網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

"in littore stantes; et tyrannos edicta scribentes quibus imperent filiis ut patrum suorum capita

66

præcidant; sed responsa, in pestilentia data, ut "virgines tres aut plures immolentur; sed mellitos "verborum globulos, et omnia quasi papavere, et "sesamo sparsa. Qui inter hæc nutriuntur, noñ "magis sapere possunt, quam bene olere qui in "culina habitant."* In the hands of the Greek rhetoricians, the manly and sensible eloquence of their first noted speakers degenerated, as I formerly shewed, into subtility and sophistry; in the hands of the Roman declaimers, it passed into the quaint and affected; into point and antithesis. This corrupt

manner begins to appear in the writings of Seneca; and shews itself also in the famous panegyric of Pliny the younger, on Trajan, which may be considered as the last effort of Roman oratory. Though the author was a man of genius, yet it is deficient in nature and ease. We see, throughout the whole, a

*With your permission, I must be allowed to say, that you "have been the first destroyers of all true Eloquence. For by "those mock subjects, on which you employ your empty and "unmeaning compositions, you have enervated and overthrown all "that is manly and substantial in Oratory. I cannot but conclude, "that the youth whom you educate, must be totally perverted in "your schools, by hearing and seeing nothing which has any "affinity to real life, or human affairs; but stories of pirates stand"ing on the shore, provided with chains for loading their captives, "and of tyrants issuing their edicts, by which children are com"manded to cut off the heads of their parents; but responses "given by oracles in the time of pestilence, that several virgins "must be sacrificed; but glittering ornaments of phrase, and a style highly spiced, if we may say so, with affected conceits. They "who are educated in the midst of such studies, can no more "acquire a good taste, than they can smell sweet who dwell per "petually in a kitchen.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

perpetual attempt to depart from the ordinary way of thinking, and to support a forced elevation.

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 swoln and strained thoughts, and of the play of words. Among the Greek fathers, the most distinguished, by far, for his oratorial merit, is St. Chrysostome. Language is, pure; his Style highly figured. copious, smooth, and sometimes pathetic. 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.

He

His He is

But he

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, Public Speaking has been considered as 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 undergone 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 encou ragement 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 splendour. 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, may be thought to have surpassed them: the names of Demosthenes and Cicero stand, at this day, unrivalled 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 favour Oratory; and when we consider that of all the polite nations, it alone possesses a popular government, or admits into the legislature

[ocr errors]

*

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 talents 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 to 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,

* Mr. Hume, in his Essay on Eloquence, makes this observ. ation, and illustrates it with his usual elegance. He, indeed, supposes, that no satisfactory reasons can be given to account for the inferiority of modern to ancient Eloquence. In this, I differ from him, and shall endeavour, before the conclusion of this Lecture, to point out some causes, to which, I think, it may, in a great measure, be ascribed in the three great scenes of Public Speaking.

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, farther 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 Flechier, 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

« 上一頁繼續 »