature of their government, which, by excluding public speaking from having much influence on the conduct of public affairs, deprives eloquence of its best opportunity for acquiring nerves and strength. Hence the pulpit is the principal field which is left for their eloquence. The members, too, of the French Academy give harangues at their admission in which genius often appears; but, laboring under the misfortune of having no subject to discourse upon, they run commonly into flattery and panegyric, the most barren and insipid of all topics. I observed before, that the Greeks and Romans aspired to a more sublime species of eloquence than is aimed at by the Moderns. Theirs was of the vehement and passionate kind, by which they endeavored to inflame the minds of their hearers, and hurry their imagination away; and, suitable to this vehemence of thought, was their vehemence of gesture and action; the "supplosio pedis," the "percussio frontis et femoris," were, as we learn from Cicero's writings, usual gestures among them at the bar; though now they would be reckoned extravagant anywhere, except upon the stage. Modern eloquence is much more cool and temperate; and in Great Britain especially, has confined itself almost wholly to the argumentative and rational. It is much of that species which the ancient critics called the "tenuis," or "subtilis," which aims at convincing and instructing, rather than affecting the passions, and assumes a tone not much higher than common argument and discourse. so much Several reasons may be given why modern eloquence has been so limited and humble in its efforts. In the first place, I am of opinion, that this change must in part be ascribed to that correct turn of thinking, which has been studied in modern times. It can hardly be doubted that in many efforts of mere genius the ancient Greeks and Romans excelled us; but, on the other hand, that, in accuracy and closeness of reasoning on many subjects, we have some advantage over them, ought, I think, to be admitted also. In proportion as the world has advanced, philosophy has made greater progress. A certain strictness of good sense has, in this island particularly, been cultivated and introduced into every subject. Hence we are more on our guard against the flowers of elocution; we are now on the watch; we are jealous of being deceived by oratory. Our public speakers are obliged to be more reserved than the Ancients in their attempts to elevate the imagination and warm the passions; and by the influence of prevailing taste, their own genius is sobered and chastened, perhaps, in too great a degree. It is likely, too, I confess, that what we fondly ascribe to our correctness and good sense, is owing, in a great measure, to our phlegm and natural coldness. For the vivacity and sensibility of the Greeks and Romans, more especially of the former, seems to have been much greater than ours, and to have given them a higher relish of all the beauties of oratory. Besides these national considerations, we must, in the next place, attend to peculiar circumstances in the three great scenes of public speaking, which have proved disadvantageous to the growth of eloquence among us. Though the Parliament of Great Britain be the noblest field which Europe, at this day, affords to |